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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 1:17:01 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: sophia37

College degrees aren't priceless. They are actually quite expensive. And I guess that's where I've been caught up. I have a masters degree. And while I am so glad I went for the extra step, I will be dealing with the debt for my entire lifetime. My degree did not earn me extra cash. And while I'm smart enough to figure out how to do deferment and how to file for income sensitive repayments, its always going to be my burden to deal with. And very few people find student debt something they sympathize with. While the US is so busy doing bailouts, student loan bailouts cant be far behind.

With the fact that we even have bail outs- tells me- that we dont have smart people. We have people in government and Wall Street with degrees- but not very realistic about the real world.

When I was in College it was $18 a credit hour- went up to $20 a credit hour.

Then consider how many from harvard- that plan the economy.

http://larouchepac.com/ <-- the docu "Harvard yard" is a good look at the education system.

< Message edited by pahunkboy -- 4/9/2009 1:19:19 PM >

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 1:19:30 PM

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18 dollars!?!?!?

T_T

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 6:26:14 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
I honestly don't know what kind of education Dell has but Gates is not a good role model for much of anything except maybe giving away billions of his paper wealth attained thanks to others. He literally just got lucky...very lucky. Gates has failed impromptu tests on computers and software, never wrote ANY software that has made it the marketplace including DOS and its original basis for windows and never sold DOS or windows in his own right.

I'd say Gates isn't the greatest example, but for a different reason and it's that he didn't come from a broken high school where they didn't teach him basics. While he wasn't anywhere near as wealthy as he is now, he came from a comfortable background where he attended a well regarded private school (public school for those in the UK) before being accepted to Harvard. While the end value can be debated, the admissions process has always been rigorous, and I don't think his parents were big enough donors to get him admitted as legacy, so he wasn't a complete dimwit.

quote:

Craig's List want ad: Part-time (approx. 20 hrs/week) clerical worker, BA/BS required. Starts at $9/hr. NO !!

That's the type of thing that I think should encourage more debate about the value of a degree. Everyone is pushed towards college, then grad studies because the unspoken promise is better financial and professional rewards. Once you separate those things, you can start to value degrees in a more accurate context.

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 9:07:48 PM

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I'd say that the time when an undergrad degree from an Ivy institution translating to a healthy salary has long past. The employment rates out of college are actually pretty similar regardless of the ranking of the institution. Yes, the titans of industry are more likely to come from Harvard based on connections, but the idea that getting a degree there automatically leads to a good job- well, those days have past.

Things haven't been good in the sciences for decades. Those of us with advanced degrees (mine's a Ph.D.) in the sciences have had a very tough time for decades, and it shows no sign of improving. The corporate research labs built in the 70's and 80s are now largely empty. Starting salaries have been close to stagnant. I know plenty of very well trained, highly competent people that are struggling. Getting a job out of grad school required a lot of luck. If you trained in an area where there was interest- you could get a job. If you worked on a project that wasn't of interest to anyone- you were SOL. And since you had to pick a project when you began- at least 4-5 years before you get out in the job market, it's a crap shoot. There are lots of people that are finally managing to get out of being a postdoc at age 40. I know this first hand- one of the women in my research group finally got her own lab. The problem is that often, you're best and most imaginative ideas are when you're younger. Most of the people I did my grad research with and postdoctoral work are no longer in science- and I'd say that 90% of them would have made good scientists. Plus, I've seen a lot of the junk that gets published today- science is far less a meritocracy than it should be.

While I can accept that an undergrad degree should teach you how to think critically, a graduate degree is much more specific. A well trained researcher integrates theory and experiment well, and I've rarely seen this trait or the communication skills that go with it from people working in research without the advanced degree. Yes, they had on the job training and often had good imagination and experimental skills. But explaining their thought process did not come easily and thus they were not so great at training others-they were too intuitive and not analytical. Nor do they generally have the broader ranging interests that a well trained Ph.D researcher should have.

My undergrad degree is in philosophy and I've always had an interest in history. I'm one of the people that help keep publishing houses going- I'm a voracious reader. My undergrad education often comes back and bites me in funny ways- from courses that were ridiculed at the time (such as the music of Black Americans) to discussing Kant with brain researchers.

