7 ms·

The column seems to be entirely from the point of view of an employer looking to screen potential employees. Like it or not, college is about more than job trai

by ojbyrne 18y ago

The column seems to be entirely from the point of view of an employer looking to screen potential employees. Like it or not, college is about more than job training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about intellectual exploration (answering the question - what exactly do I want to be when I grow up?). Perhaps none of that is worth the lost time, but when I see it in the WSJ, my initial reaction is that it's another right wing wacko who sees college as just too many liberals with too much influence. And he puts too much faith in certification tests as "classless", in my opinion. I used to do test prep, and like most things, the people who have the money and the time to train for the certifications have an advantage.

mynameishere 18y ago
For people who enter school for vocational reasons, the sports and parties and alcohol and Shakespeare classes and diversity training and dormitory life and extended vacations and other activities are completely distinct from getting vocational training...ie, they are a complete waste. The 10K+/per year expense is vastly more wasteful than any cert training...
whacked_new 18y ago
I find the whole "college is..." or "college is not..." to be a problematic mindset in itself. For example, why not develop social skills in high school? Many of the student leaders I know from college started as high school student leaders. Now we're talking about "HS is..." or "HS is not..." or "HS sucks." Why wait until HS? Now we're talking about MS... then lower school. Then it's just your entire life as an individual. I like the idea of a loose education system where there aren't Nth-grade, Xth-year students, but simply students who have proved themselves in a particular set of studies. For those with the time to study, take one year. For those without, take ten years. Then there won't be any of these ideas of what college should or should not do. It's my personal fantasy. Impractical perhaps?
- stcredzero 18y ago
  The problem with social skills, is that they're learned in a cultural/social context. For many, the desired quality and kind of context is only available in small doses (with a particular group) whose effect is diluted by the larger context which can only be corrected by moving somewhere else.
- Hexstream 18y ago
  I'd definitely love more granular dependencies between courses. Why do you need "Language LV2" before you can tackle "Math LV3"?
- jmtulloss 18y ago
  Many schools are moving towards this. You can take some HS courses in MS if you've demonstrated the motivation, and you can take college courses in HS as well. Having just graduated college, I see it as the most valuable experience of my life. I've defined who I am and what I want to do in the past four years, and learned a ton about engineering on the side.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  "It's my personal fantasy. Impractical perhaps?" There were actually three or four test schools operated this way during the 70s. The literature on them is really interesting. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=public+schools+should+learn+to+ski&searchtype=keyword&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=ti&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&objectId=0900019b8004016f&accno=ED196898&_nfls=false http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&...
mattmaroon 18y ago
It's written from that perspective because college degrees are used as a proxy for job training, and most people pursue them so they can get a better job, which makes the system broken. The other benefits of the college experience don't require college anyway, and are cost-prohibitive to a lot of people. I don't think he was arguing that nobody should do 4 years of college. Just that employers need a better vetting system.
- stcredzero 18y ago
  We need to stop fooling ourselves and just flat-out have masters and apprenticeship. When the system in schools and in companies works, it boils down to this anyhow. (I'm not including prodigies that you couldn't keep from learning no matter what you did. I'm talking about those talents that wouldn't flower if they didn't fall into the right circumstance to reach their full potential.)
  - astine 18y ago
    We have those in some industries: It's how you get to be a plumber for instance.
    - stcredzero 18y ago
      We really need that in Programming!
      - menloparkbum 18y ago
        No, we don't. I don't want some guild or certification authority telling me I can't program for a living until I've done 2 years of "journeyman" programming and passed my licensing exams.
        byrneseyeview 18y ago
        Is that what Murray is advocating? The article I read suggested that using standardized tests would be a cheaper alternative than college -- but if you'd prefer four years of paying and not working to two years of getting paid to learn, you can at least enjoy the status quo.
byrneseyeview 18y ago
Like it or not, college is about more than job training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about intellectual exploration It's funny, but I got a whole lot more of that stuff after dropping out. Am I really going to learn more from a place where I don't pay the rent, buy stuff with a meal card, work fifteen hours per week but don't necessarily have to show up, and am surrounded by proto-alcoholics? If you can deduce the modern college experience from any sane set of first principles, I'd like to hear about it -- but it seems to me that Murray is right. If we didn't have college, and you tried to invent it, you'd be rightly denounced as a loon. And he puts too much faith in certification tests as "classless", in my opinion. I used to do test prep, and like most things, the people who have the money and the time to train for the certifications have an advantage. Murray has crunched the numbers rather than counting the anecdotes; studying for the SAT can raise scores a lot at first, but if you studied two hours per day for 150 days, your expected score increase would be seventy points. Murray cites this (http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ254150&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ254150 http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetai...), which I haven't read. It would be a good plan to introduce your convictions to some data, so you can back up your assertion with something besides "I used to do test prep, and envy rich people too much to wonder what I can learn from them." Perhaps none of that is worth the lost time, but when I see it in the WSJ, my initial reaction is that it's another right wing wacko who sees college as just too many liberals with too much influence. You also might be happier if 1) you didn't assume that the newspaper that recently published a Barbara Ehrenreich piece (http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121380066376984483.html http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121380066376984...) was irredeemably right-wing, and 2) if you considered the possibility that since college professors are overwhelmingly liberal (http://cellasreview.blogspot.com/2002_08_25_cellasreview_archive.html#80731355 http://cellasreview.blogspot.com/2002_08_25_cellasreview_arc...) and nearly impossible to fire, they would consist of a greater than average number of liberals who do, indeed, have too much influence.
- MaysonL 18y ago
  The Wall Street Journal may or may not be irredeemably right-wing, but I'd bet on it. Also, looking at Murray's record on number-crunching, and I do mean The Bell Curve, betting on it to be anything more than BS with lipstick would be a losing proposition.
thomasmallen 18y ago
I spent a year at college (freelancing at the same time to support myself) and it was a tremendous waste of time. I can say with certainty that I lost maturity being there, and left feeling stupider than when I entered in the fall. You tell me which will teach an individual more: A sheltered, friendly environment with mostly privileged peers, or living independently? I chose the latter. I interviewed for a web design job before receiving my HS diploma, got the job, and started two days after graduation. A month later, I was out on my own, paying bills, taking care of myself. Now that was a learning experience.
kingkongrevenge 18y ago
> For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it I think a little discussed reason college is such a big deal in America is because most communities are so socially and architecturally dysfunctional. Many colleges provide what a proper town/city is supposed to: public spaces and facilities, walkability, organizations with civic and social functions, etc. It's only because people graduate and go live in alienating suburban asteroid belts or in soulless political-machine big cities that they idealize college so much. College isn't so great, it's just adult life in most of America sucks. But it's not like that every where. p.s. The oft repeated "college rounds people out" line desperately needs data. I think it's a load of bullshit.
- bokonist 18y ago
  Agreed. I think the problem is that towns and cities are run as democracies, where every faction tries to twist the government to do it's own special interest. Thus homeowners will put in place 1/4 acre per house zoning laws, developers will get rights to build big box stores, etc. No one looks out for the whole. A university's only goal is to maximize the satisfaction of its students in order to boost its own revenue. It does this amazingly well.
Kaizyn 18y ago
The WSJ isn't a conservative/Republican paper. It's actually just plutocratic.

