The Problems of Higher Education

[Deleted member]

Not sure how it is in the US but in my country we have way too many people graduating from colleges, and not enough from vocational school.
It result in the interesting situation where people from vocational school can land a cushy job quite easily, while people from colleges can’t find one, and when they do, it usually doesn’t pay well.
We don’t have debts problems here though...

That's essentially the same problem here. I found a technician and offered him a job by basically finding a way to classify him as four grades higher than some other managers who don't understand the job market would. He responded by saying "sorry" because he'd gotten a job for Lockheed Martin paying 180% of what I had just offered him. How do you even respond to that? The market for techs is absurd.

 

[Deleted member 18]

One of things I think that has been forgotten (because the financial industry is so powerful in government) is that interest paid on loans is in part due to the risk that loans present. A government-guaranteed loan ought to have exceedingly low interest rates, even below 2% annually (which is the target for inflation by most central banks), if defaulting isn't an option. Instead loaners get the best of both worlds; an interest rate that provides a steady and desirable return-on-investment in a period of very very low interest rates set by central banks, plus a total lack of risk for loaning.

Put the two together and there's no reason for lenders not to provide however much credit is asked for to pay for a college education, and thus no incentive for schools to control costs. That's at least in part behind the massive and ridiculous inflation in college prices and it is ruinously unsustainable. Unfortunately fixing this calls for a huge overhaul not just of how colleges are funded but also how they administered and reining in their spending on things unrelated to their core missions of education and research. Expect a fight to the death from the university system for that as well as from irresponsible state legislatures rejecting their responsibility to provide decent funding as long as they can foist it off on the presently highly distorted market.

 

[Deleted member]

@Gurney Halleck , thank you, that's actually a really good point I had neglected to think of before.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Graduated with a computer science degree, I was close to a minor in philosophy but couldn't jimmy the credit hours well enough, but so it goes.

I do strongly believe that the arts course requirements in science degrees is positive (likewise with the opposite, science requirements in arts degrees) because university fits into an interesting spot in modern society where you can learn in general rather than train for a job.

On the job front, I took an unrelated job paying 52 to start, which I turned into a comp sci job paying 56 to start within 7 months of working at the place, which I'm fairly pleased at.

Dude, I’m pretty sure these guys just want the skills for their jobs, they can learn philosophy and literature on the internet, otherwise they’d pay for less if they could

would prolly help alot if government would stop mandating "you MUST have this much education to do stuff"

Cali for instance has pretty sharply cut the number of people who can get into trade schools by going "YOU NEED A HIGHSCHOOL DIPLOMA FOR THAT!"

Speaking of high school....it ends when you are like 18....expensive both on taxes and private due to having so many stuff that aren’t even just for regular technical jobs

 

[Captain X]

I think some of it is on employers, though. My search for employment over the past 9 months has shown that there are plenty of positions open for mechanical engineers, but the vast, vast majority of them are looking for people with 5-10 years of experience. I can understand companies wanting someone with experience to a point, because that means that they can just have someone jump in and go right to work without having to train them, but these positions remain open for months and I'm still without a job, so it's like neither of us is getting what we want, but we would both benefit if they gave me a shot. As for the entry level positions, which are a rarity it seems like, they have the pick of the litter, so to speak. And I guess internships count for more than GRA experience.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I guess it will take time, but eventually people and even businesses will think of or see that there’s more potential or quick picks in guys who didn’t go waste so much time and money in college, but have skill and take that chance

 

[Deleted member]

I think some of it is on employers, though. My search for employment over the past 9 months has shown that there are plenty of positions open for mechanical engineers, but the vast, vast majority of them are looking for people with 5-10 years of experience. I can understand companies wanting someone with experience to a point, because that means that they can just have someone jump in and go right to work without having to train them, but these positions remain open for months and I'm still without a job, so it's like neither of us is getting what we want, but we would both benefit if they gave me a shot. As for the entry level positions, which are a rarity it seems like, they have the pick of the litter, so to speak. And I guess internships count for more than GRA experience.

It's also possible the companies are intentionally avoiding US citizens because they know they are in a better salary negotiating position with H-1B visa holders. That's a common problem for the professional class. There's also the entire automated resume analysis issue which means you essentially need to stretch everything to the limit to make sure there's a sufficient number of algorithm buzzwords to give you a chance at an actual interview. Though in general it also simply comes down to employers being unwilling to relax standards in a tight labor market, a classical neo-capitalist refusal to let capitalism work both ways; it's always capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down. My favourite one has been a recent spate of local restaurants closing saying they couldn't find enough people to work... They were still starting people at $10/hr when Domino's was offering $17.25/hr for delivery drivers with a $500 signing bonus (I'm not making that up).

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

My favourite one has been a recent spate of local restaurants closing saying they couldn't find enough people to work... They were still starting people at $10/hr when Domino's was offering $17.25/hr for delivery drivers with a $500 signing bonus (I'm not making that up).

honestly that sounds to me more like Domino's driving the labor costs so high the smaller places couldn't compete.

