The Crisis of College Affordability

[BadJuju]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

Maybe some incentives would produce 'productive' people? What if the state paid for the education of physicians, nurses, mathematians, scientists, water resource specialists, etc. etc. etc. and left the rest to fund for themselves?

There simply needs to be a complete overhaul of the education system. There is far too much theory in school and not enough practice, which is why people often say, "I will never need this after school." Mathematics, for instance, should be taught parallel to a field of engineering or some other class that has practical applications of mathematics. This should apply to all classes.

[Basil]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

Maybe some incentives would produce 'productive' people? What if the state paid for the education of physicians, nurses, mathematians, scientists, water resource specialists, etc. etc. etc. and left the rest to fund for themselves?

Then you have fallen right back into the trap of thinking that the purpose of an education is to 'have a good job'. Intelligent, motivated, self-disciplined, free thinking individuals will always be able to find or even create good jobs for themselves and be trained-up quite quickly in professions where there is need. But training people only for the perceived needs of society gets you a schooling system that produces sheople who have been trained to be sheople.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

The state of primary and secondary education in this country is abysmal. As a recent graduate of high school and a current attendant of college, I can quite honestly say that it has been an utter waste of time. High school is a glorified daycare and college is what high school should be. I feel that I would be much better served if I simply educated myself.

Agreed. My son has dropped out of high school, and then out of college, both times with my blessing. I would not have expected this, back when I was a serious student years ago. But schools (at least the highly rated ones he experienced) have wimped out.

The beauracratic control by some pinhead in Washington DC over the curriculum, testing goals and other details of the classroom has destroyed it.

[Basil]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

There simply needs to be a complete overhaul of the education system. There is far too much theory in school and not enough practice, which is why people often say, "I will never need this after school." Mathematics, for instance, should be taught parallel to a field of engineering or some other class that has practical applications of mathematics. This should apply to all classes.

Actually, you are taking it in the wrong direction. The further you go in the argument for teaching applied skills, the more likely you are to get standardized testing and standardized curricula that take the life out of all knowledge, because someone must then define the standard and someone must develop a test to insure that the standard is met. This creates schooling that gives us enough math to know that we can get something for less at Walmart than at Target, but not enough to be able to figure out that we cannot make the payments on the mortgage we just signed. It gives us just enough language skills to be able to read the propaganda all around us, but not enough to analyze the quality of an argument. We know enough to be subjects but not enough to be masters, and isn't that how the whole economic mess came about?

I love this famous passage from "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers:


"For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of education--lip-service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it."

[Basil]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

yet another thing to either get depressed about... or do something about.

i'm starting to think that the real answer is a mass movement to not participate.

Home schooling for my girls, by hook or by crook. This is one of the reasons I prefer to rent. I do not want to find myself stuck in a district that has suddenly changed the rules and no longer allows for home schooling.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

Actually, you are taking it in the wrong direction. The further you go in the argument for teaching applied skills, the more likely you are to get standardized testing and standardized curricula that take the life out of all knowledge,

Both are useful, at least in my experience.

I had a classic liberal arts education (ancient Greeks, European arts and literature and history, philosophers, Latin, as well as mathematics and various sciences) at one point, which was an excellent foundation, though suitable only for a few quite bookish sorts. Later I had specific professional training in computers, which was a suitable opening to my first programming job.

The keys, in my view, are:

1. Local control of the classroom and curriculum, leading to a diverse variety of schools, and
2. deliberate choice by the parent or student of what school to attend when to what purpose.

Sending everyone to cookie-cutter schools micromanaged by some beauracrat from Washington DC is the height of folly in my view.

[vanvaley1]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

Then you have fallen right back into the trap of thinking that the purpose of an education is to 'have a good job'. Intelligent, motivated, self-disciplined, free thinking individuals will always be able to find or even create good jobs for themselves and be trained-up quite quickly in professions where there is need. But training people only for the perceived needs of society gets you a schooling system that produces sheople who have been trained to be sheople.

Which category do the wall streeters et al fall into?

[petertribo]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

If you examine the MIT website, not all of the materials are there. Even if they were. The difference between real teaching and mentoring and learning through a computer is like the difference between eating vitamins and real food. In theory the vitamins would work, but in reality you need food.

I knew only part of the materials were there but it is a beginning. One must ask why MIT is doing this. Another factor is: in a structured class, are not the best and brightest restrained by the others. And the classic: the student is actually brighter than the teacher. In less developed countries, there will be profit in someone putting all the MIT pieces together.

I remember years ago Steve Jobs talking about putting University laboratories on line for students to access. Like chemistry, physics. Where that is today, I do not know. But there is a lot going on in the bioresearch and nanotech areas which mirrors the PC revolution started by Gates, Jobs, Wozniak where everybody is equal, there are no teachers, professors because there is no institutionalized knowledge.

