The Dirty Truth of Modern Higher Ed

[Mallette]

There's no profit in that scheme though

 

Don't kid yourself.  I could make a killing from this and I know many others who could as well.  It's just a different model, but with far more free enterprise profit potential.  Right now, most of the "profits" are in taxes that are probably 70 percent more than necessary to reach a much superior outcome.

 

Dave

[Fjd]

Ironically, we have a shortage of tech workers. There are all kinds of engineer jobs out there, with nobody to fill them. A degree is kind of necessary for this kind of work.

Teachers seem to be struggling though, lots of young grads willing to work for cheap so the old dogs are let go since they have to be paid a higher salary. Lots of them getting canned right before retirement.

There's way too many people still going into liberal arts too. Majoring in womens lib or history just isn't going to get you much in return nowadays.

As for attorney jobs, there's nothing stopping you from working for yourself. It's just that nobody wants to. Graduates want instant gratification starting with a good salary at an established company doing important work, and that goes well beyond just attorneys.

 

 

 

I believe there are multiple issues in play here and arbitrarily shutting down the financial aid programs would be a knee-jerk reaction that would not solve the overall issues at hand, and in general, the issue on how to raise the education level of the country.   

 

 

That's one of the major premises in the article.  Do we really need to keep pushing the idea that more education is always better?  As a result, we are churning-out hoards of over-qualified students.  Over-qualification is not, per se, bad, but it is enough to bring into doubt the value of the expectation that "everyone must go to college" for a better life.  Pretty soon, you have dog catchers with PhD's.

 

At some point, we have to realize what is in play.  On the one hand, the goal is to make education serve as the paved road out of serfdom.  On the other hand, education is creating a lot of serfdom.  If we reduce student lending, we reduce the number of serfs. This is quite the opposite of what we were traditionally led to believe, isn't it?  A great many people just might be better off not going to college.

 

 

 

By pulling very limited excerpts from my overall posts, when I read it back to myself thinking about the context I had used when writing, I believe that you may be missing the point in the various posts that I'm trying to make, taking my point somewhat out-of-context, and dragging the debate off into extraneous issues. 

 

I wouldn't necessarily mind the direction of debate you seem to want to pursue; however, I have holiday pressures that I need to placate where I cannot put the proper thought into some of this that I would like.

 

To evaluate your question "Do we really need to keep pushing the idea that more education is always better?" you would need to more specifically define the purpose of "more education."  From your post, is the purpose of education only a "paved road out of serfdom" or are there other purposes of education that should be considered or is there some type of higher purpose of education? 

 

For example, maybe the 'purpose of education' should be driven by the needs of corporations since corporations will be supplying the jobs?

 

I keep thinking about how the restrictions to education implemented by Belgium in relation to the African Congo natives (Belgium did not see a 'need' to make education accessible to the natives) impacted the African Congo when Belgium gave them their 'independence' and turned the government over to the people native to the area.  Of course, many believe that in some respects 'history repeats itself' in some form so why not restrict education for certain people and make it entirely inaccessible to others?

 

Given the above, should we design our education system to pre-determine (similar to old Germany) the education path of our citizens where some people are 'ear marked' and destined to be trained in 'dog catching' while others are trained to "wear a sandwich sign" and walk down the curb advertising mattresses in front of the store while still others have more opportunity opened up to them?  Would that additional 'opportunity' be related to some type of 'legacy' system or some other determining factors?

 

Who should hold the power in making these decisions?  For example, the corporations, the wealthy, the government, some type of panel of 'experts' (maybe psychologists) designated by congress, etc.?

 

I grew up in a very rough environment and had many other barriers to education that I needed to navigate, in addition to financial barriers, and as a result, since I did not understand the benefits and doors that would be opened from the college education, I did not enroll into college until I was 37.  

 

I know from personal experience, that every time life has knocked me flat on my butt and forced me to take significant steps backward in life, it was through some type of additional education (of my choice) that I was able to make a "net gain" forward of a step or two from where I was in the first place.

