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Well, that's just your perception!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Well, that's just your perception!

Well played sir, well played.

My daughter recently graduated college. She received a merit scholarship that paid about half her tuition, the rest was me and student loans.

I raised her on my own and hadn't set much aside for college. The cost was more than $65k a year all in. While I could cover that, it would have been a stretch. The fact I didn't have to meant I received financial relief after an extended period of extreme parenting, for which I am grateful.

I understand the perspective that deserving students are losing seats to the rich. The other side to this argument is money for scholarships needs to come from somewhere. Not every school has a huge endowment and not every deserving student can afford to be there. I'm not sure donors would be as generous with colleges that denied admission to their kids. An inability to fundraise means higher expenses to students over time, which puts more deserving students at a further disadvantage.

Honestly, if colleges want to admit a few kids each year based on wealth, I would be okay with that so long as it's not going into the pocket of a crooked coach. I'd say it would be better to encourage this practice and be open around where the money is going specifically to avoid wealthy parents pursuing alternate forms of admissions.

Just my $0.02 cents. Feel free to continue to pillory.

 techsoldaten wrote:
My daughter recently graduated college. She received a merit scholarship that paid about half her tuition, the rest was me and student loans.

I raised her on my own and hadn't set much aside for college. The cost was more than $65k a year all in. While I could cover that, it would have been a stretch. The fact I didn't have to meant I received financial relief after an extended period of extreme parenting, for which I am grateful.

I understand the perspective that deserving students are losing seats to the rich. The other side to this argument is money for scholarships needs to come from somewhere. Not every school has a huge endowment and not every deserving student can afford to be there. I'm not sure donors would be as generous with colleges that denied admission to their kids. An inability to fundraise means higher expenses to students over time, which puts more deserving students at a further disadvantage.

Honestly, if colleges want to admit a few kids each year based on wealth, I would be okay with that so long as it's not going into the pocket of a crooked coach. I'd say it would be better to encourage this practice and be open around where the money is going specifically to avoid wealthy parents pursuing alternate forms of admissions.

Just my $0.02 cents. Feel free to continue to pillory.

While that is true, in this case, very little money actually went to the school, it went to people who could get them into schools under the table, like coaches being paid to lie about athletic ability or in one case paying doubles to take SAT.
My personal opinion is that schools are mostly there to get students in and out. They rely on students like me, I went in, did my classes and leave. They essentially got nothing from me.
Im personally lucky to have fallen into a career, but most are not.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


I had the interesting experience in that for a short period of time Dad and I were going to the same school, and even took the same philosophy professor (at different times during the day). When the professor brought up an argument that there is no reality, just perception, Dad sparked up and asked is he picked up the desk and hit him over the head with it, it wouldn't be real? Dad offered to test the theory. The prof asked me later and I reminded him Dad was in Korea, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was a former DI. Yes he absolutely would have...

See, I always wonder - do people think this kind of story makes them look good? Like "hurr hurr, them snotty inturlekshooals made an argument I dunt like, so I said I'd smash 'em inna conkers!" doesn't make the professor look like the bad buy, at least to anyone sane.

No. It means arguing sillingness to people who have seen things is stupid (well plus Dad was a bit crazy). The Wife had the same problem in her masters in social work. You had professors who never worked in the field that would say ivory tower nonsense to their students, when a third of the students had been in the industry and would call them on their bs.

Thats why I liked night classes the best. These were part timers teaching the classes who actually worked in the field and didn't spiel nonsense.

Yeah the thing is, there's a pretty wide gulf between "calling someone on their BS" and "threatening to stove someone's head in with a desk because you don't like what they're saying". A smug professor without practical experience(a quality that isn't actually *necessary* to be correct in your assertions, assuming you've actually taken the time to grasp the subject) is someone I'd choose not to socialise with. A person who's first reaction to a mild disagreement with a smug professor is to threaten violence is someone I'd call the police to have sectioned. Yet constantly, the former is presented as deserving whatever they get, and the latter are presented as borderline folk heroes, it's mental.

 techsoldaten wrote:
My daughter recently graduated college. She received a merit scholarship that paid about half her tuition, the rest was me and student loans.

I raised her on my own and hadn't set much aside for college. The cost was more than $65k a year all in. While I could cover that, it would have been a stretch. The fact I didn't have to meant I received financial relief after an extended period of extreme parenting, for which I am grateful.