For myself, if I had children, it would be home schooling through computers and pick up socialization by a means other than by rote schooling. Some of the tools on line are very good.

[petertribo]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

I am doing my part right now. I am teaching myself about electronics, mathematics, and carpentry! :cool:

Good for you. I disconnected a long time ago. I try to limit my transactions with the Big Corps as much as possible and buy small and local where I can. I am hoping the big indebted corporations collapse and that local opportunities will be created. I see signs of this already with a lot of wonderful, economical restaurants popping up. The food beats the hell out of the McCrap.

If you are young and a reader, try H.L.Mencken a real maverick from the 30s who absolutely roasts American life.

[Basil]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

Which category do the wall streeters et al fall into?

The lead sheople, along with most 'professionals'. This is not to denigrate anyone, any profession or professionalism in general but to acknowledge that many of our systems have come to consume us to the point that they no longer exist to serve us and we now exist to perpetuate them.

Most professions still have the core qualities upon which and for which they originally established. But in most it is very difficult to find them. Hence we have doctors who don't really care about patients or even understand them. Lawyers, judges and police that don't give a rat's ass about justice. Don't get me started on the religious professionals who wouldn't know piety if it bit them rear. Unfortunately, many of these individuals are victims of their professions, having embarked with high ideals, they now flounder in dissimulation and hypocrisy.

I would put the wall-streeters et al in this category. It can be done ethically in a way that contributes to the betterment of society on many levels. But for the most part, this ceased long ago.

Our mass education, or more properly schooling, system now exists to perpetuate itself and holds up the wealth of some professions as the goal towards which all should strive, but to which few ever attain. Then those who do are rarely content, but at least they are comfortable or even well-off, and then they work to perpetuate the myth.

[Basil]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

I knew only part of the materials were there but it is a beginning. One must ask why MIT is doing this. Another factor is: in a structured class, are not the best and brightest restrained by the others. And the classic: the student is actually brighter than the teacher. In less developed countries, there will be profit in someone putting all the MIT pieces together.

I remember years ago Steve Jobs talking about putting University laboratories on line for students to access. Like chemistry, physics. Where that is today, I do not know. But there is a lot going on in the bioresearch and nanotech areas which mirrors the PC revolution started by Gates, Jobs, Wozniak where everybody is equal, there are no teachers, professors because there is no institutionalized knowledge.

For myself, if I had children, it would be home schooling through computers and pick up socialization by a means other than by rote schooling. Some of the tools on line are very good.

The idea of putting this stuff online to replace the traditional teacher student relationship is just a way to centralize it for someone else to make big bucks.

In a well-structured educational environment, the best and brightest help bring the other students along and deepen their own knowledge through teaching; like a well-disciplined dojo, where the advanced help the beginners and all are respected. But you need the dojo. Just like you cannot learn jujitsu on line, so too, you cannot learn chemistry, biology, physics, philosophy or even history on line. Most of the people advancing the concept that one can are trying to figure out how to make a profit. Nonetheless, such things can provide a nice supplement and can even be better than the poor teaching to which many are now subjected.

[hayekvindicated]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

Liberal Arts faculties have their liberal nut jobs who are pushing an agenda. But they also have some rather conservative individuals who are pushing their agendas. And you might be surprised to know that there are many professors who simply want to help people learn how think and help them develop a greater appreciation for philosophy, literature, art, etc. Evaluating the competing perspectives of the radical liberal professors and extremely conservative professors comes to be part of the intellectual exercise for students.

While some professors may exercise intolerance, most do not. I think that you are under the impression this is more prevalent than it is because the story of a mild mannered professor teaching students Ottoman History, Shakespeare, or German Literature, etc. and improving their analytical skills and writing abilities in the process would not be worth writing about. But that is what is happening in most liberal arts classrooms around the country.

I would, however, agree with you that a restructuring of university faculties is an inevitable result of this process. It is already happening at several schools. At some schools it will serve to trim the fat, at others it will serve to reinforce current ideological trends within the university.

A good education is never a waste of time. An indoctrination certainly is. The debt aspect is just horrendous. The amount of debt people must now take on for a college degree is untenable. I attended the university where my mother worked as an administrator because it was free. I loved it, But may have felt much differently if I had accumulated heavy debts.

I have friends in academia. I know what goes on - in the US and in the UK. I have a friend who was treated so badly while he was doing his PhD, after 11 years they didn't even give him an M.Phil and tried to destroy his career (and this was at an Ivy League school). And this friend is no idiot - he is fluent in 8 languages.

Academia these days is no better than the Kremlin in the 1930s during Stalin's purges.