 

In looking at the post I included above from MetropolisLakeOutfitters, it would seem that maybe a reasonable conclusion would be that not enough research is done by the students in choosing a degree that has job prospects, let alone considering if there are job prospects in the area they want to live.  

 

Where is the support system around these students?  For example, are their parents even involved in the college process or are the parents spending their time planning their next two-week vacation and ignoring the child?

 

I suspect that the purpose of eduction or the access to education are much too broad of issues to narrow down to one overriding factor to resolve.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Fjd

[ssh]

Well, Dave, I don't type as fast as I think, so I won't fully answer that question. You present some suggestions that I applaud...That's a thought. Many other educators also agree with much of what you suggest, and I know this from familiarity with current pedagogy. I do diverge paths, however, where we should consider the quality of what one knows, and the quality of the individual who has knowledge differently than the quality of another who knows the same facts. Read Beowulf, study the Spark notes, and research databases, and NO student will have the understanding beyond facts that another has reading, analyzing and evaluating, and being guided by me in my presence in my classroom. Even you, Dave, and I know you're a smart guy. Just another thought.

SSH

[mustang guy]

I still think higher education is the best investment you can make. Choosing a major that will pay well is the biggest concern. There is no other investment you can make that will pay you back for the rest of your life in the form of higher wages. Paying one's way through guarantees the student is motivated, and it looks great on a resume.

 

I started Smart 529 plans for all my boys when they were very young. This has been great. My oldest son is graduating this spring with 2 majors and 2 minors and is interning at Morgan Stanley. He is the president of his Fraternity, plans to add a semester for an extra major, and then apply for grad school at Wharton Business school. He did not work his way through, but he didn't sit on his *** either. After a second academic probation in his early college career, I told him that college isn't for everybody, and not to feel bad that it wasn't for him. He took off like a rocket. I was completely serious.

 

Picking a career is the tough nut. Business is generally an acceptable degree, because no matter who you work for, even government, that can be used to help your employer. It makes you more valuable and looks good on a resume. Computer programming and Software engineer is also great. Every new gadget needs code to make it work. There are lots of new gadgets and programs, and only so many coders. Also looks great on an application.

 

The bottom line is getting into a career that pays back should be a barometer as to whether borrowing is done. Parents who hold higher education in high regard can put away money in case the kid goes. If they don't, no big deal. 

[babadono]

Just my HO but what this country DOES NOT need is more lawyers.

[ssh]

Students who attend our district K through 12 can attend any college and receive a Promise Scholarship for up to the cost of the most expensive Arkansas state college or university. If the grade and hour requirements are met, the scholarship will last until graduation. Thank you, Murphy Oil.

SSH

[jacksonbart]

There is no free lunch and the current platform only encourages bloated schools to charge more and loan repayment program will charge the student every time they use the bathroom for the next 40 years as they "pass" that lunch. 

 

Education on a load with out a guaranteed source of income that exceeds payments is not education but a mistake. 

Edited November 26, 2014 by jacksonbart

[Paducah Home Theater]

Business is generally an acceptable degree

MBA's are a dime a dozen though. This used to be safe but nowadays unless you want an entry level job or go to a prestigious school, you need to do something a little different in order to stand out.

[Fjd]

Just my HO but what this country DOES NOT need is more lawyers.

 

 

I should get Jeff involved in this aspect; since I would not be surprised if the whole "growth industry" for these "law schools" was generated by corporations to broaden the pool of attorneys to give them more to pick from.  In this scenario the students in Jeff's article are just necessary collateral damage of the system in trying to cull the best and the brightest from the population.

 

Regarding corporate demand, there is always some rule or law that stands in the way of a corporation that needs circumvented.  For example, once the tax inversion strategies are completely shut down and no longer available to corporations, smart attorneys will be needed by corporations (and their external law firms) to circumvent the next rule.  