by ojbyrne 18y ago

mynameishere 18y ago

For people who enter school for vocational reasons, the sports and parties and alcohol and Shakespeare classes and diversity training and dormitory life and extended vacations and other activities are completely distinct from getting vocational training...ie, they are a complete waste. The 10K+/per year expense is vastly more wasteful than any cert training...

whacked_new 18y ago

I find the whole "college is..." or "college is not..." to be a problematic mindset in itself. For example, why not develop social skills in high school? Many of the student leaders I know from college started as high school student leaders. Now we're talking about "HS is..." or "HS is not..." or "HS sucks." Why wait until HS? Now we're talking about MS... then lower school. Then it's just your entire life as an individual. I like the idea of a loose education system where there aren't Nth-grade, Xth-year students, but simply students who have proved themselves in a particular set of studies. For those with the time to study, take one year. For those without, take ten years. Then there won't be any of these ideas of what college should or should not do. It's my personal fantasy. Impractical perhaps?

stcredzero 18y ago
The problem with social skills, is that they're learned in a cultural/social context. For many, the desired quality and kind of context is only available in small doses (with a particular group) whose effect is diluted by the larger context which can only be corrected by moving somewhere else.
Hexstream 18y ago
I'd definitely love more granular dependencies between courses. Why do you need "Language LV2" before you can tackle "Math LV3"?
jmtulloss 18y ago
Many schools are moving towards this. You can take some HS courses in MS if you've demonstrated the motivation, and you can take college courses in HS as well. Having just graduated college, I see it as the most valuable experience of my life. I've defined who I am and what I want to do in the past four years, and learned a ton about engineering on the side.
Alex3917 18y ago
"It's my personal fantasy. Impractical perhaps?" There were actually three or four test schools operated this way during the 70s. The literature on them is really interesting. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=public+schools+should+learn+to+ski&searchtype=keyword&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=ti&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&objectId=0900019b8004016f&accno=ED196898&_nfls=false http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&...

