Phuoc Long Redux

[Polish_Silver]

debunking the TOP schools

Actually, the unfortunate truth is that they can, and do.

One of the dirty little secrets of academia in general is that very little of the difference between schools lies in the teaching or examinations that occur there. (This connects somewhat to the education bubble that has been written about a great deal on this site.)

More selective schools are able to filter out a greater fraction of the population, and therefore wind up with a more ambitious and/or talented student body. It is this, and not the schools' curriculum or opportunities, that provide for improved career prospects. One fascinating study looked specifically at students who were admitted to -- but did not attend -- Ivy League schools. It found that their career arcs (initial pay, raises, promotions, etc.) were more closely correlated to the top tier school's graduates' than students who actually did graduate from Ivy League schools, but were admitted for non-academic reasons. Why you got in does matter, perhaps more than anything else.

So the value of a Harvard or Yale education has more to do with it being a badge of how hard it is to get in, than what you experience there. If one is a dim student who got in due to family connections, one probably wouldn't have much trouble graduating at all. That also means that the fact that one graduated says next to nothing about whether or not one is an idiot, unless an examiner also looks at how one was admitted. The merit-based scholarship kid probably has a lot more going on than the legacy or affirmative action kid, regardless of the school attended.

It's a minor point perhaps, but important to remember before one shells out too much to attend a super-premium school. Whether and how you get in there actually matters more than whether you actually go there. (Assuming of course, that you still get actual training somewhere.)

Astonas, I am so glad to hear this, and to hear from you in particular. I went to one of these "top" schools as an undergraduate, and have usually been reporting to people from no-name state colleges. Isn't that how it should be?

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

I know this may be even more more tangential than my last post, but since I've already splintered the thread (sorry about that!) I figured I may as well go for broke. This was in the NY Times today:

Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t.

It underlines the theme that what students are getting from college really isn't even average, let alone exceptional, unless they are doing research in one of our top graduate schools. (That's what those "reputation" ratings are really about.) Here's the graph from the article:

American College Graduates, Trailing in Math Skills

Average score on numeracy test, among 16- to 29-year-olds with bachelor's degree

Austria

Flanders (Belgium)

Finland

Czech Republic

Japan

Sweden

Germany

Netherlands

Estonia

France

Average

Slovak Republic

Denmark

Norway

Canada

Korea

United States

Australia

England/N. Ireland

Ireland

Poland

Cyprus

Italy

Spain

Russian Federation

a few more quotes from the Times piece . . .

The nation’s deep education problems, the data suggest, don’t magically disappear once students disappear behind ivy-covered walls.

America’s perceived international dominance of higher education, by contrast, rests largely on global rankings of top universities.

According to a recent ranking by the London-based Times Higher Education, 18 of the world’s top 25 universities are American. Similarly, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, published annually by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, gives us 19 of 25.

But there is a problem with this way of thinking. When President Obama has said, “We have the best universities,” he has not meant: “Our universities are, on average, the best” — even though that’s what many people hear. He means, “Of the best universities, most are ours.”

The distinction is important.


Only 18 percent of American adults with bachelor’s degrees score at the top two levels of numeracy, compared with the international average of 24 percent. Over one-third of American bachelor’s degree holders failed to reach Level 3 on the five-level Piaac scale, which means that they cannot perform math-related tasks that “require several steps and may involve the choice of problem-solving strategies.” Americans with associate’s and graduate degrees also lag behind their international peers.

American results on the literacy and technology tests were somewhat better, in the sense that they were only mediocre. American adults were eighth from the bottom in literacy, for instance. And recent college graduates look no better than older ones. Among people ages 16 to 29 with a bachelor’s degree or better, America ranks 16th out of 24 in numeracy.

There is no reason to believe that American colleges are, on average, the best in the world.

This reality should worry anyone who believes — as many economists do — that America’s long-term prosperity rests in substantial part on its store of human capital. The relatively high pay of American workers will start to erode as more jobs are exposed to harsh competition in global labor markets. It will be increasingly dangerous to believe that only our K-12 schools have serious problems.

[jk]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

i don't think the data on the median american college graduate compared to those of other nations is meaningful. the college-for-all meme has driven many kids into degree programs who shouldn't be there. how can you compare, for example, with germany- which has a strong apprenticeship system syphoning off kids who can do well without college?

[astonas]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

i don't think the data on the median american college graduate compared to those of other nations is meaningful. the college-for-all meme has driven many kids into degree programs who shouldn't be there. how can you compare, for example, with germany- which has a strong apprenticeship system syphoning off kids who can do well without college?

Your criticism is certainly quite valid. The study does compare apples to oranges. The trouble is, I'm not sure how one could really conduct a more meaningful study. As long as one is in a country of apples, with oranges elsewhere, one has little choice but to compare apples and oranges, and do one's best to correct for differences.

I certainly agree that if we could create a two-track system, we would probably have not only more meaningful comparisons, but more importantly it would likely create a better-educated population.