 

Think about it this way, there is a good chance (50/50?) that the doctor you visit will have graduated in the bottom half of his or her class.  I suspect corporations (and external law firms) would only want the very top portion of the legal graduates and the larger the pool, the greater the chance a few attending these schools will distinguish themselves from the crowd.  As stated in the article, no risk to the corporations backing these schools.

 

In reading the excerpts from the article below, I've noticed a similar trend regarding attorney salaries, from my reading of proxy statements of public companies where a corporation's internal legal counsel is many times one of the listed 'highly-compensated' individuals in the corporation. 

 

As a back-drop on why I included the article, if you look closely at the salaries disclosed, for those that actually become corporate attorneys, there would seem to be a significant financial incentive to becoming a 'good' corporate attorney and moving up the ranks.

 

Note that information used in the survey and the proxy statements that I read is public information filed by the corporations themselves and available for anyone to read.

 

http://www.alm.com/about/pr/releases/corporate-counsel-finds-2012-general-counsel-compensation-turnaround-every-pay

 

Excerpt from the link.

 

[NEW YORK – July 17, 2013 – Following across-the-board declines in 2011, average general counsel compensation rebounded strongly last year in every category, according to a survey of the 100 highest-salaried U.S. GCs in the August issue of ALM’s Corporate Counsel, the nation’s leading publication for general counsel and in-house attorneys. Highlights of the annual GC Compensation Survey are posted at http://www.corpcounsel.com.

 

The most dramatic jump was in stock awards, which soared an average 64.8 percent to $2,350,219 in 2012, compared to a 10.9 percent decline the previous year. A big chunk of the swing can be attributed to Apple Inc.’s Bruce Sewell, who scored a whopping $66,571,750 stock grant. Straight stock option awards, which are not tied to performance, rose 21 percent last year to $888,313.

 

“Apple is an extreme example of a broad shift to equity compensation that is aimed at aligning pay with performance,” said Corporate Counsel Editor in Chief Anthony Paonita

 

Total cash compensation to the top 100 GCs averaged an increase of 6.7 percent to $1,853,671. General Electric Company’s Brackett Denniston III led this category at $10.9 million. Even base salaries, the most stable compensation component, jumped 7.4 percent to $656,607 in 2012, after a 1.8 percent dip the previous year.

 

Traditional discretionary bonuses made a dramatic comeback last year, surging 50 percent to $1,117,400 last year, compared to an 11.8 percent drop in 2011. The related category of bonus plus nonequity incentive compensation showed a more modest 6.4 percent bounce to $1,197,065 from a 7.7 percent decline in the prior year.

 

Corporate Counsel found that the mostly highly compensated GCs were clustered in the entertainment, pharmaceuticals, insurance, aerospace, and telecommunications industries.

 

Full survey data are available for purchase in searchable, sortable Excel format from ALM Legal Intelligence at http://almlegalintel.com/Surveys/GCcomp. All data for the survey were taken from the proxy statements of the Fortune 500.]

Edited November 26, 2014 by Fjd

[Mallette]

I do diverge paths, however, where we should consider the quality of what one knows, and the quality of the individual who has knowledge differently than the quality of another who knows the same facts. Read Beowulf, study the Spark notes, and research databases, and NO student will have the understanding beyond facts that another has reading, analyzing and evaluating, and being guided by me in my presence in my classroom.

 

Steve, you are perfect for this.  You see the soundness of the concept, but have concerns about the change it represents.  I made it clear that this idea free you, and the best teachers, to do what they do best. Mentor, tutor, encourage, inspire.  You can't do that equally to 20 or more students at a time.  I am sure that you'd like all students to have equal opportunity.  You know as well as I do that in places like Houston the inner city schools are not REMOTELY as good as those in the suburbs and EOE is a sad joke.  Even if a student doesn't doesn't grasp the significance of Beowulf, don't you think that mastering at least the facts about it, it's position in literature and social history, and such is better than either ignoring it altogether or just glossing over it and moving on?  

