College is a waste of time and money

[Leisher]

I've been saying that for years, but now a new book says the same thing.

They're businesses, not schools of higher learning.

[TPRJones]

The first section of the article is 100% truth. I was discussing that with one of our faculty yesterday. But then he starts to fail in the second part.

Among the examples of unnecessarily vocational degrees listed in the book -- due to be published on August 3 -- are ornamental horticulture, poultry science and ceramic engineering.

The first one does sound like crap, but those other two are valuable fields. Poultry Science leads to advances in factory farming and the quality of the chicken that ends up on our tables, and without Ceramic Engineering and the other material sciences we wouldn't have much of a space program.

"All undergraduate education should be a liberal arts education where you think about the enduring ideas and issues of the human condition," Hacker said. "After that, go on to law school or study dentistry -- you have plenty of time."

And here he goes completely off the rails. Liberal arts education is not the way of the future, and it's not the right choice for the majority of college students. Technical Education is the way to go for most of them. That's where they can actually learn useful skills that will lead to a solid career. Not everyone is going to be a doctor or a lawyer, after all. 68% of students that pursue a liberal education end up failing out of college without anything to show for it, and the majority of graduates with a liberal education end up in jobs they didn't need their degree for anyway. Less than 20% of students who attempt a four-year degree end up getting their money's worth.

He's seeing the right problems, but his solutions are just as wrong-headed as the people he's writing about.



Edited By TPRJones on 1280552994

[Troy]

Actually those three degrees he chose seem very likely to get jobs to me. He could have chosen waaaayyy better shitty degrees, like "Medieval History" or "Ancient Sanskrit"

Poultry is obvious, any kind of engineering means the student is taking physics and high level math courses out of the yingyang and as for ornamental horticulture, while the work isn't glamorous, the person would end up working at a lawn care business, doing higher end yard layouts and and what not.

I'm sure other schools are different, but my Liberal Arts degree from UNC has opened up a ton of doors to me. It also manages to remain one of the cheapest schools to go to (providing you have instate tuition).

[TheCatt]

"All undergraduate education should be a liberal arts education where you think about the enduring ideas and issues of the human condition," Hacker said. "After that, go on to law school or study dentistry -- you have plenty of time."

WTF?

Look, I have a liberal arts education, and that would have done a great job of qualifying me for... graduate school. Serioulsy - law school? We have too freaking many lawyers already.

We need engineers, and scientists. Not more lawyers or dentists. I agree that college could be better (and high school, and middle school, and elementary school), but saying that college shouldn't teach people skills just makes it worse.

Idiots.

[Malcolm]

They praise Notre Dame for promoting concern for the common good and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for treating part-time teaching staff well.

First off, fuck Notre Dame. Second, double fuck MIT. Every dude that I've ever met that got a degree from MIT is either (i) an arrogant dickwad of a hack engineer who had to have bribed his way through his coursework or (ii) nerds who have science ADHD to such a degree as to be functionally worthless in any real working environment.

While the modern U.S. university system is fucked, doing what these two ass-clowns suggest would just give you a different kind of fucked for reasons cited previously in this thread. I met a dude who had gotten his associates degrees in liberal education or some other such bullshit.

I asked him, "So, what exactly does that qualify you for?"
He replied, "Going back to school and getting another degree."

[TheCatt]

This fits well.

What universities give people, versus what they want/need:

[TheCatt]

But, as to their argument that liberal arts is so great, I say this:


As someone who GOT a liberal arts degree, but only got a job by doing computer science, I agree completely.

[Troy]

But, as to their argument that liberal arts is so great, I say this:


As someone who GOT a liberal arts degree, but only got a job by doing computer science, I agree completely.

I think I've said before, but it's this but replace Perl with the Adobe Creative Suite for me.



Edited By Troy on 1280600807

[Malcolm]

This fits well.

What universities give people, versus what they want/need:

I think I'm going to hire some people to tag that all across the U of M.

[Leisher]

Colleges freezing and lowering tuition.

As it turns out, there is a limit to how much people will pay for college.

In a better world this would be the snapping back of the rubber band, and we'd return to only people whose careers NEED extended education going to college.

