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This doesn't sound like a higher education problem - it sounds like an education problem. If adults can't pass a "screening test geared toward a ninth-grade edu

This doesn't sound like a higher education problem - it sounds like an education problem. If adults can't pass a "screening test geared toward a ninth-grade education", we're either teaching the wrong things (useless subjects with no practical applications) or we're teaching it the wrong way. Higher education is too late to solve this. Requiring degrees, I agree that's a problem. People should do degrees for academic purposes. And while there's undeniably an association between "smart"/"clever" and "degree", the real issue is the feature creep. Put simply, because of lack of other standards, either from education or industry, a degree is now the easiest way to determine if someone is, well, reliable/hard-working without taking a gamble. While I'm sure it isn't perfect, licensing like lawyers (the bar in the US) or electricians (at least in the UK) have is a potential work-around for this. As an aside, I strongly believe a gap year between school and college/university is underrated. Everybody I've met who worked for a year or more beforehand had a different approach to college, and got more out of it. It also gives you the chance of discovering non-academic pursuits you enjoy, and maybe deciding college isn't such a big deal along the way. Gap years are a huge missed opportunity for both individuals and industry.

jasode 10y ago
>This doesn't sound like a higher education problem - it sounds like an education problem. The story isn't really about "higher education" in the traditional meaning. It's about taking the blue-collar apprenticeship & training model and calling _that_ a "college degree". Since blue collar schooling (apprenticeships) and blue collar careers (e.g. factory workers) have a social stigma, some folks in the article are saying "degree required" should be expanded to mean "apprenticeship required". The last sentence of the article highlights this re-labeling: >“And whatever you do with training, you need to call it college. You want to make people feel good about the path they choose.” Other sentences in that article on that same theme: > But the college-for-all movement, [...], is often conflated with earning a bachelor’s degree. > “Higher ed,” he said, “needs to respect the dignity of labor.” E.g. the prospective factory worker attends training at a community college for 2 years and gets a credential that's not a traditional bachelor's degree -- maybe a Completion Certificate and call _that_ the "college degree required". That's the idiosyncratic meaning of "Degree Required" specific to the NYT article's title.
- bilbo0s 10y ago
  I don't know??? A lot of the examples they give, whether it is in a factory or in some sort of repair tech capacity, make it seem as if FLEXIBILITY is the issue. I think they are testing to make sure that the candidates have some requisite base level understanding of the principles underlying the technology to be able to adapt to any changes in higher level essentials that may need to be made in the field or on the floor. (My reading could be wrong, but I doubt it.) If what Seimens et al want is the ability to be flexible, I can certainly understand why they skew towards candidates with college degrees. Frankly I've found that college grads absorb new technological principles far more easily that tech school grads. If your tech won't change, the tech school grad is fine. But if you think things may shift in the future, you're going to need some college grads. (Just my experience, YMMV.) Maybe we should be thinking about how to "teach" more "flexibility", (if that's even possible?), at the high school and college level. We would need to have a better understanding of it though. I know companies are calling it "flexibility"... but consider... is it more "adaptability" companies are looking for? Or is it actually "creativity" that they are seeking? Is it both? I don't know if we have a good understanding of that right now??? Whatever college is doing to confer that flexibility to its graduates is what we need more of. If we want to change high school or tech school in the future to confer that ability, that would be fine. But you have to keep in mind that Seimens needs workers today, not in the future. So the only solution they have TODAY is to mandate college degrees.
  - jasode 10y ago
    >If what Seimens et al want is flexibility, I can certainly understand why they skew towards candidates with college degrees. The story isn't really about Siemens. It's about trying to convince readers of what a "college degree" can mean in the future. If you look at the background of the author Jeffrey J. Selingo[1], you'll see he previously wrote about traditional college coursework not serving the needs of blue-collar workers that don't need 4-year degrees. He echoes many of the same sentiments by Mike Rowe ("Dirty Jobs")[2] about giving apprenticeships and factory jobs more respect. To go back to Siemens as one example, the article states: >, Siemens in 2011 created an apprenticeship program for seniors at local high schools that combines four years of on-the-job training with an associate degree in mechatronics from nearby Central Piedmont Community College. Today, that type of 2-year training is not as prestigious as a traditional 4-year degree. The writer is simply using Siemens as a case study of changing the public's attitude about "higher education". [1] http://jeffselingo.com/book/college-un-bound/ http://jeffselingo.com/book/college-un-bound/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKzu86Agg0&feature=youtu.be&t=3m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKzu86Agg0&feature=youtu.be...
