71–80 of 147 posts
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"Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous." This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)
You think virtue signalling is playing to the far right? Care to define... any of your terms?
Isn't the solution really easy? Make the students show up on the first day in-person, compare.with ID and take a photo.
- Live far away
- Have a job they can't just not show up for
- Having children to take care of
- Health issues
There's tons of reasons for people not to be able to attend in person, and not all of them are "because I didn't want to". And, for a _lot_ of those people, improving their education can have a huge impact on their quality of life.
The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.
Until you solve the primitive animalistic problems of selfishness, greed, and energy conserving laziness, were not going to have nice things. Someone asshole is going to be mad they have to share. Some asshole is going to lie and scam to get as much free shit as they can.
Solving this is a very hard problem.
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I'm mixed. If we lived in a utopian world where money isn't real, I'd agree. Reality is California has major budget issues. Offering the classes for free is already enough in the current climate. Working while going to school is not uncommon or isolated to California. Full time work while going to school is excessive - but that is also a California COL issue that the state needs to actually tackle. But it gets worse…
> Full time work while going to school is excessive ... For a healthy, driven person, without other major responsibilities (or a time-sucking internet addiction)? No, it really is not excessive. And that's assuming that "going to school" is also full time. Taking just one or two classes per term is an old tradition at community colleges.
Not for people fresh out of high school. You are usually trying to graduate with a Bachelor's in 4 years so you do full-time at community college for 2 years to get your AA-T and then transfer to a university for your last 2 years. California in particular has a program that lets you transfer get a guaranteed transfer to any state university or participating private university once you get your AA-T.
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Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.
You present hypothetical scenario of up against the reality they getting paid to “attend” online class is a total farce, diluting the value of a diploma or degree from that community college system well also stealing away resources.
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The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.
It's not cheap education. What is the point in deliberately changing the topic? It's about paying people to consume free education.
I was able to get educated with full focus on that task, because my family prioritised saving for my education. I want others, without such privilege, to have access to such opportunity.
If you choose to frame it also that "your parents paid you to consume free education", then so be it. But let's not pretend the state is doing something strange or against its core mission here
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This is the first-order, emotional reaction, yes, but policy should be made based on its full effects, not just its sales pitch's popularity with first-order-emoting voters.
"Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous." This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)
This is an example of what I've been thinking about/warning about for several years now: we are entering a post-truth era, where there is increasingly no way to know what is real and what is not. When I've thought about it, this scenario never occurred to me, but it's a perfect example: we're going to be increasingly unable to know what is "true" in a million different ways, and people are going to exploit that in ev…
Wouldn't having class in person be a sure way to know?
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Very few students watch lectures online. There is massive amounts of cheating in online courses. Almost no online course requires proctored exams. Online education is overall worse, in terms of actual learning, than face-to-face courses.
But it's still better than no course option available to people that can't attend in person. So the question becomes how do we improve it.
If you just wanna learn stuff online, dive in and watch YouTube or any of the variety of online educstional services, but in reality you want a certification that says you did the work, and maybe the actual transfer of knowledge is secondary. We shouldn’t pretend that credentials should be handed out for watching YouTube videos and filling out tests with Google searches, group chats sharing answers, or now, AI.
The goal of any credentialing system shouldn’t be to lower the bar as low as possible; you just devalue the whole system. There are several major institutions, formerly reputable, that many will not hire job prospects from.
In other words… Community college should be a bit of a grind, one that produces students who are far more knowledgeable than when they started the program.
Isn't the solution really easy? Make the students show up on the first day in-person, compare.with ID and take a photo.
How do you handle students that are not capable of showing up on the first day in-person? - Live far away - Have a job they can't just not show up for - Having children to take care of - Health issues There's tons of reasons for people not to be able to attend in person, and not all of them are "because I didn't want to". And, for a _lot_ of those people, improving their education can have a huge impact on their qual…