mattmaroon 18y ago

It's written from that perspective because college degrees are used as a proxy for job training, and most people pursue them so they can get a better job, which makes the system broken. The other benefits of the college experience don't require college anyway, and are cost-prohibitive to a lot of people. I don't think he was arguing that nobody should do 4 years of college. Just that employers need a better vetting system.

stcredzero 18y ago
We need to stop fooling ourselves and just flat-out have masters and apprenticeship. When the system in schools and in companies works, it boils down to this anyhow. (I'm not including prodigies that you couldn't keep from learning no matter what you did. I'm talking about those talents that wouldn't flower if they didn't fall into the right circumstance to reach their full potential.)
- astine 18y ago
  We have those in some industries: It's how you get to be a plumber for instance.
  - stcredzero 18y ago
    We really need that in Programming!
    - menloparkbum 18y ago
      No, we don't. I don't want some guild or certification authority telling me I can't program for a living until I've done 2 years of "journeyman" programming and passed my licensing exams.
      - byrneseyeview 18y ago
        Is that what Murray is advocating? The article I read suggested that using standardized tests would be a cheaper alternative than college -- but if you'd prefer four years of paying and not working to two years of getting paid to learn, you can at least enjoy the status quo.

byrneseyeview 18y ago

Like it or not, college is about more than job training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about intellectual exploration It's funny, but I got a whole lot more of that stuff after dropping out. Am I really going to learn more from a place where I don't pay the rent, buy stuff with a meal card, work fifteen hours per week but don't necessarily have to show up, and am surrounded by proto-alcoholics? If you can deduce the modern college experience from any sane set of first principles, I'd like to hear about it -- but it seems to me that Murray is right. If we didn't have college, and you tried to invent it, you'd be rightly denounced as a loon. And he puts too much faith in certification tests as "classless", in my opinion. I used to do test prep, and like most things, the people who have the money and the time to train for the certifications have an advantage. Murray has crunched the numbers rather than counting the anecdotes; studying for the SAT can raise scores a lot at first, but if you studied two hours per day for 150 days, your expected score increase would be seventy points. Murray cites this (http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ254150&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ254150 http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetai...), which I haven't read. It would be a good plan to introduce your convictions to some data, so you can back up your assertion with something besides "I used to do test prep, and envy rich people too much to wonder what I can learn from them." Perhaps none of that is worth the lost time, but when I see it in the WSJ, my initial reaction is that it's another right wing wacko who sees college as just too many liberals with too much influence. You also might be happier if 1) you didn't assume that the newspaper that recently published a Barbara Ehrenreich piece (http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121380066376984483.html http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121380066376984...) was irredeemably right-wing, and 2) if you considered the possibility that since college professors are overwhelmingly liberal (http://cellasreview.blogspot.com/2002_08_25_cellasreview_archive.html#80731355 http://cellasreview.blogspot.com/2002_08_25_cellasreview_arc...) and nearly impossible to fire, they would consist of a greater than average number of liberals who do, indeed, have too much influence.

MaysonL 18y ago
The Wall Street Journal may or may not be irredeemably right-wing, but I'd bet on it. Also, looking at Murray's record on number-crunching, and I do mean The Bell Curve, betting on it to be anything more than BS with lipstick would be a losing proposition.

thomasmallen 18y ago

I spent a year at college (freelancing at the same time to support myself) and it was a tremendous waste of time. I can say with certainty that I lost maturity being there, and left feeling stupider than when I entered in the fall. You tell me which will teach an individual more: A sheltered, friendly environment with mostly privileged peers, or living independently? I chose the latter. I interviewed for a web design job before receiving my HS diploma, got the job, and started two days after graduation. A month later, I was out on my own, paying bills, taking care of myself. Now that was a learning experience.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago

> For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it I think a little discussed reason college is such a big deal in America is because most communities are so socially and architecturally dysfunctional. Many colleges provide what a proper town/city is supposed to: public spaces and facilities, walkability, organizations with civic and social functions, etc. It's only because people graduate and go live in alienating suburban asteroid belts or in soulless political-machine big cities that they idealize college so much. College isn't so great, it's just adult life in most of America sucks. But it's not like that every where. p.s. The oft repeated "college rounds people out" line desperately needs data. I think it's a load of bullshit.

bokonist 18y ago
Agreed. I think the problem is that towns and cities are run as democracies, where every faction tries to twist the government to do it's own special interest. Thus homeowners will put in place 1/4 acre per house zoning laws, developers will get rights to build big box stores, etc. No one looks out for the whole. A university's only goal is to maximize the satisfaction of its students in order to boost its own revenue. It does this amazingly well.

Kaizyn 18y ago

The WSJ isn't a conservative/Republican paper. It's actually just plutocratic.