My grumbles with dealing with education as a business and students as consumers-the students are not in a position to evaluate their teachers or courses while they are taking them or even upon graduation. You need a decades perspective to really evaluate your education. While grades are a good predictor of grades in another academic setting, they are a lousy predictor of real world success, (Which is why organization that use them are often dysfunctional such as the CIA.) Yet students place an enormous emphasis on grades and often evaluate profs on this basis. A personal example about the lack of predictive ability of grades may suffice. In grad school, one of the guys I was friends with told me his undergrad GPA. It was less than a 2.0. Yet he did well in his research and became a tenured prof at a respected liberal arts college- and he's a very good prof. Another guy in the program had very good grades, did extremely well on the qualitifying exams and cumulative exams and was thought to be the fair haired boy of the department. Except that his research was very far from exceptional. There just wasn't a good correlation with grades (which often don't matter in grad school) and research.

Historically, the reason for pushing the citizenry in this country to get an education was that it paid off economically for the country as a whole. In the early part of the 20th century, the US pushed to make a high percentage of its people high school grads. Compared to Europe, a much higher percentage of US citizens had a high school degree (with the exception of Germany.) The Europeans claimed that the education was wasted on people in factories who were only tradesmen. But US factories were far more productive than European. The idea of standardization of parts comes from the firearm industry in Connecticut which decided that it would simplify maintenance and utility of firearms if parts between guns were interchangeable. It wasn't a hard stretch for these machinists to go to aero engine production, which is how the US became the arms supplier in WWII (and did a chunk of WWI.) So far from a high school education being an expense, it turned into a national asset as the better educated US workforce dominated the global economy. The bumper sticker of "If you think education is expensive- try ignorance." is perfectly true. Post WWII the GI bill encouraged lots of Americans to get a college degree subsidized by the federal government. Again, the economy did very well with an enormous number of new businesses being created (the US is a whizz at creating new businesses- it's our strength) and the investment in education nationally paid off. But then came Ronnie Rayguns.....who cut the federal subsidies for education, basic research, and social services. We've seen the middle class get squeezed, enormous amounts of money get concentrated in the hands of a few, and our manufacturing base get hollowed out. We've had idealogues running the country who had no clue as to what the economic strength of the country was based on. Consequently, our economy has crashed (along with most of the rest of the world) and our education system is in shambles. The lack of education (and intelligence) amongst our leaders has lead to disaster- that bumper sticker is bang on.

My short answer-if an education doesn't have adequate rewards, that's a bigger problem.

Sam

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 9:15:48 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: aravain

18 dollars!?!?!?

T_T

Mine's only 40... woo!

It's actually a pretty decent school. :-/ They get a lot of govt help though I believe.

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 10:05:37 PM

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Then you have to look at people like former president George Bush.
He (may) have an i.q. of 90. (I bet I'm close!)
Mommy and Daddy probably wrote a check for $500k as a "contribution" to Yale's endowment and said, "oh, and send us the bill for tuition, room and board too."
A "legacy admission." Harvard and Yale and other schools like them are full of them.
Then there's "Congressman" Patrick "Patches" Kennedy (D. R.I.) who's a borderline retard. ( 80 i.q.? I bet I'm close!)
Even the Kennedy's money couldn't get him in anyplace but Providence College. And they've *never* released his transcripts.
If he came from a "normal" family they'd have him working at a Salvation Army Center sorting through the clothes people dropped off and donated.
But, his "degree" is "just as good as anyone else's," right? lol
And a lot of jobs simply don't require a "degree."
I have to laugh when I see ads for brokerage houses with the broker's name and it says "MBA" behind them! Since when do MBA's "sell stocks?"
Aren't they slumming it in that job? You don't even need a high school diploma to "sell stocks", you simply have to be lisensed.
And now with everyone having access to the same info via the internet what is an "MBA" going to do for you that no-one else can?
Then when you ask them about that they say, "Oh, we don't "sell stocks" we "establish relationships" or some such bullshit statement like that.
And they're all driving around in Chevys unlike their brothers who are in investment banking or M&A.
One thing is for sure, we need to get manufacturing back in this country again and get out of these rediculous "free-trade" agreements or we're going to be in big trouble.
As Mark Twain said, "we can't all make a living by taking in each other's wash."
This "service economy" is a bad dream.

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 10:26:20 PM

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ouch... y'all are making me rethink staying in-state for college T_T

I'm 'paying' (mostly in scholarships and loans) a few hundred a credit hour. Public university. *sigh*

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/9/2009 11:45:16 PM

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Samboct, well said.
I have a friend who's a Bio-Chemist PhD at Tuft's U. in Boston and he only makes about $50k a year! In Boston!
That's a pauper's wage in Boston!

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/10/2009 6:16:43 AM

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One thing I didn't point out in my previous ramble....

