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Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

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Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#801

Post by amrocha »

monero-xmr wrote: post #282
rayiner wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is a great example of how you don’t need most of the population enrolled in universities. > The USA is still THE powerhouse economy of the world. The US was a powerhouse economy when it could build the world’s largest navy almost overnight. Since the 1980s, the U.S. economy has become highly financialized. It’s disputed how much American economic dominance is real versus on paper today.

I agree with you, but if the US truly has the best military (and it does 100x) then when push comes to shove, the US will destroy anyone who tries to undermine it. Very dangerous game to oppose it. Being able to construct things quickly is important, but if the US can militarily seize nearly every country on earth in days, the power is not necessarily where the kit is located

I’m supposed to be scared of the military who has spent the last 80 years losing wars against nations a fraction of its own size? The US couldn’t “seize” afghanistan in two decades, what makes you think it could “seize nearly every country on earth in days”?

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#802

Post by fragmede »

snowwrestler wrote: post #726
fragmede wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the great thing is it works even if the kid is just checking the box. Maybe if you limit it to STEM degrees. There are plenty of people saddled with humanities degrees that haber no hope of paying off the loans taken to get the degree, nevermind a job past barista.

No, what I’m saying is that if a kid takes a college writing class and does enough to pass it, at the end that kid will be a better writer. Even if they did not like the class.

I misunderstood you. In that regard, you're totally right!

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#803

Post by HKH2 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #650
rayiner wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. was already the richest country in the world per capita by 1880–even at the peak of the British Empire. Most of its military achievements during the war—building up the world’s largest Navy and airforce from almost nothing within a couple of years—was a product of the industrial economy that already existed before the war. America’s preference for common wisdom over book learning is a strength, not a weaknes…

America's post-war strength was built on unusually strong education. After the war, America had far more schooling overall than other countries. It was one of the many factors that made America a powerhouse in the 50s and 60s. Economic historians Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, who are essentially the gold standard reference here, show that the US became the richest nation precisely because it led the world in mass…

> High-education countries don't look like basket cases.

They are all low fertility countries.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#804

Post by csa »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #154
stack_framer wrote: post #115

I dropped out after my university added various "studies" courses to the required list. I took just one such course—gender studies—which was utterly abysmal. There was zero tolerance for debating ideas or considering opposing viewpoints. You either assimilated with the group think, or you were castigated for your heresy. It was indoctrination, not education.

Which viewpoint did you oppose? It matters. If it was "Women should be allowed to vote" I can understand the teachers reluctance to engage in debate.

> Which viewpoint did you oppose? It matters.

> If it was "Women should be allowed to vote" I can understand the teachers reluctance to engage in debate.

I was in a class like this at an elite school 3 decades ago. I was told by two other students that my role as a cis straight white male was to say nothing or validate what others said.

This was during a time that the core concepts of what is currently called DEI were being fleshed out.

My “sin” was asking whether certain research and data were being reported and represented accurately (they weren’t). The creative interpretations led to policy suggestions that were about 180 degrees from what the author intended. How did I know that? I knew the researcher and had discussed it with him directly.

That class was an absolute circle jerk, and it’s the kind of circle jerk that gives progressives a very bad name while being completely unnecessary (i.e., many parts of the progressive agenda have plenty of solid research support without wildly creative interpretations).

Anyway, the professor in this class was having none of it. He appreciated my questions. That said, half the class thought I was satan incarnate.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#805

Post by defrost »

HKH2 wrote: post #803
enraged_camel wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America's post-war strength was built on unusually strong education. After the war, America had far more schooling overall than other countries. It was one of the many factors that made America a powerhouse in the 50s and 60s. Economic historians Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, who are essentially the gold standard reference here, show that the US became the richest nation precisely because it led the world in mass…

> High-education countries don't look like basket cases. They are all low fertility countries.

Breeding out of control and over consuming the earth's resources is for basket cases.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#806

Post by K0balt »

rayiner wrote: post #664
K0balt wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s unpopular to say, but a disproportionate amount of value is of course derived from people who are both educated and have immediate access to resources to fully exploit that education as well as the risk tolerance to innovate in the process, and the social status to build strong trust and social bonds with other similarly prepared people…so although it pains me to say it, yes? It is certainly plausible that the m…

> We recognise the ridiculousness of people owing $90,000 for a truck when they live in a dilapidated trailer on a rented lot. We understand that a man who lives hand to mouth but wears a half of kilogram of gold around his neck is probably not making the best life decisions. We ridicule the faux-intellectual with their ridiculously stilted props. But somehow, we are convinced to dress up our children like heirs to t…

All of that said, if we don’t provide a solid foundational high school education that covers basic science, math through fundamental calculus, a decent overview of world history, literature, art and culture, then we are not only wasting the precious time of our children, we are also doomed to be an ignorant and brutish people.

As it is, high school education in the USA today only assures what used to be the 8th grade level when I was in school.