But that is actually aside from the main reason I posted, which was to point to two ideas: That graduation from a "top school" does not necessarily mean one has a superior intellect (responding to flintlock's comment on Bush's idiocy), and to point out that the US may not be allocating its education dollars in the most effective way (which I consider an important data point for anyone who has pre-college-age family members).

I do think that it is helpful that the article points out that the oft-repeated statement "We have the best universities in the world" at best hides the metrics in a misleading way, and at worst permits us to allow our educational system to continue to decay, with disturbing consequences for our future workforce.

Indeed, I find that deeper inspection generally reveals that assertions of "we are number one" usually wind up being political manipulations, and rather than being patriotic, they are used to provide cover for laxity in creating intelligent policies. Personally, I find such reduction in our nation's drive for progress to be the opposite of patriotism.

They keep us from being as great as we might be.

[jk]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

a more meaningful comparison would start by looking, per country, at the percentage of 17-18 [approx] year olds who start college or university. then i would choose the average college attendance of, say, the lowest quartile of countries, which we'll call x%. then i'd look at the top x% of college attendees in all the other countries. it's not perfect, but it would be more meaningful than the junk that was generated by looking at all degree holders.

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

the report's methodology . . .

The fair way to compare the two systems, to each other and to systems in other countries, would be to conduct something like a PISA for higher education. That had never been done until late 2013, when the O.E.C.D. published exactly such a study.

The project is called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (known as Piaac, sometimes called “pee-ack”). In 2011 and 2012, 166,000 adults ages 16 to 65 were tested in the O.E.C.D. countries (most of Europe along with the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea) and Cyprus and Russia.

Like PISA, Piaac tests people’s literacy and math skills. Because the test takers were adults, they were asked to use those skills in real-world contexts. They might, for example, be asked to read a news article and an email, each describing a different innovative method of improving drinking water quality in Africa, and identify the sentence in each document that describes a criticism common to both inventions. The test also included a measure of “problem-solving in technology-rich environments,” reflecting the nature of modern work.

As with the measures of K-12 education, the United States battles it out for last place, this time with Italy and Spain. Countries that traditionally trounce America on the PISA test of 15-year-olds, such as Japan and Finland, also have much higher levels of proficiency and skill among adults.

Of course, all 15-year-olds are required to go to school. College is voluntary. But when the Piaac numbers are calculated for people with different levels of education, America stills falls short of most other countries.

Only 18 percent of American adults with bachelor’s degrees score at the top two levels of numeracy, compared with the international average of 24 percent. Over one-third of American bachelor’s degree holders failed to reach Level 3 on the five-level Piaac scale, which means that they cannot perform math-related tasks that “require several steps and may involve the choice of problem-solving strategies.” Americans with associate’s and graduate degrees also lag behind their international peers.

American results on the literacy and technology tests were somewhat better, in the sense that they were only mediocre.

American adults were eighth from the bottom in literacy, for instance. And recent college graduates look no better than older ones. Among people ages 16 to 29 with a bachelor’s degree or better, America ranks 16th out of 24 in numeracy. There is no reason to believe that American colleges are, on average, the best in the world.

Instead, Piaac suggests that the wide disparities of knowledge and skill present among American schoolchildren are not ameliorated by higher education. If anything, they are magnified. In 2000, American 15-year-olds scored slightly above the international average. Twelve years later, Americans who were about 12 years older scored below the international average.

While American college graduates are far more knowledgeable than American nongraduates, creating a substantial “wage premium” for diploma holders, they look mediocre or worse compared to their college-educated peers in other nations.

[astonas]

Re: debunking the TOP schools

Astonas, I am so glad to hear this, and to hear from you in particular. I went to one of these "top" schools as an undergraduate, and have usually been reporting to people from no-name state colleges. Isn't that how it should be?

Thanks Polish, and it's great to be back chatting with you as well! I've missed my interactions here greatly.

I also remember reading that the people who spent time partying instead of studying (Get Bs and Cs instead of As) also tend to make more money and have more influence. I think part of what's going on here is that we are all told from an early age to value knowledge and learning, and are assessed on that to get into colleges, but what tends to have a bigger effect on one's company and career is one's ability to influence others. Thus the people who diligently eschew social activities for academic ones wind up as either less inclined, or less adept, at getting people to fall in line behind them. Too much substance, perhaps, and not enough bluster?

As Abraham Lincoln once said, "A leader without followers is just a man out for a walk."

I know there's been a whole body of writing (which to be honest I still haven't got around to reading very much of) about the concept of E.Q. (emotional intelligence) being more important than I.Q. I suspect that there's probably something to this, and it may account for at least part of the effect you're describing. People who have worked hard to follow the advice of their elders may simply have been getting advice that was better suited to a different age. I suppose the good news may be that at least some of the EQ books claim there are ways to help people to improve such "soft" skills.