The cost of education has largely stayed the same over the past 40 years (and perhaps longer- don't recall.) adjusted for inflation. How the education has been paid for has changed. Back in the 60s- tuition used to account for roughly a quarter of the cost. Most of the rest came from state and federal spending. But the percentage of the cost of an education coming from the feds has been dropping over time (again, going back to Ronnie) which is why tuition hikes have been the order of the day. Tuition hikes however, are hitting a wall, because in order to attract qualified students, schools have to make up the deficits with aid packages.

One of the worst ideas in financing education has been student loans- especially coupled with commercial interest rates. The cost of repaying these loans places an enormous burden on students and often limits both career choices, jobs, and selection of majors. People get stuck in dead end jobs in order to make enough money to pay back loans, which in earlier times would have been grants. I still recall the hypocrisy of some of my fellow students who were there because of federal aid programs targeted at the poor. Without those aid programs, they would never have been at the school with me. (OK, my grad degree is from an Ivy.) Yet, there they were, cheering Ronnie on as he was cutting the aid programs that got them there since the poor people following them- "weren't deserving."

I'm one of those folks who think that an undergrad should major in what they find interesting. What you're taught as an undergrad should not be rote memorization (any idiot can do that) but how to think critically, how to look at multiple viewpoints of a problem, how to recognize another valid viewpoint etc. This can be taught through a wide variety of subjects.

As has been noted previously, finance majors are often poorly educated. But I think finance majors are very much a function of the consumer mentality in an education. Kids are desperate to get a good job, and they flock to whatever major has good job prospects at the moment. (Previously it was computer science.) Schools that pander to their students demands often wind up turning out students that are ill prepared for the world. They don't think critically, they don't have imagination, they can only parrot what other people in business have done before.

Finance majors also don't enrich the world in other ways. English majors can occasionally produce good poetry (scientists attempts at poetry are often pretty lame in my opinion) art majors can produce art, and music majors produce music. None of these professions are particularly lucrative, yet they enrich our lives in all sorts of ways. I think they help spur the creative process, which is critical to our economic success. As such, they need to be supported by all of us, rather than forced to bear the burden of their education alone. I don't want to even think about the costs of the financial bailout. That money would have been far, far better spent on providing a better education for our citizens. However, an education alone isn't sufficient for financial success. There has to be financial capital available that is not risk averse, and a first customer willing to pay for performance. If an education alone would be sufficient, then India should have clobbered us already, and they haven't, even though most administrations from Reagan on have been shooting us in the foot, giving everybody else a chance to catch up.

Sam

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/10/2009 12:36:44 PM

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Samboct, another good post!
I remember growing up that many college students payed for their education with summer jobs and had no debt when they graduated.
NorthEastern U. had a program where you went to school for six months then worked for six months in an apprentice or internship program.
People in those days didn't graduate with the *crushing debt* that we see so often today.
And they didn't work for 70 or 80 hours (or more!) a week like my friend at Tufts. He once told me, "I "live" at the Lab, I just eat, sleep and clean up at the apartment in Brookline." But, like you said, he really enjoys what he's doing. He told me, "You don't become a scientist to become rich."
My generation was taught that you went to college so that you "wouldn't" have to work for 70 or 80 hours a week. Boy, I guess that's changed eh?
And I think you're right about degrees and earning power, people (should) do what they enjoy, they're (degrees) not a garauntee of financial success.
As for critical thinking the military teaches that very well. You're taught to "attack" a problem from 360 degrees and from under and over.
I noticed in "B" school that many of the managment teckniques and processes were adapted from the military.
I talk to some of these younger veterans today and I'm *amazed* at their maturity and intelligence! College or Uni for them would just be a formality. And as a bonus they're very polite and respectfull too!
I agree with you on "finance majors", I took some finance courses in college and they're pretty one dimensional.
I really do think that we as a country need to bring back apprenticeship and on the job training programs.
I don't see why we can't train someone for a career without saddling them with $100-$150k in debt!
Of course colleges and unis would obviously be against that as it's against their financial interests!
Perhaps if companies after training someone for four years gave them a company issued degree we could get around all that punitive debt.
One thing for sure, we need to make some drastic changes in the current system but of course there'll be a lot of resistance from colleges and unis who think that "their way is the only way."
At one time you could advance from, "the mailroom to the boardroom" in this country and that served everyone involved very well.
Many people seem to get locked into thinking more about formalities than results.
They just can't see the big picture or the three circles.
Again, great post!

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/10/2009 6:06:56 PM

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quote:

This is a nod to Popeye (sorry, I can't remember the numbers) who brought this up in a different thread.

Do you think education is overrated in today's society?

My short answer: no.

My long answer: no, but degrees are, and the educational system in place in much of the world doesn't guarantee that educated means smart.

Well said.

Thank goodness I never listened to my father and finished college.