I understand the perspective that deserving students are losing seats to the rich. The other side to this argument is money for scholarships needs to come from somewhere. Not every school has a huge endowment and not every deserving student can afford to be there. I'm not sure donors would be as generous with colleges that denied admission to their kids. An inability to fundraise means higher expenses to students over time, which puts more deserving students at a further disadvantage.

Honestly, if colleges want to admit a few kids each year based on wealth, I would be okay with that so long as it's not going into the pocket of a crooked coach. I'd say it would be better to encourage this practice and be open around where the money is going specifically to avoid wealthy parents pursuing alternate forms of admissions.

Just my $0.02 cents. Feel free to continue to pillory.

Or, you know, you could just nix the whole nonsensical system and make higher education free at the point of use like a lot of other developed countries. Or at the very least, cap tuition at a sane level and offer every student a zero-interest loan that they only have to start paying back after their income rises beyond a reasonable threshold(say, the average salary obtained by graduates in that field).

Over here tuition is a few K a year, it's covered by the government, and if you're in a low-income situation you can even get a bursary to help cover your living expenses. That applies for both academic and practical qualifications. It's not a cheap policy by any means, but few worthwhile investments are cheap, and that's what free higher education is; an investment in your nation's economy and culture. It's not as great down in England & Wales where they do have tuition fees, but even then the situation is nowhere near as bad as America.

 Grey Templar wrote:

nfe wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


I had the interesting experience in that for a short period of time Dad and I were going to the same school, and even took the same philosophy professor (at different times during the day). When the professor brought up an argument that there is no reality, just perception, Dad sparked up and asked is he picked up the desk and hit him over the head with it, it wouldn't be real? Dad offered to test the theory. The prof asked me later and I reminded him Dad was in Korea, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was a former DI. Yes he absolutely would have...

See, I always wonder - do people think this kind of story makes them look good? Like "hurr hurr, them snotty inturlekshooals made an argument I dunt like, so I said I'd smash 'em inna conkers!" doesn't make the professor look like the bad buy, at least to anyone sane.

No. It means arguing sillingness to people who have seen things is stupid (well plus Dad was a bit crazy).

Why? Whether you think something is silly or not is irrelevant. Anyone reacting to well-established, and frequently-employed philosophical concepts, in a philosophy class no less, whether or not they personally think it's worthwhile or valid or nonsensical obfuscation, with 'I'll hit you with a thing hahaha' probably shouldn't be in education.

Thats a rather silly position to take just because you don't like someone's argument. And yes, it is a fairly valid counter point to the statement of "There is no reality, only perception". Its just been phrased is a direct and crude manner.

Philosophy, among other subjects, is rather stuffed full of nonsense like that statement. People who are too deep into it really need to be brought back to reality sometimes, and that really goes for all intellectuals.

First. Telling people that infantile, violent threats, tongue in cheek or not, are inappropriate for a classroom environment is entirely reasonable. He'd be out of my class immediately. Fortunately, I've never had someone behave in such a juvenile fashion in any of mine, though, and I've taught a lot of people who baulked at the material we were dealing with.

Second. It is not valid retort. The entire point is that we can only know that we percieve things - my being able to perceive injury to myself does not prove its reality. I don't think it's a very useful concept, but it is logically consistent.

Third. Your personal distaste for a subject, or your (or society's) belief that it is of no practical use or intellectual value, however well-grounded, does not mean that its practitioners need be 'brought back to reality', whatever that might mean.

The entire point is that we can only know that we percieve things - my being able to perceive injury to myself does not prove its reality. I don't think it's a very useful concept, but it is logically consistent.

It is useful, in that it makes you think about the difference between what is or isn't real, and what you perceive to be real. That's of vital importance when it comes to the power of eyewitness testimony in criminal trials, for example, or in the treatment and understanding of mental illness or in accident investigation.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Or, you know, you could just nix the whole nonsensical system and make higher education free at the point of use like a lot of other developed countries.

