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A generation of American men give up on college

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Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#561

Post by thehappypm »

motohagiography wrote: post #483

What these men don't understand, and nobody is telling them directly, is that college is how you essesntially conspire to manage (extract value from) the people who didn't go. College education is a tribe initiation, and you are in or you aren't. The pretenses and pretexts of subject matter and socializing are secondary to this one big thing. Everyone who graduates knows this, and this is the quiet part most won't ev…

Ignoring the flowery text here.. this is pretty spot-on. My brother in law is an amazing people person. He's able to convince anyone of anything. He always "knows a guy" and "is that person's second cousin". Never waits on line at a bar, and always the life of the party.

This guy was born for sales.

Perhaps unsurprisingly he also was terrible in college. Just did not work with his brain. He dropped out, worked some odd jobs, settled in to working a tree company, cutting down trees. Dangerous work to say the least.

He finally went back to school and took like 2 classes a semester and graduated with whatever degree he could string together from the local college, and it took him ages, I think he spent 7 years total in undergrad. It was affordable because it was just some local state school.

2 months after graduation? He's a sales rep at a B2B software firm. A year later he's the top of his sales group. His potential is huge now, and that door was firmly shut to him before he graduated. College, for him, was just a piece of paper he needed, and his life took a dramatic turn when he got it.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#562

Post by slfnflctd »

endominus wrote: post #199
smt88 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free? It makes no rational sense. Because there is much more possible value in college than just the education. Socializing is a huge part of it. College is a good place to learn how to make friends, date, network, etc. It's also nearly free…

This reminds me of a passage from Bryan Caplan's book, "The Case Against Education." Paraphrasing, there is nothing stopping you from walking into a lecture at Harvard or MIT or any other renowned center of learning. No one will ask you for identification or lock you outside. You can buy or download the same textbook and fill out the same homework. (In the case of your "socialization" value, again, no one is stopping…

Socialization is a huge part of it - perhaps the biggest in terms of impact - because students who worked alongside each other during a similar stage of life, living within short walking distance of each other 24/7, working toward a similar goal, develop a bond which can be immensely valuable later on in networking for job opportunities.

Those students are much less likely to develop such a bond with some rando who just walked in off the street to check out what's going on. That person has zero investment in the experience other than expressed interest and would I'm certain be measurably less successful forming relationships with other students who could help their career in the future. They aren't in the same tribe.

It makes me sick to say it, but this can be even more important than the credentialing. There are multiple stories of students dropping out to start companies and still benefitting from their college peer network in ways that wouldn't happen for someone that wasn't actually a 'true peer'.

I think this is simply a biological tendency at the end of the day and don't see any easy way of changing it.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#563

Post by lotsofpulp »

pg_bot wrote: post #210
OJFord wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you don't pay for instruction, you pay for examination and certification.

You don't pay for instruction or certification you pay for signaling. A student from Arizona State can be more competent than one from Harvard. Who do you think is going to have more doors opened for them?

> A student from Arizona State can be more competent than one from Harvard.

The relevant question from the perspective of those doing the hiring is what is the probability a student from Arizona State is more competent than one from Harvard?

Replace competent with well connected and/or otherwise useful.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#564

Post by nemo44x »

tck42 wrote: post #538
nemo44x wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's advocating for "anti-racism" which claims there is no such thing as "not racist" policy, only racist policy and anti-racist policy. But he jumps through hoops to redefine racism so that it can suit his argument that "not racist" doesn't exist. That if you don't consider race in literally everything then you are racist, by his definition. This is in direct opposition to the Civil Rights act of 1964: "Since the 19…

I think the redefining racism you mention is simply pointing out, at a high level, that one law does not erase injustice ingrained into power systems that were instructed by racism for literally hundreds of years, or the effects those systems have had on the targets of this racism and their offspring (things like generational wealth accumulation), and everyone else subject to those systems. The other thing is the ide…

It's not as off-topic as you might think as critical theory covers a wide range of things.

One of the biggest issues with Kendi and similar works (of which there are many in the academic world) are they paint a false dichotomy and they frame themselves as the only legitimate response to historical racism, etc. That is, anti-racism is the only way to combat "white supremacy". It's illiberal in this regard (and in fact, the entire body of critical theory is not only skeptical to western liberalism but actively attacks it as "the tools of the oppressor") and I hope you find his remedies as totalitarian and insane as I do. For instance, I don't think a "Department of Anti-Racism" which is staffed by "formally trained anti-racists" and not appointed by elected officials with the authority to "clear" all local, state, and federal policies to ensure they are "anti-racist" is a good idea. And to be equipped with "disciplinary tools" to punish non-compliance...