randomdata 10y ago
The problem seems to be really one of oversupply, coupled with businesses who are afraid of discrimination lawsuits. Employers who are desperate to find people are not in a position to make any demands about their employees, but when you have hundreds of people lining up at your door looking for a job, you have no choice but to be picky. And being picky requires something to be picky about. Education is one of the only criteria left that won't run the risk of putting you under legal scrutiny. It really has nothing to do with the degree at all. It's just a poor-man's filtering mechanism in the absence of anything better.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ksrm 10y ago
  Oversupply, or in other words lack of demand for labour. Approximately everybody needs a job.
  - randomdata 10y ago
    Surprisingly, in the US, the number of vacant jobs is almost equal to the number who are unemployed. Virtually everyone could have a job. However, people are attracted to certain kinds of jobs, so you get long lineups for them, necessitating the need to cull applicants, and nobody lining up for others, which is where employers cannot be picky.
- coredog64 10y ago
  Requiring an unnecessary college degree for a job is the last bastion of acceptable racism in the US.
  - kesselvon 10y ago
    how is that racist?
    - randomdata 10y ago
jo909 10y ago
To be honest, not sure how well I would do in such a test. Other than simple household math etc I had little contact with anything I once learned at school. Use it or loose it. I'm sure I could relearn most of it quickly, but after a few years working I just know whatever I needed for my job. And I consider myself a very skilled expert in the little niche I'm working in.
droithomme 10y ago
> This doesn't sound like a higher education problem I agree with you. The problem is that many high school graduates are functionally illiterate and innumerate. Those that are not manage to go to college and graduate. Employers have noticed this and are using a Bachelor's Degree as a screening criteria for basic literacy. The root cause of the problem is long before college. When the article says that advanced math is needed for tractor repair, they don't mean anything that would be studied in a math major. They mean competence with arithmetic and very basic algebra such as understanding how to plug measured numbers into a formula and calculate the result using a calculator, in addition to the ability to follow simple step by step instructions in a repair manual which is generously illustrated.
- no_wizard 10y ago
  This, so much. I worked tech support to put myself through school and I can't believe the number of people who simply can't follow basic instruction. Like how to log in to an account basic. Or use a password manager. I could go on, but I'd fill this tiny box with so many examples I'd look like a crazy person. Nothing has made me believe this more than working tech support.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  That sounds like a much bigger problem. Forget the extra unecessary student debt, what are we going to do with those who are functionally illiterate? And how is this even possible?
pjmlp 10y ago
In Portugal a gap year is seen as a failure to meet university requirements. Only those that need to save some money for the university or failed exams do gap years.
- walshemj 10y ago
  :-) in the uk a gap Yah is seen as an extended holiday for posh rich kids.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  A gap year is pretty uncommon in the US. But virtually any high school graduate can get admitted to a community college or a state university.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  I will admit I did it to save money, although it was kind of forced on me via military service. Different cultures I guess, in Germany somebody not relying on their parents/the state is seen as a good thing.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Yes, now that I have been living here for several years I would do it differently, but the culture hasn't changed much in last couple of years. You also will never see young children going to primary school on their own.
SilasX 10y ago
>If adults can't pass a "screening test geared toward a ninth-grade education", we're either teaching the wrong things (useless subjects with no practical applications) or we're teaching it the wrong way. Higher education is too late to solve this. Agreed, but the public is equally opposed to standardized tests, the only way to detect that the schools are placing a student in 11th grade despite being functionally illiterate.
Animats 10y ago
"Fewer than 15 percent of the applicants were able to pass a reading, writing and math screening test geared toward a ninth-grade education." That's a low standard. This is in North Carolina, which is ranked 24th nationally. New Mexico is at the bottom. California used to have the California High School Exit Examination, required for a high school diploma. The fail rate was about 10%. That was suspended in 2016, but may come back in 2018. From 2006 to 2015, a California high school diploma meant something.
walshemj 10y ago
one of the problems is with the push for a BSC the bright kids that in the past would have gone down the vocational track have opted for university - thus diluting the pool of potential recruits