It's very hard to discuss this topic without dipping your toe into the amorphous blob we're defining as "politics". This is going to be another good test for the Dakka Politics Ban - the idea that anything that is even a whiff of touching a government service, action, or policy is now lockable arguably isn't what the original ban intended, I don't think, and now is resulting in unintended consequences like the cthulhu sourcebooks being burned getting locked. So if this gets locked, I'm not aiming for it, but there are themes in this topic that are inherently third-rail as we're apparently now defining it.

Unless it's a private college, colleges in the US are government institutions and even the private colleges are heavily impacted by government policy. One of the big arguments is that the reason tuition has become outlandish in the US is that we guarantee student loans to every single person, which gives colleges an incentive to steadily increase tuition rates. You can get scholarships of course, but most people don't get free rides unless they're also star athletes. So, you're probably going to need student loans. This is bad for a lot of reasons, I think - coupled with the current emphasis we have on needing a degree even for jobs that really don't require one results in a lot of debt slavery for giant chunks of the lives of US citizens. If you're old, please don't say "in my day, I just worked part time to pay for tuition and didn't pay any loans", yes Old Economy Steve, we know, but in your day a full time job also meant raising a family, comfortable home ownership and retiring on a pension.

There are interlocking problems here. One thing would be an expansion of student loan forgiveness programs for people who take specific jobs - for example, if you're a teacher and you work in a poor or underserved community for X long, you are eligible to have your student loans forgiven. In reality, this program doesn't work at all because it's almost impossible to discharge those loans even if you do everything right. Another thing is the aforementioned tuition inflation due to the availability of guaranteed student loans. Move them back to private institutions like banks? Doesn't fix anything as long as they are guaranteed, and increases debt slavery. Make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy again? Fixes the lifetime debt slavery, but now loan will be impossible to get (or the government gets soaked). Institute higher leaning like they have in the UK? Sure it works in a ton of countries, but in the US, it's sooocialism. Reduce the emphasis on getting a degree for literally any entry level job? Sounds great, no idea how to make it happen. Increase the emphasis on trade schools? Same, sounds great, how does it happen?

None of these problems are going to be addressed because there is a perception that campuses are politically biased, so one side of our intensely tribal political structure is strongly disincentivized to do anything that will directly benefit the other side /Shrug

The NYT has a nice piece up that goes counter to the pretense that "parents did it for their kids, so who can blame them really" - that these kinds of parents are really sending their kids to prestigious, expensive schools they don't really need to attend so they can enhance their own brand.. As an instagram influencer (gag), what need do these kids have for a degree of any kind, let alone one from Harvard?

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

The entire point is that we can only know that we percieve things - my being able to perceive injury to myself does not prove its reality. I don't think it's a very useful concept, but it is logically consistent.

It is useful, in that it makes you think about the difference between what is or isn't real, and what you perceive to be real. That's of vital importance when it comes to the power of eyewitness testimony in criminal trials, for example, or in the treatment and understanding of mental illness or in accident investigation.

That's fair, though I do think the posters calling it nonsense are erring more towards the purest, and furthest extents, of thought experiment applications of the concept.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Ultimately, doesn't almost everyone in the US buy their way into college?

In the sense that we usually pay tuition, yes.

But not in the sense that our parents bribed their way past the admission process.

Yes, but isn't ones ability to pay said tuition a big indicator of if you will get "accepted" or not. If you can;t pay, you probably aren't getting in.... with a few scholarship exceptions.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
My daughter recently graduated college. She received a merit scholarship that paid about half her tuition, the rest was me and student loans.

I raised her on my own and hadn't set much aside for college. The cost was more than $65k a year all in. While I could cover that, it would have been a stretch. The fact I didn't have to meant I received financial relief after an extended period of extreme parenting, for which I am grateful.

I understand the perspective that deserving students are losing seats to the rich. The other side to this argument is money for scholarships needs to come from somewhere. Not every school has a huge endowment and not every deserving student can afford to be there. I'm not sure donors would be as generous with colleges that denied admission to their kids. An inability to fundraise means higher expenses to students over time, which puts more deserving students at a further disadvantage.

Honestly, if colleges want to admit a few kids each year based on wealth, I would be okay with that so long as it's not going into the pocket of a crooked coach. I'd say it would be better to encourage this practice and be open around where the money is going specifically to avoid wealthy parents pursuing alternate forms of admissions.

Just my $0.02 cents. Feel free to continue to pillory.

