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> there should be fewer people going to university Strong disagree. This is a rational response to seeing what higher education in the US has become, but it do

> there should be fewer people going to university Strong disagree. This is a rational response to seeing what higher education in the US has become, but it doesn't have to be that way. What we need is a tertiary education model that seeks to refine critical thinking, awareness of the world, and a funnel into degrees with practical job outcomes - for those that seek them. Other countries have this model, particularly in Europe, where college isn't a requirement for employment, but a benefit none-the-less.

Retric 4y ago
Refining critical thing and awareness of the world only seems necessary due to deficiencies in the public education system. High school is a joke and we should fix that rather than suggest everyone needs to get a collage degree.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  I've had this thought before, that high school should be good enough to not require higher education. However I think as I've grown older I recognize that public education in the US primarily serves as day care and secondarily as an education. This is why schools have gifted programs, some students are there to learn and they are encouraged to go as far as they can, but some students are just there because its compulsory. I don't have a solution, just an observation.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
  - bradlys 4y ago
    Yes - it is a daycare. However - maybe we improve it from a daycare to a place of learning. That’s why we could make high school more intensive and less daycare like.
    - guhidalg 4y ago
      I agree with the intent, but I don't believe simply improving schools (what does that even mean? higher teacher salaries? higher standards? more funding?) will improve overall societal education. Where I grew up (Georgia, USA), there were several incentives to doing well in school: - Your driver's license was revoked if had too many unexcused absences - State scholarships were only available above a certain GPA - The state academic summer camp program was only available if you were selected by your teachers based on your performance Only one of these incentives applied to the general population, the rest only applied to motivated college-bound students. I believe we should have more incentives for all students to learn in school that affect the students instead of the school. If you punish the schools for the student's performance, you'll get the current US education system. Some ideas: - Performance-based tuition or school lunch prices: The range cannot be too high or people will, rightly, complain that this negatively affects poor people. Make it something small but symbolic. - A personalized excise tax on parents based on the child's school performance. Again, don't make it too large, just large enough. - Reintroduce recess and socialization opportunities for students during school based on performance. If people start skipping, suspend their driver's license.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  Honestly, American Grades 10-12 are a waste. Sure, you learn some important fundamentals for college but outside of that meh. At least in my experience I would have far preferred being able to jump straight into college and have gotten the first 2 or so years out of the way in lieu of whatever passes for high school education. I would be far ahead of where I am and have benefited much more from the opportunity, but today you can only do such a thing by getting your GED (with parental permission) and being an incredibly driven and self-promoting autodidact with a lot of parental support. It's a farce.
  - sethammons 4y ago
    Counter point, i found those grades as great prep for college. I took mostly AP courses. I was able to test into Calculus 3 at my university and found university to be quite easy. Grades 4, 5, and 6 were a waste. Literally the same content for three years that could have been covered in half a term. We need better self-paced systems.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > High school is a joke and we should fix that rather than suggest everyone needs to get a college degree. If the school leaving age has been raised to 18 you need to have something for everyone up to the age of 18 to do, or at least 90% of the people. There are a lot of people who are capable of passing a test for the bottom quintile of 18 year olds at 14. Quality, rigour, universality, uniformity. Choose.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Many systems have multiple paths for a high school equivalency, this lets a higher standard exist than than bottom 10%.
OJFord 4y ago
> Strong disagree. I did say it was an 'unpopular opinion'! > This is a rational response to seeing what higher education in the US has become [...] What we need is [...] Other countries have this model, particularly in Europe [...] For what it's worth, I'm writing from the UK. A degree ('college') certainly isn't required 'for employment' here, but it's increasingly (over decades) so, or de facto so because so many applicants have a degree having spilled over from not getting the job that was more relevant to (and did require) it.
kube-system 4y ago
College isn’t a requirement for employment in the US. The percentage of people with a college degree in the US ranks about mid pack compared to countries in Europe. I do suspect that there are cultural differences in how people view those without college degrees in the US. I don’t know about the EU but in the US, people tend to look down on trades, even if they are well paid and skilled jobs.
Aunche 4y ago
If you genuinely put an effort into refining your critical thinking, you should have no problem getting a return on your investment on any publicly subsidized university. Plenty of jobs demand strong critical thinking or writing skills, but don't have require any specialized knowledge that you'd learn in college. According to the author, people used to go to college to simply get drunk, and implied that this changed, so I view this as a positive change.
7speter 4y ago
College would also be more affordable if schools weren't making dorms and cafeterias that compete with 5 Star Hotel experiences.
- metadat 4y ago
  It'd be an improvement if this were the case- if the money was actually being spent on the students. Generally speaking, the huge expense for any large purveyor of education is actually the administration reaping the outsized rewards. Paying themselves $150-$500k USD/yr, and simultaneously creating unnecessarily large yet low-impact organizations. This strategy soaks up every last penny.
rory 4y ago
> Other countries have this model, particularly in Europe, where college isn't a requirement for employment, but a benefit none-the-less. If anything, European companies are more credentialist when it comes to degrees than their USA equivalents. The European model is better simply because it's free-to-cheap for the student.
Test0129 4y ago
> What we need is a tertiary education model that seeks to refine critical thinking, awareness of the world, and a funnel into degrees with practical job outcomes This was the purpose of a University education, and the reason most degrees have a component that is liberal arts even in STEM. Unfortunately, liberal arts colleges have become indoctrination camps for fringe views rather than honest explorations of all aspects of society. In particular Sociology as a science seems to be to blame for this. Going through school I never felt like I was being indoctrinated in my philosophy courses, but I certainly felt that way taking the mandatory "culture" classes.
- feet 4y ago
  Which fringe views are those?
  - Test0129 4y ago
    We can start with anti-racism (the movement lead by Kendi) which is prominent in these schools. Refer to my post history for why Kendi is a racist bigot. We can talk about women's studies courses which have universally become megaphones for fringe third wave feminist ideas. Ideas like denying the suffering of men, or suggesting that something like misandry is not real. We can talk about how these fringe actors also go above and beyond to divert attention away from Men's issues such as child support (and the subsequent criminal punishment associated), the lack of "male abortion", etc. For example, the women's studies course I was forced to take to graduate made me feel like a sack of shit of even being alive for a full semester. It wasn't "shedding the light" on anything. It was literally a woman standing in front of the class and telling men they are worthless. This isn't hyperbole. We had to write apology letters to pass (if we were white, and male). Other non-white, non-male students got to write about their "experiences" with white-dominated patriarchy. There was nothing to learn in this class except how far the lunatic fringe has penetrated academia, and this was over a decade ago. Other ideas in the running for fringe include fringe economic ideas (reparations paid based on skin color) or full-on communist indoctrination like we have seen in various private liberal arts schools like Reed. I know your post is in bad faith so I don't intend to reply any further since these radical actors in these programs have made national headlines since 2013. Suffice it to say that the ideas of the radical left are ever present in an area that should have sufficient coverage of all ideas. This is a problem, as the arts are no longer "liberal". They simply function as political indoctrination.