[Malcolm]

Graduating in 4 years is expensive.

Higher education reform groups say colleges need to revamp remedial courses and degree requirements that often keep students in school for much longer than needed. Universities often require students with weak academic records to take courses to help them catch up to the rest of their classmates, but those remedial classes don’t count toward a degree. A recent study by think tank Education Reform Now found one in four students have to enroll in remedial classes their first year of college. Those students, nearly half of which hail from middle and upper-income households, can end up paying more in tuition and fees because those courses often delay them from graduating on time.

I've been out of school for some time now. I still have $9K or so of debt to go. On the flip side, I could easily handle that by year's end if I wanted to.

[TheCatt]

$0k debt ever baby, suck it.

[TPRJones]

About 1/3 of our students have to take at least one developmental course. About 1/3 of those have to take several developmental courses. But the real reason all of that is necessary is that high schools are just horrendous. The fact that someone has a high school diploma provides no indication of any sort that they received any sort of minimum education. It just an attendance award that means they showed up and didn't get kicked out.

[Malcolm]

A college degree doesn't even mean attendance. It means someone paid the bills.

[GORDON]

About 1/3 of our students have to take at least one developmental course. About 1/3 of those have to take several developmental courses. But the real reason all of that is necessary is that high schools are just horrendous. The fact that someone has a high school diploma provides no indication of any sort that they received any sort of minimum education. It just an attendance award that means they showed up and didn't get kicked out.

High schools may be horrendous but they might get their shit together a little bit if colleges stopped taking kids who needed the high school courses again. Oh, but wait, those high school courses still cost the same per credit hour, meaning the unprepared students' money still spends.

[TPRJones]

I work at a community college. Our whole purpose of existing is to service the students that can't afford or can't get in to a four-year university yet. By law we can't turn anyone away as long as they have a high school diploma (or equivalent) and can pay (or get a scholarship or grant).

Although if your position is that community colleges shouldn't exist, then that's a different argument.

[GORDON]

I think my position is that colleges shouldn't have a law requiring them to accept students that didn't prepare for college.

[TPRJones]

Fair enough. I can see that.

I would argue that if a student didn't prepare for college it may not always be their fault but more the fault of bad parents combined with a bad educational system. Yes it's possible to educate yourself regardless of the situation, but it's hard to learn to value that at a young enough age if no one in your life is teaching you it matters. If they are making an effort to move on and better themselves and their lot in life then they should have the opportunity to do so. Although that argument is muddied quite a bit by the fact that through Pell grants the feds are giving them free money to do so instead of making them work for it. If a student couldn't get a Pell grant until they met the minimum standards to not need developmental courses that would be a good fist step to cleaning up some of the mess.

[Malcolm]

High schools may be horrendous but they might get their shit together a little bit if colleges stopped taking kids who needed the high school courses again.

Colleges have no incentive whatsoever to do that. Are you high? They can charge tuition and fees for a semester or two, which is a minimum of 20 large anywhere above community level. Private high schools are in the same boat. Public high schools? Do you think anywhere there gives a fuck, student or faculty?

Our whole purpose of existing is to service the students that can't afford or can't get in to a four-year university yet.

I think my position is that colleges shouldn't have a law requiring them to accept students that didn't prepare for college.

Some people only wake up when shock is applied. If that means flunking out and going back in to dropkick you into growing balls, so be it. Until 4-year colleges reduce their ridiculous tuition rates, the best use of a community college is a place to get your shitty lib eds and electives done for cheap before transferring to somewhere more respected (read as "expensive"). I despise entitlements, but a few years of free education would go a long way towards helping those who give a fuck. The idiots will piss it away as they do every good opportunity and you'll never get a good RoI from them. But at least your best and brightest won't be anally raped by debt for the first decade after leaving school.

[TPRJones]

Colleges have no incentive whatsoever to do that.

That depends on a lot of factors. Here once all the revenue and expenses are considered we take a loss of $45 on each student for each developmental class they take. We take the hit in order to help them get through them and into regular classes, but all in all from a financial standpoint we'd rather have students that didn't need it to begin with.