So many of my friends spent 4 years being taught how not to succeed (or why it was impossible for them to have done so).

I never learned it was impossible to succeed until it was far too late to turn back.

< Message edited by LookieNoNookie -- 4/10/2009 6:11:28 PM >

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/10/2009 8:49:24 PM

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Hi Popeye

Glad you enjoyed my posts. Your comments about the success of on the job training have provoked some thought on my part- I think you're right and you've pointed out a problem with our business model. Why aren't companies providing on the job training anymore? Instead, they often bellyache that the students that they get from colleges are inadequately prepared for the workforce- and then go overseas. The claim that the people are better trained overseas is a sick joke- this trend has been driven by lower labor costs.

I'm not sure that colleges and universities would be so opposed to better on the job training anyhow. In know a number of schools (northeastern is one of them) that are very proud of their coop programs. They want their graduates to be successful- they need alumni donations. And colleges/universities have some of the best institutional memory of anything- they tend to keep track of what works and what doesn't better than most of us (including corporations.) There's a real divide in academe between a traditional 4 year college and the vocational schools which promise that they can train you for a career in a short time- but you come out $100k in debt. These diploma mills are definitely in it for the short term buck. Heck, the colleges may actually have better ties with corporations through coop programs than the vocational schools. I'm tangentially involved in a program in the state of CT where a curriculum for nanotechnology is being developed, and its a very close relationship between schools and industry. But either way- we agree that the crushing debt that kids are coming out of school with is a disaster.

Sam

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 6:39:53 AM

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I agree with Popeye: great posts. The debt of an education is definitely something the US needs to address. It adds another layer to the value of a degree when access to that carrot starts to shift so that only those of significant means can truly afford it. And by afford it, I mean not have to take out some enduring loan that follows you half your life. Goodness forbid a recent grad decide to do something like become a school teacher or work in a low paying position that relates to their major, that they actually enjoy. Their loans have to be paid on the same schedule as the finance majors.

When I was in high school (in the late 90s) I'll never forget a finance teacher telling us that she'd had to move back in with her parents and take a part time job to manage her student loans. Her advice was much more realistic and useful than anything I ever got out of a college business class. She included things about loans, how to handle them if you weren't super rich, and a lot of things that people should be taught but aren't. It wasn't bellyaching - she really liked what she was doing, she had a life outside of work - but it wasn't the sugar coated dream of "I'll get a degree or two (or three), and life will be golden."

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 9:21:12 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

...To a great degree however I think you get out of education what you put in. I've been involved in hiring college graduates with degrees that indicated at least a minimal knowledge of what they would be doing only to discover to that they knew effectively nothing. Now as a standard part of all interviews of college graduates I ask a simple question, how many of your textbooks have you kept? Someone who answers none or only a couple had better wow me in some way.

God - I can remember moving friends with boxes and milk crates full of textbooks they would never crack open again - probably barely cracked open in the first place.

There's no reason for it.

I also used to hoard books. Then I realized that, as a city dweller, there are these things called "libraries" that have all that stuff pretty well represented - I don't have to lug it all around with me through eternity.

Add to that the advent of the net, and it's even less necessary.

(Oddly, though, I do seem to be accumulating books again. Mostly author-published local history stuff and other oddities not readily replaceable.)

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 9:34:51 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: 4u2spoil

I agree with Popeye: great posts. The debt of an education is definitely something the US needs to address. It adds another layer to the value of a degree when access to that carrot starts to shift so that only those of significant means can truly afford it. And by afford it, I mean not have to take out some enduring loan that follows you half your life. Goodness forbid a recent grad decide to do something like become a school teacher or work in a low paying position that relates to their major, that they actually enjoy. Their loans have to be paid on the same schedule as the finance majors.

When I was in high school (in the late 90s) I'll never forget a finance teacher telling us that she'd had to move back in with her parents and take a part time job to manage her student loans. Her advice was much more realistic and useful than anything I ever got out of a college business class. She included things about loans, how to handle them if you weren't super rich, and a lot of things that people should be taught but aren't. It wasn't bellyaching - she really liked what she was doing, she had a life outside of work - but it wasn't the sugar coated dream of "I'll get a degree or two (or three), and life will be golden."

