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This seems like a terrible idea. Colleges should be about learning. I can understand guaranteeing what skills at what proficiency should be attained, but job pl

This seems like a terrible idea. Colleges should be about learning. I can understand guaranteeing what skills at what proficiency should be attained, but job placement and career advancement are the result of a different process. If you want a business that studies the needs of employers, gives crash courses in those skills to build what is determined to be a desired resume, and then aggressively markets you to prospective job opportunities, that sounds valuable, but it most definitely not an educational institution.

debacle 8y ago
Colleges are only about learning for the upper quintiles. For the lower quintiles, they are and have always been about jobs.
_jal 8y ago
Like it or not, the primary reason a lot of people go to school is related to desires about their future earning potential. I don't see how intentionally refusing to provide information on outcomes experienced by past students is going to benefit those people. Not everyone goes off to an expensive school at 18. Rest assured, those institutions are going to stay available. This is about for-profits, and calling those "educational institutions" is already an arguable proposition.
- wonthegame 8y ago
  I would assume graduates that obtained high paying jobs would be more likely to complete these surveys. Of course they could include how many graduates were polled and how many responded.
tareqak 8y ago
There is probably room for both. Some people are in it for the end result while others want to develop thenselves further. I’ve had this conversation with others before about the expectations people have of universities and universities of themselves. A few possible purposes come to mind. 1) To train students in skills that are immediately relevant for one or more careers. 2) To train the next generation of researchers and expand the body of known knowledge through research and discovery. 3) To give students a quick but lasting foothold into the professional networks of their future peers. There might have been a few more that I fail to recall now.
swsieber 8y ago
It seems like a great idea to me (not terrible). People pay a lot for college, in large part, because they expect they can pay it back with their increased earning potential afterwards. And many are wrong. Withholding knowledge (how ironic) is not the way to correct the education system.
qudat 8y ago
> Colleges should be about learning. While I agree in spirit, I disagree in reality. The fact of the matter is, "higher level education" has been co-opted by industry to train employees. I think overall it's a round-about way to train employees and we should break apart the concept of higher education/training into discrete parts: apprenticeships and academics. The problem for me is that college is a one-size-fits-all solution for the US and I think we are starting to see it burst at the seams. I mean we can't even agree on the purpose of college, how can we possibly optimize the institution if we cannot answer that question?
- pmart123 8y ago
  I agree that there are two distinct segments, one which is more vocational, and one that is more academic, modeled off a classic liberal arts education. Perhaps on the vocational side, it is easier to determine exit level salaries and trajectories. However, I am not quite sure that is the same case with an institution offering a liberal arts education. For instance, when I graduated from Dartmouth, 20% of the student body majored in Economics or Government, and in less than 10 years, 20% of major are either CS of Engineering. I don't think it is that easy to extrapolate the likely salaries and career outcomes in these cases.
  - zrobotics 8y ago
    How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? Or someone taking a poly-Sci or philosophy bachelor's with plans of law school? Those are all students who are taking what is, in effect, a vocational course. They need a particular set of skills for a particular job, and they DGAF about broadening themselves. There were definitely students in my CS classes who were genuinely interested in the academic topics, but most of the people in my compilers class seemed to think it was just something to suffer through.
    - username223 8y ago
      > How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? In my experience at an R1 university (not an Ivy, but still respectable), even before the latest tech bubble, very few undergrad and master's CS students saw it as anything but vocational. However, they were a nice source of profit for the department, especially the international ones, so everyone went along.
drcross 8y ago
What you're saying is fine, if the cost of the course doesn't financially cripple the student for 25 years, which is what is mostly happening.
bradleyjg 8y ago
> Colleges should be about learning. I’m inclined to agree. The way to make that happen is to figure out some superior proxy for the characteristics employers are looking for (intelligence, diligence, willingness to conform, etc.) than university degrees. When the signaling value of a degree is no longer necessary, colleges will be truly optional and so for and about learning. However, it should be noted the implications are fairly radical. A college system for and about learning about is going to be much much smaller than the status quo. Which in turn means either much less research output or some other method of funding research has to be found.
dsajames 8y ago
Some people treat it like a university, others like a vocational school. Have stats for both. Just be careful with stats. They are easily gamed.
sailfast 8y ago
I agree that it’s weird for an educational institution to have to do this but it seems logical for a for-profit that is actively marketing with basically made-up numbers about costs, placement rates, etc to be held accountable for this. If your students expect they will get a job because you said so, and expect it to cost 30K, there should be some truth to those claims. They shouldn’t end up unplaced and 100K in debt if you effectively made guarantees in your marketing / sales materials. The same is true for investment firms. You can’t promise 50% returns.
michaelt 8y ago
At least in my country, there are two main camps on college funding. The first camp believes education shouldn't focus on graduate earnings, and shouldn't cost anything. The second camp believes student fees are unfortunate-but-currently-unavoidable, and so long as they're in place we should ensure students make informed, rational decisions before taking on a lifetime of debt.

debacle 8y ago

Colleges are only about learning for the upper quintiles. For the lower quintiles, they are and have always been about jobs.