 

There will always be a place for great teachers.  I wish all students could have great teachers all the time.  Under a concept like this they'll have a much better chance at it than they do now.  Also, the kind of interactive I design uses what I call "prescriptive" teaching.  The student takes a pre-test, developed by a specialist in test and measurements and based in performance-based, criterion-referenced objectives developed working with highly skilled academics like yourself.  You are asked to determine competence by "how will you know one when you see one," with "one" being a student who has mastered the academics of medieval British literature or whatever.  

Then, the student is presented only the information required to fill in the gaps of the questions they missed.  Every few minutes after objective-critical information has been presented, the student receives checks on learning, which are drawn from a random bank that is tied to the specific objective just presented.  They are remediated if they they get any wrong.  While this is going on and all the way through to the end of the lesson, the COLs are tallied.  If they got enough correct with remediation then the pass.  If not, the take a post test and have to meet the competency standard set for those objectives.

 

It is not possible at this point to come up with a more efficient, effective, and fair means of teaching academic subjects, and if so I'd like to hear about it.  In my company, we see productivity soar and training time cut by 80 percent using these methods.  Actual comprehension is greater than those sitting through the class.  

 

There is not only a place for dedicated people like you, you remain absolutely essential...but in much more satisfying, personal, and efficient ways than attempting to herd cats.

 

Dave

Edited November 26, 2014 by Mallette

[eth2]

I started out college with loans and parent contributions. I did not take school seriously, and after two years my father told me it was time to work for a living and see what life was about. I went to work in a warehouse and was happy blowing money and having a good time until one day a guy I went to school with, and didn't like, was hired by the company as an engineer. The reality of the importance of an education hit me like a ton of bricks.

I transferred to second shift, convinced Cornell to give me a second chance, and worked nights and went to school during the day. I graduated with honors, got a job, and my company paid for my M.S at Penn. Several years later my company was the target over in a hostile takeover, and I took a severance offer and went back to Cornell to go to law school. I only had debt from my first two "party years." I REALLY wanted to be a labor lawyer and got a job with a top firm and then wit a corporation, before semi-retiring.

Now my son is at an Ivy League school, and we are paying the bill. I see the same lack of appreciation for a "free" (parent paid) education that I had during my first two years. I think some of the problem is that we force kids to go to college too quickly after high school. Many do not know what they want at that point and just enjoy the new freedom from mom and dad. If they have not made a wise choice of majors during undergrad school, many take the default root and go to law school, not because they want to be attorneys, but because they are not qualified to do anything else. Joke law schools spring up to collect easy money and leave their graduates with huge debt and no prospect for a job. It is sad. College should be a means to an end. It the student does not have a passion for what (s)he can learn in college, and what career it will lead to, they should not be there. It is just that simple.

Edited November 26, 2014 by eth2

[eth2]

I read about older students who find their passion. For example, we have a forum member that is returning to nursing school. He is old enough and has enough life experience to know this is what he wants to do with his work life. His education is now a means to a logical end. This is what education should be about. This was also the difference when I went back to school.

 

"And that's all I have to say about that."

Edited November 26, 2014 by eth2

[Paducah Home Theater]

To be honest, I hated school, hated electrical crap, and I can't use much of anything I learned there. I wish I could have went straight into some entrepreneur stuff. But, there is no way in hell I could have done anything worthwhile straight out of high school. Some people can. I had dumb ideas about life in general, what a decent job was, what a good business idea was, etc. At least college helps you figure some things out. I'll never look at it as job training. Learning how to deal with people is way more important than any technical skill you'll learn there. By the time you get out, any tech you learn is outdated anyway. You are more or less learning how to learn and proving that you can do that. Debates about whether college is worth it totally leaves this out.

