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| Wake Up And Smell The Espresso (Education) in forum [Market-Ticker]
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Tsherry
Posts: 193
Incept: 2008-12-09
Spokane WA
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I'm telling students that are near graduation to find a job in the trades. These are 4th and 5th year seniors, that have essentially zero job prospects until the design and construction industries come back...which will be many years.
Their 'professor', a young man of perhaps 30, is encouraging them to pursue graduate degrees. I told them as I guest-lectured, that you'd have to be an idiot to add more student loan debt on top of the bachelor's degree that was also financialized, in a market that had no jobs and would not have jobs for the foreseeable future.
I then had to explain 'financialized' to both the professor and the students. Some of them 'got it'. The professor just sneered. I found out later from his ex-wife he's still paying off his BA loans, loans for his masters, and he's pursuing a PhD.
Talented guy. Doesn't know or understand third-grade math though.
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Corn1945
Posts: 4167
Incept: 2009-04-30
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I think you are way off base blaming the financial industry here.
If there was a true free market in college lending, certain students would never qualify for loans. The cries of "discrimination" would come out very quickly. The government would then step in and mandate that you can't loan money based on expected major because it's discriminatory. Private lenders would then stop lending unless they got a backstop and the government would then step in and either provide a backstop or lend directly. It ends up right back where we are today.
The problem isn't the banks here, it's the American people.
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Winstonsmith2009
Posts: 1060
Incept: 2009-08-05
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"Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought"
Gawd! I suspect the only things that keep majors like that in the curriculum is student loans and government jobs.
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Genesis
Posts: 130747
Incept: 2007-06-26
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I don't care if it makes sense -- only if it makes money. -- Me
Bank (n): See scam, fraud and theft. Eat a bankster -- they're low-carb.
What part of "shall not be infringed" was unclear?
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Hoghead32
Posts: 33
Incept: 2009-11-17
Ellicott City, Md.
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But...but...how will we ever care for and feed our edjahmuhcationalists if this is changed?
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I'm so old, I remember when politicians spent millions.
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Pj
Posts: 1211
Incept: 2009-12-07
Putnam County, New York
Online
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Quote:Any serious policy reform has to start by considering a heretical idea: Federal subsidies intended to make college more affordable may have encouraged rapidly rising tuitions. NO **** SHERLOCK!!!!! The same thing happened with Housing. .Gov programs and loan guarantees to encourage homeownership blew house prices right thru the roof, just like they have with college costs.
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When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.” Edward Gibbon
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Ripley
Posts: 96
Incept: 2010-09-26
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In science and engineering, not offering you an assistantship and tuition waiver or at least in-state tuition is a way of telling you that they don't really want you. At the University of Virginia, graduate students who I knew in the English department told me that they would not get financial aid until their second year, so they had to take a lot of loans. This was no later than 1990, so I have to presume that things are no better. Only about a third of masters degree students in English literature would be selected to continue on to the doctoral program, so getting an advanced degree in English literature is a bad bet, and has been for at least two decades.
As more and more graduate students pay full tuition, graduate programs have become a cash cow for universities. much as law schools have. If there are no jobs for you in your field with a bachelor's degree, why would there be a job for you with a graduate degree? If anything, you limited your employability because of the jobs that people think that people with graduate degrees want.
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Jata1
Posts: 5064
Incept: 2009-03-08
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Degree in "Social Thought"- that's ****ing brilliant. What exactly, other than an admin or a Starbucks barista did she plan to do with that. I would have charged her a lot less than 50K for some better advice than she got
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Randy123
Posts: 5785
Incept: 2008-09-24
Earth
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This bubble needs to explode like nothing else.
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China is the Enemy. Wake Up.
New Normal. Same As The Old Awful.
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Montysano
Posts: 134
Incept: 2009-02-23
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Corn1945 wrote..I think you are way off base blaming the financial industry here.
If there was a true free market in college lending, certain students would never qualify for loans. You're not getting it. If your customer/sucker can't discharge the debt through bankruptcy, then you, as the (predatory)lender, don't give a **** about qualifying anyone. They'll get out of school and become your debt slave. I hear "the problem is the American people" when the mortgage mess is discussed, which is wrong-headed. Somewhere along the line, the careful prudent banker, who had to live with the consequences of his poor decisions, morphed into something quite different: a pure salesman, one who made his cut and passed the problem on to others.
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"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today." -- Arthur Jensen, "Network"
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Pika-steph
Posts: 54715
Incept: 2007-09-11
Live Free Or Die; US Army Est. 1775
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Stop the Looting; Start Prosecuting - http://www.FedUpUSA.org/ "The only regulation that really works is failure."--Rick Santelli
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Carol1230
Posts: 4
Incept: 2011-11-16
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Montysano says in resaponse to Corn1945: "Somewhere along the line, the careful prudent banker, who had to live with the consequences of his poor decisions, morphed into something quite different: a pure salesman, one who made his cut and passed the problem on to others."