Retric 4y ago

Refining critical thing and awareness of the world only seems necessary due to deficiencies in the public education system. High school is a joke and we should fix that rather than suggest everyone needs to get a collage degree.

guhidalg 4y ago
I've had this thought before, that high school should be good enough to not require higher education. However I think as I've grown older I recognize that public education in the US primarily serves as day care and secondarily as an education. This is why schools have gifted programs, some students are there to learn and they are encouraged to go as far as they can, but some students are just there because its compulsory. I don't have a solution, just an observation.
- thrown_22 4y ago
- bradlys 4y ago
  Yes - it is a daycare. However - maybe we improve it from a daycare to a place of learning. That’s why we could make high school more intensive and less daycare like.
  - guhidalg 4y ago
    I agree with the intent, but I don't believe simply improving schools (what does that even mean? higher teacher salaries? higher standards? more funding?) will improve overall societal education. Where I grew up (Georgia, USA), there were several incentives to doing well in school: - Your driver's license was revoked if had too many unexcused absences - State scholarships were only available above a certain GPA - The state academic summer camp program was only available if you were selected by your teachers based on your performance Only one of these incentives applied to the general population, the rest only applied to motivated college-bound students. I believe we should have more incentives for all students to learn in school that affect the students instead of the school. If you punish the schools for the student's performance, you'll get the current US education system. Some ideas: - Performance-based tuition or school lunch prices: The range cannot be too high or people will, rightly, complain that this negatively affects poor people. Make it something small but symbolic. - A personalized excise tax on parents based on the child's school performance. Again, don't make it too large, just large enough. - Reintroduce recess and socialization opportunities for students during school based on performance. If people start skipping, suspend their driver's license.
BizarroLand 4y ago
Honestly, American Grades 10-12 are a waste. Sure, you learn some important fundamentals for college but outside of that meh. At least in my experience I would have far preferred being able to jump straight into college and have gotten the first 2 or so years out of the way in lieu of whatever passes for high school education. I would be far ahead of where I am and have benefited much more from the opportunity, but today you can only do such a thing by getting your GED (with parental permission) and being an incredibly driven and self-promoting autodidact with a lot of parental support. It's a farce.
- sethammons 4y ago
  Counter point, i found those grades as great prep for college. I took mostly AP courses. I was able to test into Calculus 3 at my university and found university to be quite easy. Grades 4, 5, and 6 were a waste. Literally the same content for three years that could have been covered in half a term. We need better self-paced systems.
barry-cotter 4y ago
> High school is a joke and we should fix that rather than suggest everyone needs to get a college degree. If the school leaving age has been raised to 18 you need to have something for everyone up to the age of 18 to do, or at least 90% of the people. There are a lot of people who are capable of passing a test for the bottom quintile of 18 year olds at 14. Quality, rigour, universality, uniformity. Choose.
- Retric 4y ago
  Many systems have multiple paths for a high school equivalency, this lets a higher standard exist than than bottom 10%.

