The next bubble to burst... higher education

[rudder]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...r_education_bubble_ready_to_burst_107029.html

Now I enjoyed analyzing the meaning of ozymandias in English lit. I enjoyed art class. But really.. I could have done those on my own and appreciated them just as much. I went to school to become a professional pilot. I spread out at most 2 years of learning over 4 years. For much of the time I was teaching people how to fly.. and I learned more doing that than sitting in class... and I got paid. But I still had to have x number of credits to graduate.

I think a lot of schools have gotten fat off government money.... inflating prices and creating this bubble. My alma mater has a now recreation center that rivals any in the nation. The professors make very handsome salaries... even the ones without tenure.

There was a time when you actually had to study to take a high school exit exam. getting that piece of paper meant something. Now it is just that... a piece of paper. In some fields (like being a pilot for example)... the college degree is just a requirement for hiring. It does not matter what the degree is in. I guess it is meant to show a level of maturity... but they did not realize I enjoyed the weekly parties up until graduation..

Do you think everyone is entitled to college?

 

[Infohawk]

Modern American universities are just fancy country-club / camps. Most of what goes on around a given campus has little to do with learning and mostly to do with socializing or unrelated activities like sports. Education would be much cheaper if we focused on learning.

With that said, many people don't need to go to college or don't really have what it takes to be in a job that requires a degree, even if they can get one from a diploma mill. We need to stop telling everyone that they should go to college or that they should get advanced degrees. Odds are if you're a good student in high school (which is hard to tell these days due to grade inflation) you will want to go to college. And if you have specific career goals or love learning in college, you will get an advanced degree. We certainly don't need to subsidize people to get English degrees.

 

[Genx87]

This and healthcare. Anybody surprised an industry riding on the back of govt money is set to implode?

 

[Daedalus685]

I believe that everyone is entitled to the chance of college and given sufficient merit (academic skill and so on) finances shoudl not be a limiting factor.

That being said, there are many skills that "lesser" educated folks can excel in (such as any trade) that I am simply entirely inept at. That these skills are deemed so unworthy in our society is troubling.

Knowledge of the whole is better for all of us in the long run.. but degrading it by allowing those who should not be there complete it by way of watering it down and turning the whole thing into some sort of money making degree printing shop is very depressing.

All that aside... the kind of intelligence that current schooling fosters best is not always the kind that is most useful to any given job... there is no shortage of 90+ grads that cannot function in a demanding work force... and no shortage of drop outs/barely made its that excel. I suppose all systems have outliers, but it seems ours has a lot.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I agree. I think it's great that people get a well-rounded education but the fact of the matter is, to take the OP as an example, you don't need to be able to do entry level accounting in order to pilot an airplane.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Isn't this why vocational schools exist? Universities ostensibly exist to produce the next generation of thinkers. You take a litany of breadth classes to fill in the rough spots your major does not cover, and to open new possibilities of investigation you may not have though of had you never been exposed to them.

If your profession requires a Bachelors and won't accept an associates degree, then there is something wrong with the professional standard, not the school system.

 

[BoomerD]

"Degree inflation" is a problem in many fields.

Why the hell do companies require a BA/BS in accounting for simple jobs like accounting clerk or bookkeeper?

Many jobs with the State of Kahleeforneeya require a Bachelor's degree...although it doesn't have to be in any particular field....you just have to have a degree to be considered, even though the job shouldn't require any actual degree. (how about EDD employee? )

I'm seeing more and more dispatcher jobs requiring a Bachelor's degree as well.

 

[nonlnear]

I don't think higher ed is going to collapse all that quickly. Quality certainly is deteriorating steadily (which is why I'm bailing out after finishing a postdoc) but I'd give it one or two decades before we start seeing a dramatic "burst". It is still in the phase of massive government over-investment. You'll have to wait for the stream of dollars to falter a bit before the instabilities start having catastrophic effects.

 

[piasabird]

You dont need a degree to do some light typing to fill our forms on computers and then answer the phone if it rings (Assuming they let you answer phones). The average 8th grader in junior high can handle that. Anything that it use to take intelligence to figure out now has a computer program that does the same thing.

So this year the federal government took over all the school loans. So now if a bunch of students strart dropping out, that means you will have to pay for it! This is what O'Bammah calles hope and change. The government steals all of your hope and you are left with a handful of change that use to be your life savings.

 

[BigDH01]

You dont need a degree to do some light typing to fill our forms on computers and then answer the phone if it rings (Assuming they let you answer phones). The average 8th grader in junior high can handle that. Anything that it use to take intelligence to figure out now has a computer program that does the same thing.

