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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 21, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
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Interesting article and more interesting discussion:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/2012820102749246453.html
I am biased toward the the "duh, why don't you get trained in something people are willing to pay for if you want to make more money?" camp. But some things "should" be governed by a more humanistic or consciously intentioned force than supply/demand. I don't know where exactly to draw that line, but I think it's an interesting discussion.
When it comes to advising my kids, I will err on the side of steering them pragmatically toward a resilient field with flexible/re-purposable skills. Anything else they study can be for a hobby or pursuing their interests. But if they choose a non-marketable field, I will make sure they have a clear idea of the implications of that choice and walk into it with open eyes. That may still not be enough, because youthful passions can give way to mid-life crises and realizations that they can't afford to create the life they now want to live.
Ok, the agenda is set, talk amongst yourselves.
edit: While I dive back into figuring out how to bolt on audit trails to my php/mysql app and whether or not I should use triggers and stored procedures, or change my queries in all of my code, or just the INSERT queries and then create a view that lets my old code remain untouched. My head is hurting, I'm not a real programmer, I think I need another supertopo break.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2012 - 07:23pm PT
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How true does TGT's article ring for recent college graduates? It strikes me as true, but I'm out of touch with the generation of post-dotcom college grads.
Somewhere in this discussion should be what is a reasonable sense of entitlement. We have the right to pursue happiness, but are we entitled to actually achieving happiness through external gratifications? Perhaps we have a materialism bubble that needs to pop, and a painful contraction back to focusing on skills that facilitate physical/economic survival and reassessment of "needs" vs "wants".
What government policies would facilitate a less painful contraction? Protectionist tariffs? Government-paid vocational training with merit-based acceptance for limited spaces? Reduction of corporate rights and aggressive wealth redistribution so the efficiencies of technology and automation serve the benefit of more humans rather than the elite owners and upper management of corporations?
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spyork
Trad climber
Tunneling out of prison
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Aug 21, 2012 - 07:37pm PT
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I am busting my ass to make sure my two boys wont have student debt when they graduate. I have a senior and a sophomore in high school. Life will suck for me for a few years, but the result will be two sons with college degrees who hopefully will get jobs and then don't have a mortgage sized debt on their necks from the get-go. Then I have to worry about retirement. Sounds like I will be living in a van eating Alpo.
Steve
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2012 - 08:16pm PT
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Hey Steve, I hear pine-needle tea goes well with Alpo! And the view from the van down by the river is pretty sweet. Save a good spot for me, I'll be a few years behind you ;)
Wow, I just read what Dolomite posted. That's the sort of Grand Unified Theory perspective. It seems that the more information I absorb from the world the more I become entrenched in a vision of evil corporations. Star Trek the Next Generation had a prophetic metaphor with the Borg.
Independently, I was at a doctor's office this morning reading an article about 250,000 farmers in India committing suicide by drinking pesticides, as a result of a crippling economic slavery in the wake of the World Bank opening India's markets to foreign seed sources. Monsanto over-promised yields with their new seeds, and the traditional seed banks were lost in a few seasons and the farmers are currently dependent on Monsanto genetically engineered sterile seeds that require annual seed purchases, plus more water than is locally available, plus fertilizers and pesticides that cost more, all of which leads to farmers in impossibly huge debt so that they see suicide as the only viable escape. Pretty horrifying and a strong case for organic cotton from trackable sources. Anyhoo I digress. Maybe that's all just the marketing spin bs from a company that wants to make more profits on organic stuff, to be the next "eco-Monsanto." Not enough time to pay attention to everything.
In spite of all this shite, I suspect a lot if not most of the evil is an emergent property rather than a specific conspiracy of some mystery elite folks to cause harm to others. It is greed without consideration for the consequences to others rather than an intentional desire to cause harm. It's a natural dynamic of people at different levels of society doing whatever most other people inserted into that layer of society would do to maintain or improve their position.
But after the whining phase of these posts, I want to consider practical solutions that are formed from little steps taken by many people.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Aug 21, 2012 - 08:34pm PT
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As an employer, I cannot find anyone trained to do what I need out of any college or school. I have to train them myself. It takes about a year.
If they have a college degree, meh. They need to be quick to learn and adapt to new things.
If they are quick and focused, within about 5 years they can make a 6 figure income. No diploma's required.
In the future, large companies will provide their own, learning institutions.
Disney is already using Cal-Arts as a creative farm.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 21, 2012 - 09:01pm PT
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If Ron (the moron) Reagan were still around, that article would put some lead in his pencil.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Aug 21, 2012 - 09:17pm PT
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I really try and keep tabs on the cost of higher education, job prospects for those kids and the quality of education.
I have two children in College and one starting this fall. All are receiving in state tuition partly due to geography and cost per value. My youngest was a top student, in OR where he attended HS, if you take AP courses you can get a 5.0 for a A instead of a 4.0. He graduated with a 4.3 GPA and received one B grade in AP Physics, despite Ski Racing Full Time (that means he was traveling all winter long). The point is not that my kid is that gifted, but his Scholarship for his academic success was about $3500 out of what is approximately $18k/year for Tuition/fees/room and board. One B in and AP Class and Excellent SAT scores gives you about a 25% Scholarship.
If you have children start saving even 50$ per month when they are born, if you value higher education. If a kid runs up $80-$100K in loans, then either they did not look at the best education for the cost, the parents did not help, or the kid took a long time to graduate (my daughter for instance).
I too tend to push the kids into a field where there are jobs. The point of higher education is that upon completion, you have the ability to continue learning. If you choose a field that you can get a job in, you can always learn to basket weave on your own spare time while you are gainfully employed. It is a harsh reality that many College Educations are not valued in real life.
The other thing kids should do is to learn to work their ass off. My middle son is going to be a Senior in Chemical Engineering. I have a BS in that so I know how frickin hard that is (I barely made it). While lots of College kids have time to f*#k off, he is working his ass off. And, he has gotten an internship at $19$ per hour. He is finally seeing his fruits of labor pay of financially. He is not getting this by studying in a field that is pretty easy.
It is frustrating (for the kids when they enter into reality) that so many kids enter into college thinking that if they like the courses the they will like the job. That seldom works. If they do choose a field with limited job prospects, and they want a good job, then as my dad always said, there is always room at the top. He also told me to "create more options" don't study something that limits your options.
I totally agree that as a country we need to do more in all areas of education.
Sorry for the long post.
PS - The statistics in the article are scary. But with all numbers one must look at what the population was that was sampled. At most state schools one can expect to have full time prof.s. Or maybe my kids are just studying different fields.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
the crowd MUST BE MOCKED...Mocked I tell you.
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Aug 21, 2012 - 10:30pm PT
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Spider,
What type of work? Very curious that colleges can't train.
pm me if you don't want to publish the specifics online
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 21, 2012 - 11:51pm PT
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The easiest way to a free college education is to join the military for four years. The U.S. government pays 100% tuition and quite a lot on the books. The safest service of course is the Air Force and they need the most educated people. Even the Marine Corps and Army grunts are encouraged to take college courses and get an A.A. if they want to get promoted. There are a lot of other good life skills people learn in the service as well. Especially with the war in Afghanistan winding down and the need to not get involved in any more wars until we pay for the last two, the military is most likely looking at a long period of peaceful service ahead.
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crasic
climber
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:01am PT
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Science, academia, and the arts has always, since the beginning of recorded history been supported through the patronage system. Either by wealthy individuals and royalty or by the state itself.
State support for artists and academics is just a natural democratic evolution of this idea.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:15am PT
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of course parents want their children to be "successful" so trying to steer them into "practical" careers is expected.
but really, what does "successful" mean? making a lot of money?
I went to UC Berkeley 1972-1976, had a "scholarship" that waived the $200/quarter fee, but basically had to work for everything else... which I somehow found time to do... no car, and no life other than the academic one... an intellectual dirt bag often...
now I never viewed going to the university as a way to certify me to going into industry... when did that expectation emerge? it's sort of like college being the NFL's minor league... probably a lot better if they had a minor league of their own and got out of college football... same with industry...
but certainly the product of colleges and universities, which is the graduates, have a place in the workforce. One can learn many things at college, and perhaps many more things in graduate school, but to think 4 years of doing anything actually qualifies you for a high paying job is really a failure of society to communicate that it is barely a beginning... where did this expectation come from?
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:28am PT
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Excellent perspective Ed!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:32am PT
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Don't get me started. Of my five nieces and nephews recently graduated only
3.5 are using their degrees. Not surprisingly the one who majored in math
and business is doing really well. He'll be retired by the time he's 40.
The two teachers are using theirs in a good way and getting ahead. The
ones with the English and Environmental Sciences degrees, well, they're not
in a soup line, yet. The one who quit engineering to get an Art degree is,
shockingly, actually doing pretty well as a web designer.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:37am PT
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What is it we want to build as a society? A well oiled economy that ensures economic success for all or a civilization predicated on achievements in human understanding, philosophy and the arts? When we think of the Renaissance do we immediately recall the success of the cloth trade and the real estate market or do we marvel at the achievements of its artists and architects?
A great civilization needs to strike a balance between the practical necessity of a powerful economy and the elevation of the minds of its citizens. What is the value of wealth if not the foundation for the great excess of an enlightened and enriched citizenry?
What good is a thriving economy if it isn't the predicate for the nurturing of great ideas, great art, great science? You can't tell me that a great society is simply one in which everyone has a job.
Screw practicality (though carefully) and follow your bliss.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:41am PT
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I think the cost of college has become sad. This is human life we're exploring and knowledge shouldn't be all about money.
We are at the death knell of study of humanities, art, history, and everything else that doesn't promise a professional job to pay back school. Do we really want to turn our back on research of those things and basically eliminating a population of folks who know beyond lucrative knowledge?
It's a low road we're heading for
Peace
karl
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giegs
climber
Tardistan
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:54am PT
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It would be interesting to hear Hanson's opinion on the utility of his own classes. Having taken several partially based on his work I would say they fall pretty hard in the "enjoyable fluff" category for most people.
Ed: I would think the expectation comes as a result of cost and the pitch that comes from the time kids are introduced to the idea of higher education and lasts up to the point they get an offer for a job they could have performed prior to spending all that money. I'm sure you appreciate how distant $200/quarter is from the current reality.
Every year I train plenty of bright, motivated kids with college degrees how to swing a hammer and dig ditches. As Ed brings up, the idea that doing well in school and getting a degree ensures any sort of future is oversold. Even the idea of "good" degrees in hard sciences or what have you being necessarily superior to more liberal degrees is oversold.
Most of the folks I hear talking so authoritatively on this haven't applied for their first real job in decades and are just out of touch. Instead they'll talk about all the hiring/interviews they do for the one or two positions they hire for a year. Compelling.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:03am PT
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and gasoline was probably $0.50/gal too, but that's not the point, you still have to live... my expectations were not for some fabulous lifestyle while I was at school, it was really and truly a "dirt bag experience" trying to figure out how to get by...
I spent my first week in Berkeley looking for an apt. I could afford and spending nights in People's Park... my expectation? to figure out how to live and go to school... to learn physics from the greats... I had no expectation of making money afterward... perhaps I had a notion that I might be able to go to graduate school, then perhaps have a research career... never did I think of it as a "career path" but more a privilege to learn.
but that's just me.
you do what you have to do...