 

[Marduk]

There is some slight useful basis in this bias, because a college degree does serve as an IQ test of sorts, and a test of character too, because someone with a degree has at least the intelligence and/or work ethic to complete that degree. It's a very expensive test though, which becomes increasingly less useful as the pressure for more degrees and more students and more money pushes down academic standards and causes an explosion in useless majors. These sorts of tests would be even more useless if there were better ways for people to gain or prove their abilities - job training, work experience, apprenticeships, even old fashioned IQ tests.

You have touched upon a very little known and politically incorrect truth here that puts the academia and its influence on politics in a very suspicious light.
IQ tests you say....
Yes, that's true, it's a very cumbersome, expensive and indirect way to have an officially recognized, documented IQ test, particularly in cases of requiring a degree not clearly associated to a job's skill requirement, like with engineering or medical sciences, yet are still required.
Say, you want to be a clever businessman and hire cheaper smart non-graduates by using IQ tests to pick who to hire?
Oh, wait, that's illegal!
It's not outright made clear, but it's such a huge lawsuit risk that no one high profile enough to get a bunch of activist organizations interested will do it. After all, as we know, those organizations are plentiful these days, and will zerg rush any case politically charged enough, even if it's just some local baker, so the standard for "high profile enough" is disturbingly low these days.

And of course it is related to the early days of still very controversial and politically polarizing "identity politics" stuff as far as it's enshrined in the US legal system.

The Dead End of “Disparate Impact”

Ever since the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company, our legal system has effectively forbidden the use of job-screening devices that produce a "disparate impact" on the hiring of minority workers. But while this disparate-impa...

nationalaffairs.com

Griggs v. Duke Power: Implications for College Credentialing

Free essays, homework help, flashcards, research papers, book reports, term papers, history, science, politics

studylib.net

 

[Sol Zagato]

My search for employment over the past 9 months has shown that there are plenty of positions open for mechanical engineers, but the vast, vast majority of them are looking for people with 5-10 years of experience.

They're telling you that, but it's a usually a goddamn lie. If they get the experienced engineer, they'll take them. What they'll typically take is someone that impresses them, has a personal 'in' with the company or has a particular skillset.

 

[Realm]

Dude, I’m pretty sure these guys just want the skills for their jobs, they can learn philosophy and literature on the internet, otherwise they’d pay for less if they could

Sure, and a lot of things currently taught in university could likely be taught in a trade college or apprenticeship program instead, but there definitely is value in learning the complex ideas and theories falling under the categorization of "The Arts" by someone with years of direct engagement in the literature, both in the past and the contemporaries.

It's far too easy to start googling something like philosophy, have no real context for anything, then start misinterpreting it with the deep and abiding belief that if anyone disagrees with you, they're either wrong, or maliciously wrong.

 

[SergeantBrother]

You have touched upon a very little known and politically incorrect truth here that puts the academia and its influence on politics in a very suspicious light.
IQ tests you say....
Yes, that's true, it's a very cumbersome, expensive and indirect way to have an officially recognized, documented IQ test, particularly in cases of requiring a degree not clearly associated to a job's skill requirement, like with engineering or medical sciences, yet are still required.
Say, you want to be a cleaver businessman and hire cheaper smart non-graduates by using IQ tests to pick who to hire?
Oh, wait, that's illegal!
It's not outright made clear, but it's such a huge lawsuit risk that no one high profile enough to get a bunch of activist organizations interested will do it. After all, as we know, those organizations are plentiful these days, and will zerg rush any case politically charged enough, even if it's just some local baker, so the standard for "high profile enough" is disturbingly low these days.

And of course it is related to the early days of still very controversial and politically polarizing "identity politics" stuff as far as it's enshrined in the US legal system.

The Dead End of “Disparate Impact”

Ever since the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company, our legal system has effectively forbidden the use of job-screening devices that produce a "disparate impact" on the hiring of minority workers. But while this disparate-impa...

nationalaffairs.com

Griggs v. Duke Power: Implications for College Credentialing

Free essays, homework help, flashcards, research papers, book reports, term papers, history, science, politics

studylib.net

Absolutely. Intelligence is the dirty secret that underlies so many issues in society. It is the emperor's naked ass that we all look at when we say how magnificent his clothes are.

General intelligence - g - is real and IQ is highly correlated to it. IQ tests are thus very good predictors of other life outcomes that are strongly correlated to intelligence. It is also largely genetic. These are mathematically proven facts which are suppressed because they have inconvenient and ideologically unpopular implications. I'm not sure how far we want to go down that rabbit hole, but if we could acknowledge the fact of IQ it would be a boon not only to education but to every aspect of society.

 

[Sol Zagato]

Absolutely. Intelligence is the dirty secret that underlies so many issues in society. It is the emperor's naked ass that we all look at when we say how magnificent his clothes are.

