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>Remove the social stigma of not going to college. Hardly any tv shows that show young non college grads as positive. Or just make college useful and accessibl

>Remove the social stigma of not going to college. Hardly any tv shows that show young non college grads as positive. Or just make college useful and accessible. Give people the option of a European style undergrad where there is no liberal arts breadth, only technical courses. If we had accredited colleges doing 3 year bachelor degrees in STEM, the system would be much more efficient.

flukus 9y ago
> Or just make college useful and accessible. Give people the option of a European style undergrad where there is no liberal arts breadth, only technical courses So just turn college into a trade school? All that would do is make trade schools more expensive.
- dagw 9y ago
  I wouldn't call a "European style undergrad" a trade school. The only difference is that for example a math 'major' in Europe spends 90-95% of their time taking math courses, while in the US they might spend maybe 60-70% of their time on math courses. Thus you can get through the same 'relevant' course load in 3 years instead of 4.
barry-cotter 9y ago
If you think credentialism is bad now, wait until the only thing stopping people getting Master’s and doctorates is their parents’ willingness to pay their living expenses. Separate college’s education and credentialism functions. If the US government says it will recognise anyone who passes X test as having a Bachelor’s degree in X, for some value of X, there will be a reasonable number of people getting four year degrees in three, two or one.
austenallred 9y ago
Honestly we'd be fine with 1-year degrees for most things.
- roel_v 9y ago
  Like what? Are you saying that most degrees, taught at universities today, could be condensed into 1 year, and the outcome would be that we'd have 19 year olds with the same skills as the 22 year olds graduating today? What degrees do you have in mind?
  - evv555 9y ago
    Almost half of the courses I took were subjects like English, History, Health, and so on. I don't doubt the value of these courses but they were competing for time and energy with courses like Linear Algebra and Calculus often to my detriment. I think an advanced degree could be condensed to 2-3 years or 4 years of part-time night school.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      This is how the French/European system works (3 year technical degree), which has already been suggested in one of the parent comments.
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      As an example, here's the first year timetable for the Computing degree at Imperial College London (I did this degree). Notice the complete lack of anything that isn't computer science or mathematics. The disadvantage is, if you decide you hate computing, you have to start again from almost nothing. https://timetable.doc.ic.ac.uk/all/?start=02-10-2017&field=class&weekrange=2-10 https://timetable.doc.ic.ac.uk/all/?start=02-10-2017&field=c...
  - Joe-Z 9y ago
    Well, I for one did a 3-year digital media / game development degree, but the bulk of our learning (programming, maths, foundations of game- and web-development and multi-media) was done with after the first year. The rest was far more focused on project management, 'self-management', scientific writing and project work. I wouldn't say you could replace all of that with a one-year degree, but you surely could offer a foundation course after which people are capable to go into industry and work on their practical skills. I guess that's kind of what these 'coding boot camps' are doing now (I don't really know much about them).
notyourday 9y ago
If colleges concentrated on 'be able to write, read and communicate', 'understand basics of math, physics, chemistry, biology, finance and IT' there would be no one to pay salaries of professors/teachers/staff/leaches in women's studies, basket weaving, and african interpretive dance departments. Edit: No amount of downvoting will change that taking a classes in african interpretive dace department that satisfy the "cultural enrichment criteria" needed to graduate is a waste of money. Money spent on fluff and money that will need to be paid back.
notfromhere 9y ago
That works in Europe because k-12 is more rigorous and you have to test into university. Lots of STEM majors are terrible at reasoning and writing, so I don't think skipping the liberal arts section would be helpful.

flukus 9y ago

> Or just make college useful and accessible. Give people the option of a European style undergrad where there is no liberal arts breadth, only technical courses So just turn college into a trade school? All that would do is make trade schools more expensive.

dagw 9y ago
I wouldn't call a "European style undergrad" a trade school. The only difference is that for example a math 'major' in Europe spends 90-95% of their time taking math courses, while in the US they might spend maybe 60-70% of their time on math courses. Thus you can get through the same 'relevant' course load in 3 years instead of 4.

barry-cotter 9y ago

If you think credentialism is bad now, wait until the only thing stopping people getting Master’s and doctorates is their parents’ willingness to pay their living expenses. Separate college’s education and credentialism functions. If the US government says it will recognise anyone who passes X test as having a Bachelor’s degree in X, for some value of X, there will be a reasonable number of people getting four year degrees in three, two or one.

austenallred 9y ago

Honestly we'd be fine with 1-year degrees for most things.

roel_v 9y ago
Like what? Are you saying that most degrees, taught at universities today, could be condensed into 1 year, and the outcome would be that we'd have 19 year olds with the same skills as the 22 year olds graduating today? What degrees do you have in mind?
- evv555 9y ago
  Almost half of the courses I took were subjects like English, History, Health, and so on. I don't doubt the value of these courses but they were competing for time and energy with courses like Linear Algebra and Calculus often to my detriment. I think an advanced degree could be condensed to 2-3 years or 4 years of part-time night school.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    This is how the French/European system works (3 year technical degree), which has already been suggested in one of the parent comments.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    As an example, here's the first year timetable for the Computing degree at Imperial College London (I did this degree). Notice the complete lack of anything that isn't computer science or mathematics. The disadvantage is, if you decide you hate computing, you have to start again from almost nothing. https://timetable.doc.ic.ac.uk/all/?start=02-10-2017&field=class&weekrange=2-10 https://timetable.doc.ic.ac.uk/all/?start=02-10-2017&field=c...
- Joe-Z 9y ago
  Well, I for one did a 3-year digital media / game development degree, but the bulk of our learning (programming, maths, foundations of game- and web-development and multi-media) was done with after the first year. The rest was far more focused on project management, 'self-management', scientific writing and project work. I wouldn't say you could replace all of that with a one-year degree, but you surely could offer a foundation course after which people are capable to go into industry and work on their practical skills. I guess that's kind of what these 'coding boot camps' are doing now (I don't really know much about them).

notyourday 9y ago

If colleges concentrated on 'be able to write, read and communicate', 'understand basics of math, physics, chemistry, biology, finance and IT' there would be no one to pay salaries of professors/teachers/staff/leaches in women's studies, basket weaving, and african interpretive dance departments. Edit: No amount of downvoting will change that taking a classes in african interpretive dace department that satisfy the "cultural enrichment criteria" needed to graduate is a waste of money. Money spent on fluff and money that will need to be paid back.

notfromhere 9y ago

That works in Europe because k-12 is more rigorous and you have to test into university. Lots of STEM majors are terrible at reasoning and writing, so I don't think skipping the liberal arts section would be helpful.