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R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:06am PT
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I was faced with advising my daughter. Does she have a passion in anything? If not, then at least go and get a two year community college degree. I first pushed her into math, science and calculus, physics. It just wasn't her bag of tea.
So she went for an AA and got it with a good GPA. No, it's not going to get her rich, but this is what I tell her:
A college degree will teach you how to learn, it will help you learn how to study a problem and solve it, and it will tell an employer that you started something and you finished it. You also will meet some interesting and diverse people along the way If she wants to finish off with the final two years for a BS or BA, fine, but at least she got the AA diploma in her hand today! PS it only cost about $5000 outta pocket with the tax deductions and credits you can still take. Good way to at least give them some guidance while they are uncertain.
But if they have a passion for something ... GO FOR IT!
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2012 - 01:08am PT
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but to think 4 years of doing anything actually qualifies you for a high paying job is really a failure of society to communicate that it is barely a beginning... where did this expectation come from?
I can address this from my personal background... there is very little communication or propagation of messages between socio-economic classes.
I grew up with zero role models of higher education, no friends or family that went to college, and viewed getting a "college degree" as a pinnacle of achievement. I was at least lucky that my dad quit a job as a furniture mover and joined the Navy during the Vietnam War and learned how to repair radars. That gave him an entry to being an electronics technician and gave me awareness of that interesting way to use my academic aptitude. Without that, I would have been rudderless and unaware of how to parlay my basic academic aptitude into a career. Ironic that war was directly responsible for my education choice and comfortable lifestyle.
I remember the stupid "Career Counseling" tools at my high school. Take a personality profile test and it spits out career recommendations. I remember mine said something like "Bank Vice President" among a huge diversity of other stuff, with absolutely zero guidance on what steps to get toward that end goal. I just knew I had to "go to college" to raise myself into the next socio-economic category, and from there it was all undiscovered country. At least I enjoyed learning and school, so that was not an obstacle for me to overcome.
From the time of my freshman year I cruised in college, because I thought that my life was set. I do recall being an engineering major and looking down on psychology and political science and communication majors, wondering how they would use that knowledge to support themselves. I chose to quit high school and hitch hike to a community college every day to satisfy the basic entry requirements for a 4-year university. It was a pain, but I did it, and made the cut, and I wasn't going to be a dishwasher or a ditch digger. I somehow entered the halls of the elite. I was oblivious to the higher pinnacles of achievement or development of my potential thereafter.
I remember shortly after college wishing that I had some mentor who could have guided me during college. Someone who could have told me that some engineering lectures are boring or just hard with seemingly no point other than being hard, but if I stuck with gaining certain foundational knowledge it would open a wonderful fountain of interesting applications, help me see a beautiful world to which my ignorance blinded me. The education system failed to create that vision, and I didn't have out-of-band means of creating that vision (and I was not creative or visionary enough to form that vision for myself).
So without a mentor I dropped the engineering midway through, switched to ecology because that was more interesting to me and I liked the people and lifestyle better over there, and got into a grad program, and nominally accepted that I wouldn't be able to make much money but I thought I would be happy. But ultimately the reality of my college debts struck and I managed to get lucky hitting the beginning of the dotcom boom in the silicon valley, and I got on-the-job training and that is when my passion for self-learning really ignited.
But if I didn't have the minimal engineering foundation, which came from my initial awareness of that career option from my dad being in it, then I would have been totally screwed and not passed the interviews to get the job where I was able to learn what I needed for a career with earning potential.
So it is little more than luck and timing that separates me from other reasonably smart people who find themselves educated and unemployable. Heck I am much less educated than many people with whom I associate.
But there truly is a social stratification and inertia that begins with not being aware that opportunities or possibilities even exist, let alone developing a desire to pursue them or figuring out a path to reach them.
Is there a way that society can be organized to to create a widespread understanding among all kids of what possibilities exist for them and what they have to do now to achieve it, and what happens if they don't? It is a big leap, from abstract awareness that something exists, to thinking of it as a tangible possibility for one's self with a set of achievable steps to get there. We can't rely on parents for that, because that implicitly supports the continued socio-economic stratification. And we can't rely on brilliant and inspiring teachers that use their innate gifts to motivate kids in spite of a system that is not inherently inspiring.
But is it the job of "the system" (i.e. government-sponsored education) to inspire kids? I think it should be. Memorizing facts, or even teaching kids how to think and analyze stuff is not enough. There must be a systemic cultivation of inspiration, to help kids create visions of their own success and pursuit of their happiness so they can live into their own possibilities and expand our societal possibilities.
That pipe dream seems far off from where we are now, with national debates about teaching "intelligent design" as a competing theory to evolution measuring teacher performance by children's scores on scantron bubble-sheet tests.
Am I babbling? I start to babble when I get tired.
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Zander
climber
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:24am PT
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A Liberal Arts Education starts at home. What you read, what you talk about at the kitchen table, how you treat people, react to events. The kids pick up on it all. When they turn 18 years old you are pretty much done. I remember when my older son graduated High School an immense sense of relief. I done it, for better or worse and in the best way I could I had finished the job. He went on to get BAs in music and CS, and then a MS in CS. My job was done when he turned 18, he did that on his own. Same with my younger son. A liberal Art Education is a blessing if you can get it. We told our kids the first degree is free, what ever you decide. This only worked because I started working full time at 16 and my wife is a nose to the grindstone kind of gal as well so we could come up with the funds. Modern US education is ridiculous- how much it costs, the push for a marketable skill, the cluelessness about the big picture. I feel blessed the kids survived it. I remember my dad telling me when I dropped out of High School that Thomas Edison did not have a High School education. Follow your bliss and work like a dog and it will be OK.
Cheers,
Zander
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:37am PT
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Follow your passion. Period.
great....i dont disagree. just don't expect to make enough to support your ass if you study music but are in no way one of the greats. there are plenty of folks learning something that does not equate to monetary value in the real world.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:45am PT
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now I never viewed going to the university as a way to certify me to going into industry... when did that expectation emerge? it's sort of like college being the NFL's minor league... probably a lot better if they had a minor league of their own and got out of college football... same with industry...
simple ed. look at what companies are willing to pay for 4 year degrees. who is hiring, how many jobs are out there and where the jobs are located.
a BS in Art History? prolly pretty tough to find work but perhaps not impossible.
a BS in Engineering? high paying jobs, harder to come by the degree and worth more on the open market.
of course you can always get a job working at a national lab as a scientist if you are smart enough but that too can have its drawbacks and a BS person will be challenged in that arena.
NFL? you cant even be serious to compare a working entry level job with the NFL. get real.
companies need and require people to be able to learn and be adaptable these days. certain degrees are more promising than others in that regard.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:47am PT
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I remember my dad telling me when I dropped out of High School that Thomas Edison did not have a High School education. Follow your bliss and work like a dog and it will be OK
working like a dog is one of those traits that will help people be able to feed themselves. there is nothing wrong with that, i agree.
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crasic
climber
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:51am PT
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IMO there is plenty of room for those true academics to study english/history/art/etc the funding can be increased, but there is enough.
The real issue is those going to college "just because I should" and then majoring in a liberal art (*without* planning academia) and expecting a job out of it.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:37am PT
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education can be had anywhere, and teachers are important. the big negatives here are an elitist tradition and academic tenure. there are too many tenured profs who should have been fired long ago and too many able younger professors in positions such as mentioned here. behind all this is the sorry myth that education should involve specialization--knowing more and more about less and less--and then the kids are dumped into an insecure job market where they have to reinvent themselves anyway within 10 years.
rip the ivy off the walls and go to your neighborhood junior college. get interested in something--really interested--and take it from there.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:53am PT
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Once you start working, nobody gives a damn where you went to school.
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doc bs
Social climber
Northwest
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Aug 22, 2012 - 10:40am PT
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There are lots of good engineering scholarships (and jobs) to be had out there right now.
My daughter is at private school in Portland, got an engineering scholarship which brings her tuition almost down to that of in-state tuition at U WA (bummer she isnt at U WA enjoying that same scholarship).
Here is some beta, soon-to-be-college-dad "Steve":
1. Do your research now and spend time with your kids visiting the colleges that you CAN afford BEFORE it is time to put in the applications.
2. Focus on the ATTRIBUTES of the public schools (employer recognition all over the country, football teams, close to climbing and skiing, intermural athletics, music/arts/drama, what ever you think will engage your kids). Your kids will be swept up in your enthusiasm.
3. Avoid too much discussion on private schools and when they come up - simply slander them with some work-ethic-snobbery (those are for families who "buy" degrees for their kids). When your kids have finished their four years, you may enlighten them to your deception (if they are smart, they will have figured it out already) and they may consider those places for their postgraduate work (which they will pay for on their own).
4. College should be fun and whining about the costs is a deterent. If you are going to commit, then commit.
5. A college loan might be a good thing for your kids.
Alisa
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 12:52pm PT
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Interesting article that I saw yesterday. It noted that the only job creation that has happened since 2008 requires a college degree. The number of jobs that only require a high school diploma have contracted by about 6 million jobs. That rang true for me seeing the collapse of the housing industry.
My philosophy with my kids is that they make a decision about their future with as much information as I can give them. I don't try to steer them in any particular direction - the rebelliousness of youth and the blindness to the future of the old make parents picking the kids' career a guarenteed disaster. I also see too many parents pushing unrealistic long shots on their kids - the hope that little Johnny will be a pro football player...
I also committed to paying 50% of their college education - books, room and board. My dad provided $0 to me as he thought an Ivy League education was a waste for a girl and 100% to the last child 15 years later, having learned that even girls need an education. For the first two kids, I provided 50%. The last child, I went up to $20,000 per year since the job market for young people has been abysmal. This child is gifted in the arts (hard swallow for a mathematically inclined business person)and is studying animation and technology. She sees future markets and applications for her skills that I can not appreciate. However, I think her skills will translate into something practical, especially if I continue to foster some independence in her. Her father would dearly love to provide 100% of her educational costs and hates to see her living on any kind of a budget. I remind him that she isn't 10 any more, and that she needs to keep making progress towards becoming a fully contributing member of society. We can't bankrupt our retirement to provide an extended adolesence for the kids. It is a tough balance to find.
Some industries will have very specific needs that are not being met by the graduates of any school today. We have begun to fund technical programs to turn out workers with the skills we need for our company. Even something as dull as accounting - the fresh out of school college kids have a long learning curve before they are remotely productive in most companies. They don't know the software, they don't know the business, they don't know the account structure, they don't know the regulatory rules for that specific business, etc. SOmpanies will always have to invest in training their new empoloyees, and that phase of education is supplementary to earning a degree. Even a summer or two of internship does not yield a productive 22 year old in many jobs.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Aug 22, 2012 - 01:44pm PT
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I will never get over the projected cost for my attending St. Mary's College out in Moraga. Just over the hill from St. Berkeley's and Holy Names, it was for quite some time after the 1966-67 semester still an all-male college.
I was asked to pay, I believe, after a $500 scholarship and being given a job as a dishwasher in the refectory kitchen, $1,500 for the rest of my freshman year.
It was such a bargain and I was such a fool for dropping out.
Then I got a job with the Navy which turned into a lackluster mis-adventure. I went from Liberal Arts to Electronics Tech/Communications at Treasure Island. Then, discharged for drugs (1968), still hanging in the Bay Area, I got a real job flipping burgers for a while.
The next year I was at odd ends and then got in one more year at Monterey Peninsula College.
