4 ms·

It would be silly to put a bunch of resources into expanding college and university accessibility. In the US, highschool is free and mandatory, but still 20% of

by wang_li 10y ago

It would be silly to put a bunch of resources into expanding college and university accessibility. In the US, highschool is free and mandatory, but still 20% of students are not graduating. Then there's the portion of those who graduate who have GPAs lower than 3.0. A disappointingly large portion of students do not take education seriously and there is no real societal value in providing those students with four more years of tax-payer supported casual living.

gambiting 10y ago
Just to provide an example how other countries do it - in Poland, all higher education is 100% free for the student. It doesn't matter what and where they want to study - there is nothing to pay. Of course, the problem you mentioned still exists - a lot, if not most of people are not cut out for higher education, and since there is no financial barrier to entry, why aren't people spending 3+ years on taxpayer's dime doing nothing? Well, I believe there are two mechanisms at work here - it's stupidly hard to get into any university, even a relatively poor one. You need fantastically good results on the high school diploma or you are not even considered. Second mechanism - first year is the sieve to rule out who is not cut out for higher education. It has a reputation for being harshly difficult, and it's not unheard of university courses failing or just losing 90% of all students that have enrolled in their first year. If you come to university with an attitude that you are going to party and play games, you will be out by the end of the first semester. Then, if you do reach the end, there's no "grades" on your diploma. You can't graduate with a low score so to speak - you need to have absolutely pristine record to actually graduate. People have finished their 3-4 years and have been re-taking final exams for years just because you need to get something stupid like 90%+ score to actually pass. In comparison, I was shocked by education in country like the UK - in here, first year of uni is almost treated like kindergarten. It's not meant to be difficult. You are not meant to be treating it seriously. It's the year when you are supposed to get the partying out of your system and enjoy yourself. The grades from 1st year don't even count towards your final degree. The only way to fail in 1st year would be to assault a lecturer or something. Then anything above 40% is a pass. "First" is just a paltry 70% of higher. So you can cruise through higher education and graduate, even if your scores were below 50% average.
- foobarian 10y ago
  I feel that stricter systems like this require an extremely homogeneous society to work. Everyone has to be on the ball, educating the kids from a young age. This includes both the actual education of things they learn, as well as instilling the values of respect for learning and education. When you have a fragmented society it feels like it's hard to fix the low performers at the college level, and even having a much stricter and/or free system would not help without a huge upstream culture change. I don't know what the solution is (US-centric). Push the education and values as widely as possible relentlesly, hoping to get a positive first derivative, and maybe in 50 years things will be better?
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  First year aside, having personally been through the high education pipeline, I would say the post is still mostly wrong. The list of the most elite schools is much shorter and they often deal with law, management and politics. Some of those are expensive. The high price is paid for making connections, education is comparable to best public ones. Likewise, best schools are clearly based in major cities and metropolises. Those are not cheap, though thanks to not as silly housing market as in the US, the difference is less than half order of magnitude for rental and cost of the living; decent system of tax funded boarding houses further evens it out some. I've seen people barely pass all along, the 90% thing is a joke. Some even just cheat. That said, even those barely making it are generally not half bad.
wpietri 10y ago
> A disappointingly large portion of students do not take education seriously This is one of those things where there's a very long causal chain. Stopping your explanation at "students do not take education seriously" grossly and negligently oversimplifies things. [1] For example, you ignore all the perfectly serious people who have low GPAs but have bad teachers, bad schools, abusive parents, are in deep poverty, have experienced severe trauma, or are homeless. You also ignore the many, many reasons people might end up in high school not taking education seriously. You also ignore the people who are serious and did well but still aren't getting the college educations they need. Of which there are plenty. Apparently in your view we shouldn't help them just because there are other people you deem not serious enough. [1] Note also that this is a pretty clear example of the fundamental attribution error: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
- wang_li 10y ago
  It doesn't matter the reasons why they don't take education seriously, the fact is that they don't. It would do absolutely nothing for these students to provide them with free college tuition unless you can solve those other problems first. It's not until we have 95-99% high school graduation rates, with a majority of those graduating also have high GPAs, that we need to consider whether we are providing sufficient access to colleges and universities. ([1] According to the very first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry you linked there are studies that suggest the fundamental attribution error doesn't even exist in practice.)
  - Spivak 10y ago
    So we just do nothing about the 80% of students that are graduating high school? The US has 300 million people, we are allowed to work on more than one thing at a time.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    First, you again ignore the students who do take education seriously but have other issues. Second: > It doesn't matter the reasons why they don't take education seriously, the fact is that they don't. It would do absolutely nothing for these students The reasons do matter, because some are more amenable to fixing than others. They also matter because we should fix them. > It's not until we have 95-99% high school graduation rates, with a majority of those graduating also have high GPAs, that we need to consider whether we are providing sufficient access to colleges and universities. This is monstrous. It is an excuse for inaction, not a serious plan. If only one student needs more education but cannot get it, then we need to consider why. That other students are unready does not lessen their need. That other students are unready does not lessen the potential benefit to society of having a more productive, better-educated person in society. [1] So? More work suggests that it does. And whether or not it's a primary effect or the derivative of other effects, you are certainly engaging in the pattern of behavior here, which is the point you are so busily ignoring.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
I don't find a problem with GPA's lower than 3.0 out of a 4.0 scale: If a C is supposed to be average - which is slightly lower than a 3.0 - this should really be around what the average student earns. Those that get a 3.0 or 3.5 actually have to have put in extra effort to earn those and it makes it much easier to see who takes it seriously. Instead, person A can waft through making A's and B's while person 2 has to work their butts off, when a C should really be acceptable.