Or, you know, you could just nix the whole nonsensical system and make higher education free at the point of use like a lot of other developed countries. Or at the very least, cap tuition at a sane level and offer every student a zero-interest loan that they only have to start paying back after their income rises beyond a reasonable threshold(say, the average salary obtained by graduates in that field).

Over here tuition is a few K a year, it's covered by the government, and if you're in a low-income situation you can even get a bursary to help cover your living expenses. That applies for both academic and practical qualifications. It's not a cheap policy by any means, but few worthwhile investments are cheap, and that's what free higher education is; an investment in your nation's economy and culture. It's not as great down in England & Wales where they do have tuition fees, but even then the situation is nowhere near as bad as America.

Yeah. I feel you.

A big part of the reason US higher ed is so expensive has to do with student loan system. The availability of low-cost, high availability loans from the government combined with private lenders has created conditions where colleges ask for a large tuition because the majority of students can qualify for the loans. Alongside this problem, state legislatures have been affected by declining tax revenues for funding higher education, this gave us a system where the cost of college is primarily absorbed by the student. There's also consumer preference at work, many people perceive the more expensive education is the superior one and there are good reasons to question that logic.

There are a lot of different ideas out there about how the system should be adjusted, it's not as simple as saying higher education should cost less / government should pay for it. Funding for primary and secondary schools in the US is a joke, there's been a big privatization effort throughout the US for the last 20 years that has left many (most?) school systems underfunded. It's hard to make the case for spending government dollars on college when we are doing so little for basic education. On the other hand, the simplest way to cut down on the cost of tuition would be to scale back the amount of federally-insured loan dollars available annually, which would leave out a lot of people who can't afford the deferred-interest that comes with private loans. Plus it would increase the debt of those who do qualify once they graduate.

There are a lot of other issues involved in reforming the 'system,' but the most basic metric is whether or not someone can find gainful employment based on what they learn in college. I see a lot of people graduating with degrees that don't match up with the demands of the job market and the way they are struggling. There's some introspection Universities themselves need to do around their curriculum and the overall cost of administrative staff, intra-institutional politics is an insane blood sport that doesn't really concern itself with post-graduate professional outcomes. This part of the problem is going to take a generation to solve, way too many entrenched interests and faculty taking activist positions.

 techsoldaten wrote:
There are a lot of other issues involved in reforming the 'system,' but the most basic metric is whether or not someone can find gainful employment based on what they learn in college. I see a lot of people graduating with degrees that don't match up with the demands of the job market and the way they are struggling. There's some introspection Universities themselves need to do around their curriculum and the overall cost of administrative staff, intra-institutional politics is an insane blood sport that doesn't really concern itself with post-graduate professional outcomes. This part of the problem is going to take a generation to solve, way too many entrenched interests and faculty taking activist positions.

I think there's a reverse side of the coin to this, and as said by one of my older white bearded professors from Freshman year;

"Getting a job was, and remains, an irrelevancy to the higher education system."

By that he was pointing out that up until about the 1950s, higher education systems had zero to do with getting people work. They were mostly about education in and of itself. Some fields required it (law, teaching, medicine, engineering), but part of the growing pain that I think has gone unnoticed is that in the past 200 years human societies have transitioned from a system in which the highly educated fulfilled specialized roles in society to all of society expecting people to be highly educated (at least to a general level). The university system was never designed or devised to be a gateway into employment in and of itself, but social expectations and the job market have turned in such a way that what people expect from universities slightly differs from what the self image of what universities want to achieve. People expect these systems to prepare people to enter the workforce, even though frankly most work doesn't require that level of education at all. We simply demand that young people "prove themselves" by spending tens of thousands of dollars to enter the workforce because socially we've come to associate education with a certain quality of character.

There's a catch-22 involved here for higher education. They're expected to make "proper adults" who know how to recite some boxed version of the liberal arts, and provide necessary skills to enter the work force except the former is irrelevant to the later, and the later at complete odds with the former.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

Get a pair of bootstraps, put them in place, pull hard and see how high you get off the ground.

Having your bootstraps pulled by others is the only way it works.

This makes it clear why some parties are all about the bootstraps...

Well if you're not smart enough to tie shoelaces and have to wear velcro straps on your shoes- you're probably going to spend most of your life using simple tools with no moving parts or sharp edges, just saying (this is a joke about the phrase, not you specifically).