Then the Valley.
If you want my opinion, that of a guy who (finally) got a humble Liberal Arts-based AA at his loveable local CC, stay in college. Get the degree. Show them you can take it. It only requires that you humble yourself for a few years until you make or have the chance to make big money, or enough to raise a family. It's a big vicious competitive world and you need to prove your toughness and tenacity. And after, no one apparently cares where you got the paper.
It's part of the price of living in such a crowded world, guys and gals. No wonder things have changed and gotten more expensive and hard to obtain. Too many of us...it doesn't take a degree to know that.
Hindsight is the best teacher. But it doesn't help.
I could stand up here and say I don't regret the dropping out. Yet I do. I made mistakes that were made in the face of good advice. And I remember the words of the Dean of Students at St. Mary's to the effect that we never listen to vicarious experience. We unfortunately do what we want, regardless.
The idea sf corporate education is no more modern than anything else. My Dad used to have to attend seminars and training all the time while he worked as a manager for Pacific Telephone. These are not academic courses, you understand. But he was earning a salary all the time. He was fortunate to have gotten a job, he said, as soon as he came home from the war. He said competition was tough enough then. He realized how much worse it was becoming and he had never "embraced education" in high school or in Junior College in Sacramento (they were all looking to get drafted), but he somehow got into an officers' program because he had some college and they needed pilots and co-pilots, who had to be officers. He realized how fortunate he had been in getting that silver bar.
Climbing is getting to be pretty crowded, too. Especially in popular places. Just the world expanding, I suspect.
Thanks for the oppo to ramble.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 22, 2012 - 02:18pm PT
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working like a dog is one of those traits that will help people be able to feed themselves. there is nothing wrong with that, i agree.
Working like a dog totally sucks of your not passionate about what you're doing and in it for the money. Life is bigger than that
And few who really work like dogs ever get much climbing in
That's something wrong
Peace
Karl
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Aug 22, 2012 - 02:18pm PT
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The majority of American "higher education" is a scam.
It's not hard to spot a scam. Paying $15k/year ++++ for tuition anywhere is feeding the beast. You are a mark.
Lots of people miss bubbles or get caught up in the bullsh#t. I'm not sure why. Anything with a parabolic upward cost curve is a hint.
In time, the Sheeple will be fully fleeced and the scam will move to something else.
Until then, don't be a mark.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2012 - 02:39pm PT
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Fear: you call it a scam (which in some ways it is), but getting a college degree is also a necessary hurdle to compete within our existing society. Most organizations and hiring managers are either not competent, or at least not efficient, at sorting out the wheat from the chaff of the applicants. Having a degree or an industry certification is a simple way to trash a bunch of applicants and make it easier to pick one more likely to be qualified or trainable.
So one issue with academia is that it serves two very different purposes:
1. Educate citizens in an open exchange of ideas
2. Help companies hire the "right" people more easily
The more competitive that companies get, the more it puts pressure on #2 that dilutes the effectiveness of #1.
I don't see our society becoming "open-minded" or "liberated" enough to create an institutional separation between true intellectual bastions in society, versus intellectual farms to fill corporate and government jobs.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 02:44pm PT
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Interesting article and discussion. I feel like I've been on virtually every side of this. I have been a professor of law, an adjunct professor of economics, a member of the Faculty Committee of the law school, a member of the Board of Trustees of a private university, the father of a math major (currently teaching middle school) and the father of a music composition major (currently in grad school).
If there is a Big Lie in higher education it is that going to college entitles you to a cushy job, and that the failure of capitalism to deliver such jobs is a grave injustice.
Since the market only rewards those who sell what people want to buy, higher education in non-remunerative subjects will be, and probably already is, indeed, the province of the rich, or the patrons of the rich, or of those willing to live the dirtbag lifestyle. My younger daughter, the musician and composer, could not justify the cost of her education as a means to an income. There are cheaper ways to more money. If we didn't have the resources to support her through this endeavor, there is no way I could tell her to do it with a clear conscience, because she probably won't get a job that covers the cost.
My real question is: so what? If I spent my life learning all I could about the history of American rock climbing, say, why would I automatically be entitled to remuneration for my effort? Substitute anthropology for the history of rock climbing and my question remains the same.
For that matter, why is a dirtbag scholar wronged by society, but a dirtbag climber -- who spends several years acquiring difficult and specialized skills and knowledge -- less wronged? The underlying current of this article remains disillusion with reality. It would be great if we could all get paid for doing what we want to do, rather than doing what someone else is willing to pay for. The world doesn't -- and can't -- work that way. Get over it.
John
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wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
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Aug 22, 2012 - 02:46pm PT
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Some great comments here. Ed yours in particular is right on.
Spider, can you hire me? I'm a teacher that will be retiring sometime in the next decade, but will need to continue working because of my young children. I do learn quickly (when I'm not being a numbskull.)
I advised a niece of mine to not pursue teaching because it is so hard to make it; especially if you want to have children. That is unfortunate because we obviously need good, young motivated people to enter the profession. My niece's spending habits are a little . . spendy, so that also informed my advice to her.
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Binks
climber
Uranus
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Aug 22, 2012 - 02:58pm PT
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I blew off college got crappy grades but managed to graduate. My dad encouraged me to get a phd. Instead I got a job in a totally unrelated field (started working professionally in 2000) and am doing relatively well economically. I paid off my first house in full in 2009.
Bizarre how my rebellion ended up being the right decision anyway.
I know several penniless phds. What a prospect...in school until 30 something then saddled with huge debts and subsistence wages.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Aug 22, 2012 - 03:14pm PT
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Here are some lies we've all been fed.
"Over the long term, a diverse portfolio in the stock market is a wise investment."
"Your own house/property is one of the best investments you can make"
"You need a college degree to get a good job"
Total bullsh#t. All of them.
Teach your children critical thinking. Complex problem solving. Have them question everything, even you. IMO these critical skills are developed LONG before college.
I have 10+ relatively high paying positions open right now in IT related fields that I can't fill since they require problem solving and innovation building new tools and using brand new technology. Smart people who can solve problems are always in short supply. Schools do not teach people how to think, only what to think. IT related College courses teach students what was important 4+ years ago. I NEVER look at what education a person has had. I couldn't care less.
I'm not implying that college isn't important. I think as a transition from high-school to the real world of living on their own it's valuable. Just not 15k+ valuable. That's just foolish.
It's a bubble. Just like the 1 million dollar raised ranches that were selling in the Kalifornia desert a few years ago.
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Aug 22, 2012 - 03:40pm PT
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And yet . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . there are still full professors teaching 17th century prose in elite Eastern private universities who make 6 figures and above. It's just how inclusive that system is. If you're really, really, really good, you can burrow in there and get one of those positions. But for the vast majority of graduates students reading Sir Thomas Browne, Burton and John Milton, no way! Trouble is that the old profs still believe that it's the same way for their graduate students as it was for them. Sure you'll have to struggle for a while, but then you'll get an appointment just like they did.
However, when I went to college, at least starting out in the State university system, tuition was very low indeed, almost free. And I never went into debt in graduate school because I had a graduate teaching fellowship with free tuition and a small stipend. Of course, I was an early war baby, so I still received the benefits given to white world war 2 people. When I was a kid, everyone got free day care, free summer camp, free science fair, and basically no tuition. A lot freer then I'd say: You could pursue any field that interested you and still go tenure-track and beyond; that is, if you were good. The golden age of academic careers, it seems to me, ended with the triumph of the neo-liberal economic agenda beginning with the first major giant recession around 1980, the one that essentially tore the guts out of the old manufacturing-based economic order, especially in the Mid-Western rust belt.
Sound familiar? Each generation thinks it's going to be the same for their kids as it was for them. Not necessarily so!
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 04:47pm PT
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You get out of college:
1) What is offered to you and
2) What you put into it;
And you can't look at the sticker price - needs based, academic scholarships have a big impact on the actual cost of attendance. I think USNews found that the real price tag is foten 50% of the sticker price.
I did attend an elite school and found that they taught me how to think and solve problems. The dreaded English requirements helped me to communicate in spoken and written form. At the time, I had to pay some tuition to attend as my dad delivered bread to supermarkets for a very modest living. My college debts were paid off in 18 months. Today any person attending Yale from a family income less than $60,000 annually will get a full needs based scholarship thanks to the support of the alumni endowment. My husband attended the state school in the area and struggled to find employment for 2 years and never earned more than 33% of what I did. While he graduated at the top of his class, he did not receive a comparable education and did not acquire the same problem solving or communication skills.
I have had English majors work for me to run corporate systems and teach the clients. My middle child has an English degree, learned how to solve problems and communicate, and is currently employed in a large Hartford insurance company earning a nice salary (not 6 figures, but north of the median for 30 year olds) and owes about $10,000. I provided 50% of her education costs, and she paid the other 50% with much of that loans. She is turning the corner, owns a house (complete with mortgage).
Her brilliant brother did not get his diploma, made nice money for his early 20's, and has struggled since the Great Recession. He can't get in the door because he lacks a degree. He is painting houses irregularly.
Thus I think there are viable options for some young people. Not all schools are created equal. Not all degrees are created equal. Not all students are created equal. Not everyone wants or enjoys the exact same life. Long live the many different preferences and choices people will make. Your choices will affect your future. But your future is not permanently decided by 22. I have also seen many career changes later in life.
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 05:41pm PT
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You get out of college:
2) What you put into it;
Ding!
You can skate by or you can fully immerse yourself, the choice is the student's.
I would have a difficult time paying for a child's degree if I felt it wasn't going to be particularly valuable in terms of supporting themselves afterwards. If they realized their degree of choice would basically mean a life of poverty, then fine, but if they actually expected to earn a decent living just because they'd earned the paper, that's a different story.
I know kids whose parents weren't all that involved in their educational choices but paid for their degrees no questions asked. Most of them are working in industries entirely unrelated to what they studied, not surprisingly. What they did learn was problem solving and some other related abilities that do go along with earning a degree.
It was mentioned up thread, but I agree that once someone starts working in a specific field, the specifics of their education becomes less and less important while their ability to absorb and learn while working becomes paramount.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 05:51pm PT
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Bruce, I have a good friend who is exactly what you describe. She's a great
person but what a scam she's runnin'! She works maybe eight months a year
and maybe teaches one class per quarter. Oh, and how about taking every
sixth year off with full pay to write another book. WTF?
Think any Chinese universities run that kind of operation?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 22, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
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You may not have noticed, but Nancy, Harry and Barry made it illegal for anyone but the feds to make student loans.
We must control the Helots now.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 22, 2012 - 07:09pm PT
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As usual, Barry's efforts at 'reform' - just like in healthcare - are lip gloss that attempts to 'encourage' an entirely corrupt industry to reform itself.
Only in America could basic healthcare, education and prisons be considered fertile ground for 'legitimate', unbridled capitalism.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 22, 2012 - 07:10pm PT
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Reilly - where does your friend work? Any openings? :)
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 22, 2012 - 07:25pm PT
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The sad fact is that the real world now uses the possession of a BA or BS as a separator because a high school diploma is now meaningless as an indicator of any minimum level of literacy or mathematical competence.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 22, 2012 - 07:29pm PT
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Americans have sorely disadvantaged their children to compete in a world economy by making life easy for them. After generations it is ingrained in the culture.
Don't worry though, we will wake up and smell the coffee,..... after it is too late.
