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The benefits of higher education appear to depend more upon the student than the curriculum or quality of instructors. I know that must sound elitist but like

The benefits of higher education appear to depend more upon the student than the curriculum or quality of instructors. I know that must sound elitist but like everything else in life it’s measurable and exceedingly predictable against intelligence, interest, and personality metrics. This is compounded given that below a given threshold a student is incapable of appreciating the difference between education and trade school.

czstar 4y ago
Some people just aren’t capable of learning advanced concepts. It is obvious that this is so but saying this in higher education circles is akin to burning a Koran in Mecca.
- gedy 4y ago
  I agree, but wondering where this "blank slate" belief comes from and how it persists?
  - raarts 4y ago
    "Other people have it better than me, I want that too, if I accept innate differences being the cause then it means I'll never get there which is unbearable. If all humans are born the same then I can declare the others malicious oppressors - which is a powerful moral weapon - and work from there. At least I'll have a chance to get some of what the others have".
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      I always knew I'd never be a pro ball player nor an Air Force pilot, due to the innate configuration of my body. It wasn't unbearable. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses. I find what I am suited for and exploit that.
  - czstar 4y ago
    In the U.S. a lot of emotions surrounding this topic come from racist policies/perceptions of the past. It’s hard to have an open conversation about this topic without someone resorting to name calling.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > Some people just aren’t capable of learning advanced concepts. ...with current educational methods, that basically expect all students to "teach themselves on their own". Modern-day educators aren't even trying to meaningfully engage students who respond well to more direct forms of instruction, because that would involve actual, verifiable effort and "demean" their role.
- imtringued 4y ago
  If that were the case then either we wouldn't have such an advanced and we'll educated society today or that previous generations and societies were just as capable with less formal education. When I hear people like you I always wonder how the human race is supposed to be doomed by a lack of intelligent people, yet somehow throughout history no such constraints are observable. In the past people had lots of preconceptions of what black people couldn't do, you're doing the same and believing it is socially acceptable. The human brain is amazing, just because someone's brain scores worse than another in some motivation and culture test doesn't mean they are incapable of absurdly broad and vague things like "advanced concepts".
  - czstar 4y ago
    Can a severely intellectually disabled person learn calculus? It’s clear that not everyone has the same cognitive capabilities or potential. This is obvious. Your response is what I alluded to with my remark comparing talking about this topic to burning a Koran in Mecca. People get too emotional and throw out reason and logic.
- vharuck 4y ago
  I disagree. I think anyone can learn anything, though it may take an unreasonable amount of time and effort for some. Learning a new concept can be complicated, especially for things introduced in high school and university. All those concepts rely on others, so those lemmas have to be learned first. I do believe some people are generally quicker learners than others. But it's a continuous scale, not a yes/no thing. And interest in the subject plays a big role. For a metaphor of education, I'd say people are like Turing machines. (A) If there is one person who can learn a concept, then any of them can; (B) some are faster than others; and, (C) the "optimal in practice" state is usually limited by need and not capability (i.e., using modern laptops too just check emails and browse the web). >but saying this in higher education circles is akin to burning a Koran in Mecca. I'm not a fan of preemptive impersonations of Copernicus. I'd rather read what people said and judge that.