jasode 10y ago

>This doesn't sound like a higher education problem - it sounds like an education problem. The story isn't really about "higher education" in the traditional meaning. It's about taking the blue-collar apprenticeship & training model and calling _that_ a "college degree". Since blue collar schooling (apprenticeships) and blue collar careers (e.g. factory workers) have a social stigma, some folks in the article are saying "degree required" should be expanded to mean "apprenticeship required". The last sentence of the article highlights this re-labeling: >“And whatever you do with training, you need to call it college. You want to make people feel good about the path they choose.” Other sentences in that article on that same theme: > But the college-for-all movement, [...], is often conflated with earning a bachelor’s degree. > “Higher ed,” he said, “needs to respect the dignity of labor.” E.g. the prospective factory worker attends training at a community college for 2 years and gets a credential that's not a traditional bachelor's degree -- maybe a Completion Certificate and call _that_ the "college degree required". That's the idiosyncratic meaning of "Degree Required" specific to the NYT article's title.

bilbo0s 10y ago
I don't know??? A lot of the examples they give, whether it is in a factory or in some sort of repair tech capacity, make it seem as if FLEXIBILITY is the issue. I think they are testing to make sure that the candidates have some requisite base level understanding of the principles underlying the technology to be able to adapt to any changes in higher level essentials that may need to be made in the field or on the floor. (My reading could be wrong, but I doubt it.) If what Seimens et al want is the ability to be flexible, I can certainly understand why they skew towards candidates with college degrees. Frankly I've found that college grads absorb new technological principles far more easily that tech school grads. If your tech won't change, the tech school grad is fine. But if you think things may shift in the future, you're going to need some college grads. (Just my experience, YMMV.) Maybe we should be thinking about how to "teach" more "flexibility", (if that's even possible?), at the high school and college level. We would need to have a better understanding of it though. I know companies are calling it "flexibility"... but consider... is it more "adaptability" companies are looking for? Or is it actually "creativity" that they are seeking? Is it both? I don't know if we have a good understanding of that right now??? Whatever college is doing to confer that flexibility to its graduates is what we need more of. If we want to change high school or tech school in the future to confer that ability, that would be fine. But you have to keep in mind that Seimens needs workers today, not in the future. So the only solution they have TODAY is to mandate college degrees.
- jasode 10y ago
  >If what Seimens et al want is flexibility, I can certainly understand why they skew towards candidates with college degrees. The story isn't really about Siemens. It's about trying to convince readers of what a "college degree" can mean in the future. If you look at the background of the author Jeffrey J. Selingo[1], you'll see he previously wrote about traditional college coursework not serving the needs of blue-collar workers that don't need 4-year degrees. He echoes many of the same sentiments by Mike Rowe ("Dirty Jobs")[2] about giving apprenticeships and factory jobs more respect. To go back to Siemens as one example, the article states: >, Siemens in 2011 created an apprenticeship program for seniors at local high schools that combines four years of on-the-job training with an associate degree in mechatronics from nearby Central Piedmont Community College. Today, that type of 2-year training is not as prestigious as a traditional 4-year degree. The writer is simply using Siemens as a case study of changing the public's attitude about "higher education". [1] http://jeffselingo.com/book/college-un-bound/ http://jeffselingo.com/book/college-un-bound/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKzu86Agg0&feature=youtu.be&t=3m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzKzu86Agg0&feature=youtu.be...