4u, I feel bad for the young waiters/waitresses who tell me that they have degrees in psychology, sociology, political science etc when they tell me about the student loan payments they have to make.
My own nephew goes to the U. of New Hampshire and borrowed $60,000 to get him through the first two years of school!
And it'll be that again or more to get him through graduation! He'll have a "nut" of $120k to pay off when he graduates!
At least he's going into medicine and at some point will or should be making enough to pay off his loans and make a living.
Colleges and unis need to stop offering courses and majors for which there are no jobs out here!
Back in the 70's or maybe the 80's many law schools closed their doors because they were simply graduating too many lawyers.
Yet, they're still pumping out the above degrees like there's no tommorow.
What co. says, "hey, we need a bunch of political science majors or sociology majors?"
Not too many I'd wager, it's restaurants that need them.
The colleges and unis must "know" that there's no jobs out here for people with the above degrees yet they keep taking their money!
There's something very wrong about that!

< Message edited by popeye1250 -- 4/11/2009 9:46:47 AM >

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 11:20:14 AM

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Re vocational training - when i went to nursing school - in New Zealand - it was a mixture of classroom work , and ward (hospital) work, so we got practical experience, and theory. It was a three year education, and when i came out of it on the other end, i was equiped for the job - and actually knew that it was a job that i could enjoy.
Very shortly after the nursing training went to vocational schools, where the nurses came out of the training with a degree - a BA - and very little practical experience. They had a heck of a learning curve to get up to speed to actually take care of sick people.

While i understand the rationale , i don't think there was any advantage to the patients - and really, isn't that why we went into nursing to begin with.
Since then a couple of nurses i went to school with have gone on to be grandfathered into the BA in nursing - by completing two university papers. Even though there is no extra money in it - just the paper.

And for the record - at the ripe old age of 52, if i were 18 again, i would go to university and devour what is offered. I would love to spend 4 years learning for the sake of learning. But, c'est la vie - hind sight is a wonderful thing *sigh*. I have never learnt something that was useless to me - even typing. When i was 11, i was made to take a typing class - biggest waste of time, i thought - and it was - until the PC came out, and i had an advantage over the "hunt and peck" people. You never know when something you have learned will be useful. Knowledge is not wasted!

As for a college degree - i'm thinking employers use the degree as a litmus test to weed out those without sticking power (read discipline or lack there of).

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 1:21:12 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kiwisub12

Re vocational training - when i went to nursing school - in New Zealand - it was a mixture of classroom work , and ward (hospital) work, so we got practical experience, and theory. It was a three year education, and when i came out of it on the other end, i was equiped for the job - and actually knew that it was a job that i could enjoy.

That's actually how it is a most colleges with Nursing B.A.s in the US, only it's a 4-year (purely because of the amount of clinicals required, according to my nurse friends). Those nurses become R.N.s (registered nurses) and then there's other programs and things for L.P.N.s and others, too... but none as good as the B.A.s (and most hospitals know it).

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 1:22:41 PM

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Kiwi, as for "sticking power", a degree just means you went to college.
I've seen junior officers in the military "wash out" because they couldn't handle military life, didn't like being away for long periods or didn't like going out to sea. Most of them just couldn't handle "structure" and didn't like being told what to do or given orders.
Some of them were simply immature.
So there's really no "garauntees" in life.
That's why employers love military veterans, they know that they can and did finish something in real life.
Military standards are always going to be higher and more strict than a school.
If you don't do your job in the military there can be life threatening consequences unlike getting drunk and missing classes the next day.

< Message edited by popeye1250 -- 4/11/2009 1:36:19 PM >

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 1:35:50 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: aravain
ouch... y'all are making me rethink staying in-state for college T_T

I'm 'paying' (mostly in scholarships and loans) a few hundred a credit hour. Public university. *sigh*

Don't let anyone tell you state college is not good. It absolutely beats paying 5times that much to impress people with the college name you go to. Besides, you can read as well as anyone else, if you want to pick up their books. M

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RE: Is Education Overrated? - 4/11/2009 5:48:19 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250
The colleges and unis must "know" that there's no jobs out here for people with the above degrees yet they keep taking their money!
There's something very wrong about that!

That's the part of degrees that I don't like. Everyone is like "get a degree to get a better job!" when that statement depends on so many things from the major, to availability of jobs in a specific field and much more. Plus, student loan debt is almost never forgiven, so if that promise of a better job doesn't pan out you're just SOL.

I just read this story about a young man who died just before his graduation. His parents were hounded to repay the student loans even after sending in his death certificate. After that didn't work, they transferred his debt to his father, even though his father had never signed a promisory note or any kind of guarantee for it. The value of an education indeed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/10/debt-horror-story-parents_n_173555.html

Now if death can't get you out of a student loan, there's something very, very wrong with the system. And that's to say nothing for people who graduate with degrees in fields with a limited amount of jobs, or go to work in fields where the average salary is low (teaching as an example) but the job necessary.

(in reply to popeye1250)

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All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid >> RE: Is Education Overrated?

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