It’s ridiculous that we have bacslid to the point where we waste 4 years catering to the lowest common denominator.

Solid vocational education should be offered as an alternative to high school from grade 9 forward. We need to understand that for every professor there’s someone that will never be able to manage anything beyond rudimentary tasks. For every banker there will be someone who drives a broom.

We do those that are less gifted a disservice by failing to give them useful tools for their future too.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#807

Post by rayiner »

K0balt wrote: post #806
rayiner wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We recognise the ridiculousness of people owing $90,000 for a truck when they live in a dilapidated trailer on a rented lot. We understand that a man who lives hand to mouth but wears a half of kilogram of gold around his neck is probably not making the best life decisions. We ridicule the faux-intellectual with their ridiculously stilted props. But somehow, we are convinced to dress up our children like heirs to t…

All of that said, if we don’t provide a solid foundational high school education that covers basic science, math through fundamental calculus, a decent overview of world history, literature, art and culture, then we are not only wasting the precious time of our children, we are also doomed to be an ignorant and brutish people. As it is, high school education in the USA today only assures what used to be the 8th grade…

Agreed.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#808

Post by csa »

baiwl wrote: post #372
stack_framer wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seriously dropped out because you didn't like one class? No. The university added other "studies" courses to my requirements that contributed to my decision. After taking gender studies, I knew I could not tolerate the other "studies" courses the university was suddenly demanding—which were not required when I first started. > Which university The University of Utah > which year was this 2014 > what was your ma…

I don’t understand this thing you do in the US of forcing you to do completely unrelated courses. You want to study computers and they put you through liberal arts or gender studies bullshit that is basically worthless. Why?

> I don’t understand this thing you do in the US of forcing you to do completely unrelated courses.

The framework for the current curriculum was developed when maybe 2% of the country went to college. The curriculum was meant to be broad, and it was meant to teach people how to think. It was not designed to train the students to do a specific job other than “lead” or “go to grad school and specialize”.

And the high school curriculum is just as bad. It was designed for a time when 4% of a cohort went to high school. Half of those went to a 4-year school and the other half went to 2-year schools. The other 96% didn’t go to high school. That’s why we have some oddities like required 4 years of literature in high school. Nothing wrong with literature, but it’s not really appropriate (at least as currently taught) for a mass audience, imho.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#809

Post by jswelker »

terminalshort wrote: post #614
justin66 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you’ve rationalized your lazy work in college by convincing yourself it wouldn’t have made any difference if you had worked harder.

I don't need to rationalize what is already rational. My degree isn't even related to my job, so why would working harder at it have paid off?

In short, soft skills. It depends on your degree I guess. In an MBA or education program, the distance between try hard and slacker is narrow. In more abstract less career oriented programs, the difference on critical thinking and comm skills is huge. If you can't imagine how deeply studying great works and thinkers improves your mind, that tells me maybe you missed something big.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#810

Post by somenameforme »

dragonwriter wrote: post #757
somenameforme wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about immediate intentions, but about strategic options. Imagine Russia decided to form a military alliance with Mexico with the expected intention of deploying weapons on the Mexican border. If Mexico agreed to this, it would take approximately 0 seconds before the US invaded them under some whimsical pretext (drug gangs probably) and overthrew their government to prevent this. In fact this is, more or less…

> It's not about immediate intentions, but about strategic options. Imagine Russia decided to form a military alliance with Mexico with the expected intention of deploying weapons on the Mexican border. The problem with pretending this analogy is relevant as a justification (or at least an "other people would have one the same thing" argument, which isn't really a justification to start with) of the Russian invasion…

Ukraine had been striving repeatedly to join NATO until 2010. That's when Yanukovych, who generally leaned more East than West, took power. Ukraine dropped its NATO ambitions under his leadership and re-affirmed themselves as a neutral state. Then he was overthrown, in an action directly backed by the US with John McCain, Victoria Nuland, and others literally on the ground in Ukraine giving speeches and riling up protesters come rioters, almost certainly with further black ops organizing going on behind the scenes.

Following Yanukovych's successful overthrow figures favorable to the US/UN/EU, including those hand picked by Victoria Nuland in her leaked conversation, ended up in power. In fact the person Nuland hand picked for Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was one of the authors of Ukraine's initial formal request for a membership action plan from NATO.

Can you tell me that you genuinely think that if Russia hadn't annexed Crimea (which happened after all of the above) that Ukraine would have chosen to stay "neutral" in this context? And I put neutral in quotes because what does that even mean when one bloc is driving the successful overthrow of democratically elected leaders and hand picking new ones? Imagine Lavrov et al were on the ground encouraging pro Russian protesters to topple the Ukrainian government (alongside comparably likely black ops organizing behind the scenes), they ended up successful, and then leaders hand-picked by him end up in power. Is that somehow still just Ukraine deciding their own fate?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations

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