There are some people who will never believe that things are quite so bad. The idea that there are "competing" ideologies in universities that one can compare is a joke. All you get is different versions of left-wing nonsense.

[Basil]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

I have friends in academia. I know what goes on - in the US and in the UK. I have a friend who was treated so badly while he was doing his PhD, after 11 years they didn't even give him an M.Phil and tried to destroy his career (and this was at an Ivy League school). And this friend is no idiot - he is fluent in 8 languages.

Academia these days is no better than the Kremlin in the 1930s during Stalin's purges.

There are some people who will never believe that things are quite so bad. The idea that there are "competing" ideologies in universities that one can compare is a joke. All you get is different versions of left-wing nonsense.

I am an academic. I work at a major private research university and received a PhD from an Ivy League school. My intellectual outlook is completely at odds with that of my PhD advisor. He was hardly left-wing, and when it comes to my own stance, most would not identify me as such.

Your friend's situation sounds horrible, and I know that these things happen. But it is only one instance. I know of other situations where professors have bent over backwards to help someone get through the program, regardless of their ideological differences.

That everything is some shade of liberalism is a complete crock. Look at Dershowitz, whom most would characterize as a conservative, who used his influence to destroy the career of Norman Finkelstein, whom most would characterize as liberal.

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

FL tuition heading up but even with price increases, Univ. of Florida undergrad tuition is one of the best bargains in the US education system.

College tuition costs in Florida likely to rise again
For the second year in a row, students at state universities might be seeing double-digit increases in tuition. Part of the increase would come from additional charges the schools are allowed to impose.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/1...z1IXfyctcgRead more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/1...#ixzz1IXft8Sa3


BY ROBERT SAMUELS

HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU

TALLAHASSEE -- Of the many disagreements lawmakers are having about the future of Florida's education system, one thing doesn't seem to be in contention: College tuition is going up. Way up.
Both the House and Senate budget proposals call for an 8 percent tuition increase at all state universities.
The schools then have the option of asking students to pay even more, resulting in as high as a 15 percent increase in total.
Most major universities plan on employing that option. The University of Florida has already announced a 15 percent tuition hike, as it did last year.
The final packages at Florida International University and the University of South Florida in Tampa haven't been decided yet, but spokesmen for both schools say they most likely will enact 15 percent increases.
``This is in order to provide a good quality of education, to be where our peer institutions are,'' said Steve Orlando, a UF spokesman.

The rocketing rates come at a time when lawmakers are working to repurpose higher education in Florida.
Among the proposed changes are raising standards for the Bright Futures scholarships and tasking the Board of Governors -- which oversees the university system -- with finding ways to pull ahead in U.S. News and World Report's rankings of top state universities, where UF is currently tied for 15th with the University of Texas in Austin and Penn State.

``We are the fourth-largest state in the country,'' said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, the Ormond Beach Republican who heads the state's higher education budget committee. ``We should have the best universities.''
The optional hike is known in the Capitol as the ``tuition differential.''
Last year, the state began allowing all 11 of its universities to tack on additional tuition costs -- as long as 30 percent of the new revenue goes toward need-based aid and the rest toward improving undergraduate academics. Community colleges don't have a differential tuition option.
That aid might help soften the blow for recipients of the Bright Futures scholarships, which have traditionally paid the full cost of tuition at state universities and colleges for students with top grade-point averages and test scores.

In the best-case budget scenario, the amount of money given to each Bright Futures recipient won't increase next year, despite the tuition increases.
The average cost for tuition and fees at a Florida university hovers around $4,500 a year -- among the lowest in the country. Schools could cost anywhere between $350 and $700 more next year.
The universities will be allowed to use differential tuition at such a rate until they reach the nationwide average cost of state universities, which is around $6,500 a year.
Dean Colson, a member of the Board of Governors, said current tuition rates in Floridar are probably not enough to foster a more ideal academic environment that fosters undergraduate research and financial aid for the underprivileged.
``The additional revenues can help us develop a world-class education,'' Colson said.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/1...#ixzz1IXfo0nXR

[zoog]

Re: The Crisis of College Affordability

...The University of Florida has already announced a 15 percent tuition hike, as it did last year.
.
.
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The average cost for tuition and fees at a Florida university hovers around $4,500 a year -- among the lowest in the country. Schools could cost anywhere between $350 and $700 more next year.

The universities will be allowed to use differential tuition at such a rate until they reach the nationwide average cost of state universities, which is around $6,500 a year...

Comparatively, that's a "bargain". Even $6,500 seems low. According to nces.ed.gov, in 2009 public higher ed tuition averaged $8,941 overall, with public universities averaging $12,716. Add room and board and you're starting to talk about real money.