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>College education and healthcare /should/ be free for all in this country(USA). They are fundamental to the social mobility and freedom that our founding princ

by wycs 8y ago

>College education and healthcare /should/ be free for all in this country(USA). They are fundamental to the social mobility and freedom that our founding principles were created for. We had this. It was called high school. But then standards were lowered so it was no longer a good filter for intelligence and conscientiousness. Standards were lowered to increase "social mobility." This did not work. Now college performs the same function. But the average IQ of college graduates will continue to decline as the percent of the population that graduates approaches 100, and so masters degrees are becoming increasingly common. Will this, too, increase social mobility? Social mobility in a meritocratic society is hard given the heritability of valuable mental traits. If we keep sacrificing our schools on the alter of social mobility, we will end up burning the first 30 years of or lives getting Phds in mopping floors.

omegaworks 8y ago
>But then standards were lowered Standards have never been higher. Students face pressure from college admissions and teachers face pressure from national standards bodies. Policies that have enriched standardized testing companies. The real issue: Labor power has never been lower. Wages have been stagnant for the past two decades. You need a college degree now because safe middle class lifestyles that were previously available to graduates of high school are now limited to those with certain bachelors degrees. Whether this is due to political collusion with capital, increased automation, globalized labor or a combination of the three is up for debate. The middle class you're imagining was fueled by an economic engine tooling up to rebuild Europe and a political climate that taxed the rich at 80-90%.
Afforess 8y ago
Unfortunately this is likely correct. The race to the bottom with credentialism will continue until we break the game. The answer isn't more credentials (free college, etc), but to make credentials worthless as a social signal. Educational backgrounds should be made a protected class, much like race or religion is. Then employers will have to rely on examinations or merit (see: Bar exam for attornies), rather than pedigrees. If you can't judge or ask about your college degree or lack, the job market becomes a vastly more level place.
- Godel_unicode 8y ago
  You're just replacing one credential (University degree) with another (has passed specific test). Go ask any CISSP how well they think exams work as a test of ability or knowledge.
RealityVoid 8y ago
First of all, your post shows that you think that education or going through a school is a social signal rather than an educational experience. I disagree with this. Secondly, you seem to imply that no improvement in the education level has happened because of the normalization of high-school education. I disagree with this also. I have no numbers to back this up, but by looking at the world around us, at all the inventions and the added complexity and our increasing ability to handle complex systems, I think we have become smarter. Thirdly, maybe social mobility was hijacked by some rhetoric or became a symbol for this or that group. But at its core, social mobility means allowing people to rise to their potential and not stifling them. How can we be "sacrificing our schools on the alter of social mobility" when social mobility is supposed to be _more_ meritocratic, not less?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bkohlmann 8y ago
  To your first point, you may be interested to read Bryan Caplan’s “The Case Against Education.” He makes a very strong, quantitative case that education is primarily a signaling device. For instance the difference between 3.5 years without graduating and 4 years + graduation is immense, whereas in a non-signaling model, they should have very similar outcomes.
  - bairrd 8y ago
    Doesn't that book have a whole chapter espousing hyper-libertarian points about why child labour is good?
    - pitaj 8y ago
      Depends on how you define children, how you define labor, and how you define good.
  - 8y ago
maym86 8y ago
Requiments change based on availability of labour and is not entirely related to the difficulty of the job. The exact same type of jobs often have different requirements year-to-year. Recruiters start adding or removing requiments based on how easy it is to find people for a role. It just acts as a filter but is often unrelated to the actual difficulty of the role. Recruiters don't want to have to judge people entirely on merit as it is hard. They pre-filter the pool to focus their search and make it easier to manage and vary the constraints based on number of applicants. This means people perfectly capable of doing a job get excluded for a superficial reason other than ability or competence and it overly effects people from a poorer background. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=475339930 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
[citation needed] On all the bullshit "IQ claims". At my alma mater (and I suspect a similar national trend at schools of equal standing) SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been. The world is just getting more competitive; there's no grand conspiracy, and there definitely never has been a meritocracy, and our elite institutions remain elite (even if people like you would no longer be able to get in). [0] https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/5873/00STUDENTS.pdf https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/5873/00STU...
- Fomite 8y ago
  This. I once had a friend on an admissions committee at my alma mater look at my old application to see if I could get it. That was seven years after I was admitted and the answer was "No".
- wycs 8y ago
  >SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been. And the GDP of Venezuela as measured in bolívar is the highest it's ever been! "More comparisons on new SAT scores versus critical reading and math scores on the old SAT: A new 1200 corresponds to an old 1130. A new 1300 corresponds to an old 1230. A new 1400 corresponds to an old 1340. A new 1500 corresponds to an old 1460. But a new 1600 is just as perfect as an old 1600." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/11/why-your-new-sat-score-is-not-as-strong-as-you-think-it-is/?utm_term=.b01040feaf93 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/1...
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    This argument exactly is why I posted the older fact book. The recent change doesn't explain the uptick going on for the past 40+ years. Also even if you take off 40-60pts there's still a rising trend. Underestimate the caliber of the rising population at your own peril. The failing generation can only cry ageism for so long before their jobs are eaten.
    - feynmanistheman 8y ago
noelwelsh 8y ago
It's not difficult to have a free or nearly free college system. Many European countries have this and participation rates are still generally in the same range as US college participation.
- Godel_unicode 8y ago
  In Germany, 28% of adults age 24-35 have completed tertiary education, as compared with the United States in which 46% have. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...
pesmhey 8y ago
Are you saying high school was the equivalent of free healthcare? That’s actually exactly what you’re implying. Is it the learning? A college education and a high school education were very different from eachother 50 years ago, and are still very different from each other today. Honestly, you’re comment makes you seem like a racist and a sexist. Mainly because a high school education was never the equivalent of a college education or free healthcare for all. Like, you had a point to make and just hijacked a tangentially related comment to make it, without it actually being relevant.
- dang 8y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