Thus demonstrating you don't know what a bootstrap is.

A bootstrap is a device for putting on tight boots. It's basically a leather strap that goes around the bottom of the boot, to give you extra leverage while pulling on your boots. With the advent of lacings and zippers and yes, velcro, they have gone out of fashion.

As I said. Put on some boots, apply the bootstrap, stand up and pull. You go nowhere because you cannot pull yourself up in that manner.

No, becoming self-sufficient - or even wealthy - does not require taking from someone else. But it DOES requires skills and contacts a poor person is unlikely to have, especially as schools in poor neighborhoods get more and more marginalized. It doesn't matter how hard you pull, if you were never given the opportunity to learn you go nowhere.

As far as the rest of your post goes, I agree with a large amount of it. However, one must bear in mind that budgeting is a skill like any other. Again, if one is never taught that skill...

It starts with education, and equal education for all. Not 'all the best for the richest and only a token effort for the poor'. PUBLIC education, not privatized; privatized only helps the rich at the expense of the poor.

For what America spends on education we should be the best in the world. We're not, of course, not even close. Our teacher pay lags behind that of many other nations that spend less per student. Why? Where does the money go? It's clearly not going to the teachers, nor is it going toward resources for the classroom. Given the age and condition of many school buildings it's not going there either.

Where is the money going then? THAT is the immediate problem, I think...

 Vulcan wrote:
Where is the money going then? THAT is the immediate problem, I think...

Mostly overpaid upper admins who have "ideas" on how to fix education that never work who get fired when their ideas backfire and replaced with someone else who has new "ideas."

And sports programs, which in all honesty, should be completely disconnected from the education system imo.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Where is the money going then? THAT is the immediate problem, I think...

Mostly overpaid upper admins who have "ideas" on how to fix education that never work who get fired when their ideas backfire and replaced with someone else who has new "ideas."

And sports programs, which in all honesty, should be completely disconnected from the education system imo.

Highly likely, I imagine. It's something that needs looking into, that's for certain.

As far as the sports programs go... that would be my ideal position too. But I've seen some sources recently that show the sports programs, as expensive as they are, actually generate net income for the school. If the sports program does actually generate a revenue stream that is used for something beyond the sports and phys-ed program... is that not a good thing?

 LordofHats wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
There are a lot of other issues involved in reforming the 'system,' but the most basic metric is whether or not someone can find gainful employment based on what they learn in college. I see a lot of people graduating with degrees that don't match up with the demands of the job market and the way they are struggling. There's some introspection Universities themselves need to do around their curriculum and the overall cost of administrative staff, intra-institutional politics is an insane blood sport that doesn't really concern itself with post-graduate professional outcomes. This part of the problem is going to take a generation to solve, way too many entrenched interests and faculty taking activist positions.

I think there's a reverse side of the coin to this, and as said by one of my older white bearded professors from Freshman year;

"Getting a job was, and remains, an irrelevancy to the higher education system."

YES.

Understanding what university education has been for almost a thousand years (and what almost all education has been for several millennia) would really solve many of its issues. It's the very modern perception that education is meant to make you employable that leads to the commercialisation of universities, league tables, competition and so on and the consequent impacts that has on the costs of attending, the desperation of some parents to get their kids in, the nepotism that is embedded in attendance of some institutions, the mental health problems inherent in the stress it places on students applying etc.

nfe wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
There are a lot of other issues involved in reforming the 'system,' but the most basic metric is whether or not someone can find gainful employment based on what they learn in college. I see a lot of people graduating with degrees that don't match up with the demands of the job market and the way they are struggling. There's some introspection Universities themselves need to do around their curriculum and the overall cost of administrative staff, intra-institutional politics is an insane blood sport that doesn't really concern itself with post-graduate professional outcomes. This part of the problem is going to take a generation to solve, way too many entrenched interests and faculty taking activist positions.

I think there's a reverse side of the coin to this, and as said by one of my older white bearded professors from Freshman year;

"Getting a job was, and remains, an irrelevancy to the higher education system."

YES.

Understanding what university education has been for almost a thousand years (and what almost all education has been for several millennia) would really solve many of its issues. It's the very modern perception that education is meant to make you employable that leads to the commercialisation of universities, league tables, competition and so on and the consequent impacts that has on the costs of attending, the desperation of some parents to get their kids in, the nepotism that is embedded in attendance of some institutions, the mental health problems inherent in the stress it places on students applying etc.