And all these bankers were foreigners?
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Donlevit
Posts: 33
Incept: 2011-08-18
sugar land, tx
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In addition to federal loans not being dischargeable by bankruptcy, the government's guarantee of these loans is the real key.
These are similar to no-doc loans, assuming that 90% or more, of these loans are accepted.
Does anyone have any figures on the acceptance rate?
Don Levit
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Brewcrew2
Posts: 149
Incept: 2011-02-18
New Jersey
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I never quite understood why folks wanted to go directly from a BA or BS right back into school for a Masters. So you're going to master a subject which you likely have no experience in, outside the confines of these ivy walls? You may have "mastered" how the book says you should know it, but you're still just as green as the next entry level guy.
I currently know folks who could not get hired with a Masters degree, so doubled-down again for their PHD...and have never worked a day in their field in their life! Their only hope is to catch on with another University and regurgitate the same book knowledge to incoming freshmen to continue the Human Ponzi.
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Ben
Posts: 6205
Incept: 2009-10-09
The Distant, Glorious, Past
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Teachers and Professors teach, are educators.
Since they value education and academics, they naturally are biased towards 'More education is better, most education is best, anyone who does not have a degree is an idiot and unemployable'.
In the ESL industry I run into this attitude constantly.
They cannot comprehend, nay - they are constitutionally incapable of grasping - that there are jobs available to those who do NOT have those precious qualifications. Even in the best paying sectors in the Middle East in the same universities they are working with multiple MA's.
They spend all of their time saying:
'That's not enough. Have to have the MA and 10 years experience'.
Which is just not true and just them talking their book.
This contra-attitude*****es them off. It negates their life choices.
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"Why are you going to learn French?"
"Because I'm going to France," says Joe.
"I'm from the future. You should go to China."
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Jrminter
Posts: 32
Incept: 2008-10-09
Rochester,NY
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Corn1945 - The whole "discrimination" argument is a deceptive canard. First, one is doing a minority student (or any other, for that matter) no favor by turning them into a slave to the debt they get from an education that does not prepare them for employment that repays it -- analogous to making them a slave to a debt for a house they can't afford. This system, as Karl notes, generates great profits for the lenders and the educators who are enriched by the revenue and generates large campaign contributions for the politicians who enable it. There used to be scholarships for students based BOTH on need and ability. This system has largely eliminated them.
The whole "leave no child behind" philosophy has done terrible harm to our educational system. Note that the people who advocate it most strongly don't seem to desire that it be extended to sports and music where ability and results still reign. In the past 30 years, spending for primary and secondary education has grown much faster than wages and performance has lagged. Students from India and Korea (where performance counts most) are cleaning our clock. The education establishment just says we need more money for special education and remedial courses. At the university level this is a special travesty. Unqualified students are admitted, funded by debt, and then pay to take remedial courses that give "credit" that does not count for the degree. But the administration doesn't care - they get paid. Guess who gets left holding the bag? The students and ultimately the taxpayers. The banks get paid (with the large fees). The collection agents get paid... Starting to see a pattern here? The sad truth is that the ideologues who want to propagate this system are the "useful idiots" for those who want to use it to enrich themselves without regard for return on investment for those who pay the bills.
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Irritatedcitizen
Posts: 72
Incept: 2011-05-20
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The other massive problem with the current system is that since nearly everyone can (and does) get $$ for college, regardless of their actual ability or prep training, the schools get forced into educating the least-common-denominator much in "No child left behind" fashion.
I've recently been perusing used bookstores, and picking up some older reference texts for disciplines that haven't changed much. Math, some of the more basic chemistry & physics haven't materially advanced since the 50's. Guess what I find?
Texts that are intended for a "intro level college course" assume very solid backings in math, physics, etc. and do not pull punches. Now they couldn't be offered in the first year, because they assume calculus. Some of them assume serious backing in philosophy and other such rigorous principles of logic or analysis. A base requirement for college back then was DISCERNMENT. Now it's optional or even frowned upon.
These books / courses simply couldn't be taught to (conservatively) 70% of the people in undergraduate classrooms today. They don't have the backing. What once was considered college DOES now extend into Masters or PhD programs, but all too often THOSE programs are playing catch-up in basic competencies as well.
Seriously, go look at a physics primer from the 1930-1970. Your jaw will drop.
To fix this, we have to fix primary/secondary education. Calculus? Mandatory. Physics? Mandatory. Logic/debate/analysis/discernment? Mandatory. Basic programming skills (Python or something similar)? Mandatory. BASIC spelling, grammar, essay writing skills? Absolutely mandatory.
Until you can hold people to a half/decent set of competencies coming out of high school, college will continue to degrade. Unfortunately.
