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I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

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Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#411

Post by tcmart14 »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #350
xyzzyz wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that you claim that college prepares people to be adults “in every way”, so I wonder in what way today’s college graduates are more prepared to be adults than, say, overwhelming majority of adults were in 1930s, who didn’t have any college experience.

In the 1930s, you weren't expected to have 5 years of experience for an entry level job, and they had actual on-the-job training, which no company wants to invest in anymore.

With as bad as some of Ford's practices were, he did have a couple decent ones. If I recall correctly, Ford essentially had his own internal engineering school where some line workers could get accepted into, become engineers and work for the company as an engineer.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#412

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

readingnews wrote: post #368
imgabe wrote: post #312

Higher education in the US is trying to fulfill so many roles it's unsustainable. - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture - Performing cutting edge research - minor league sports teams The large state schools are trying to fulfill all these conflicting roles. We should probably break them out to separate entities. If you have a physicist who's a…

I have worked at three universities. This is pretty insanely accurate. You left out one item though. The main role US institutions are trying to fill right now is: hire new faculty, have faculty pull in 5+ Million dollar grants in order to get tenure. After tenure, pull in multi-million dollar grants each year. Teaching? Never heard of it. OH! That thing the actual customers are paying us for... yes, have graduate st…

There are schools that don't allow grad students to teach.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#413

Post by andreilys »

wolverine876 wrote: post #321
nsonha wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"College and university were never supposed to be about job training. They were supposed to teach one how to learn so you could become a lifelong learner" I see little benefit in discussing how things should be instead of what they are. There are clearly forces that pivoted universities towards what they are today, telling people what university should be isn't gonna fix anything. More importantly, who decided univer…

> I see little benefit in discussing how things should be instead of what they are. There are clearly forces that pivoted universities towards what they are today, telling people what university should be isn't gonna fix anything. What makes you say they are that, and for everyone, and from everyone's perception? Because lots of people say it on HN? Because lots of people say it anywhere? Does that make it true? And…

It seems like universities are the best place to learn, given the obvious resources? If I want to learn about history, it would be good to have experts in history, books about history, other people studying history, etc.?

Universities that stifle dissenting opinions are the best place to learn? Interesting.

There are plenty of online resources these days with active communities where you can learn from peers without fear of being penalized by your peers or an ideologically captured professor who will fail you for not toeing the idealogical line.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#414

Post by WalterBright »

MegaButts wrote: post #384
WalterBright wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked my high school math teacher to write me a recommendation letter for college. He politely refused, saying he could not in good conscience recommend me. I am grateful for him for letting me know, so I could ask another teacher. More than once he'd announced in class that he was grading the class on a curve, but me separately. Suffice to say we didn't get along.

> More than once he'd announced in class that he was grading the class on a curve, but me separately. What was his public reason for doing so?

Let's just say the other kids complained that I was raising the curve.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#415

Post by wefarrell »

imgabe wrote: post #312

Higher education in the US is trying to fulfill so many roles it's unsustainable. - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture - Performing cutting edge research - minor league sports teams The large state schools are trying to fulfill all these conflicting roles. We should probably break them out to separate entities. If you have a physicist who's a…

I'd add another role to that: Offsetting racial inequities in the lower education system.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#416

Post by andreilys »

KerrAvon wrote: post #379
WalterBright wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not to be a resource for corporations I never went to college to get a STEM degree to be a resource for anybody. I went because I imagined myself being Tom Swift. Of course, Elon Musk turned into a real life Tom Swift!

Vomit. Was Tom Swift an self-centered emerald scion who got lucky with money and poured it into his pet projects? News to me. Seriously, Musk came into a ton of money in the dot-com era, knew how to maintain that money because of his background, seems to be a capable hands-on project manager and natural self-marketing. You surely know people smarter than him who didn't acquire the mass amounts of money required to do…

Whatever your opinion on Musk is, he is at least an inspirational figure that helps inspire the next generation of kids.

No 10-year olds are talking about how to become a savvy financial engineer like Jack Welch at GE, but they are talking about rockets and electric cars thanks to Musk.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#417

Post by anonuser123456 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #412
readingnews wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked at three universities. This is pretty insanely accurate. You left out one item though. The main role US institutions are trying to fill right now is: hire new faculty, have faculty pull in 5+ Million dollar grants in order to get tenure. After tenure, pull in multi-million dollar grants each year. Teaching? Never heard of it. OH! That thing the actual customers are paying us for... yes, have graduate st…

There are schools that don't allow grad students to teach.

That’s a shame, because sometimes graduate students are better teachers than research faculty.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#418

Post by tootie »

mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

The other side of the coin is for-profit colleges which are providing the highest cost and lowest value educations. Most of the most indebted college students attended for-profit colleges.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#419

Post by User23 »

imgabe wrote: post #312

Higher education in the US is trying to fulfill so many roles it's unsustainable. - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture - Performing cutting edge research - minor league sports teams The large state schools are trying to fulfill all these conflicting roles. We should probably break them out to separate entities. If you have a physicist who's a…

> If you have a physicist who's at the leading edge of research in their field, you want them doing that research, not teaching 18 year old's Newton's laws of motion.

Wrong.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#420

Post by hackitup7 »

jameshart wrote: post #18
wpietri wrote: post #6

This is kind of a weird mix of points. Ignoring his political axe-grinding, I think the value of a college degree is increasingly in question for many fields because the price has risen wildly for decades without a corresponding increase in market value. (Except perhaps for elite-institution degrees, which are more about the brand and the network than what people actually learn.) I think we haven't seen at least a pa…

Question: do elite institution degrees confer any addition to market value commensurate with their cost, or do they simply select for people who already have high market value?

One dimension: In my experience one of the most valuable aspects of attending an elite institution is that many of the most prestigious, high-paying, career-accelerating jobs in the US recruit primarily or exclusively at top colleges, and this creates numerous opportunities for their students.
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