8 ms·

(I think) I'm a fan of getting rid of subsidized loans for education. It has only made the cost of education go up rather than make college affordable. But on

(I think) I'm a fan of getting rid of subsidized loans for education. It has only made the cost of education go up rather than make college affordable. But on the flip side, what can be expected from people with no ability to afford college at the new price? Ive been told over and over that my personal situation working full time on the midnight shift and going to college is 'unrealistic' for everyone to do. So whats the solution? Get rid of the loans until college cut the cost? What happens to the first few years of lower and middle class kids who cant afford to go to college?

douglaswlance 8y ago
The solution is to stop orienting our society around institutional learning. We have a global information network. We need to orient society around individual learning, not academia. Kids living at home and taking (mostly) pre-programmed online courses should be the norm. It is vastly cheaper, and can deliver more consistently better results.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  I like this mentality, but there needs to be education around fact finding and logic. (Formerly the scientific method, but I think that got hijacked with PhD politics) Me and my brother are building a dishwasher but he seems to jump into solutions rather than determining the necessary inputs and equations to prove them outputs will meet our design specifications. And my brother is an engineer. In a few weeks/months I feel like I can learn any subject with enough googling and hard work. However, without this ultra critical mindset, I can imagine a child would get lost among too much information.
  - randomdata 8y ago
    > but there needs to be education around fact finding and logic. I picked up that mentality while being involved with the family farm as a young child. The elementary and secondary systems came of age when the vast majority of the population also had significant involvement in agriculture. One would imagine that kind of thinking would be pushed at those early school levels, long before one reaches the typical post-secondary age, but you are suggesting that is not the case. It may have been assumed that one would already pick that up at home given the circumstances of the time and we haven't looked back since? Has college become the replacement for agrarian exposure in our modern urbanized society?
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  The problem is credentials. If you have a college degree in X, you can prove it to me. If you lived at home and took pre-programmed online courses, I need a way of determining whether you actually know what those courses should have taught you. Of course, a college degree doesn't really tell me that, either. If you can solve this problem, you could make online education superior to college education (at least in terms of value to an employer).
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > The problem is credentials. If you have a college degree in X, you can prove it to me. If you lived at home and took pre-programmed online courses, I need a way of determining whether you actually know what those courses should have taught you. There is already an approach that addresses this: competency-based degree programs.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      Are there competency-based degree programs that grant a degree that is generally recognized (by employers and/or grad schools)?
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        In that most employers (and grad schools) generally recognize degrees from accredited institutions, yes. Obviously, there aren't any with the prestige of top traditional schools.
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Could you name a few of these accredited competency-based institutions?
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        Here's a few, there are more: Western Governors University Brandman University MyPath Southern New Hampshire University College for America
aerotwelve 8y ago
At state schools, the sharp increase in tuition costs over the last decade have had just as much to do (if not more) with a corresponding decrease in state funding. State legislatures all over this country -- starting with the 2008 recession but never quite stopping -- have cut support to these institutions. Often schools raise tuition in response, because many of them have mandates to serve X number of in-state students or have Y programs or perform research at threshold Z. (The best part is when the politicians who voted for the cut in funding turn around a year later and say why are you raising tuition?!) This is a vicious cycle, and it only serves one class of people: students who are born into well-off families who can afford tuition at these rates out of pocket. Those who aren't have to take out larger and larger loans just to attempt to complete a degree. It's really sad, because it doesn't need to be this way.
VLM 8y ago
My guess is the meme that higher ed is something you only do between 18-22 will disappear. Also the meme that all blue collar jobs require a higher ed degree, such as bartender, waitress, secretary, day care worker, receptionist, all of that will go back to "high school grad" as a job req. Of course with prevailing long term trends, "having a full time job" or "having medical care" will soon be a luxury few will experience.

douglaswlance 8y ago

The solution is to stop orienting our society around institutional learning. We have a global information network. We need to orient society around individual learning, not academia. Kids living at home and taking (mostly) pre-programmed online courses should be the norm. It is vastly cheaper, and can deliver more consistently better results.

mkirklions 8y ago
I like this mentality, but there needs to be education around fact finding and logic. (Formerly the scientific method, but I think that got hijacked with PhD politics) Me and my brother are building a dishwasher but he seems to jump into solutions rather than determining the necessary inputs and equations to prove them outputs will meet our design specifications. And my brother is an engineer. In a few weeks/months I feel like I can learn any subject with enough googling and hard work. However, without this ultra critical mindset, I can imagine a child would get lost among too much information.
- randomdata 8y ago
  > but there needs to be education around fact finding and logic. I picked up that mentality while being involved with the family farm as a young child. The elementary and secondary systems came of age when the vast majority of the population also had significant involvement in agriculture. One would imagine that kind of thinking would be pushed at those early school levels, long before one reaches the typical post-secondary age, but you are suggesting that is not the case. It may have been assumed that one would already pick that up at home given the circumstances of the time and we haven't looked back since? Has college become the replacement for agrarian exposure in our modern urbanized society?
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
The problem is credentials. If you have a college degree in X, you can prove it to me. If you lived at home and took pre-programmed online courses, I need a way of determining whether you actually know what those courses should have taught you. Of course, a college degree doesn't really tell me that, either. If you can solve this problem, you could make online education superior to college education (at least in terms of value to an employer).
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The problem is credentials. If you have a college degree in X, you can prove it to me. If you lived at home and took pre-programmed online courses, I need a way of determining whether you actually know what those courses should have taught you. There is already an approach that addresses this: competency-based degree programs.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    Are there competency-based degree programs that grant a degree that is generally recognized (by employers and/or grad schools)?
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      In that most employers (and grad schools) generally recognize degrees from accredited institutions, yes. Obviously, there aren't any with the prestige of top traditional schools.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Could you name a few of these accredited competency-based institutions?
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        Here's a few, there are more: Western Governors University Brandman University MyPath Southern New Hampshire University College for America

aerotwelve 8y ago

At state schools, the sharp increase in tuition costs over the last decade have had just as much to do (if not more) with a corresponding decrease in state funding. State legislatures all over this country -- starting with the 2008 recession but never quite stopping -- have cut support to these institutions. Often schools raise tuition in response, because many of them have mandates to serve X number of in-state students or have Y programs or perform research at threshold Z. (The best part is when the politicians who voted for the cut in funding turn around a year later and say why are you raising tuition?!) This is a vicious cycle, and it only serves one class of people: students who are born into well-off families who can afford tuition at these rates out of pocket. Those who aren't have to take out larger and larger loans just to attempt to complete a degree. It's really sad, because it doesn't need to be this way.

VLM 8y ago

My guess is the meme that higher ed is something you only do between 18-22 will disappear. Also the meme that all blue collar jobs require a higher ed degree, such as bartender, waitress, secretary, day care worker, receptionist, all of that will go back to "high school grad" as a job req. Of course with prevailing long term trends, "having a full time job" or "having medical care" will soon be a luxury few will experience.