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More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

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Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#391

Post by thaw13579 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #295
azinman2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good. Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely expensive. I’m glad to hear that more people are finding alternative routes - it shouldn’t be that everyone needs college because quite frankly many career…

> It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought It doesn’t uniquely do this. You don’t need college to have intellectual conversations or be exposed to new ideas.

It's hard to find opportunities for this outside college. Most people are not interested in intellectual talk, so the question is how to meet like-minded folks? I can't seem to find better alternatives to universities, for both number and diversity of opportunities. Book clubs seem like the best option but are often too narrowly focused on literature.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#392

Post by dahfizz »

syzarian wrote: post #363
throwaway4aday wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, the Cambodian people could have potentially avoided the genocidal deaths of millions of people by analyzing the weaknesses of the Soviet/Communist culture, weaknesses that repeatedly lead to mass death. Seems pretty meaningful and deserving of study to me.

Communism does not lead to deaths and genocide. Concentrated, uncontested power does.

And communism leads to concentrated, uncontested power. The dictatorship of the proletariat will never dissolve itself once it gets absolute power.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#393

Post by the_only_law »

dividefuel wrote: post #233

As a millennial, the advice we often received was "just go to college, it'll almost always be worth it." Now, the advice I give to those younger is "go to college but only once you know what you're trying to get out of it." While colleges can let you explore subjects that you're interested in, they don't do much to help you explore careers you might be interested in. Paying for a degree before you know roughly how yo…

> go to college but only once you know what you're trying to get out of it.

Unfortunately by the time you figure that out, they don’t want seem to want you.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#394

Post by pjlegato »

thiagoharry wrote: post #388
pclmulqdq wrote: post #26

College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives: 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually need specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) 2. A finishing school for the elite 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost) A lot of people…

I do not think that what society needs is equal what the market needs. People with critical knowledge about society, philosophy, people that could question how good is the market deciding everything are not interesting to the market, but it is interesting to the society. Without publicly funded education, however, everything boils down to what the market decides.

_With_ publicly funded education, however, everything boils down to what some small group of unelected bureaucrats decide. That is arguably much worse.

It's also worth noting that most countries with totally free higher education emphatically do NOT allow just anyone to go study any major they like at taxpayer expense. Subjects that have few jobs waiting at the other end are strictly gated by intensely difficult entrance exams designed to weed out all but a small number of students, so that nobody wastes their time getting a degree in a topic where it is unlikely they can ever find employment.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#395

Post by thaw13579 »

jimkleiber wrote: post #141
hgsgm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only because almost everyone desirable goes there. If people stopped going, they could meet elsewhere.

I think people have a lot of shared context in college that they don't often have elsewhere. Depending on the college, but especially in the US campus experience, people live together, eat together, study together, party together, and more. So I don't think it's just the desirability of people.

Yes, when mixed together in the world at large, it's rare to run into people who have enough shared context to click with.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#396

Post by Gamemaster1379 »

alsaaro wrote: post #88

As someone who has worked two of the most intensive blue collar jobs, people should be wary of romanticizing blue collar work. Blue collar workers are expected to really work at their jobs. White collar workers can chill if there is no work to be done, or be sent home early with pay, or take a relaxation day and just browse the internet and listen to podcasts. They have perks, you see white collar workers leaving wor…

Isn't it a false dichotomy to suggest that a degree exclusively leads to white collar jobs and no degree leads to blue collar jobs?

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#397

Post by micromacrofoot »

zabzonk wrote: post #83
micromacrofoot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the greatest masters were taught art from childhood, it’s not magic

most of the great masters children did not become great artists

the outcome of their kids doesn’t change the fact that most of them were taught and raised as artists

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#398

Post by dudul »

jonathantf2 wrote: post #161

One thing these articles usually fail to mention is the fact that college/university is also a huge social experience. I'm a young person who took an apprenticeship instead of going to university - only one of my high school friends did the same as me, literally everybody else went onto university. I'm from a small town, there's not much going on and apart from when all my friends come back at Christmas and those few…

There are probably cheaper ways to make friends.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#399

Post by Avshalom »

nonethewiser wrote: post #314
Avshalom wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well we made university free in New Mexico, and it's free or cheap in a lot of other places.

That’s great. I’m trying to figure out how it’s funded. Did they have to raise new funding? Levy new taxes? Just wondering how they are able to afford it. I feel like this is how colleges should be. The minimal possible tuition required to operate. It’s not like tuition increases have gone towards retaining professors or something. It’s pretty insane to think 15k/year for in state tuition is “cheap.” Edit: it seams l…

New Mexico (and a lot of other states) has had a lottery funded scholarship for decades. We've had an oil boom for a few years and yeah mostly funded the remainder through oil revenues/permanent fund.

But yes the fundamental notion is that we decided to fund it. And that's replicable anywhere, i promise, New Mexico is q bottom 3 poorest state in the country but we decided that college was important. Florida is awful in a lot of ways but when I lived there in the mid 00's the Sunshine State Scholarship covered 100% tuition and was automatically granted for like a B+ average, an A and some community service would get you room and board.

Though when I said other places i meant non-US places.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#400

Post by Larrikin »

bumby wrote: post #308
pdntspa wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dumb is your expected audience if that test required a "good luck!" It's like basic math....

> it’s like basic math Did you continue to read it? Because it covers other topics. Without using the internet, can you name the eligibility requirements of the Gov. of Kentucky? How about five county officers and their principle duties? I think your initial response belies a deeper problem we struggle with. Our attention span has shortened and social media has biased us towards more course interactions.

I would say that knowing eligibility requirements of the governor of Kentucky without using the internet is useless information to everyone that doesn't work in the Kentucky election office.

The useful skill is being able to find the information on the Internet if you want to run for governor of Kentucky. If you grow up in Kentucky learning it once in seventh grade is sufficient so you know it's a possibility, but will most likely never matter again after that class.

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