On the flipside, if you take that away, 90% of the existing colleges will be out of business within two years...

 Frazzled wrote:

nfe wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
There are a lot of other issues involved in reforming the 'system,' but the most basic metric is whether or not someone can find gainful employment based on what they learn in college. I see a lot of people graduating with degrees that don't match up with the demands of the job market and the way they are struggling. There's some introspection Universities themselves need to do around their curriculum and the overall cost of administrative staff, intra-institutional politics is an insane blood sport that doesn't really concern itself with post-graduate professional outcomes. This part of the problem is going to take a generation to solve, way too many entrenched interests and faculty taking activist positions.

I think there's a reverse side of the coin to this, and as said by one of my older white bearded professors from Freshman year;

"Getting a job was, and remains, an irrelevancy to the higher education system."

YES.

Understanding what university education has been for almost a thousand years (and what almost all education has been for several millennia) would really solve many of its issues. It's the very modern perception that education is meant to make you employable that leads to the commercialisation of universities, league tables, competition and so on and the consequent impacts that has on the costs of attending, the desperation of some parents to get their kids in, the nepotism that is embedded in attendance of some institutions, the mental health problems inherent in the stress it places on students applying etc.

On the flipside, if you take that away, 90% of the existing colleges will be out of business within two years...

The degree conveyer belt institutions would shut - a good thing - but institutions actually conducting research-centred teaching would be fine. They wouldn't be generating monstrous income to funnel into high level administration any more but I'm pretty indifferent to that.

They would try to punish those of us doing the teaching a bit more, tightening wages further, but on the other hand they wouldn't still expect us to basically do double our hours for free to meet the expectations of students that feel they're buying themselves a future job, so in real hourly rates we'd probably come out on top.

nfe wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

nfe wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
There are a lot of other issues involved in reforming the 'system,' but the most basic metric is whether or not someone can find gainful employment based on what they learn in college. I see a lot of people graduating with degrees that don't match up with the demands of the job market and the way they are struggling. There's some introspection Universities themselves need to do around their curriculum and the overall cost of administrative staff, intra-institutional politics is an insane blood sport that doesn't really concern itself with post-graduate professional outcomes. This part of the problem is going to take a generation to solve, way too many entrenched interests and faculty taking activist positions.

I think there's a reverse side of the coin to this, and as said by one of my older white bearded professors from Freshman year;

"Getting a job was, and remains, an irrelevancy to the higher education system."

YES.

Understanding what university education has been for almost a thousand years (and what almost all education has been for several millennia) would really solve many of its issues. It's the very modern perception that education is meant to make you employable that leads to the commercialisation of universities, league tables, competition and so on and the consequent impacts that has on the costs of attending, the desperation of some parents to get their kids in, the nepotism that is embedded in attendance of some institutions, the mental health problems inherent in the stress it places on students applying etc.

On the flipside, if you take that away, 90% of the existing colleges will be out of business within two years...

The degree conveyer belt institutions would shut - a good thing - but institutions actually conducting research-centred teaching would be fine. They wouldn't be generating monstrous income to funnel into high level administration any more but I'm pretty indifferent to that.

They would try to punish those of us doing the teaching a bit more, tightening wages further, but on the other hand they wouldn't still expect us to basically do double our hours for free to meet the expectations of students that feel they're buying themselves a future job, so in real hourly rates we'd probably come out on top.

Why do you think that? You're effectively arguing a reversion to 19th century educational levels no? Mayhaps I am misperceiving your statement. Can you clarify?

EDIT: This is why humanities are in crisis. Students have moved away from pursuing them for gainful employment.

 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Where is the money going then? THAT is the immediate problem, I think...

Mostly overpaid upper admins who have "ideas" on how to fix education that never work who get fired when their ideas backfire and replaced with someone else who has new "ideas."

And sports programs, which in all honesty, should be completely disconnected from the education system imo.

Highly likely, I imagine. It's something that needs looking into, that's for certain.

As far as the sports programs go... that would be my ideal position too. But I've seen some sources recently that show the sports programs, as expensive as they are, actually generate net income for the school. If the sports program does actually generate a revenue stream that is used for something beyond the sports and phys-ed program... is that not a good thing?