But everybody else wants to have a consumer society like ours that can fill the voids in their lives with,.. STUFF!
Maybe they will make the same mistakes.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Aug 22, 2012 - 08:12pm PT
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Anyone in the state of California can get a first class higher education for nearly free by attending a community college, one of nearly 120 in the state, at less than $20. a unit and then transferring to a four year state institution of which there are many to pick from for an extremely affordable tuition.
Community College classes are often superior to classes at larger or well known universities as CC classes are smaller and the instructors are more available.
Regarding the remarkable deal afforded those lazy college instructors, remember that fully 60% of California Community College instructors are working on a part-time basis without tenure, medical benefits or any of the other "benefits" so often taken for granted. In order to make a living at what they do they piece together a number of positions at a variety of colleges. They are sometimes referred to as "road scholars".
As far as teaching one class per quarter, I know from personal experience this is rarely if ever the case. I teach 14 or 15 classes per year and have done so for the past 25 years. The idea that teaching in higher education is a scam is a myth in the mind of the public and nothing more.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Aug 22, 2012 - 08:28pm PT
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"To get a good job, get a good education."
True but it is a marketing line used by universities who want your money.
This is closer to the truth:
If you want a good job, you have to know what you are doing.
-----
As an ambitious high school drop out, I worked my way into opportunities by working less than minimum wage or below industry average. By my late 20s I was out earning many of those in my graduating class who had been to college. I have continued to apprentice and train my whole career. When graphic design shifted to computers I studied software at home and ran ahead of the pack.
I have enjoyed a good career in advertising as a graphic designer, project manager, and have worked as VP Marketing at several start-ups. My wife (a marketing genius with only a high school diploma) and I have a successful merchandise company.
Hard work, smart decisions, luck, and patience make a good life.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 22, 2012 - 08:32pm PT
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Hard work, smart decisions, luck, and patience make a good life.
You didn't build that!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 22, 2012 - 08:33pm PT
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The idea that teaching in higher education is a scam is a myth in the mind of the public and nothing more.
What, you think my friend is lying to me? Another prof friend has it even
easier. I bet he only teaches every other quarter. He probably only goes
to his office four days a week.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Aug 22, 2012 - 08:40pm PT
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You didn't build that!
LOL!! You know, the original quote makes sense in context. It is a good concept. Not good for campaign speeches though.
In order for people to rise to prosperity it does take a good civilized society. The purpose of government as I see it is to provide fertile ground for that to happen. Honest people who can create something without having it knocked down or stolen have a chance to make good jobs for everyone else.
Too much "free" stuff tips the scales though. ie: free school, free healthcare, free transportation, free food -- free loaders.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:08pm PT
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I don't think your friend is lying to you, I'm just telling you the reality I've experienced at seven different institutions of higher education including both 2 and 4 year schools. It is the norm, as in my case, to teach many more than one class per quarter. I often teach as many as five! And I can be certain that that is the truth.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:24pm PT
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Again, the problem isn't the academics - the problem is the incestuous collaboration between higher ed and the loan industry which suckered higher ed into the collaboration with tales of self-filling coffers and gleaming white towers. Take a look at the for-profit side of both industries - it's essentially a federally-subsidized criminal enterprise and higher ed has similarly been operating on a 'wink-wink, nod-nod' basis for the past twenty years.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:24pm PT
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Americans have sorely disadvantaged their children to compete in a world economy by making life easy for them. After generations it is ingrained in the culture.
ron, would you like to expound on your personal experiences in this matter?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:27pm PT
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OMG!! Don't talk to Ron about his STUFF, man!!!
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:43pm PT
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What, you think my friend is lying to me?
that's one possibility.
another possibility is that you are lying.
still another possibility, more likely, is that you have no conception of a research university and yr friends cant explain it to you. the comments so far suggest that's the case. nothing shameful in that-- posting random, shoot-from-the-hip stuff on topics you know nothing about is now the standard.
a final possibility is that your friends are exceptional losers. there was a time, maybe as recently as 20 or 25 years ago, when some of the folks hired under the old-boy system at research universities could install themselves and then simply quit. but those folks are either retired or dead.
today, there are so few tenure-track (much less tenure) jobs at research universities, and the bar is so high, and the road so long, that it is really rare to find folks who can get installed and then coast. seven years in a graduate program. typically followed (if one is lucky) by doing the travelling lecturer/post-doc on annual lowball contracts thing. then, if one lands a real gig at a research uni, seven years to tenure. by that point, it's pretty clear what kind of work ethic you do or don't have.
now it does occasionally happen, i hear, that some folks get through that process-- a tenured gig at a uni so rich that they make six figures, do no undergrad teaching, and have subsidized leaves w/o fighting the grant process --and then, at age 40 or 45, decide to say "f*#k it." "i'll just punch the clock, jack off, and each day for the rest of my life, endure the scorn and sh#t committee assignments poured on my by my colleagues, the admin, the grad students, and the larger public in my field," rather than keep on producing.
the only folks i've seen like that in the last ten years, though, are all folks who had some sort of major personal medical or family crisis. that doesn't mean there aren't some-- but all of the folks i know-- and i know folks in virtually every major program in the country and a number overseas --work themselves absolutely bloody. way f*#kin harder than anyone on this site works at anything. and for a fraction of the dough they'd make had they gone into law or finance.
now maybe your friends at the big money programs aren't like that. they'd be the first ones i've met under the age of 80. but it's just barely possible that you hang out with unbelievable wankers.
not judging you.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 22, 2012 - 09:59pm PT
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The real problem is that for every one of those tenured profs there are two administrators also making six figures while producing nothing but paperwork.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 22, 2012 - 10:08pm PT
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ron, would you like to expound on your personal experiences in this matter?
Sure, Hawkeye, you facetious troll. It was too easy for me to make the top of my class year after year because my parents tutored me in addition to my schooling.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 10:16pm PT
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ron, kind of defensive eh?
how much money have you made working as compared to your trust fund in the last 30 years? i dont begrudge a man's inheritance but if you are going to expound on peoples hard work lets hear it?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 22, 2012 - 10:33pm PT
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I've been investing since the '70s and with my parents dead for decades any inheritance is long gone.
I would have liked to earn more by my own efforts as a guide but the NPS said there wasn't enough demand so I was not permitted to work.
I'm glad my mother's father taught me the power of investing. But if you have earned enough by the sweat of your brow to retire, Hawkeye, then tell us all about it.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 22, 2012 - 10:35pm PT
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for every one of those tenured profs there are two administrators also making six figures while producing nothing but paperwork.
maybe at some places. at my institution, the admins i know are working 80 hrs and up each week, living on caffeine and ulcer meds, and earning a six-figure salary still well under what they would earn if they were brand new rookies at a big law firm instead of senior established research scientists.
about half of them spend most of their time fundraising. the truth about admins at most research universities is that they are rainmakers-- always were at the privates. today at public unis, folks rise in admin either because they are insanely motivated to do managerial work for incredible hours; and or they have the rolodex and the midas touch with donors and foundations to help generate the revenue that used to come from public money.
if you want to make dough in a university, yr looking in the wrong place. but if it's all you can do, then you go to the parts of the richest private uni you can find that are closest to the private sector-- the business school, the law school, or the med school. that's where the high salaries, easy grant dough, and good resources live. of course, if you aren't already rich, yr chances of having that happen aren't good. become a football coach. if not, yr f*#ked.
contingency plan-- go to an expensive private uni and study greek. go back to fresno state and install a classics program in ancient greek at a public teaching college in an agricultural region peopled largely by poor and lower-middle-class kids of mexican immigrants who work on your farm. then, when the admin can't afford to run a classics program in the middle of the orchards, no one will take your courses, and no one in the free market give's a rat's ass about hiring classicists trained at fresno state, you declare that the end of western civilization is at hand.
bail out on your real job, spend your time in public forums ranting about folks in your field who actually do research, and spend years pumping up a potential war in the middle east, even though yr specialty is ancient greece and you have no f*#kin idea what yr talking about.
then, after it's a massive, painful, devastating, trillion dollar failure and everyone is slashing higher education budgets to try and start chipping away at the resulting war debt, keep on telling everyone it was a brilliant success and describe donald rumsfeld as a misunderstood genius. then pocket the cash conservative foundations are funnelling into your bank account and jet off to stanford for a hoover foundation sinecure where you dont ever have to do serious research much less teach ever again. then write columns explaining that the crisis in higher education-- and the increasing debt load of undergrads --is because fresno state wouldn't make greek compulsory.
the sad thing is, victor's first book was good for what it was, and in a field where most of the competitive folks come from major money. at some point, he became a wanker. at least he was smart enough to turn it into filthy lucre. i hope it was a worthwhile exchange for his self respect.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Aug 22, 2012 - 10:35pm PT
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My God, that klk is one clear thinking, articulate son of a gun! Bravo.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:31pm PT
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Americans have sorely disadvantaged their children to compete in a world economy by making life easy for them. After generations it is ingrained in the culture.
I've been investing since the '70s and with my parents dead for decades any inheritance is long gone.
I would have liked to earn more by my own efforts as a guide but the NPS said there wasn't enough demand so I was not permitted to work.
I'm glad my mother's father taught me the power of investing. But if you have earned enough by the sweat of your brow to retire, Hawkeye, then tell us all about it.
good for you ron. so tell us about making life easy as it would appear you have some personal experience in that regard.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:37pm PT
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Oh, so you haven't retired?
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:46pm PT
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i have been working and i do fine. i just doubt that you are an expert on the decline of America's work ethic...
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R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:51pm PT
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I 'encouraged' my daughter to work part time and go to school part time.
Really, the rule was You can live with me, but you have to improve yourself while you are
So she stuck it out, graduated with an AA ... while working part time at MCD flipping burgers!
You can't imprint the "American Work Ethic" anymore than that.
So now I ask ... what's next?
Do not underestimate the tenacity of Youth!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:52pm PT
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Still working experts don't have time to post on ST, Hawkeye.
Just look in a mirror and tell me I'm wrong.
I hope we can return to the thread topic, academia, something I am familiar with.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:56pm PT
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it is evening ron and working experts do have time. whether that is a good use of their time is another story.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 22, 2012 - 11:59pm PT
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Well then we are in agreement. You are wasting your time.
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Aug 23, 2012 - 12:04am PT
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Could you please close the pod bay doors HAL?
Why do they have the gold
Why do they have the power
Why why why
Do they have the friends at the top
Why do they have the jobs at the top
We’ve got nothing
Always had nothing
Nothing but holes and millions of them
Living in holes dying in holes
Holes in our bellies and holes in our clothes
Pre-Cambrian <-> pre Hartouni?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 23, 2012 - 12:07am PT
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yr specialty is ancient greece and you have no f*#kin idea what yr talking about
Well, writers like Thucydides had some useful things to say about war, war in the near east at that.
More seriously, do students in college and university in the US usually work during summers, and part-time/weekends during the school year?
t*r might have some useful things to say about all this, having successfully worked through a degree or two, without a lot of personal resources, and now being employed.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 23, 2012 - 12:22am PT
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Well then we are in agreement. You are wasting your time.
yes ron,i admit it.
when a little prick who never worked garners more than 30 seconds of my time in a debate about "soft" America it is indeed wasted.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 23, 2012 - 12:47am PT
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And when an anonymous troll never-was who knows diddly of my work history dodges a question we already know the answer.