by wang_li 10y ago

gambiting 10y ago

Just to provide an example how other countries do it - in Poland, all higher education is 100% free for the student. It doesn't matter what and where they want to study - there is nothing to pay. Of course, the problem you mentioned still exists - a lot, if not most of people are not cut out for higher education, and since there is no financial barrier to entry, why aren't people spending 3+ years on taxpayer's dime doing nothing? Well, I believe there are two mechanisms at work here - it's stupidly hard to get into any university, even a relatively poor one. You need fantastically good results on the high school diploma or you are not even considered. Second mechanism - first year is the sieve to rule out who is not cut out for higher education. It has a reputation for being harshly difficult, and it's not unheard of university courses failing or just losing 90% of all students that have enrolled in their first year. If you come to university with an attitude that you are going to party and play games, you will be out by the end of the first semester. Then, if you do reach the end, there's no "grades" on your diploma. You can't graduate with a low score so to speak - you need to have absolutely pristine record to actually graduate. People have finished their 3-4 years and have been re-taking final exams for years just because you need to get something stupid like 90%+ score to actually pass. In comparison, I was shocked by education in country like the UK - in here, first year of uni is almost treated like kindergarten. It's not meant to be difficult. You are not meant to be treating it seriously. It's the year when you are supposed to get the partying out of your system and enjoy yourself. The grades from 1st year don't even count towards your final degree. The only way to fail in 1st year would be to assault a lecturer or something. Then anything above 40% is a pass. "First" is just a paltry 70% of higher. So you can cruise through higher education and graduate, even if your scores were below 50% average.

foobarian 10y ago
I feel that stricter systems like this require an extremely homogeneous society to work. Everyone has to be on the ball, educating the kids from a young age. This includes both the actual education of things they learn, as well as instilling the values of respect for learning and education. When you have a fragmented society it feels like it's hard to fix the low performers at the college level, and even having a much stricter and/or free system would not help without a huge upstream culture change. I don't know what the solution is (US-centric). Push the education and values as widely as possible relentlesly, hoping to get a positive first derivative, and maybe in 50 years things will be better?
AstralStorm 10y ago
First year aside, having personally been through the high education pipeline, I would say the post is still mostly wrong. The list of the most elite schools is much shorter and they often deal with law, management and politics. Some of those are expensive. The high price is paid for making connections, education is comparable to best public ones. Likewise, best schools are clearly based in major cities and metropolises. Those are not cheap, though thanks to not as silly housing market as in the US, the difference is less than half order of magnitude for rental and cost of the living; decent system of tax funded boarding houses further evens it out some. I've seen people barely pass all along, the 90% thing is a joke. Some even just cheat. That said, even those barely making it are generally not half bad.

wpietri 10y ago

> A disappointingly large portion of students do not take education seriously This is one of those things where there's a very long causal chain. Stopping your explanation at "students do not take education seriously" grossly and negligently oversimplifies things. [1] For example, you ignore all the perfectly serious people who have low GPAs but have bad teachers, bad schools, abusive parents, are in deep poverty, have experienced severe trauma, or are homeless. You also ignore the many, many reasons people might end up in high school not taking education seriously. You also ignore the people who are serious and did well but still aren't getting the college educations they need. Of which there are plenty. Apparently in your view we shouldn't help them just because there are other people you deem not serious enough. [1] Note also that this is a pretty clear example of the fundamental attribution error: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

wang_li 10y ago
It doesn't matter the reasons why they don't take education seriously, the fact is that they don't. It would do absolutely nothing for these students to provide them with free college tuition unless you can solve those other problems first. It's not until we have 95-99% high school graduation rates, with a majority of those graduating also have high GPAs, that we need to consider whether we are providing sufficient access to colleges and universities. ([1] According to the very first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry you linked there are studies that suggest the fundamental attribution error doesn't even exist in practice.)
- Spivak 10y ago
  So we just do nothing about the 80% of students that are graduating high school? The US has 300 million people, we are allowed to work on more than one thing at a time.
- wpietri 10y ago
  First, you again ignore the students who do take education seriously but have other issues. Second: > It doesn't matter the reasons why they don't take education seriously, the fact is that they don't. It would do absolutely nothing for these students The reasons do matter, because some are more amenable to fixing than others. They also matter because we should fix them. > It's not until we have 95-99% high school graduation rates, with a majority of those graduating also have high GPAs, that we need to consider whether we are providing sufficient access to colleges and universities. This is monstrous. It is an excuse for inaction, not a serious plan. If only one student needs more education but cannot get it, then we need to consider why. That other students are unready does not lessen their need. That other students are unready does not lessen the potential benefit to society of having a more productive, better-educated person in society. [1] So? More work suggests that it does. And whether or not it's a primary effect or the derivative of other effects, you are certainly engaging in the pattern of behavior here, which is the point you are so busily ignoring.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

I don't find a problem with GPA's lower than 3.0 out of a 4.0 scale: If a C is supposed to be average - which is slightly lower than a 3.0 - this should really be around what the average student earns. Those that get a 3.0 or 3.5 actually have to have put in extra effort to earn those and it makes it much easier to see who takes it seriously. Instead, person A can waft through making A's and B's while person 2 has to work their butts off, when a C should really be acceptable.