Is it? Is a system where the coach is the highest paid employee in the college and the young men and women going to school ostensibly for an education are actually part of a second-rate, exploitative NBA\NFL\what have you?

I'm with LordofHats on this one.

My point, just to be clear, isn't that universities shouldn't change, but rather that society at large and higher education need to get on the same damn page about what's supposed to being going on at these institutions and how their services can and should fit in with the broader world. There's a complete contradiction at present imo with what universities and socities want and try to achieve through one another.

And as for sports programs, yes they often are net income generators. Unfortunately, that net income generally just goes right back into sports.

Education should be about education. It should not be the education system's responsibility to babysit your kids with after school activities parents and communities are absolutely capable of funding and organizing independent of schooling. We don't even need to get rid of sports scholarships, just separate the sports infrastructure from education. Schools should be about schooling, not who is going to beat who in the present round of athletic competition.

 LordofHats wrote:
My point, just to be clear, isn't that universities shouldn't change, but rather that society at large and higher education need to get on the same damn page about what's supposed to being going on at these institutions and how their services can and should fit in with the broader world. There's a complete contradiction at present imo with what universities and socities want and try to achieve through one another.

.

Sure, as a parent I paid (am paying BIG bucks) so that they can become educated with the skills necessary to be successful in their chosen careers. I don't rate universities higher than welding school, just different.

Yup. Absolutely.

Our world would literally crumble without builders. Our homes wouldn’t have running water or central heating without plumbers. Remove electricians from the same equation, and it’s back to living in caves, more or less.

Farmers, whether crops or beefs/porks are also essential

Weavers, seamstresses or just sewing machine operators. How d’you like your clothes, eh?

Them and all the hundreds of little jobs that keep us as a civilisation ticking over are arguably more essential that Doctors, Politicians and Lawyers. Nurses? Why aren’t they paid anywhere near as well as Doctors? They’re often the poor sod doing the actual dirty work

Yes automation is coming. But that can only do so much. I know my job is safe, as it’s all about judgement, and finding a fair outcome. A lawyer can be replaced. An Investigator cannot.

Something I particularly hate is the concept that some work should be low paid. Such as Burger Flippers, Street Cleaners, Shop Workers. Whilst I get that other jobs require more, that should only mean those jobs are better paid.

One of the greatest shames in the U.K. is the concept of working benefits. Government handouts to those working full time, yet still cannot make ends meet. What is that, if not the abject failure of capitalism? Especially when you see major corporations looking at their balance sheet, and deciding to cut jobs because they only made say, £90,000,000.00 in profit...as if that’s somehow a failure and a sign of a company on the Rocks.

Sorry. My socialism is showing. I apologise not for my leanings, but me ranting. Don’t want to get the thread closed because politics!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup. Absolutely.

Our world would literally crumble without builders. Our homes wouldn’t have running water or central heating without plumbers. Remove electricians from the same equation, and it’s back to living in caves, more or less.

Farmers, whether crops or beefs/porks are also essential

Weavers, seamstresses or just sewing machine operators. How d’you like your clothes, eh?

Them and all the hundreds of little jobs that keep us as a civilisation ticking over are arguably more essential that Doctors, Politicians and Lawyers. Nurses? Why aren’t they paid anywhere near as well as Doctors? They’re often the poor sod doing the actual dirty work

Yes automation is coming. But that can only do so much. I know my job is safe, as it’s all about judgement, and finding a fair outcome. A lawyer can be replaced. An Investigator cannot.

Something I particularly hate is the concept that some work should be low paid. Such as Burger Flippers, Street Cleaners, Shop Workers. Whilst I get that other jobs require more, that should only mean those jobs are better paid.

One of the greatest shames in the U.K. is the concept of working benefits. Government handouts to those working full time, yet still cannot make ends meet. What is that, if not the abject failure of capitalism? Especially when you see major corporations looking at their balance sheet, and deciding to cut jobs because they only made say, £90,000,000.00 in profit...as if that’s somehow a failure and a sign of a company on the Rocks.

Sorry. My socialism is showing. I apologise not for my leanings, but me ranting. Don’t want to get the thread closed because politics!