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    > I disagree. I think anyone can learn anything, though it may take an unreasonable amount of time and effort for some. Learning a new concept can be complicated, especially for things introduced in high school and university. All those concepts rely on others, so those lemmas have to be learned first. I do believe some people are generally quicker learners than others. Anyone can learn anything. But to what depth and degree within the time they have on Earth? What can they accomplish with their present knowhow or lack there of? These questions have measurable outputs. It's not enough to rely on potential. At some point, one should know his bearings and limitations. > But it's a continuous scale, not a yes/no thing. And interest in the subject plays a big role. Ability itself may follow a continuum, however sufficiency is digital.
  - czstar 4y ago
    Can an intellectually disabled person learn calculus? Some people are so intellectually disabled they can’t even learn to use a bathroom properly. It is clear that not everyone can learn any topic.
fezfight 4y ago
I've been doing civil, mechanical and electrical engineering for 20 years at this point. I don't know your experience, but from what I've seen while building huge infrastructure projects, your performance as a teenager in university amounts for very little. Its basically a measurement of how good at memorizimg problem sets you are. So, not elitist, just not universal and kind of rudimentary.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  If your college education was memorizing problem sets, of course you didn't learn any engineering. Caltech's engineering program had tests that were open book open note. Memorization would not work. You had to actually understand it. Posts like yours make me appreciate Caltech. P.S. My first job was designing the 757 stabilizer jackscrew assembly. I was flying on a 757 just the other day, 40 years later. How marvelous! It's a great airplane. P.P.S. We had a few "formula memorizers" and "formula pluggers" at Boeing. I was often assigned to go over their work and fix it. Nobody trusted them.
  - political12345 4y ago
    How much can you be certain that your Boeing job was not the reason for your high performance, and that you are not just projecting your current self and state on mind onto your past? You are nothing like yoursef 40 year ago, to say something useless your atoms have changed 5 times over, and to say something useful you have definitely rewired your brain in many more ways. Anecdotal stories like yours are valuable, but only to you, that's why people do studies as you are of course very well aware. It could well be that the number one predictor for success is "intelligence" whatever that means, I offer the definition "to be able to absorb new information quickly and retain it and connect it to existing information to form new insights" so maybe Caltech was just a place where all such people went to and the teachers were like that so it felt "smart" and the format of the exam (open book) basically didmt really help but only enabled i.e did not actively stop the flourisment of intelligence in the students? Caltech might be good but there are many good places (Oxford, Cambridge, MIT e.g) so my untested theory could explain all of their successes. And then you went to Boeing and actually did things and that showed you how to be an enginner who made planes and your high intelligence allowed you to absorb that info quicker again and your are just projecting this future expert on a college intelligent but not expert self? Just my 2 cents
rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Well at least it doesn’t sound more elitist than it sounds like having Dunning-Kruger. You’re uncritically accepting your own assumption as truth. In reality, even the best universities have more than a few horrible professors, and a student that’s struggling in class may actually just be going through a rough patch.
imtringued 4y ago
Because it is elitist. As someone who did both I have no irrational disdain for trade school because the curriculum of the trade school is almost entirely job relevant with very little signalling. Only elites appreciate the difference between signalling and not signalling.