Edited November 26, 2014 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[eth2]

To be honest, I hated school, hated electrical crap, and I can't use much of anything I learned there. I wish I could have went straight into some entrepreneur stuff. But, there is no way in hell I could have done anything worthwhile straight out of high school. Some people can. I had dumb ideas about life in general, what a decent job was, what a good business idea was, etc. At least college helps you figure some things out. I'll never look at it as job training. Learning how to deal with people is way more important than any technical skill you'll learn there. By the time you get out, any tech you learn is outdated anyway. You are more or less learning how to learn and proving that you can do that. Debates about whether college is worth it totally leaves this out.

I think there are other ways to learn how to deal with people than an expensive four year program. What about the military, apprenticeship programs, or just working at a job? Some of the best leaders I have know have come from the military. Just sayin'

[Paducah Home Theater]

I think there are other ways to learn how to deal with people than an expensive four year program.

apprenticeship programs, or just working at a job?

That gives you good job training but unfortunately unless you have a bright shiny alpha-male personality with the looks to back it up, it's hard to get anywhere. I know popular guys who got rich by going straight to the coal mines. I also know several relatively poor guys who did the same thing and never got anywhere.

If you're happy simply having "a job", yeah, these are great. If you dream one size to big like I do, man it's just hard to see. Yeah I've seen it work but more often than not it leads to a dead end career that is hard to break free from.

I mean, you can be a sushi chef apprentice and they won't even let you cook the rice for two years. It's a pretty big investment. Guess what happens afterwards? More than likely all you'll ever be is a sushi chef. If you're happy with that, perfect, there's no shame in that. Sushi rocks.

 

What about the military,

Some of the best leaders I have know have come from the military. Just sayin'

Yeah me too, except those leaders usually also have a decent education, aka. college and officer school. Military alone won't get you very much in the civilian world unless you want to be a park ranger, security contractor, firearm rep, etc. I happened to actually want to be a park ranger so I had looked into it. Even tried a career change by attempting to enlist in the coast guard in which preference is given to those applying for park ranger jobs due to LEO experience, but they told me 30 was too old. I'm not about to voluntarily go to the sandbox in the army or marines. Screw that. Being into 3-gun I know several veterans and it's pretty rare that they have a great career, especially one that is solely based on their military service as a grunt with no further education than that. Even the ones that are smart will struggle, one guy I know was a security expert for computer networks in the air force, pretty hardcore about it too, he had a real hard time finding a good job even though those jobs are in pretty high demand.

Edited November 26, 2014 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[eth2]

Yeah me too, except those leaders usually also have a decent education, aka. college and officer school. Military alone won't get you very much in the civilian world unless you want to be a park ranger, security contractor, firearm rep, etc. I happened to actually want to be a park ranger so I had looked into it. Even tried a career change by attempting to enlist in the coast guard in which preference is given to those applying for park ranger jobs due to LEO experience, but they told me 30 was too old. I'm not about to voluntarily go to the sandbox in the army or marines. Screw that.

When I hired for a large manufacturing company, my first choice for supervisory positions was someone who had been a corporal or sergeant who had been under fire. If I was hiring for a technical position, I would take a military trained applicant over just about anyone, including tech school or community college grads. They were more mature, had great technical training and knew what they wanted. YMMV

[Paducah Home Theater]

When I hired for a large manufacturing company, my first choice for supervisory positions was someone who had been a corporal or sergeant who had been under fire. If I was hiring for a technical position, I would take a military trained applicant over just about anyone, including tech school or community college grads. They were more mature, had great technical training and knew what they wanted. YMMV

I guess by "leaders" I was thinking of people like ones who ran companies that had 8 or 9 digits worth of revenue, owned farms big enough to have like 30 super expensive tractors, etc. Hard to get there on military experience alone without any form of higher education.

Edited November 26, 2014 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[Fjd]

I started out college with loans and parent contributions. I did not take school seriously, and after two years my father told me it was time to work for a living and see what life was about. I went to work in a warehouse and was happy blowing money and having a good time until one day a guy I went to school with, and didn't like, was hired by the company as an engineer. The reality of the importance of an education hit me like a ton of bricks.