_jal 8y ago

Like it or not, the primary reason a lot of people go to school is related to desires about their future earning potential. I don't see how intentionally refusing to provide information on outcomes experienced by past students is going to benefit those people. Not everyone goes off to an expensive school at 18. Rest assured, those institutions are going to stay available. This is about for-profits, and calling those "educational institutions" is already an arguable proposition.

wonthegame 8y ago
I would assume graduates that obtained high paying jobs would be more likely to complete these surveys. Of course they could include how many graduates were polled and how many responded.

tareqak 8y ago

There is probably room for both. Some people are in it for the end result while others want to develop thenselves further. I’ve had this conversation with others before about the expectations people have of universities and universities of themselves. A few possible purposes come to mind. 1) To train students in skills that are immediately relevant for one or more careers. 2) To train the next generation of researchers and expand the body of known knowledge through research and discovery. 3) To give students a quick but lasting foothold into the professional networks of their future peers. There might have been a few more that I fail to recall now.

swsieber 8y ago

It seems like a great idea to me (not terrible). People pay a lot for college, in large part, because they expect they can pay it back with their increased earning potential afterwards. And many are wrong. Withholding knowledge (how ironic) is not the way to correct the education system.

qudat 8y ago

> Colleges should be about learning. While I agree in spirit, I disagree in reality. The fact of the matter is, "higher level education" has been co-opted by industry to train employees. I think overall it's a round-about way to train employees and we should break apart the concept of higher education/training into discrete parts: apprenticeships and academics. The problem for me is that college is a one-size-fits-all solution for the US and I think we are starting to see it burst at the seams. I mean we can't even agree on the purpose of college, how can we possibly optimize the institution if we cannot answer that question?

pmart123 8y ago
I agree that there are two distinct segments, one which is more vocational, and one that is more academic, modeled off a classic liberal arts education. Perhaps on the vocational side, it is easier to determine exit level salaries and trajectories. However, I am not quite sure that is the same case with an institution offering a liberal arts education. For instance, when I graduated from Dartmouth, 20% of the student body majored in Economics or Government, and in less than 10 years, 20% of major are either CS of Engineering. I don't think it is that easy to extrapolate the likely salaries and career outcomes in these cases.
- zrobotics 8y ago
  How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? Or someone taking a poly-Sci or philosophy bachelor's with plans of law school? Those are all students who are taking what is, in effect, a vocational course. They need a particular set of skills for a particular job, and they DGAF about broadening themselves. There were definitely students in my CS classes who were genuinely interested in the academic topics, but most of the people in my compilers class seemed to think it was just something to suffer through.
  - username223 8y ago
    > How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? In my experience at an R1 university (not an Ivy, but still respectable), even before the latest tech bubble, very few undergrad and master's CS students saw it as anything but vocational. However, they were a nice source of profit for the department, especially the international ones, so everyone went along.

drcross 8y ago

What you're saying is fine, if the cost of the course doesn't financially cripple the student for 25 years, which is what is mostly happening.

bradleyjg 8y ago

> Colleges should be about learning. I’m inclined to agree. The way to make that happen is to figure out some superior proxy for the characteristics employers are looking for (intelligence, diligence, willingness to conform, etc.) than university degrees. When the signaling value of a degree is no longer necessary, colleges will be truly optional and so for and about learning. However, it should be noted the implications are fairly radical. A college system for and about learning about is going to be much much smaller than the status quo. Which in turn means either much less research output or some other method of funding research has to be found.

dsajames 8y ago

Some people treat it like a university, others like a vocational school. Have stats for both. Just be careful with stats. They are easily gamed.

sailfast 8y ago

I agree that it’s weird for an educational institution to have to do this but it seems logical for a for-profit that is actively marketing with basically made-up numbers about costs, placement rates, etc to be held accountable for this. If your students expect they will get a job because you said so, and expect it to cost 30K, there should be some truth to those claims. They shouldn’t end up unplaced and 100K in debt if you effectively made guarantees in your marketing / sales materials. The same is true for investment firms. You can’t promise 50% returns.

michaelt 8y ago

At least in my country, there are two main camps on college funding. The first camp believes education shouldn't focus on graduate earnings, and shouldn't cost anything. The second camp believes student fees are unfortunate-but-currently-unavoidable, and so long as they're in place we should ensure students make informed, rational decisions before taking on a lifetime of debt.