You don't need a degree for it, but you'll probably not have a job doing these things due to automation and outsourcing. So you can be unemployed or go to school.

So this year the federal government took over all the school loans. So now if a bunch of students strart dropping out, that means you will have to pay for it! This is what O'Bammah calles hope and change. The government steals all of your hope and you are left with a handful of change that use to be your life savings.

It's going to be like this for the foreseeable future and was like this even before Obama was president. You can't simultaneously tell a nation that the key to its economic success and survival hinges on learning new skills and that going to university to learn new skills won't yield work, or at least not work that justifies the expense of going to school. If you do, you kill the illusion.

 

[IGBT]

that's why pre employment drug/alcohol tests are done. filter out the drunks and druggies.

 

[Infohawk]

If you do, you kill the illusion.

Educators and the government should probably kill the illusion that advanced education is the answer for everyone.

But there's a difference between training and education. As many people's experience will tell you, most work-related learning occurs on the job, not in a classroom. I believe Europe has a more robust system of internships and training systems, especially for less skilled workers. This is different than people paying tens of thousands of dollars to pretend to learn about marketing or English.

 

[Ns1]

that's why pre employment drug/alcohol tests are done. filter out the drunks and druggies.

the funny part of this statement is none of my white collar friends have gotten drug tested in the past 3 years

 

[HumblePie]

that's why pre employment drug/alcohol tests are done. filter out the drunks and druggies.

Yep, ask Heller about that one


On the original OP note. This is something I've been saying and known for years. It is also one of the major factors ruining our economy in my opinion.

 

[theevilsharpie]

Why the hell do companies require a BA/BS in accounting for simple jobs like accounting clerk or bookkeeper?

Because employers get hundreds of job applications for professional-level positions. Employers can't possibly interview that many people, far too many people embellish their resumes, and hiring the wrong person can be very expensive. Consequently, some type of screening tool is needed to narrow the applicant pool to only those that are the most likely to be qualified for the position.

In the recent past, companies gave potential candidates IQ tests and other type of aptitude tests to get an idea of how they would perform on the job. However, it quickly became obvious that a certain group of people that encountered institutionalized discrimination in the past tended to perform poorly on these tests compared to other groups. Rather than entertaining the possibility that these results may have, in fact, indicated an actual gap in ability, the group and it's supporters instead assumed it was yet more institutionalized discrimination, and successfully lobbied the EEOC to discourage the practice.

Since employers now have no easy way of determining the true ability of entry-level workers, they really have no choice but to rely on third-party certifications of aptitude. Although a college degree is certainly no guarantee that a particular candidate is capable of performing the job, college graduates are less likely to be complete fucktards than high-school dropouts, so many companies require it as a way of narrowing down the candidate pool to something manageable. This can exclude undiscovered talent, but those are the breaks.

Of course, if you already have industry experience and have made a name for yourself with successful projects, you can skip the degree requirements (even if they claim a degree is required) in all but the most bureaucratic organizations.

 

[ShawnD1]

"Degree inflation" is a problem in many fields.

Why the hell do companies require a BA/BS in accounting for simple jobs like accounting clerk or bookkeeper?

Many jobs with the State of Kahleeforneeya require a Bachelor's degree...although it doesn't have to be in any particular field....you just have to have a degree to be considered, even though the job shouldn't require any actual degree. (how about EDD employee? )

I'm seeing more and more dispatcher jobs requiring a Bachelor's degree as well.

This situation is fucked. Both my dad and my engineering design instructor have said that they would never get their current jobs if they applied for them today. My best teacher wasnt even an engineer, he was a journeyman electrician with no engineering education, but he just knew a ton of stuff about good design since electricians are the people installing it. He explained bad design by telling us horror stories about bullshit things he had to install.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Is it true that American students are forced to spend a year or more studying bullshit liberal arts subjects like American history, aesthetics, African American studies, etc? I have heard you all need a certain number of credits in subjects totally unrelated to your major, is this true?

Don't get me wrong, like anyone I recognize the American higher education system as the envy of the world, but this seems really odd to me.

 

[woolfe9999]

Why is higher education a "bubble" that is going to "burst?" So far as I can discern from reading these posts, it's purportedly because government money (which of course corrupts everything it touches) flows into our universities. The money will stop flowing because of government debt, and then, what? You guys are saying that our higher education already sucks (with no objective facts to back it up.) Will the absence of corrupting government money make it worse? Is there a coherent theory here, aside from the opinion that 1. universities suck because they get government money, and everything to do with the government = bad, and 2. higher education sucks because learning things that don't apply to your job is a waste of time. How do those rather interesting opinions amount to a "bursting bubble?"