Rant on brother! But we should probably move tback to the education issue as thats moving to politics.

 Ouze wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Where is the money going then? THAT is the immediate problem, I think...

Mostly overpaid upper admins who have "ideas" on how to fix education that never work who get fired when their ideas backfire and replaced with someone else who has new "ideas."

And sports programs, which in all honesty, should be completely disconnected from the education system imo.

Highly likely, I imagine. It's something that needs looking into, that's for certain.

As far as the sports programs go... that would be my ideal position too. But I've seen some sources recently that show the sports programs, as expensive as they are, actually generate net income for the school. If the sports program does actually generate a revenue stream that is used for something beyond the sports and phys-ed program... is that not a good thing?

Is it? Is a system where the coach is the highest paid employee in the college and the young men and women going to school ostensibly for an education are actually part of a second-rate, exploitative NBA\NFL\what have you?

I'm with LordofHats on this one.

Players should be paid salaries imo. If they are making the school money, they should make money. Not this "Oh, we are giving them a scholarship and a good education" crap. No, those guys are out there working, they deserve to be paid. I am really tired of this "something for nothing" mentality that was set up by previous generations. Interns should be paid living wages. School Athletes should be paid living wages. Not tokens, not scholarships, not free swag or whatever. Cash in hand. Schools make more than enough off their sports programs to do that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup. Absolutely.

Our world would literally crumble without builders. Our homes wouldn’t have running water or central heating without plumbers. Remove electricians from the same equation, and it’s back to living in caves, more or less.

Farmers, whether crops or beefs/porks are also essential

Weavers, seamstresses or just sewing machine operators. How d’you like your clothes, eh?

Them and all the hundreds of little jobs that keep us as a civilisation ticking over are arguably more essential that Doctors, Politicians and Lawyers. Nurses? Why aren’t they paid anywhere near as well as Doctors? They’re often the poor sod doing the actual dirty work

Yes automation is coming. But that can only do so much. I know my job is safe, as it’s all about judgement, and finding a fair outcome. A lawyer can be replaced. An Investigator cannot.

Something I particularly hate is the concept that some work should be low paid. Such as Burger Flippers, Street Cleaners, Shop Workers. Whilst I get that other jobs require more, that should only mean those jobs are better paid.

One of the greatest shames in the U.K. is the concept of working benefits. Government handouts to those working full time, yet still cannot make ends meet. What is that, if not the abject failure of capitalism? Especially when you see major corporations looking at their balance sheet, and deciding to cut jobs because they only made say, £90,000,000.00 in profit...as if that’s somehow a failure and a sign of a company on the Rocks.

Sorry. My socialism is showing. I apologise not for my leanings, but me ranting. Don’t want to get the thread closed because politics!

Well technically you don't need socialism for that, you just need propperly implemented social policy.

But same difference really, you can't even utter such ideas sometimes without beeing called a stalinist or vice versa a faschi (or if you happen to speak german a nutzi).
I blame the social media for that one, since fringe elements have gotten in essence a huge megaphone and now everyone is panicking.

As for education, i belive two things need to happen atleast for "higher" education :

First: equality of chance needs to be reestablished as good as possible, that means away with affirmative action and buyable slots for students. ( basically all need to meet the requirements due to their own strength, i am however not against things like stipendia or cheap loans in order to get people from lower levels of society in universities.)

Secondly: the Bologna Credit system needs to die, atleast for social studies like Philosophy. I have seen students get a degree in Philosophy on the back on 6 small irrelevant paper yet they couldn't even argue dualistic positions.

Can we not bring up Affirmative Action? It really is a small percentage compared to the slots for athletes, the rich, and legacies in colleges.

 AdeptSister wrote:
Can we not bring up Affirmative Action? It really is a small percentage compared to the slots for athletes, the rich, and legacies in colleges.

Actually i meant the concept as a whole, not the Programm.
Due to conflicts in regard to meritocratic Basis.

 AdeptSister wrote:
Can we not bring up Affirmative Action? It really is a small percentage compared to the slots for athletes, the rich, and legacies in colleges.

And, more importantly, it exists to offset existing prejudice and bring admissions more in line with what a truly merit-based system would produce rather than special privileges given to people who don't deserve them and couldn't otherwise get in.

I edited my previous point to further explain what i meant.