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C130gunship
Posts: 95
Incept: 2010-06-28
Corinth, TX
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Government is never a solution. It is always the source of the problem(s).
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Jrminter
Posts: 32
Incept: 2008-10-09
Rochester,NY
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Irritatedcitizen- my wife teaches chemistry, physics, and calculus at a small Christian high school and is an adjunct for a local community college that offers courses at the high school for advanced students. She has the text books she used in high school (graduated in 1974 with a New York Regents diploma). Her high school texts are much more advanced than the current high school texts and are slightly above the level of the community college texts on their subjects. Sad...
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Magus
Posts: 1970
Incept: 2008-05-04
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Donlevit--the .gov no longer guarantees federal loans. They are fully funding the loans themselves. Obama changed that in 2009, which I actually agree with (I don't agree with federal loans, but if we are going to have them, we certainly shouldn't guarantee them for private for private companies regardless of the circumstances)
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"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
-~~Ludwig V
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Sparticlebrane
Posts: 287
Incept: 2009-08-25
Banned
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Quote:To fix this, we have to fix primary/secondary education. Calculus? Mandatory. Physics? Mandatory. Logic/debate/analysis/discernment? Mandatory. Basic programming skills (Python or something similar)? Mandatory. BASIC spelling, grammar, essay writing skills? Absolutely mandatory. Hmm...I took all those classes except for a basic programming class (my high school offered a Cisco CCNA curriculum though, which I did take and earn the certification). If the student is on a "college track" then yes, they should take all these classes, and plenty of other "real world" classes as well (woodworking, metal shop, basic vehicle mechanics, plumbing, other such trade-oriented classes). However, calculus and basic programming certainly shouldn't be required of every high school student. It is a nice idea, but not everyone needs those courses. My biggest regret from high school: not taking more "real world" classes. They were actively discouraged by our so-called 'guidance counselors' for students on the college-track, saying that colleges were less likely to accept high-school students who took these classes. Reason:
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Captainkidd
Posts: 594
Incept: 2010-05-25
Pasadena, Texas
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NCLB, Mainstreaming students, and non English speaking students in every class room has lowered the education standard to the lowest possible common denominator.
As GEN preaches here on this very blog seemingly daily, it's no harder than 3rd grade math. We all know how to figure out the percentage of of answers to a quiz, assignment, test or exam that were right, and whether the resultant grade is passing or not. If not, then the student should not pass.
If you have kids in High School, read an essay, report, or research paper that they are working on (assuming they are assigned something like this. It is rare). If your kids can write as well as you could in High School, or as well as you were expected to, they are the exceptions. I have gone back and taken some classes that were required for work, and worked in team environments with some of these 18-25 year olds and their writing skills are simply atrocious. I would have been afraid to turn in the work they do when I was a freshman in High School, let alone in a college level class. But they do, and they get good grades.
In high school (Elementary and Jr. High, too for that matter) If student(s) cannot stay up with the cirriculum, the class should not slow down, the student should be held back, or moved to a class that moves slower. Not everyone can do it all, and that must be recognized.
Every time I think of it, I am reminded of the first time I read "The Goal." In the book, while on a Cub Scout Hike, the main character reaches an epiphany that if he puts the slow fat kid at the head of the line, the rest of the scouts don't spread out and become unmanagable, and he doesn't lose kids. So, he allows the slowest fat kid in the organization to dictate the speed at which the entire organization goes.
It makes sense on a production line when you have dollars tied up in inventory and in labor for which you cannot reclaim your value until the slowest operation is completed, but in education???
Sound familiar?
I guess that It has been adapted to education.
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A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns. --Mario Puzo
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. -- Henry Ford
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Mannfm11
Posts: 3545
Incept: 2009-02-28
DFW, Tx
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There is no reason prices should have gone up 80% save for the fact they are gouging prices. Anyone who has been to an established university will know most of the buildings were built years ago. This means those that are working there are stuffing the money in their pockets care of the racketeering government programs set up. I bet the previous 10 years was up about as much. Tuition has increased around 1500% since I got out in 1978. The CPI is up about 400%. Do the math, as measured by the CPI we are talking a 375% real gain. I believe my degree would have earned around $21,000 a year when I got out. I doubt at any time in the last 10 years (I studied finance, so the degree should have been hot with all the banking) the typical BBA would have started at over $75,000 to $80,000 unless I knew someone blowing someone at Goldman.
The problem is the public education system has kept marching at near the same speed. It probably lag a little because they do have to keep taxes down. One more group of criminals organized through the government.
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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.---John Kenneth Galbraith
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Medicdan
Posts: 8020
Incept: 2010-02-11
Scottsdale, AZ
Online
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Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought? Really? Please... please tell me this has something to do with marketing and finding a target audience.
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