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Aug 23, 2012 - 01:09am PT
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 23, 2012 - 02:58am PT
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Still working experts don't have time to post on ST, Hawkeye.
Hey, now-you-just-wait-a-damn-minute-there ya snipe'n desert rat. I've been down in the trenches hot and heavy working two high-profile tech projects for one of the world's top technology companies. Getting on ST is a nice safety valve in my day which helps keep me from otherwise losing my sh#t if I thought about it all too much.
And shite - you guys don't write me checks, so it's better to go off here than at work.
[ P.S. Dude! I told you not to talk to Ron about his STUFF, man! ]
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 23, 2012 - 02:27pm PT
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contingency plan-- go to an expensive private uni and study greek. go back to fresno state and install a classics program in ancient greek at a public teaching college in an agricultural region peopled largely by poor and lower-middle-class kids of mexican immigrants who work on your farm. then, when the admin can't afford to run a classics program in the middle of the orchards, no one will take your courses, and no one in the free market give's a rat's ass about hiring classicists trained at fresno state, you declare that the end of western civilization is at hand.
klk,
That statement differs from the Fresno State student body I know. First, though, some disclaimers: While all of my post-high school education and the undergraduate education of my daughters, niece and nephews were at UC campuses, both of my sisters and their husbands are Fresno State alumnni. One of Victor's former Classics pupils dated one of my daughters, and both Victor and his wife are friends of my wife from Selma days.
A great deal of Fresno State's student body could have attended more prestigious universities. My sisters had straight A's in high school back when that was a rarity, 99 percentile SAT scores, and full plates of extracurricular activities. They wanted to remain in Fresno for other reasons. One of my high school classmates who graduated from Fresno State was a Merit Scholar who had scholarship offers from all over. Assuming that Fresno State's demographic mirrors Fresno County leads you to a faulty conclusion about both the classics department there and the sorts of students who attend.
Frankly, the reception of the Classics department at Fresno State doesn't differ all that much from its reception at several of the UC's. When I was a freshman at Berkeley in 1969, the student-run publication rating profs, TA's and departments warned that Berkeley's classics department (which was rated in the top three in the country at that time) hadn't awarded an advanced degree in ten years. The fact was, and is that writing something both new and meritorious in classics is terribly difficult, and the demand for both research and teaching remains small.
I do, however, agree with another statement you made dealing with college administrators. I was a member of the Board of Trustees of Fresno Pacific University for about twelve years, and the treasurer and member of its executive committee for seven of those years. We knew we were paying our administrators less than market. In fact, we were paying them less than what my law firm was paying associates. My experience is that administrators at the university level are paid a lot less than executives with similar responsibilities in the private sector generally.
The truth is that academia has become another lottery industry, similar to entertainment. Many people participate in the market as sellers, but only a rarefied few get paid handsomely, and those few -- particularly the younger ones -- are impressively intelligent and motivated. While I lament how narrow-minded our academic curricula and viewpoints have become, I have nothing but admiration for the overwhelming majority of scholars at research universities.
John
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 23, 2012 - 02:54pm PT
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I have nothing but admiration for the overwhelming majority of scholars at research universities.
John - while I know this was not directed to me personally, I thank you nonetheless.
We work hard! I wish I had a dollar every time someone asks me what I'll do with all my free time over the summer. They confuse that fact that because we are not paid for the summer as meaning we are not working during the summer. Summer is gold for getting research done!
And many think the number of classes taught somehow reflects the amount of work we do (as in, less classes means less work). Not so at all. I am teaching zero classes this semester and am friggin' buried in work. Buried.
I know every occupation has its pet peeves like these, but it get old trying to convince people that the vast majority of professors are not making huge money (six digits??? I wish!!!). And in recent years, many I know are taking pay cuts. I have a friend in a NV university who has been there 7 years. Works like crazy. Publishes like crazy. Edits a journals. Teaches. He's a rock star. He makes in the mid-50s as a salary and his salary has only declined while he's been there. He'll be gone soon from NV as a result, though where is unclear. Getting work isn't super easy for professors either. (yes, that is an n of 1, but still).
My mom keeps telling me that I should get a big grant failing to understand that the biggest reward I would get from a big grant is having a line on my vita and getting a "congratulations" email from the Dean. Oh, I may get bought out of teaching (YAY!!), and I may actually get paid for 3 months of my summer salary (we are not allowed to earn more than that - even on outside projects - all of which must be reviewed by the university). But that's it. The university pockets all the rest. Writing a grant proposal is very, very time consuming and we will never pocket millions from it as some think.
There are great things about my job for sure. Flexibility in where I work is the best. And that's good as I work easily 60 hours a week. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Nice to be able to do it at home or a coffee shop or in a distant place. I worked in the 'real world' a long time and do appreciate this flexibility. I do miss leaving work behind at 5pm though. That was pretty sweet as well.
/end rant & whine
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 23, 2012 - 02:58pm PT
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while I know this was not directed to me personally, I thank you nonetheless.
It most certainly was directed at you personally, just not exclusively.
;>)
John
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 23, 2012 - 03:15pm PT
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Thanks!
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2012 - 04:42pm PT
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I suspect that being a professor is VERY different in different fields. I won't pretend to know what it's like in the classics or a liberal arts field, but...
As an outsider observing very closely the life of a molecular biology academic person focusing on novel research, it looks like a series of all-out nearly-kill-you sprints for the duration of a marathon. If folks trying that career path really knew what they were getting into before they committed to it, I think most just wouldn't do it. There are a series of hurdles at multi-year intervals that become more nearly impossible, and if you fail at any step you can find an alternate path in a corporate world (if you are not too stubborn to be in that work environment), but you are DONE in the academic world. The steps:
1. Get admitted to a Ph.D. program
2. Publish well multiple times
3. Win competitive grants
4. Get accepted to a postoc
5. Publish well multiple times
6. Win more competitive grants(and maybe repeat #4 and #5)
7. Get accepted as an assistant professor at a university (e.g. compete against 200-400 applicants for one job, and most of the applicants are world-class awesome. It's a crapshoot whether you make the initial cut and then happen to work on a specialty the department likes and if they like your personality, of course you better be a perfect applicant in every other way, etc.)
8. Tenure review after 5 years: amazing original research, successfully recruited Ph.D. candidates and postdocs, good reviews from undergrads taking your classes, after building a lab (literally with moving walls and vent hoods and furniture and equipment ordering/configuring etc., and creating your classes, and doing whatever political stuff is required within the department).
9. Even if you did everything right and persevered and got lucky with research results and hard-working students... at private universities the higher-ups can overrule department tenure decisions for arbitrary reasons and then you have to relocate to podunk nowhere (if you are lucky to get a different job) or just switch fields after 20 years of working your @ss off. Then you compete for administrative or technician jobs against someone 15 years younger with a B.S. degree.
There are so many ways that things can screw up, completely out of your control, along this path. And the things in your control require enormous sacrifices in other parts of your life to do what needs to get done to stay on track.
I am not aware of any other type of job with such a grim career prospect, where people who are in the top 0.01% to 0.1% of intelligence AND the top 0.1% to 1% in work ethic AND doing something of obvious value and importance in our society (e.g. discovering the fundamental mechanisms of cancer and how to prevent/treat them), yet they must work for the first 20 years with the constant threat of being eliminated from their career track if they are not performing at elite levels or if something totally outside of their control happens. For example, another lab publishes results a few weeks before them, after 5 years of 80-100 hour work weeks. Oops, oh well.
It reminds me a LOT of the demands on a top exec founder of a silicon valley start-up, with similar small ratios of success to failures. Except the prize for the corporate exec will be many millions of $$$, with a fallback strategy of doing another high paying job based on their greater experience; and the prize for a university professor / principle investigator is the right to keep their job and keep doing it, with a fallback of becoming a project manager or lab technician or home-maker .
You have to be a little nuts and a lot passionate to stay in that field. Well, I guess it's just a different kind of reward, as motivating for them as a billion dollar payout would be for a silicon valley exec.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 23, 2012 - 05:27pm PT
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all-out nearly-kill-you sprints for the duration of a marathon.
Great descriptor of it. My education and work has been in the social sciences. Rough. And I've even QUIT IT FOREVER twice so far. :)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 23, 2012 - 05:33pm PT
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pre-cambrian?
you mean, like the time before going to Cambridge?
I think my Dad used to take us down to Harvard and MIT every weekend of our childhoods just to get us used to the idea of going there...
...alas, my academic arc didn't include those places...
and the $$$ rewards in business are somehow better than all the great research you do as an ass. prof.? even if you don't make tenure??
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Aug 23, 2012 - 05:52pm PT
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Like Dr. Hartouni said (sort of) money and academics are pretty much independent of one another. Just ask the Ted's, Barbarellas, and Woods of the world.
A long time ago, I went to the university in Berkeley (Dr. Ted K. was there) when it was even cheaper than what the Doc had to pay, hence the pre-Cambrian/Hartouni era (I'm thinking that student fees were about $83/quarter). Ted left Berkeley and Judy Collins released her song in 1971 before the Doc arrived. Many of the college students of the day expressed their disdain for money, then went on to make a ton of it anyway.
The sentiment was (it bears repeating)
Why do they have the gold
Why do they have the power
Why why why
Do they have the friends at the top
Why do they have the jobs at the top
We’ve got nothing
Always had nothing
Nothing but holes and millions of them
Living in holes dying in holes
Holes in our bellies and holes in our clothes
BUT WE'RE SMART!
Addendum:
Ronnie attended St Stephen's Primary School (later immortalized by the Grateful Dead) and St Matthew's Church of England Secondary School and we all know where Dr. Ted K. and Tiger (though he didn't graduare) went to school.
Turner attended Brown University and was vice-president of the Brown Debating Union and captain of the sailing team. He became a member of Kappa Sigma. Turner initially majored in Classics
Barbarella or Lady Jane Seymour Fonda, at age 15, taught dance at Fire Island Pines, New York. She attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, but dropped out to become a fashion model.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 23, 2012 - 06:03pm PT
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Not sure if I conveyed something unintentional about the money.
As Ed and I recently chatted about, I'm not whining about the money. BUT it's not the case that most professors are rolling in bills making six digits. I get tired explaining to non-academics that I get paid six digits and DON'T EVEN TEACH (or teach little). I can pay my bills and have some extra - something that I'm am really thankful for and more than I ever expected.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Aug 23, 2012 - 08:59pm PT
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I always found it interesting that on faculty "development" days at the beginning of the quarter or semester there were often presentations by "extremely Knowledgable" theorists on the disadvantages of the lecture as a tool for imparting knowledge and ideas to students. These presentations always extolled the idea that students needed a more personal relationship with the instructor and a variety of classroom activities in order to remain engaged... costumes perhaps.
This seemed strange to me in that this information was always imparted to us through the lecture process.
The idea that an instructor's learning sixty names somehow enhances the learning process seems a bit strange to me.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 23, 2012 - 10:36pm PT
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Not sure if I understand your question, but I'll try Sullly.
Some professors primary role is that of teaching. For example, a girlfriend of mine teaches six classes a semester!! Her research expectations are zero. Never required to write a chapter in a book, a book, a journal article, review article, She is not expected to attend conferences to present research - nothing like that. Aside from endless meetings (that we all have) she teaches. She works at a teaching university.
