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Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

economist.com

81–90 of 102 posts

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#81

In the UK we said, "We don't need manufacturing, we have our scientists and R&D". Then when our Universities and our R&D started to decline, we said "We don't need our Universities and R&D, we have our Service Economy". Then when our Service Economy went offshore, we said "We dont need all our Service Economy, we have our Financial Services Economy". Everything outside London is a wasteland. The average wage is subsi…

Do you have ideas for a solution? What could "we" do differently, given that the US is really a collection of individual businesses each acting in their own best interests.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#82
If you're reading this and assuming it means the end of the value of academic credentials, I have some bad news: the Valley is one of the most credentialed places I've worked. And with few exceptions, the people you hear about in the Valley entrepreneurial echo chamber went to great schools, or got advanced degrees from schools with great research programs.

In my entire life before moving to SF, I knew only a handful of Ivy League graduates. Here, nearly every other person I meet is an Ivy grad, or a grad from a top-tier research school, such as MIT, Stanford, etc. It's gotten to the point that I'm fairly surprised when I meet people here who went to lesser-known schools. Credentials are still important, even in the so-called egalitarian world of technology.

Call me cynical, but if you're reading this and hoping that the imminent collapse of the university system ushers in an egalitarian utopi, you might be waiting a while. Credentials will continue to matter -- they just won't be accessible to anyone but the rich.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#83
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Undirected research is quite possible outside the university system. Perhaps you've heard of Bell Labs? When the government still subsidized them [1], they did plenty of undirected research. In the university system, about 50% of the money the government has earmarked for research is actually used for that purpose. At Bell Labs, the number was close to 100%. Most grant supported research groups do plenty of undirecte…

>You are telling me that (roughly) doubling the amount of money devoted to research will harm research? I really don't understand the mechanism by which that would happen. Again, because you are taking that money away from education. Good education is a fundamental part of good research. They don't need to be in the same building, but they do need to have the same people involved, if only that the researcher was at s…

I'm confused - first you wanted education to subsidize research. Wouldn't that have been taking money away from education, back when you believed that was the status quo? It seems as if your fundamental assumption is that the status quo must be correct.

In any case, yes, I agree with you that most researchers will need to have some sort of undergrad education. I don't see any reason why that education should be provided by researchers - cheap adjunct professors seem to do a reasonably good job at it.

(I do agree that a PhD program will need to be taught by researchers, since it is basically just an apprenticeship.)

As for teaching, my experience was worth considerably less to my students than a better ability to explain simple concepts would have been. The fact that I developed a nice outgoing wave filter for the Schrodinger equation did not help my fashion business student who barely knew algebra. It didn't even help the top 2-3 students who were breezing through my class, who might (possibly) have understood the concept of a PDE, or at least nodded along as if they did.

What might have helped them was someone who (like them) struggled with calculus, mastered it, and knew where the difficult points were. It also might have helped to have someone who could get to know students, understand how they learn best, and then tailor the lessons to suit them. Or someone who can look at a sea of blank faces and determine when they are confused. Unfortunately, that person wasn't me. I know a number of people who are that person, but only a small fraction of them have published anything beyond their PhD thesis.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#84
post #82

If you're reading this and assuming it means the end of the value of academic credentials, I have some bad news: the Valley is one of the most credentialed places I've worked. And with few exceptions, the people you hear about in the Valley entrepreneurial echo chamber went to great schools, or got advanced degrees from schools with great research programs. In my entire life before moving to SF, I knew only a handful…

Reading this one could think that university is a good source for entrepreneurs. Credentials can become a signal that you are a capable people.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

There are two sides to a price calculation - the supply and the demand side. The price for teaching is low because the supply is huge - there is a vast pool of people who want to teach literature, and are willing to do it at very low prices. If a literature adjunct quits, the college can immediately go to the waiting list and find someone else willing to take the job for $5k/class. In contrast, if I (a programmer) we…

You are making some broad generalizations and it doesn't exactly work like. Replacing any programmer is just as easy as replacing as replacing any adjunct. Replacing a specialist scholar is just as hard as replacing your special programmer. Adjuncts are Luke your basic php programmer. Thye know just enough to get the job done. But a university chair is like an architect, you don't give just anyone that job.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#86
post #25

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorgani…

You are right, Universities are not only for getting money or for making profits. Society should clarify what they want university to be, what is their goal. When the goal is well defined is time to think about the best method to pursue it. Money is one of the factors but not the only one.