czstar 4y ago

Some people just aren’t capable of learning advanced concepts. It is obvious that this is so but saying this in higher education circles is akin to burning a Koran in Mecca.

gedy 4y ago
I agree, but wondering where this "blank slate" belief comes from and how it persists?
- raarts 4y ago
  "Other people have it better than me, I want that too, if I accept innate differences being the cause then it means I'll never get there which is unbearable. If all humans are born the same then I can declare the others malicious oppressors - which is a powerful moral weapon - and work from there. At least I'll have a chance to get some of what the others have".
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I always knew I'd never be a pro ball player nor an Air Force pilot, due to the innate configuration of my body. It wasn't unbearable. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses. I find what I am suited for and exploit that.
- czstar 4y ago
  In the U.S. a lot of emotions surrounding this topic come from racist policies/perceptions of the past. It’s hard to have an open conversation about this topic without someone resorting to name calling.
zozbot234 4y ago
> Some people just aren’t capable of learning advanced concepts. ...with current educational methods, that basically expect all students to "teach themselves on their own". Modern-day educators aren't even trying to meaningfully engage students who respond well to more direct forms of instruction, because that would involve actual, verifiable effort and "demean" their role.
imtringued 4y ago
If that were the case then either we wouldn't have such an advanced and we'll educated society today or that previous generations and societies were just as capable with less formal education. When I hear people like you I always wonder how the human race is supposed to be doomed by a lack of intelligent people, yet somehow throughout history no such constraints are observable. In the past people had lots of preconceptions of what black people couldn't do, you're doing the same and believing it is socially acceptable. The human brain is amazing, just because someone's brain scores worse than another in some motivation and culture test doesn't mean they are incapable of absurdly broad and vague things like "advanced concepts".
- czstar 4y ago
  Can a severely intellectually disabled person learn calculus? It’s clear that not everyone has the same cognitive capabilities or potential. This is obvious. Your response is what I alluded to with my remark comparing talking about this topic to burning a Koran in Mecca. People get too emotional and throw out reason and logic.
vharuck 4y ago
I disagree. I think anyone can learn anything, though it may take an unreasonable amount of time and effort for some. Learning a new concept can be complicated, especially for things introduced in high school and university. All those concepts rely on others, so those lemmas have to be learned first. I do believe some people are generally quicker learners than others. But it's a continuous scale, not a yes/no thing. And interest in the subject plays a big role. For a metaphor of education, I'd say people are like Turing machines. (A) If there is one person who can learn a concept, then any of them can; (B) some are faster than others; and, (C) the "optimal in practice" state is usually limited by need and not capability (i.e., using modern laptops too just check emails and browse the web). >but saying this in higher education circles is akin to burning a Koran in Mecca. I'm not a fan of preemptive impersonations of Copernicus. I'd rather read what people said and judge that.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  > I disagree. I think anyone can learn anything, though it may take an unreasonable amount of time and effort for some. Learning a new concept can be complicated, especially for things introduced in high school and university. All those concepts rely on others, so those lemmas have to be learned first. I do believe some people are generally quicker learners than others. Anyone can learn anything. But to what depth and degree within the time they have on Earth? What can they accomplish with their present knowhow or lack there of? These questions have measurable outputs. It's not enough to rely on potential. At some point, one should know his bearings and limitations. > But it's a continuous scale, not a yes/no thing. And interest in the subject plays a big role. Ability itself may follow a continuum, however sufficiency is digital.
- czstar 4y ago
  Can an intellectually disabled person learn calculus? Some people are so intellectually disabled they can’t even learn to use a bathroom properly. It is clear that not everyone can learn any topic.

fezfight 4y ago

I've been doing civil, mechanical and electrical engineering for 20 years at this point. I don't know your experience, but from what I've seen while building huge infrastructure projects, your performance as a teenager in university amounts for very little. Its basically a measurement of how good at memorizimg problem sets you are. So, not elitist, just not universal and kind of rudimentary.

WalterBright 4y ago
If your college education was memorizing problem sets, of course you didn't learn any engineering. Caltech's engineering program had tests that were open book open note. Memorization would not work. You had to actually understand it. Posts like yours make me appreciate Caltech. P.S. My first job was designing the 757 stabilizer jackscrew assembly. I was flying on a 757 just the other day, 40 years later. How marvelous! It's a great airplane. P.P.S. We had a few "formula memorizers" and "formula pluggers" at Boeing. I was often assigned to go over their work and fix it. Nobody trusted them.
- political12345 4y ago
  How much can you be certain that your Boeing job was not the reason for your high performance, and that you are not just projecting your current self and state on mind onto your past? You are nothing like yoursef 40 year ago, to say something useless your atoms have changed 5 times over, and to say something useful you have definitely rewired your brain in many more ways. Anecdotal stories like yours are valuable, but only to you, that's why people do studies as you are of course very well aware. It could well be that the number one predictor for success is "intelligence" whatever that means, I offer the definition "to be able to absorb new information quickly and retain it and connect it to existing information to form new insights" so maybe Caltech was just a place where all such people went to and the teachers were like that so it felt "smart" and the format of the exam (open book) basically didmt really help but only enabled i.e did not actively stop the flourisment of intelligence in the students? Caltech might be good but there are many good places (Oxford, Cambridge, MIT e.g) so my untested theory could explain all of their successes. And then you went to Boeing and actually did things and that showed you how to be an enginner who made planes and your high intelligence allowed you to absorb that info quicker again and your are just projecting this future expert on a college intelligent but not expert self? Just my 2 cents

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago

Well at least it doesn’t sound more elitist than it sounds like having Dunning-Kruger. You’re uncritically accepting your own assumption as truth. In reality, even the best universities have more than a few horrible professors, and a student that’s struggling in class may actually just be going through a rough patch.

imtringued 4y ago

Because it is elitist. As someone who did both I have no irrational disdain for trade school because the curriculum of the trade school is almost entirely job relevant with very little signalling. Only elites appreciate the difference between signalling and not signalling.