Research professors tend to teach less (like me, usually I teach two classes a semester). My research requirements differ. For example, I currently have 5 in-progress journal articles, three book contracts, I work on a National Academies Committee, and am doing research for DOJ. I present research at at least two conferences a year. I teach no classes this semester. My research expectations and load will be the same next semester and I'll be teaching two classes.
I don't think one type of professor is better than the other. They are just different. Not sure if I totally missed your query. If so, I'll try again.
edit: and I'm sad you note you are a 'lowly' h.s. teacher. I couldn't do your job if my life depended on it. I'd get in trouble for hitting a student on about day two. :)
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Aug 24, 2012 - 12:39am PT
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So if we take various academics word here (and I see no reason not to) that most of them don't make huge salaries, what explains the enormous rise in the cost of college educations?
Tuition costs have risen far faster than cost of living, even faster than health care costs.
If not for teaching salaries, where is all the money going?
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 24, 2012 - 12:59am PT
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ask the UC Regents...
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 24, 2012 - 01:16am PT
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what explains the enormous rise in the cost of college educations?
when measured against the colst-of-living index, it's because it can't be off-shored. at least not what's done at research universities.
(which in partial response to sully's question is also part of the reason i keep stressing research universities rather than teaching universities or university of phoenix.)
textiles, steel, manufactures-- huge chunks of skilled blue-collar labor --got off-shored to countries with no environmental regs, infrastructure, or modern pay scales. agriculture got industrialized, the family farms and labor liquidated, and imported 3rd world serfs trucked in to replace the original owners on mass holdings-- 10000 hogs on a corporate farm, eating their own dead, shot full of hormones and antibiotics, then sliced, diced, and spammed on an assembly line and shipped out to walmart. so today you can buy a t-shirt or a pair of shoes (made out of crummy materials by slaves in asia, it's true) or slimy, tasteless, soylent green factory bacon for a fraction of what the same item would have cost in real dollars in 1964.
but high-skilled labor-- i.e., all of scientific research --has actually increased in costs as folks became even more skilled, as women entered the workforce (instead of working w/o pay as secretaries and caterers for their husbands), and as the technical demands of research have become more intense.
of course, we could off-shore all of our medical research, theoretical physics and biology. we could quit funding it and nicely ask the chinese to share all of their patents. but that doesn't seem realistic.
teaching actual skills to students-- whether it's writing, climbing, or lab science (as opposed to the sort of thing that happens at correspondence schools like university of phoenix or wherever) --is skill labor intensive. and in most physical sciences, it's also amazingly capital-intensive.
virtually everything that requires highly skilled labor has outpaced the general cost of living or inflation. medical care is one of those things. ironically, the trues costs of medical care as measured in inflation indices are actually probably artificially low, because many of the real costs-- serious medical research and training of medical professionals --happen in sectors of academia that get factored into academic expenses rather than medical care expenses.
if you are measuring the apparently sudden, recent rise in tuition at public universities, it's because individual states have been radically cutting back on funding over the last thirty years. and since the end of the cold war, the feds have also been slashing funding for real research. the entire edifice of american public higher education has been hollowed out. now it's collapsing. we are living through the single largest revolution in scientific research and higher education since the building of that system back in ww2 and the early cold war years.
the best public research unis will do what michigan did back in the seventies-- raise their tuition to market rates and hope that'll be enough. it won't. the rest will do what they're doing now-- sink.
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gonzo chemist
climber
Fort Collins, CO
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Aug 24, 2012 - 01:33am PT
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I was going to post my own thoughts on this thread, as it hits so close to home....but klk, Crimpie, nutjob, and JEl have basically summed it up.
My own postdoc position here at CSU is ending b/c my boss can't secure the funding to keep me on for a second year (wasn't NIH funding supposed to INCREASE under Obama? I guess not for chemistry). Now I'm in the fight of my life to find an industry job. While I'm psyched about the prospect of working less than 80 hours a week for more than $25,000 a year, the thought of fighting thousands of people for the few positions nation-wide that pop up in pharmaceutical R&D is less than appealing. Oh yeah, and picking up my life and moving AGAIN. Really f*#king fun.
The professors I've known and worked for are dedicated to the bone. They are incredibly hardworking. They are passionate about educating people. They work masochistically hard when it comes to their research programs. And they do it all for a fraction of what they could earn monetarily in the private sector.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
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Aug 24, 2012 - 01:40am PT
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That was a pretty good rant, Crimpie. As rants go.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 24, 2012 - 01:44am PT
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profs who can will seek a better position within academe, part of that is increased salaries, increased benefits, reduced class room time etc.. will do so, which increase the costs of school.
why shouldn't this be ok?
since I went to school, and probably even then, schools recruited the best talent, often directly from other schools they competed with... big name profs will bring in research dollars, attract excellent graduate students and post docs, provide wonderful PR, and might even create IP (new since I was in school) with a revenue stream to the school.
These profs might sit on advisory committees, be political appointees, etc, etc... all for the good of the school.
This increases costs, but schools seem to believe it's a good bargain, that's why they do it...
so in a "free market" economy which many on this post like to believe is best, why shouldn't those who can demand the salaries, etc... do so?
This will start to happen at high schools, too, as talented teachers start to be desirable and school districts will have to find ways to attract the best to teach at their schools.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 24, 2012 - 01:45am PT
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That statement differs from the Fresno State student body I know. . . . Assuming that Fresno State's demographic mirrors Fresno County leads you to a faulty conclusion about both the classics department there and the sorts of students who attend. . . . Frankly, the reception of the Classics department at Fresno State doesn't differ all that much from its reception at several of the UC's. . . . The fact was, and is that writing something both new and meritorious in classics is terribly difficult, and the demand for both research and teaching remains small.
I personally would love it if every high school and college in the US required at least a year of greek and latin. I went to the last high school in my region where there was still a latin option (ma bartol refused to retire and the principal, superintendent, and school board were afraid of her and willing to wait for her to retire). and i used to be horrified that budget cuts meant the end of latin in american public high schools. then history disappeared from public high school. then budget cuts largely eliminated lab sciences. these days, classics is the least of my worries.
my post was directed in large part at the insane victor h column that tgt linked up top. i am keenly aware of the bars to participating in classics. as i said, i always thought it was cool that a valley redneck was able to get into and out of stanford and then write at least two competent monographs in the field. but if you are genuinely concerned about cost control in higher ed, the last thing you should do is try to start a classics program --infamously the most expensive and least marketable slice of the humanities --at a teaching college in the valley. mission creep at the cal states is clearly one of the difficulties that the system has, given the economic and political climate. classics at fresno state was part of that mission creep. i'm all for it if california taxpayers are willing to pay for it. but that wasnt the case even then.
victor degenerated from a competent historian (and apparently a good teacher) into a hack and then a shill for a wildly expensive and disastrous foreign misadventure. and a trillion dollars of national debt later, with fresno state cutting back on the humanities, he blames mexicans and moslem immigrants for the difficulties in classics at fresno state and bails out into a hoover sinecure. hence my post. i didnt have time to explain it to everyone.
fwiw, my dad was the first in our family to go to college and he went to fresno for one summer session and brought me and mom with him. summer in fresno. but we were coming from somewhere way, way, way hotter, poorer, and more rural. i thought fresno was frickin paris. first time i'd ever seen air conditioning. or an apartment building. or a swimming pool. spent much of the rest of my life trying to get back to cali. now i'm here. someone shoot me.
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matisse
climber
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Aug 24, 2012 - 01:50am PT
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ask the UC Regents...
UC salaries are public record. not to hard to find with google. You can look up anyone you like. As a full professor in a medical school I am well paid, but I still don't make as much as the porter who is industry, only has a undergraduate degree (plus a CPA) and has been in the workforce at least 10 years less than I have.
Medical school researchers have it good, provided they get grants. Grants are going away, but UCSD has multiple nice new shiny buildings in the medical school and in engineering. More are being built, but I wonder who will be left to fill them-there will be students but no faculty or staff (gotta have those grants) left.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 24, 2012 - 04:23am PT
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I knew when I went for a Ph.D. in anthropology that I might never get a job in that field but I did it anyway for the challenge and the adventure. I work at a very non traditional university overseas. My students are American military, government workers and their families, and an increasing number of Japanese. Nobody cares if I publish and I'm in a great place to travel to exotic destinations. I do publish because I think I have worthwhile things to say about unique experiences in village Asia, but there are only one or two of us on the whole faculty who do. The more I teach the more money I make, but I teach probably 50% of what other people do so I have time to research and write.
The problem I see with teaching universities and no pressure to publish, is that it's all too easy to get in a rut and just teach the same material over and over until you are on auto talk which is the stage before you become a total burned out zombie. Classroom teaching takes a lot of energy and if you do too much of it, although it may look efficient on the surface to the taxpayer, the quality produced will be inferior. My university also suffers as do most, from too many layers of administrators compared to the faculty who actually produce the institution's reason for being.
Meanwhile out of 50,000 Americans on Okinawa, only about 3,000 a year take advantage of the free tuition to go to university. The rest are happy to watch tv and drink beer. The Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese around us go to school from 8 am until 10 pm at night, counting their special after school cram schools. They go six days a week and only have a month off in the summers. That is our competition and we're clueless. Until that changes, I think we are headed for third world status with a thin educated elite on the top of our society and the rest reduced again to peasant status. We seem to be recreating the very society that most of our ancestors left Europe to escape. Ironic to say the least.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Aug 26, 2012 - 01:09pm PT
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Sully, you may very well be right. Though In my experience the student's need to be entertained in order to remain engaged is precisely the problem.
Two articles in (on the cover) of the NY Times book review this Sunday morning both on higher ed. Take a look. Very ineresting.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Aug 26, 2012 - 01:21pm PT
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Just from a personal standpoint, with a boy starting his sophomore year, it is tough to pick a major where you can find work. We have had many discussions.
We are now falling behind in the quality of high school grads, particularly in my backwards state.
I think that happiness is number one. Go ahead and study where your passions lie. Just realize that jobs might be hard to come by, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to also get a welding certificate at the local vo-tech.
College isn't necessary for many really high paying jobs. There are plenty of good career paths to follow.
We have ten Nimitz class aircraft carriers, but the Chinese are kicking our butts in math and science.
Investments in education directly affects the future of our country and world. I have no clue why we don't have better schools here. Luckily we live in a college town, and those tend to retain good teachers, so we have good local schools.
Education is more important than a HUGE military. Sure we need a military, but we don't need to spend more than the rest of the world combined.
Most parents would agree with this to some degree.
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BirdDog44
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 26, 2012 - 02:05pm PT
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Many good posts on this thread. For me I think the quote below, from TGT, sums it up best.
The sad fact is that the real world now uses the possession of a BA or BS as a separator because a high school diploma is now meaningless as an indicator of any minimum level of literacy or mathematical competence.
So true IMO. My girlfriend, whom I live with, has a docterate and is an elemenatry school principle; and has been for nearly 20 years. It is Sunday morning and she's at the dining room table working on class placements. She wants to make sure each kid is placed with the teacher best suited to help that child, and to make sure the "problems" are not lumped only on one or two teachers. She spends of her own time and the teacher's own time, colaberatively sorting this out.
Septembers are very stressful for her. In additon to her normal workload, one of her goals is to learn every childs name by the end of September. Her mantra is to make school a fun safe place environment in which to learn. I have tremdous respect for her dedication.