I transferred to second shift, convinced Cornell to give me a second chance, and worked nights and went to school during the day. I graduated with honors, got a job, and my company paid for my M.S at Penn. Several years later my company was the target over in a hostile takeover, and I took a severance offer and went back to Cornell to go to law school. I only had debt from my first two "party years." I REALLY wanted to be a labor lawyer and got a job with a top firm and then wit a corporation, before semi-retiring.

Now my son is at an Ivy League school, and we are paying the bill. I see the same lack of appreciation for a "free" (parent paid) education that I had during my first two years. I think some of the problem is that we force kids to go to college too quickly after high school. Many do not know what they want at that point and just enjoy the new freedom from mom and dad. If they have not made a wise choice of majors during undergrad school, many take the default root and go to law school, not because they want to be attorneys, but because they are not qualified to do anything else. Joke law schools spring up to collect easy money and leave their graduates with huge debt and no prospect for a job. It is sad. College should be a means to an end. It the student does not have a passion for what (s)he can learn in college, and what career it will lead to, they should not be there. It is just that simple.

 

Great story and I would think your experience could be typical for a significant portion of the college population.

 

 

College should be a means to an end. It the student does not have a passion for what (s)he can learn in college, and what career it will lead to, they should not be there. It is just that simple.

 

 

We are getting to the point where our society today almost requires a degree as a "natural selection" entry-type qualification.  Therefore, today's "natural selection" criteria and the root of the skills and customs that are found important today seem to fall under the banner of a college degree.

 

However, I've been in positions where I had to make hiring decisions and probably the two things I was able to reliably conclude upon from a person's college degree was that (1) the person could be taught something, and (2) the person had the ability to follow through and complete something. 

 

Most everything that person would learn was done over a time-period of progressive experience and the person's ability to apply the learned-skills to new situations.

 

The problem today is that given the competition for jobs, the most obvious "natural selection" criteria for many jobs, is having the college degree.  Most hiring managers do not look past this point and if they do, they risk putting their own necks on the line.

 

From another perspective, if we reduce the human race to the size of a small tribe of people, how many residents will actually remember how to make most of todays items that we enjoy, college degree or no degree?

 

How would the degree even be relevant?  For example, in this 'tribe' I would suspect that literacy atrophies and essentially no person in the tribe would necessarily be equipped to fix the electrical and water systems when the break down.

 

Rather than a degree, the tribe would revert back to, and rely upon, any hunter-gatherer skills that may exist.  As this little tribe struggled to survive, a different "natual selection" criteria would cull those that are not equipped to survive.  Those skills that resulted from the college degree would die out and the new children would probably grow up more equipped to naturally adapt to the new situation as even reading and writing would no longer be relevant in their world. 

Edited November 26, 2014 by Fjd

[Paducah Home Theater]

We are getting to the point where our society today almost requires a degree as a "natural selection" entry-type qualification.[/size]

Yes, a bachelor's degree is pretty much the new high school degree in many fields, it's a minimum.

However, I work as a programmer for a large tech company and we can't hardly find anybody who can do certain things such as design websites. We know what good design looks like and lots of applicants just can't do it. Even if they have a portfolio of good looking sites, they know how to modify preexisting templates but that's it. We will view the code of a site they supposedly built and quiz them on the innards and they have no idea how it works. We have said multiple times we will gladly hire a guy with no degree who can do the work.

Edited November 26, 2014 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[eth2]

This says it best by the CEO of Lockheed Martin

Robert Stevens, Lockheed Martin [Lockheed Martin jobs]

Background: Marine Corps. Of his military experiences, he says, “I did not learn about leadership in business school. I learned about leadership when I was 18 years-old and first introduced to the United States Marine Corps, where leadership is not taught by a favored professor in a three-credit hour course, it is taught by every officer and every NCO in every minute and every hour of every day, in every action, every word, every deed, and every circumstance.” Almost 25 percent of all Lockheed Martin employees has served in the military.