General intelligence - g - is real and IQ is highly correlated to it. IQ tests are thus very good predictors of other life outcomes that are strongly correlated to intelligence. It is also largely genetic. These are mathematically proven facts which are suppressed because they have inconvenient and ideologically unpopular implications. I'm not sure how far we want to go down that rabbit hole, but if we could acknowledge the fact of IQ it would be a boon not only to education but to every aspect of society.

It's important to note g isn't everything we'd call intelligence. But it's close to the kind of intelligence you'd want in an accountant, a quarterback, an engineer or a lawyer. And it often correlates with other kinds of intelligence.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb, probably too derisively, called IQ a measure of someone's utility as a slave.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Sure, and a lot of things currently taught in university could likely be taught in a trade college or apprenticeship program instead, but there definitely is value in learning the complex ideas and theories falling under the categorization of "The Arts" by someone with years of direct engagement in the literature, both in the past and the contemporaries.

It's far too easy to start googling something like philosophy, have no real context for anything, then start misinterpreting it with the deep and abiding belief that if anyone disagrees with you, they're either wrong, or maliciously wrong.

Still not worth being forced to waste so much time and money

Frankly, just go with STEM or specific parts of STEM and not have to waste more than necessary

Yeah, both college and school need to be changed to only do what’s most likely to make dough and give less stress to the student(take out sports and music from general curriculum too, unless they intend to actually be sports-dudes or idols, just let them get what’s close to necessary)

That said, hopefully Calculus is actually taught and tested properly for all of you

I dunno about your colleges but my maths involved teaching us the basics and suddenly the tests require you to improvise

After the class gets mostly F’s and D’s, the teacher then keeps going on about how easy it all is and that she taught us what we needed and it’s somehow really easy to see

 

[SergeantBrother]

It's important to note g isn't everything we'd call intelligence. But it's close to the kind of intelligence you'd want in an accountant, a quarterback, an engineer or a lawyer. And it often correlates with other kinds of intelligence.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb, probably too derisively, called IQ a measure of someone's utility as a slave.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb is full of crap when it comes to IQ. Unless someone wants to go so far as to say that anybody who positively contributes to a society also facilitates slavery. IQ correlates positively to just about any quality that a person would associate with intelligence. It also correlates negatively to certain things, like criminality and child illegitimacy rates.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

College was a mistake for many, a mistake they were encouraged to make, not informed of the consequences of, And that will leave them hobbled across their lives.

But despite the collossal unfairness of the situation, it wouldn't be right to wipe out that debt. As a generation we'll have to limp along and do our best, because it would be the worst thing in the world to tell an entire generation that when you stick your hand in the wolf's mouth, a fairy godmother floats down from the sky and waves her magic wand to make it all better.

At least with this painful lesson we might remember, and not let the next generation make the same mistake.

 

[Sol Zagato]

Nicholas Nassim Taleb is full of crap when it comes to IQ. Unless someone wants to go so far as to say that anybody who positively contributes to a society also facilitates slavery. IQ correlates positively to just about any quality that a person would associate with intelligence. It also correlates negatively to certain things, like criminality and child illegitimacy rates.

Well spoken. Taleb doesn't want to be associated with the wrong kind of rebel.

Nonetheless, I think an honest public accounting of the issue is less likely than medicaid-funded genetic engineering to make all go away (and to prevent the rich from leaving everyone else behind in a democracy).

 

[Realm]

Still not worth being forced to waste so much time and money

Frankly, just go with STEM or specific parts of STEM and not have to waste more than necessary

Learning isn't a waste, it's only a waste if you view your life and relationship with the world in terms of market relations which is one of the most lifeless and sad ways of living.

 

[Cherico]

Learning isn't a waste, it's only a waste if you view your life and relationship with the world in terms of market relations which is one of the most lifeless and sad ways of living.

Are you from Europe?

Because the American and European justifications for education and intelectual lifestyle are completely different.

The european ideal of education being there to make you a more complete person really doesn't have the philosphical underpinnings of the american educational philosphy which is based on pragmatism.

Its a (This will make you a more complete person) vrs (This is a useful thing to know that will make your more employable).

 

[SergeantBrother]

Learning isn't a waste, it's only a waste if you view your life and relationship with the world in terms of market relations which is one of the most lifeless and sad ways of living.

Should there be a requirement to attend a Catholic seminary and donate $300,000 to the Catholic Church before one is allowed to be a veterinarian? Of course, not, though we both can value knowledge. If one isn't a Catholic, or indeed religious at all, maybe the requirement to receive that unnecessary education as well as the mandatory donation might seem highly questionable.

If someone wants to learn about religion, art, history, philosophy, sociology, literature - the world it at their fingertips virtually for free. We have the internet but even before that there were libraries. I place great importance on knowledge, great importance on learning, but that doesn't mean that I value the educational system that we have now.