Besides this extra time she puts in, she still has to deal with the "test score" thing. It's all important. If her school fails to meet the standards any number of sanctions will placed on the school, increasing her workload exponetially. Her job will be on the line as well. She readily admits "we are doing nothing but raising a generation of test takers who lack critical thinking skills".
I am a construction superintendent, with twenty years of experience and ten years as a carpenter. I am almost locked out the job market now because I don't have a degree. Everyone is demanding a CM or Eng degree. Degree of not, if you can't relate to, and get the respect of, the meatheads pounding the nails, you're screwed. If a person holds a degree at least you can be assured they have some level of intelligence, unlike some who hold a HS diploma. Oh well, lot's of time to go climbing.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Aug 26, 2012 - 03:13pm PT
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I teach two night sections of one of the final prerequisites that people need to take to get into a whole range of health-care programs. Most of my students already have degrees and day-jobs. Probably half are aiming for grad school and the other half are trying to get into RN or bachelor's programs.
I'd estimate that in my latest section more than 30% of my students had degrees from a UC. About 75% had a degree in arts or social sciences. About 10% were returning bio majors. The rest were in school for the first time. I think that many of my students are coming back to school to address the disconnect between the education that was interesting to them when they first attended college and satisfaction with the work that it qualified them to pursue.
To the original article, of course, it's not possible for universities to crank out Ph.D.'s in any discipline in the numbers that they do and expect that those folks will all have a crack at tenure-track academic positions. The people who already have those jobs don't leave fast enough for those numbers to add up, and new positions aren't being created at the rate that they were 70 years ago. Growth in academia had to plateau. I can't imagine going to grad school in a field like Classics where there aren't many directly-related jobs that you can get outside of the ivory tower without accepting that a marginally-related or utterly unrelated plan B might have to do when it comes time to eat and pay back loans at the end of it all.
Being educated within my means was a big concern for me when I was in school. I'm a med school drop out, and money was part of my decision (although lack of interest the main driver.) Going a quarter of a million dollars in debt meant that I would have to do work that would allow me to address that debt, and I was just too young to commit so fully to anything in particular. At least in that field, the path to paying back the debt was there. Folks who end up similarly in the hole in fields where the most you'll get for quite some time is entry-level prof pay seem like their making a devil's bargain of sorts, and they know it.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 26, 2012 - 06:42pm PT
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Another reason the cost is increasing to students though professors are not reaping those benefits is that at least for state schools, states have cut funding dramatically to universities. For example, at this point, at the University of Colorado, the state currently covers less than 5% of the costs of the university. I don't have time to dig around and find exact numbers or how they've changed, but when the state's part decreases greatly, and the cost of running a university stays the same (or increases as cost of living increases), the money has to come from somewhere. It comes from hiring fewer tenure track faculty and paying semester to semester adjuncts. It comes from little or no salary increases for professors. And it comes from raising tuition.
I feel for students these days. I was able to work my way through the university. It was tough, but it was doable way back when. Today, I don't know how they can do it given the earning they likely bring in, and the cost of attending. It's tough.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 11:37am PT
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The thread confuses the qualities of higher education with the qualities of the bourgeoise. (Here's where a liberal education comes in handy: understanding the core of various historical ideas.)
The purpose of higher education has always been to break people out of their provincialism, culture, national perspectives, and socializations. Higher education was never seriously conceived as a means to provide for making money or gaining materially. That objective is a bourgeois notion that emerged from the French Enlightenment: viz., more technical knowledge or knowledge about the world would lead to higher standards of living.
It has become a bourgeois idea that greater technical education leads to material progress. More material progress in turn supposedly leads to greater happiness contemporarily; but historically as conceived originally by Locke and Hume, the furtherance of avarice (greed, materialism) would lead to less war, pillage, military adventurism, etc. because people would be oriented to their own self-interests materially.
Philosophically, the notions of progress, increased knowledge about Nature, and the power of Reason were intertwined and were supposed to work together to lead to more civil (less waring) societies. (Obviously, there is a glitch in the system as conceived. Surprise! The benefits came with costs.)
So, originally conceived since Plato's time: higher education = better human beings.
In our bourgeois world today, and almost everyone here on this thread: higher education = better standards of living.
The simple fact that most people on this thread don't understand these simple distinctions is an indication of how little people have been liberally educated.
Over and over again, on various threads here, people seem to think that knowing more about the Nature or "how to do things" somehow leads to any form of real enlightenment.
The bourgeois have always been posers pretending they have found the good life through their possession, financial wealth, physical achievements, and technical knowledge of the world. (How's that working out for you all?)
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Binks
climber
Uranus
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:21pm PT
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MikeL... excellent post.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Aug 30, 2012 - 01:59pm PT
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KLK and Ed, you've both made some excellent points.
Teaching is not something anyone/everyone can do well.
It takes talent and hard work--Birddog, that's what many of
the teachers I know do, spend lots of time working to further
their students, no matter if elementary, secondary, or higher
education.
Very informative, well thought out responses on this thread
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 02:26pm PT
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Fair enough, klk. I suspect what you say about Victor is what I think about Krugman: a superb scholar but a political hack in the popular press.
when measured against the cost-of-living index, it's because it can't be off-shored. at least not what's done at research universities.
Unfortunately, the tuition increases have been across the board, not just at research universities, and not just at schools losing state funding. I know at a teaching institution like Fresno Pacific, we raised tuition more than the rise in the cost of loving, and used the proceeds to expand our offerings, increase financial aid, and increase what we paid our lowest-paid employees.
This latter matter reflected our philosophy at the University: we intentionally paid our less experienced teachers more, and our more experienced ones and administrators less. Fresno Pacific has a particularly high regard for community, and in everything we did, we tried to reflect those community values, even at the expense of our individual preferences.
As just one example, FPU was and remains a private university sponsored by the Mennonite Brethren. I am not Mennonite, I am not pacifist, I was educated entirely in public schools and universities, and am obviously right of center, but was one of a only six people on the Board's Executive Committee, and fully support the position and actions of the school as representing the community which it serves. The compressed salary scale is not what I would choose to do, but what the community believes in.
I personally think the rise in tuition in higher education reflects, in part, the increase in federal student financial assistance. There are very few colleges or universities that think they can't spend that potential extra money more effectively than their students and their parents.
John
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 30, 2012 - 03:04pm PT
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For sure, the growth in federal student financial assistance has brought about the rise in for profit universities, which despite being investigated by various congressional committees, are allowed to continue on wasting government money.
This is coupled with another problem however, and that is the ever increasing pressure towards equality of outcome just as predicted by critics of the American experiement in democracy over 200 years ago (de Toqueville and others).
It starts in grammar school where parental pressure on school boards dictates science curriculum and policies that ensure no student fails and repeats, to the elimination of unpopular subjects in high schools, to the need for universities to spend a lot of money on remedial programs, to universities being under pressure to have open enrollments and watered down courses.
Other democracies leave educational standards to the professionals and have national curricula which ensures that a diploma guarantees a certain level of competence. One of the reasons a college degree is required in America is that a high school diploma can mean anything including barely literate. One can wonder if a university diploma isn't headed in the same direction.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2012 - 03:39pm PT
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From MikeL:
Over and over again, on various threads here, people seem to think that knowing more about the Nature or "how to do things" somehow leads to any form of real enlightenment.
I think knowledge is a critical stepping stone that does lead to enlightenment, but it does not determine or guarantee enlightenment.
I define enlightenment as a spiritual state where one is informed of a wide range of options, has deep insight into the nature of people and things, and is at peace and happiness with their existence and their relationship to the world(s). A person can be very parochial and ignorant and spiritually content because they are on the only path they know and they are carried by their faith. I would not consider such people enlightened because they have restrictions on their own beliefs or their ability to fully accept others with different beliefs. A person can also be very learned but bitter and resentful about circumstances in their life and the world, or perhaps unable or unwilling to develop their emotional and spiritual selves for fear of violating their intellectual tenets that anchor their identity. Such people are spiritually weighted down and not enLIGHTened. They are less free to be happy and love life and love themselves and the people around them in a range of circumstances.
So by my definitions, knowledge and enlightenment are not independent variables (because you can't be enlightened without knowledge). Rather knowledge is a stepping stone to enlightenment. Thoughts can lift from us the weight of our worldly burdens.
I think enlightened people can equally embrace the type of scientists who abhor religion and belief systems, along with the bible thumpers who see education and knowledge as temptations against faith, and atheists who choose to side-step considerations of higher powers in favor of what is right here and right now. An enlightened person can believe fully in the rightness or usefulness or a given position, but still embrace and accept the people who are caught in various illusions. Just as the enlightened person may be swimming in their own illusion of enlightenment. The final common denominator is that we all are people who are physically born and physically die, and we seem to share certain universal desires such as love, acceptance, and appreciation. We can choose how to be and choose what we value to create meaning for who we are, what we do, and what we have.
So does college or university consistently deliver this level of education? No. But it is there for people who seek it out. The aggregation of knowledge seekers at a university leads to richer conversations and richer insights (especially if you get the full-value "dorm experience" rather than living with your parents or working hard in crap jobs to pay your way through). Even in the absence of such ideals of "higher education", a commuter in a purely vocational technical education still develops the ability to synthesize a complex conceptual framework, which may be applied to weightier concepts than electricity and magnetism or algorithm analysis. Without such frameworks, we might be uneducated people grunting and making meaningful eye contact to directly convey primal feelings without the invasion of words. Who's to say that words are necessary to more deeply share our feelings with each other?
But the ability to discuss such things with words means that we can be a virtual community, ensconced in our Separate Realities (there, it's climbing related), and share a deep and meaningful connection without ever having made eye contact. Or our first eye contact may be full of import, acknowledging a lifetime of friendship and kinship, with knowledge of who we really are and what we really mean to each other.
So in my book, knowledge does lead to enlightenment. But travelers are welcome to leave the path at any time if enlightenment is not what they seek.
Final coda: I would argue that there are more paths to enlightenment without university, than their are paths to materially satisfactory lifestyles without university. This seems like a rational explanation for the shift in balance between knowledge that enlightens and knowledge that serves a career.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 04:16pm PT
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for profit universities, which despite being investigated by various congressional committees, are allowed to continue on wasting government money.
Jan,
Fresno Pacific is a not-for-profit private university. It was originally classified as a liberal arts college, consistently rated as one of the top ten in the west in the (admittedly biased) US News & World Report survey. It was reclassified as a regional university around 1995 because of the size of its graduate program, which forced us to compete against the likes of much larger institutions in the ratings game. It nonetheless remains highly rated as a regional university.
Its experience represents that of a great many private (i.e. not state) universities in the United States. The war against for-profit anything is a red herring. The overall rate of university tuition increase has outpaced the rate of inflation here for quite some time.
John
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Aug 30, 2012 - 08:13pm PT
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El Cono: It's Allan Bloom, not Harold. Harold is the postmodern Bloom who didn't get along philosophically (e.g., classically) with the former. The first was conservative, the latter decidedly liberal. (Which are you?)
Nutjob: You seem to be serious about this. Without falling into a black hole of being and nothingness, emptiness, or awareness without consciousness . . . all I mean when I point to "enlightenment" is when, where, or how you are in some state of oneness without want or distraction. It's not about knowledge. Nothing needs knowing. Knowledge of how your neurobiology works, how the solar system is arranged, or how the Israelites marched themselves out of Egypt doesn't put you into that state of being. Post-coitus relief, the exhilaration of summiting after a difficult climb, or simply being completely satisfied with Anything can be a moment of enlightenment. Knowledge has nothing to do with it.