I am beginning to wonder if literally everything on the planet is a "bubble" now that will soon "burst." Do we ever get tired of spouting the same damn cliches on a daily basis?

- wolf

 

[Hacp]

Is it true that American students are forced to spend a year or more studying bullshit liberal arts subjects like American history, aesthetics, African American studies, etc? I have heard you all need a certain number of credits in subjects totally unrelated to your major, is this true?

Don't get me wrong, like anyone I recognize the American higher education system as the envy of the world, but this seems really odd to me.

Whats wrong with African American Studies? Don't be hatin on my brothers Dawg.

But really, education is going to soon burst. There are about 20 colleges in the US that justify 40k+ a year tuition. NYU isn't one of them.There are only a handful of degrees that are useful in most colleges. Plus, they aren't even that useful. Most likely, the jobs that the degrees traditionally lead to have been outsourced.The only reason to get a degree is because every damn job requires one.

 

[Zebo]

Good read thanks. I really don't know where to point my kids. Prolly accounting since it's a good base for business/MBA type work but in reality it's frightening # of kids unemployed $80,000 later in some cases. We are headed for worse once .gov money runs out. Hate to think about it all.

 

[Zebo]

Modern American universities are just fancy country-club / camps. Most of what goes on around a given campus has little to do with learning and mostly to do with socializing or unrelated activities like sports. Education would be much cheaper if we focused on learning.

With that said, many people don't need to go to college or don't really have what it takes to be in a job that requires a degree, even if they can get one from a diploma mill. We need to stop telling everyone that they should go to college or that they should get advanced degrees. Odds are if you're a good student in high school (which is hard to tell these days due to grade inflation) you will want to go to college. And if you have specific career goals or love learning in college, you will get an advanced degree. We certainly don't need to subsidize people to get English degrees.

Depends on university. My school Calpoly was not..had senior project about like dissertation and you had to know your stuff.. you got grilled by professors in department. I know schools of mines was similar. I'm sure MIT is no slouch with profitable research they pump out. Probably thousands of good schools in reality. Wether they get a job is another matter with hollowing out Americas industrial and manufacturing might. You have more competition because people can't get good jobs straight out of HS so they go to college AND less jobs because the intellect has followed factories overseas. BAD COMBO.

Can't comment on liberal arts but we need that too. Art has always been very precarious win big lose big profession. English is good for law and just about anything dealing with communication. Anyway lets not make fun of our brothers and sisters on the left side of campus. Or they might laugh now.

 

[ShawnD1]

Is it true that American students are forced to spend a year or more studying bullshit liberal arts subjects like American history, aesthetics, African American studies, etc? I have heard you all need a certain number of credits in subjects totally unrelated to your major, is this true?

Don't get me wrong, like anyone I recognize the American higher education system as the envy of the world, but this seems really odd to me.

Canada is like this. My friend was getting a degree in chemistry but he still had to take bullshit classes like classics and roman history.

Another friend is a drama major. That means she does acting, singing, story writing, and she designs and construct sets. Even though she is a drama major, she was taking meteorology and astronomy to get the required science credits. Like wtf? Why would someone in drama need to know about stars and weather patterns??

 

[Zebo]

What's funny is they don't make liberal arts student take calc 1 or worse trig integration in calc 2 but we have to take their intro classes. Meh that's okay pads GPA

 

[Kirby]

Is it true that American students are forced to spend a year or more studying bullshit liberal arts subjects like American history, aesthetics, African American studies, etc? I have heard you all need a certain number of credits in subjects totally unrelated to your major, is this true?

Don't get me wrong, like anyone I recognize the American higher education system as the envy of the world, but this seems really odd to me.

CS major here, I had to take english, fine art, physics, another natural science, statistics, literature, social/behavioral science, and history. Some could be swapped out for language classes (I took German).

Some sucked, some were great, but it's still nice to have a break from the ECE, CS and math classes. Not to mention the better looking girls than some of the trolls that roam the engineering halls. :hmm:

 

[kranky]

The cost of an undergrad degree at many schools is far too expensive. The article is correct that schools have bloated infrastructures and administrations which drive up the cost unnecessarily.

When people start to realize it makes no sense to pay $30K a year to get a degree that could have been earned for half the money or even less, a lot of these schools are going to find themselves in financial trouble.

Why don't people ask what the average income of grads is for their desired major, then sit down and figure out how long it's going to take to pay off their loan debt after graduation BEFORE they commit to it?

I read a story a couple years ago about a school that found out from market surveys people considered them a lesser quality school based on the low cost. The school raised tuition 30% and incoming applications jumped 40% the next year. I don't see that approach working in the future.