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The pleasure of learning in and of itself was always the privilege of a class in society that did not need to worry about educating itself for the purposes of w

The pleasure of learning in and of itself was always the privilege of a class in society that did not need to worry about educating itself for the purposes of work. The only thing that is different now is that purchasing an education has become more common, and more of a prerequisite for a job. The idea that you can simply counter it by convincing universities, which exist to profit from this fact, to slow down and give students more time for leisure in learning, is wishful thinking.

bumby 4y ago
>more of a prerequisite for a job. Or a possible alternative is to retract some of the credentialism gatekeeping regarding jobs. This could transform education from its current predominant role as vocational training and back to the pre-Morrill Act roots of educating a populace in terms of understanding and appreciating culture. To your point, though, this would undermine the consumer base of universities so I would expect them to push back in one way or another. But having employers scale back credentialism can occur irrespective of university policy.
- chris_armstrong 4y ago
  Credentialism has developed in the crucible of the job market as a response to a high number of job seekers chasing a small pool of desirable jobs. Those that can afford to study longest for the most credentials wins. (I’m not denying that the need for higher education has increased as industrial production became more complex , but this seems like an adjacent process, and not applicable to all types of study) Credentialism will only be undone over a long period of very low unemployment where employers will be forced to train employees themselves and will not require as many credentials to sort candidates.
  - bumby 4y ago
    I agree completely. Part of the issue, though, is that college credentials are too blunt of an instrument. I tend to think that it’s an easy defensible tool for HR rather than a useful one to select competent candidates.
sfpotter_ 4y ago
Paragraphs 1 and 3 are both a bit off the mark. P1. It is well-known that the working classes during the industrial revolution engaged in learning for learning’s sake, sometimes going so far as to hire people to read to them while they worked. The intellectual cultures which have existed during different historical periods are more nuanced than you think. For ancient cultures, we have exceedingly little information—-discoveries are consistently made which reveal to us that our intuition about what these societies were like is usually incomplete or wrong. It’s tempting to extrapolate the current cultural moment but this isn’t always a good idea. P3. Universities which are wholly funded by the state do not necessarily need to focus on profiting by maximizing the amount of job-focused career training they provide to students. The current incarnation of universities may make it seem like this is the case, but this is a pretty contingent viewpoint. In Europe, it is possible to get a college education for free or next to nothing. Although, there are also private universities which recognize that it is not always strategic to hit the rails with profit maximization: NYU decided to make their medical school free recently. There’s also the example of Walter Reed’s medical school. Clearly, there is also a difference in degree here: back in the 70s it was possible to get an excellent college education and pay for it with money made working over the summer. Not the case so much anymore.
- chris_armstrong 4y ago
  Highlighting specific instances where the working class engaged in learning, when this was clearly not the case generally, is highly disingenuous. I’d also say that having universities mostly or wholly funded by the state does not remove their profit motive or make it a better place to study: the demand for credentials by the job market will shape their offerings to tailor to it, even if the state can make it a more tolerable experience by sinking more money into it (which would be politically unpopular in the current climate, like the college loan forgiveness proposals floating around)

bumby 4y ago

>more of a prerequisite for a job. Or a possible alternative is to retract some of the credentialism gatekeeping regarding jobs. This could transform education from its current predominant role as vocational training and back to the pre-Morrill Act roots of educating a populace in terms of understanding and appreciating culture. To your point, though, this would undermine the consumer base of universities so I would expect them to push back in one way or another. But having employers scale back credentialism can occur irrespective of university policy.

chris_armstrong 4y ago
Credentialism has developed in the crucible of the job market as a response to a high number of job seekers chasing a small pool of desirable jobs. Those that can afford to study longest for the most credentials wins. (I’m not denying that the need for higher education has increased as industrial production became more complex , but this seems like an adjacent process, and not applicable to all types of study) Credentialism will only be undone over a long period of very low unemployment where employers will be forced to train employees themselves and will not require as many credentials to sort candidates.
- bumby 4y ago
  I agree completely. Part of the issue, though, is that college credentials are too blunt of an instrument. I tend to think that it’s an easy defensible tool for HR rather than a useful one to select competent candidates.

sfpotter_ 4y ago

Paragraphs 1 and 3 are both a bit off the mark. P1. It is well-known that the working classes during the industrial revolution engaged in learning for learning’s sake, sometimes going so far as to hire people to read to them while they worked. The intellectual cultures which have existed during different historical periods are more nuanced than you think. For ancient cultures, we have exceedingly little information—-discoveries are consistently made which reveal to us that our intuition about what these societies were like is usually incomplete or wrong. It’s tempting to extrapolate the current cultural moment but this isn’t always a good idea. P3. Universities which are wholly funded by the state do not necessarily need to focus on profiting by maximizing the amount of job-focused career training they provide to students. The current incarnation of universities may make it seem like this is the case, but this is a pretty contingent viewpoint. In Europe, it is possible to get a college education for free or next to nothing. Although, there are also private universities which recognize that it is not always strategic to hit the rails with profit maximization: NYU decided to make their medical school free recently. There’s also the example of Walter Reed’s medical school. Clearly, there is also a difference in degree here: back in the 70s it was possible to get an excellent college education and pay for it with money made working over the summer. Not the case so much anymore.

chris_armstrong 4y ago
Highlighting specific instances where the working class engaged in learning, when this was clearly not the case generally, is highly disingenuous. I’d also say that having universities mostly or wholly funded by the state does not remove their profit motive or make it a better place to study: the demand for credentials by the job market will shape their offerings to tailor to it, even if the state can make it a more tolerable experience by sinking more money into it (which would be politically unpopular in the current climate, like the college loan forgiveness proposals floating around)