Get clear about that, and there will be little need for "higher education" . . . unless you think that making money and achievement is the point of life.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2012 - 08:49pm PT
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MikeL, if I don't take it seriously it won't give my brain a break from technical work stuff. I don't want to waste my procrastination :)
I do see your point, but for the sake of dickering, I'd say that your examples of enlightenment are short-term effects dependent on circumstances. With education (university or otherwise), one might find a more reliable state of enlightenment that does not depend as much on external circumstances (edit: except the circumstances that led to being educated in the first place!).
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 30, 2012 - 11:21pm PT
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The purpose of higher education has always been to break people out of their provincialism, culture, national perspectives, and socializations. Higher education was never seriously conceived as a means to provide for making money or gaining materially.
"always" would be pretty ambitious. the model of university that anglo settlers brought to north america-- and the one that stood at the core of liberal arts studies not purely theological --served in large measure to certify the standing of the aristocracy, despite the occasional obligatory gestures toward humanism. some of those rich kids became cosmopolitan by studying greek. but most of them just became reactionaries.
classics survived at oxbridge and its various apes for so long precisely because that sort of radically anti-utilitarian skill separated those who had to work for a living from those who didn't. it's hard to believe, but yeah, the embourgeoisement of higher education was a fairly radical move at the time.
over the last century, what we think of today as STEM studies-- science, technology, engineering and medicine --have been the main gateways to higher for working class and ethnic minorities in north america. the liberal arts were traditionally (and unsurprisingly, given their traditional role as conservators of tradition), the most conservative and high church.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 30, 2012 - 11:41pm PT
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I personally think the rise in tuition in higher education reflects, in part, the increase in federal student financial assistance.
Not at real universities. The most expensive research universities-- Yale, Harvard, Princeton -- have vastly lower rates of students eligible for federal student aid than do the cheaper public research universities. Off the top of my head, the numbers at the top Ivies are all in the 10-15% range and mostly in the lower end of that. Roughly a third of UC Berkeley undergrads, by contrast, are eligible for student aid.
As tuition increases at the UCs, the percentage of students receiving aid is going to decline. That's also what happened at Michigan, a formerly public research university that was forced to essentially privatize once the state quit funding it. As UC Berkeley is forced to privatize, that 33% figures is going to get squeezed down, because Pell Grants don't cover full costs-- the UC has to pay into that kitty as well.
What gets charged for tuition at the privates that essentially set the ceiling for everyone else-- from Bowdoin to Chicago --has nothing to do with federal tuition subsidies. And at none of those school does student tuition come close to covering even operational costs much less total research and capital budgets. I can't speak as fully to the cost models at small liberal arts places like Fresno Pac because I haven't spent any time having to deal with those numbers. What I read in the Chronicle and elsewhere is that most of those places are suffering pretty badly with occasional, happy exceptions. Most of those places have fortunes closely tied to the fortunes of local donor communities.
But your guess is correct at for-profit universities. Unlike a Fresno Pacific or Evergreen or other small (sometimes denominational) liberal arts schools, the for-profit universities (think University of Phoenix) have tuition tied almost directly to what student aid can bear for the simple reason that at U of Phoenix, 95% of students are getting federal aid (esp GSLs). Those for-profits can make money off of what they charge because they have no infrastructure. They do no research, they produce no grants, they have no regular faculty or libraries or labs. Of course, the default rates at UoP and similar for-profits are staggeringly high. The reason that the rate of student-aid pops at UPhoenix and many others is 95% is that 95% is the ceiling fixed by current federal law. Both John Boehner and Paul Ryan, ironically, have attempted to raise the ceiling to 100%.
I've glossed in a different post the major reasons for the differential between inflation index and tuition costs.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 30, 2012 - 11:48pm PT
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"always" would be pretty ambitious. the model of university that anglo settlers brought to north America-- and the one that stood at the core of liberal arts studies not purely theological
The founding of the North American university's was purely theological!
In fact the prototypical Harvard /Yale rivalry derives from doctrinal disagreements dating to differences during the "great awakening" in the late 1600's, early 1700's.
Every single old line eastern university started out as a clerical training vehicle for one sect or another, mixed in with a great deal of Scottish enlightenment philosophy in most instances.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 31, 2012 - 12:08am PT
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^^^^^^^tgt, yes, that's a key part of a fuller account of "liberal studies." theology, law and medicine were the primary subjects of colleges in early modern europe and britain. latin and greek were the basic linguistic pre-reqs for each of those specialties. the pre-modern university was associated with and sponsored by some specific religious order-- not just catholic or protestant, but jesuit or presbyterian or whatever. that was also the case in colonial america.
the revolution in research universities came from two different places, first the engineering and technical colleges in france especially in the napoleonic period; and then the various universities in germany that became the model for what most folks typically cite as the first "research university" at berlin.
the dominance of a wasp, anglo high protestant tradition at the most prestigious north american colleges was one of the reasons that the technical subjects were the first to open to racial and religious minorities. and one of the reasons that liberal arts faculties, colleges, and majors lagged technical subjects in admitting jews and other minorities.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 31, 2012 - 12:33am PT
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The American colleges were founded by a myriad of "radical religious minorities"
Kings college was the only one that was founded in the Anglican tradition and that ended with the commencement of the revolution.
Most of the influential teachers were imports from the Scottish universities, (doctors and theologians almost exclusively) or home grown and antithetical to the "aristocratic" notions.
The technical training, interest at the time was the exclusive province of the guilds and informal societies like the one Ben Franklin started.
The southern states were a different matter with a real class structure that never really did exist in the north except in the imagination of a Torry population that vacated post revolution..
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 31, 2012 - 12:42am PT
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The American colleges were founded by a myriad of "radical religious minorities"
lol
yes, most of them were dissenters which is why they didnt stay in england. well-situated anglicans didnt tend to leave. heh
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Aug 31, 2012 - 12:46am PT
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Nutjob:
My examples are just pointers. Can't say what real enlightenment is, but I am fairly confident it won't be found in things or knowledge. Whatever it is, I doubt it can be taught. If it could, we'd see more of it.
Technical activities are, I submit, diversions to help us avoid really big questions in life. Acquiring technical knowledge makes us think we really know something, that we are powerful, that we don't need anyone else to be and do whatever we want.
Whatever you think enlightenment might be, look around. How many people do you think are deeply happy, content, peaceful, without want, and really awake? What most characterizes those people? Money? Materialism? Achievement? Whatever it is, do you think that it was a degree or a profession or a salary or a list of material things that enabled them to be that way? Money and achievement beget more money and achievement.
klk:
I think the ideas behind higher educational programs emerged long before the discovery of the New World. We can go way back to the Greeks, easily to the Middle Ages. I'd go back to the earliest shamans and witch doctors--the people in tribes and clans who seemed to have intimate understanding and relations with the spirits that ruled the forces of life and death. Knowledge? More like "being" to me.
If you have favorable sentiments toward "others" not of your tribe, culture, nation, family, species, planet, plane of existence . . . then you would favor or promote a breaking down of barriers between all others and yourself. In other words, being is not all about you. It's about everything beyond you. That is what education is really about at its core. Sure, you can associate it with political, religious, national, or cultural movements, but that's missing the big picture.
I don't care what field of study you find yourself in (even as a parent), I'd bet that your view is getting more inclusive, broader, and more multi-dimensional as it evolves. Stop everything for just a moment, and you'll see only one picture in front of you. It's a big one. It's Just One. No matter where you look or how you look, it's All just One. There's nothing ambitious about it. It's just seeing things as they are. Not seeing things that way is narrow, tribal or clannish, provincial, cultural, national, social, and institutional. Get the picture? In the end, there's really hardly anything else to teach. Keep teaching people anything and you will find that you come to just those understandings. You won't be able to help it.
Most parents want their children to be happy and expect that a good education will provide them with the skills and pedigree that will enable them to find and keep well-paying jobs. Unfortunately, most committed people who teach in universities have other ideas about what they are supposed to be doing. Most of them are teaching knowledge for knowledge sake, believing that knowledge will set students free. Alas, the only knowledge that will set anyone free is deep understanding of oneself. In university we don't take students to that. We can't. No one can. A deep understanding of oneself is an inside job. It seems to take an entire lifetime to come to.
On the other hand, if money and position are what a person wants, then I'd say get into the best school that money can buy. Money and position can always find ways to weasel more money and higher positions.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 31, 2012 - 12:53am PT
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The pre revolutionary period was a melding of John Locke and Jonathan Edwards in about equal parts.
Leave out the Great Awakening religious component and you ignore what was really going on. The proliferation of colleges in the colonies was largely driven by individuals or small groups that thought the institution they were part of wasn't fervent enough and splintered off to form their own institution.
About the only one that went the other way around was the meeting hall that Ben Franklin built for his house guest, the evangelical firebrand Whitfield that was later wrested from his control, became a secular institution, and eventually the University of Pennsylvania
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 31, 2012 - 01:14am PT
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The pre revolutionary period was a melding of John Locke and Jonathan Edwards in about equal parts.
well up above you claimed it was all about the scots. heh
honestly im not sure what yr point is. the older historiography-- henry may's enlightenment in america for instance -- stressed the way that enlightenment natural philosophy and american protestantism in intellectual life was like mixing "oil and water." the more recent work tends to stress the ways that some varieties of protestantism (esp. among merchant and commercial elites) helped to foster a typically american orientation toward experiment and practice that was especially friendly to the natural sciences.
so far as liberal arts are concerned, that meant that in north america, the teaching of greek and latin because it helped to train preachers, lawyers and doctors and prepare men of means for dealing with the world, helped to make greek and latin look like useless and even decadent ornaments. now it's the 21st century, and we're f*#ked.
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nb3000
Social climber
Bay Area
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Aug 31, 2012 - 01:22am PT
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BS Chemistry major here in my junior year at SFSU. Did almost all of my lower-division studies at junior college.
Something one of my calculus teachers at JC told the entire class during the first week of his course:
"How many people here are in school because they want to make more money?"
Everyone raises their hand.
"Not only are you not making money while you are in school, you are likely accruing debt. And, you will be at least 4 years behind everyone else in the workforce when you graduate. If you want to make more money THEN DROP OUT OF SCHOOL AND GO ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF MAKING MORE MONEY."
It was an interesting semester.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 31, 2012 - 01:37am PT
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I could be wrong and overly influenced by my own personal experience but I think a person is being naive if they believe that the for- profit motive and example will not infect other institutions of higher learning. The recent fracas over firing the popular president of the University of Virginia was over the issue of her wishing to move slowly in that direction and the board of directors pushing for a more rapid advancement into distance education.
There is nothing inherently wrong with distance education; in fact it has some distinct advantages from an instructional viewpoint. Unfortunately it is seen by administrators as an easy cash cow and once they start down that path, there is no end to it.
One can be optimistic that the Ivy Leagues banding together to make a number of courses free online is egalitarian progress, or one can be cynical and say it is the first step toward a second tier degree for the masses, and lots of income for the elite universities. Only time will reveal the path. What has happened at the University of Maryland however, is not encouraging. A small non traditional liberal arts college for the socially and economically disadvantaged has been turned into a profit oriented factory process.
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