by wycs 8y ago

omegaworks 8y ago

>But then standards were lowered Standards have never been higher. Students face pressure from college admissions and teachers face pressure from national standards bodies. Policies that have enriched standardized testing companies. The real issue: Labor power has never been lower. Wages have been stagnant for the past two decades. You need a college degree now because safe middle class lifestyles that were previously available to graduates of high school are now limited to those with certain bachelors degrees. Whether this is due to political collusion with capital, increased automation, globalized labor or a combination of the three is up for debate. The middle class you're imagining was fueled by an economic engine tooling up to rebuild Europe and a political climate that taxed the rich at 80-90%.

Afforess 8y ago

Unfortunately this is likely correct. The race to the bottom with credentialism will continue until we break the game. The answer isn't more credentials (free college, etc), but to make credentials worthless as a social signal. Educational backgrounds should be made a protected class, much like race or religion is. Then employers will have to rely on examinations or merit (see: Bar exam for attornies), rather than pedigrees. If you can't judge or ask about your college degree or lack, the job market becomes a vastly more level place.

Godel_unicode 8y ago
You're just replacing one credential (University degree) with another (has passed specific test). Go ask any CISSP how well they think exams work as a test of ability or knowledge.

RealityVoid 8y ago

First of all, your post shows that you think that education or going through a school is a social signal rather than an educational experience. I disagree with this. Secondly, you seem to imply that no improvement in the education level has happened because of the normalization of high-school education. I disagree with this also. I have no numbers to back this up, but by looking at the world around us, at all the inventions and the added complexity and our increasing ability to handle complex systems, I think we have become smarter. Thirdly, maybe social mobility was hijacked by some rhetoric or became a symbol for this or that group. But at its core, social mobility means allowing people to rise to their potential and not stifling them. How can we be "sacrificing our schools on the alter of social mobility" when social mobility is supposed to be _more_ meritocratic, not less?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bkohlmann 8y ago
To your first point, you may be interested to read Bryan Caplan’s “The Case Against Education.” He makes a very strong, quantitative case that education is primarily a signaling device. For instance the difference between 3.5 years without graduating and 4 years + graduation is immense, whereas in a non-signaling model, they should have very similar outcomes.
- bairrd 8y ago
  Doesn't that book have a whole chapter espousing hyper-libertarian points about why child labour is good?
  - pitaj 8y ago
    Depends on how you define children, how you define labor, and how you define good.
- 8y ago

maym86 8y ago

Requiments change based on availability of labour and is not entirely related to the difficulty of the job. The exact same type of jobs often have different requirements year-to-year. Recruiters start adding or removing requiments based on how easy it is to find people for a role. It just acts as a filter but is often unrelated to the actual difficulty of the role. Recruiters don't want to have to judge people entirely on merit as it is hard. They pre-filter the pool to focus their search and make it easier to manage and vary the constraints based on number of applicants. This means people perfectly capable of doing a job get excluded for a superficial reason other than ability or competence and it overly effects people from a poorer background. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=475339930 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago

[citation needed] On all the bullshit "IQ claims". At my alma mater (and I suspect a similar national trend at schools of equal standing) SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been. The world is just getting more competitive; there's no grand conspiracy, and there definitely never has been a meritocracy, and our elite institutions remain elite (even if people like you would no longer be able to get in). [0] https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/5873/00STUDENTS.pdf https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/5873/00STU...

Fomite 8y ago
This. I once had a friend on an admissions committee at my alma mater look at my old application to see if I could get it. That was seven years after I was admitted and the answer was "No".
wycs 8y ago
>SAT scores among admitted students is the highest it's ever been. And the GDP of Venezuela as measured in bolívar is the highest it's ever been! "More comparisons on new SAT scores versus critical reading and math scores on the old SAT: A new 1200 corresponds to an old 1130. A new 1300 corresponds to an old 1230. A new 1400 corresponds to an old 1340. A new 1500 corresponds to an old 1460. But a new 1600 is just as perfect as an old 1600." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/11/why-your-new-sat-score-is-not-as-strong-as-you-think-it-is/?utm_term=.b01040feaf93 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/1...
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  This argument exactly is why I posted the older fact book. The recent change doesn't explain the uptick going on for the past 40+ years. Also even if you take off 40-60pts there's still a rising trend. Underestimate the caliber of the rising population at your own peril. The failing generation can only cry ageism for so long before their jobs are eaten.
  - feynmanistheman 8y ago

noelwelsh 8y ago

It's not difficult to have a free or nearly free college system. Many European countries have this and participation rates are still generally in the same range as US college participation.

Godel_unicode 8y ago
In Germany, 28% of adults age 24-35 have completed tertiary education, as compared with the United States in which 46% have. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...

pesmhey 8y ago

Are you saying high school was the equivalent of free healthcare? That’s actually exactly what you’re implying. Is it the learning? A college education and a high school education were very different from eachother 50 years ago, and are still very different from each other today. Honestly, you’re comment makes you seem like a racist and a sexist. Mainly because a high school education was never the equivalent of a college education or free healthcare for all. Like, you had a point to make and just hijacked a tangentially related comment to make it, without it actually being relevant.

dang 8y ago
Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.