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politi...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#565

Post by unethical_ban »

nemo44x wrote: post #364
pelasaco wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's exactly how racism works right? You segregate people by how they look like and you make them believe that because how they look like and their origins they are less important then the others. Kind of funny how we humans think: "let's correct a mistake repeating it over and over again".

When one of progressives guiding philosophies is “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” then this is exactly the plan. It’s all in their texts and one only has to read them to see plainly the type of policy they work towards.

Just so you know, chalk me up as an 'anti-woke' leftist. Which might mean "Economist(TM) centrist".

I can be in support of anti-systemic-racism actions that do not act on an individual level. I can support universal healthcare, higher income equality and whatnot, without the binary race worldview that Kendi puts out.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#566

Post by jasonladuke0311 »

bernulli wrote: post #461
zabzonk wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously, how did we arrive to “textbook for a semester are more expensive than tuition is in other counties”? Academic corruption. They get kickbacks from the publishers for forcing these (always crap) textbooks on their students.

That's not really a thing. Also, wait till you hear how much an academic makes from the articles they publish, and from those lucrative research grants from big-[oil,pharma,etc].

I'm guessing you haven't dealt with the spiral-bound, Kinkos-printed "text" written by the professor, sold for $75, and updated every semester to prevent resale?

My wife had two of these every semester for her last two years of college.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#567

Post by refenestrator »

nemo44x wrote: post #439
harimau777 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's actually something progressives generally believe. Do you have any evidence?

Read “How to be an Anti-Raciat” by Ibram X Kendi. It was a top selling book last year and he is a leading figure of the progressive left. His academic work is cited heavily in other progressive academic literature.

There's an interesting dynamic here where imo the silent majority of progressives don't buy his approach and think it's counterproductive, but any lone soul who says so is called out, which side are you on here anyways.

So this guy gets to represent himself as a spokesman for the movement and nobody really wants to contradict it under their real name.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#568

Post by gamechangr »

alistairSH wrote: post #479
ceilingcorner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality Europeans often have this opinion but I don't think it's an accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. In the past, you could pay for college by working summers at the local restaurant. Today the average debt is $30K and you still won't get a decent job.…

To clarify a bit... 42% of students graduate (undergraduate studies) without any debt. And 78% of graduates have less than $30k in debt. The numbers aren't great, but the majority of students finish with either zero debt or a very manageable amount of debt. There is a small fraction of students taking massive loans that skew the overall picture. And bachelor degree holders continue to earn, on average, $1 million mor…

That is restricting the conversation to those who finished.

Many young 20's somethings don't complete college, but end up with debt as well.

If the question is whether is a difficult for society to maintain college as a necessity for success, they should be included in the review.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#569

Post by silexia »

Grakel wrote: post #526
ashtonkem wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. I guess it means what you mean by “succeed”. Going to college is and always has been a reliable way towards earning more money[0]. The issue isn’t that college doesn’t work, the issue is that it’s basically an asset bubble of sorts and the cost exceeded its value. If huge chunks of future generations skip co…

Everyone going to college has turned it into high school- in every metric. I'm a professor, and college is a lifestyle, the classes are a part time job, and there is greatly reduced academic rigor and seriousness. At some age, general education should become a personal journey, or soon we'll have PhDs in general studies and everyone will need one.

My kids will be strongly discouraged from going to college. Colleges have somehow devolved from centers of education into something else entirely. Colleges now often push extreme viewpoints that lack evidence, colleges have dangerous drinking and drug cultures, and colleges bury their students in debt that enslaves them for life.

A good education can now be had on YouTube... I have spent the last year learning construction there and the quality of content is excellent. Years ago, I learned to program quite well using online courses and I am sure those have improved even further. I tried to learn diesel mechanics from a textbook That was the top rated in the field, it is shocking how terrible learning from a textbook is.

I am going to have my kids do a combination of apprenticeships and online learning.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#570

Post by bernulli »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #566
bernulli wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really a thing. Also, wait till you hear how much an academic makes from the articles they publish, and from those lucrative research grants from big-[oil,pharma,etc].

I'm guessing you haven't dealt with the spiral-bound, Kinkos-printed "text" written by the professor, sold for $75, and updated every semester to prevent resale? My wife had two of these every semester for her last two years of college.

How is that a "kickback from the publishers for forcing these (always crap) textbooks on their students" ?

I'm not denying that black sheep exist, I am denying a pervasive conspiracy of "big textbook" to the benefit of the professors.

Also, an easy solution to not everyone buying Kinko-printed spiral bound lecture notes easily comes to mind...

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