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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

#871

Post by rayiner »

wolverine876 wrote: post #584
rayiner wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you provide an example of that claim? Usually the SAT is considered discriminatory because the way the testing is done favors wealthy, well-educated people, and gives negative results for equally talented people who lack those advantages. The alternatives, such as essays, are even more highly correlated with wealth: https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/essay-content-strongly-rel... As to predicting outcomes, tha…

> No, colleges have found that the SAT produces racial demographics they don’t like. Where does that come from, other than repetition? > look at the LSAT I'm not talking about the LSAT (and bar exam performance isn't a meaningful indicator of much - the great majority of aspiring lawyers pass their bar exams). > Poor white kids have been excluded by the SAT for nearly a century and colleges never took action in respo…

> > No, colleges have found that the SAT produces racial demographics they don’t like.

> Where does that come from, other than repetition?

You started out talking about socioeconomic status, but by the end of your post you admitted getting rid of the SAT is an effort to “address racism.” People think getting rid of the SAT is about race and not class because proponents of the policies admit as much.

> I'm not talking about the LSAT

The SAT and LSAT are very similar both in content and distribution of outcomes.

> (and bar exam performance isn't a meaningful indicator of much - the great majority of aspiring lawyers pass their bar exams).

Half the people who take the LSAT are excluded from even attending law school based largely on LSAT score. Students with lower LSAT scores are at high risk of failing their classes or failing the bar: http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2018/01/using-ls....

> If that's true (and I don't know that it is, especially on the scale of what has happened to blacks)

The SAT is highly correlated with socioeconomic status. And most poor people are white.

> what does that does that have to do with racism against black kids?

Is the SAT “racist” or is it biased against people with low socioeconomic status? Two quite different things.

As to what’s “reactionary” or not, you should try recalibrating your bubble. The majority of white, Asian, Hispanic, and Black people oppose the practice of using race as a consideration in school admissions: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ.... They also say test scores and grades should be the main factors for admissions. The “race progressives” are a minority even among minority groups.

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

#872

Post by specialist »

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…

My local university is also a real estate mogul and hedge fund.

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

#873

Post by specialist »

throwawaycities wrote: post #451

I think the writing on the wall is clear regarding student loans. The entire notion of taxpayer funded student loans is a scam on both taxpayers and students. It’s a system that allows the colleges/universities to charge any tuition they want and guarantees there will be an artificial demand. For about a decade at least 1M student loan holders default per year. Long before the defaults reached that high, everyone inv…

> taxpayer funded student loans is a scam

Today we have taxpayer underwritten student loans.

The prior system of taxpayer funded tuition, with minimal student loans, was pretty terrific. We should go back to that.

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

#874

Post by dang »

moltke wrote: post #75
crackercrews wrote: post #52

Definitely agree that removing the SAT appears to be related to the upcoming supreme court case about affirmative action. COVID was a good reason to delay it for a couple years. But schools are pushing it out further. That makes no sense. It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white…

Quoted post unavailable.

Since you have a history of breaking the site guidelines and have been continuing to post flamebait to HN, I've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#875

Post by uneoneuno »

eterevsky wrote: post #770
shafyy wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam Altman and his buddies are incredibly out of touch with the real world. In a related tweet, he said [0]: > A version of college replacement I'm super interested in: Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Completely agree with your state…

> I would question if Altman is good at anything He leads OpenAI > Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Why do you think this is a bad idea?

I think it's a great idea because it challenges the status-quo idea of what college has to be. We can agree 18 year olds can bring fresh ideas - they are much closer to the cultural future and more agile on any new technology. An 18 will see things elders won't and they have a TON of energy. But 18s aren't typically 'wise' by making all the mistakes you make over decades to learn from. At any age we all need role models outside of our peers to stay maximally effective. The experience of a 40 year old in the mix of 18s is INVALUABLE. Teams should almost always be multi-generational or they can become myopic. A multi-gen team will make better products than a team of 50-60 year olds alone or a team of 18 year olds alone

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

#876

Post by eterevsky »

tbran wrote: post #864
eterevsky wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would question if Altman is good at anything He leads OpenAI > Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Why do you think this is a bad idea?

How about the smartest and most driven 25 year olds? Or 30 year olds? Or 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 year olds?

Smartest and most driven 30-year-olds have usually already secured some career and income.

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

#877

Post by xyzzyz »

wolverine876 wrote: post #706
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.

> 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. Yes, generally speaking. And they were better prepared than people from the 1840s, who mostly were illiterate (no universal education), lost most of their…

> Yes, generally speaking.

This is not an answer to a “in what way” question. I will grant you that elementary school teaching people to read, write and basic arithmetics, does indeed inculcate skills very important in adult life, but from there to argue that a marginal year of education gives you some marginal amount of human capital, only shows how weak your argument is: it’s completely useless without trying to quantify the actual learning. What if a year of college actually reduces a day’s worth of useful stuff? What a waste of time it would be, and yet totally compatible with your argument.

And, it might be of interest to you, that the last month of 12th year of education, and last month of 16th year “teaches” a lot more useful stuff than the previous 4 years in terms of how it translates to increased success in adult life, as studies show. This is actually obvious to everyone, that obtaining diploma is worth more than 4 years worth of learning, but the point is that education is not about learning.

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

#878

Post by wpietri »

abecedarius wrote: post #579
wpietri wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of people will indeed pay Alice more, especially if her degree is from a brand-name school. You can look up the stats yourself, but they're striking. I personally build my hiring processes to be relatively blind to elite status signals. But interviewees tell me that's pretty unusual. > You can mention having further disagreements without making it a gratuitous diss. I believe it was both accurate and nece…

You misread: given common knowledge that Alice and Bob are equally promising, all info considered, do you make them different offers? I'm not at all asking whether Alice with a degree gets better offers than Alice without a degree. We both say she does. At the time we're checking in, Alice's degree is a sunk cost. Your proposal is not: it's extra company investment in the non-degreed after hiring. > can't even find t…

I didn't misread. I chose not to play your contrived game.

I also didn't hire you as my editor, so perhaps you can just apply your advice on comity to your own work and leave me be.

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

#879

Post by greenie_beans »

stingraycharles wrote: post #793
newsclues wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Because it's a very libertarian and capitalistic view of how life” Why that bad? Is a very socialist or communist view on life better? Seems like a bias rather than factually supported.

> Is a very socialist or communist view on life better? For what it’s worth, it’s not as binary as you suggest: if one doesn’t like a capitalist idea, it doesn’t automatically imply a communist alternative. I think at the very least, Sam’s suggestion here is fairly capitalist: students are considered resources to be invested in, with a certain ROI, and capital would automatically be allocated to just those students t…

the commodification of our personhood taken to the extreme. i think zizek was the first person i heard recognize this problem with capitalism today.

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

#880

Post by stjohnswarts »

throwawaycities wrote: post #451

I think the writing on the wall is clear regarding student loans. The entire notion of taxpayer funded student loans is a scam on both taxpayers and students. It’s a system that allows the colleges/universities to charge any tuition they want and guarantees there will be an artificial demand. For about a decade at least 1M student loan holders default per year. Long before the defaults reached that high, everyone inv…

Student loans aren't a scam , they work just fine. Unlimited student loans are a scam. Unlimited tuition increases and colleges taking advantage of unaware students is a scam. Colleges don't seem to understand "no" or budgets to new, unfunded enterprises and try to go beyond their own means. They'll just raise tuition to compensate. The government has to cap student loans, just like it has to cap medical care costs or the cycle is just going to feed itself.
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