randomdata 10y ago

The problem seems to be really one of oversupply, coupled with businesses who are afraid of discrimination lawsuits. Employers who are desperate to find people are not in a position to make any demands about their employees, but when you have hundreds of people lining up at your door looking for a job, you have no choice but to be picky. And being picky requires something to be picky about. Education is one of the only criteria left that won't run the risk of putting you under legal scrutiny. It really has nothing to do with the degree at all. It's just a poor-man's filtering mechanism in the absence of anything better.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ksrm 10y ago
Oversupply, or in other words lack of demand for labour. Approximately everybody needs a job.
- randomdata 10y ago
  Surprisingly, in the US, the number of vacant jobs is almost equal to the number who are unemployed. Virtually everyone could have a job. However, people are attracted to certain kinds of jobs, so you get long lineups for them, necessitating the need to cull applicants, and nobody lining up for others, which is where employers cannot be picky.
coredog64 10y ago
Requiring an unnecessary college degree for a job is the last bastion of acceptable racism in the US.
- kesselvon 10y ago
  how is that racist?
  - randomdata 10y ago

jo909 10y ago

To be honest, not sure how well I would do in such a test. Other than simple household math etc I had little contact with anything I once learned at school. Use it or loose it. I'm sure I could relearn most of it quickly, but after a few years working I just know whatever I needed for my job. And I consider myself a very skilled expert in the little niche I'm working in.

droithomme 10y ago

> This doesn't sound like a higher education problem I agree with you. The problem is that many high school graduates are functionally illiterate and innumerate. Those that are not manage to go to college and graduate. Employers have noticed this and are using a Bachelor's Degree as a screening criteria for basic literacy. The root cause of the problem is long before college. When the article says that advanced math is needed for tractor repair, they don't mean anything that would be studied in a math major. They mean competence with arithmetic and very basic algebra such as understanding how to plug measured numbers into a formula and calculate the result using a calculator, in addition to the ability to follow simple step by step instructions in a repair manual which is generously illustrated.

no_wizard 10y ago
This, so much. I worked tech support to put myself through school and I can't believe the number of people who simply can't follow basic instruction. Like how to log in to an account basic. Or use a password manager. I could go on, but I'd fill this tiny box with so many examples I'd look like a crazy person. Nothing has made me believe this more than working tech support.
tomjen3 10y ago
That sounds like a much bigger problem. Forget the extra unecessary student debt, what are we going to do with those who are functionally illiterate? And how is this even possible?

pjmlp 10y ago

In Portugal a gap year is seen as a failure to meet university requirements. Only those that need to save some money for the university or failed exams do gap years.

walshemj 10y ago
:-) in the uk a gap Yah is seen as an extended holiday for posh rich kids.
tedmiston 10y ago
A gap year is pretty uncommon in the US. But virtually any high school graduate can get admitted to a community college or a state university.
guitarbill 10y ago
I will admit I did it to save money, although it was kind of forced on me via military service. Different cultures I guess, in Germany somebody not relying on their parents/the state is seen as a good thing.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Yes, now that I have been living here for several years I would do it differently, but the culture hasn't changed much in last couple of years. You also will never see young children going to primary school on their own.

SilasX 10y ago

>If adults can't pass a "screening test geared toward a ninth-grade education", we're either teaching the wrong things (useless subjects with no practical applications) or we're teaching it the wrong way. Higher education is too late to solve this. Agreed, but the public is equally opposed to standardized tests, the only way to detect that the schools are placing a student in 11th grade despite being functionally illiterate.

Animats 10y ago

"Fewer than 15 percent of the applicants were able to pass a reading, writing and math screening test geared toward a ninth-grade education." That's a low standard. This is in North Carolina, which is ranked 24th nationally. New Mexico is at the bottom. California used to have the California High School Exit Examination, required for a high school diploma. The fail rate was about 10%. That was suspended in 2016, but may come back in 2018. From 2006 to 2015, a California high school diploma meant something.

walshemj 10y ago

one of the problems is with the push for a BSC the bright kids that in the past would have gone down the vocational track have opted for university - thus diluting the pool of potential recruits