  A place for knowledge, research and innovation is not a factory and can't be managed as such.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, this may simply mean that fewer people should be going to college, not that the university system has a deep flaw. If, for example, 100k psych majors are graduating only to work in social services or some slightly related field, should these people be going to college at all? Are these skills necessary for the workforce? It's important to recognize that just because we wish it were so, 50,000 psych and histo…

This is the point where people from my neck of the woods (Ontario, and, frankly, most of Canada) suffer severe cognitive dissonance. We have two very different post-secondary tracks, and around these parts a "college" in colloquial parlance is a diploma-granting institute aimed at providing students with marketable skills (technicians, technologists, accountants, nurses who have no aspirations to teach nursing later)…

Clear goals. Different goals require distinct methods to achieve them. College and University. Perhaps we need more ways to teach and educate people. Ideally one desire thinkers than can translate things into action, but while this is a goal, why don't we try to find the way to give every student the best way to build a good education?

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, this may simply mean that fewer people should be going to college, not that the university system has a deep flaw. If, for example, 100k psych majors are graduating only to work in social services or some slightly related field, should these people be going to college at all? Are these skills necessary for the workforce? It's important to recognize that just because we wish it were so, 50,000 psych and histo…

> "How do we persuade people not to go to college?" I think that's the wrong way to look at it. The argument is always practical vs. impractical degrees - but that's not all of it. The problem is twofold, IMHO: - Impractical degrees are disproportionately expensive compared to their earning power. You learn a lot of stuff, go deeply into debt, and wind up not being able to pay it off. In short: impractical degrees ar…

But, are you sure that the "impractical" degree programs are actually doing any better? Perhaps at top private schools one can get a good liberal arts education, but my observation going to a public school was that the science and engineering students generally seemed more well-rounded and more broadly educated compared to the vast hoards coasting along in psych, soc, and polysci; who were mostly interested in the party scene.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yummyfajitas said it quite nicely, but permit me to say it on my own behalf. I am not at all saying do not spend my tax dollars on things that don't directly benefit me. I said that we should not spend it on things like art and literature until after we have taken care of things like basic education, infrastructure, law enforcement, and yes even universal healthcare and gaurunteed access to sufficient food. I am a gr…

It sounds like you have the attitude of the government just providing the basics. I've taught you to read to go read what you want. But without access to a decent library, without training on how to appreciate literature it seems that your point of view is to utilitarian. The arts enrich us all in ways that can't be counted merely by monetary utility. I would like to live in a society that recognizes this and is will…

Maybe my experience wasn't typical, but my liberal arts classes in college were a joke. They were crowded, hurried, narrowly focused, and taught by professors that didn't seem to have the time or the inclination to provoke the students into new ways of thinking at all.

I suppose it's different at schools that can afford to staff these classes at 1:15 student teacher ratios with good teachers but the money that was spent on making me a "well rounded" student would have gone a lot further if I'd just been given a pile of books to read and some time at a quiet desk.

Re: Will America’s universities go the way of its car companies?

#90
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal Arts is a luxury that many cultures cannot afford. When you're just starting out or trying to survive as a culture, you need engineers, hard-core scientists and business people. Take China and Israel for example. The upper class can go for Liberal Arts at any time, but the culture as a whole will lean strongly to hard science until they're established enough to enjoy that luxury. Times are bad now (but gettin…

This is a most unenlightened point of view. Music, art, story telling have been part of human cultures for thousands of years. One of the finest aspects of being human is enjoying these things. Literature, art, and music are always needed. They make life worth living. Some societies don't have the money to make these things available to everyone. That's a shame. The U.S. and EU are societies that can afford to make t…

I've not down voted you. It's a matter of survival. I sleep on the ground under a tree until I get a sleeping bag, and then maybe a cot. Before I buy a nice soft comfy mattress, I need a safe, secure structure for it.

Think of the liberal arts in this way. Once we have what we must have to survive, then we can go after the things we want as humans to enrich our lives and those around us. I love art and English majors... I just can't enjoy Rembrandt when I need a place to live or clean water to drink or a sewage system, etc :)

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