OJFord 4y ago

> Strong disagree. I did say it was an 'unpopular opinion'! > This is a rational response to seeing what higher education in the US has become [...] What we need is [...] Other countries have this model, particularly in Europe [...] For what it's worth, I'm writing from the UK. A degree ('college') certainly isn't required 'for employment' here, but it's increasingly (over decades) so, or de facto so because so many applicants have a degree having spilled over from not getting the job that was more relevant to (and did require) it.

kube-system 4y ago

College isn’t a requirement for employment in the US. The percentage of people with a college degree in the US ranks about mid pack compared to countries in Europe. I do suspect that there are cultural differences in how people view those without college degrees in the US. I don’t know about the EU but in the US, people tend to look down on trades, even if they are well paid and skilled jobs.

Aunche 4y ago

If you genuinely put an effort into refining your critical thinking, you should have no problem getting a return on your investment on any publicly subsidized university. Plenty of jobs demand strong critical thinking or writing skills, but don't have require any specialized knowledge that you'd learn in college. According to the author, people used to go to college to simply get drunk, and implied that this changed, so I view this as a positive change.

7speter 4y ago

College would also be more affordable if schools weren't making dorms and cafeterias that compete with 5 Star Hotel experiences.

metadat 4y ago
It'd be an improvement if this were the case- if the money was actually being spent on the students. Generally speaking, the huge expense for any large purveyor of education is actually the administration reaping the outsized rewards. Paying themselves $150-$500k USD/yr, and simultaneously creating unnecessarily large yet low-impact organizations. This strategy soaks up every last penny.

rory 4y ago

> Other countries have this model, particularly in Europe, where college isn't a requirement for employment, but a benefit none-the-less. If anything, European companies are more credentialist when it comes to degrees than their USA equivalents. The European model is better simply because it's free-to-cheap for the student.

Test0129 4y ago

> What we need is a tertiary education model that seeks to refine critical thinking, awareness of the world, and a funnel into degrees with practical job outcomes This was the purpose of a University education, and the reason most degrees have a component that is liberal arts even in STEM. Unfortunately, liberal arts colleges have become indoctrination camps for fringe views rather than honest explorations of all aspects of society. In particular Sociology as a science seems to be to blame for this. Going through school I never felt like I was being indoctrinated in my philosophy courses, but I certainly felt that way taking the mandatory "culture" classes.

feet 4y ago
Which fringe views are those?
- Test0129 4y ago
  We can start with anti-racism (the movement lead by Kendi) which is prominent in these schools. Refer to my post history for why Kendi is a racist bigot. We can talk about women's studies courses which have universally become megaphones for fringe third wave feminist ideas. Ideas like denying the suffering of men, or suggesting that something like misandry is not real. We can talk about how these fringe actors also go above and beyond to divert attention away from Men's issues such as child support (and the subsequent criminal punishment associated), the lack of "male abortion", etc. For example, the women's studies course I was forced to take to graduate made me feel like a sack of shit of even being alive for a full semester. It wasn't "shedding the light" on anything. It was literally a woman standing in front of the class and telling men they are worthless. This isn't hyperbole. We had to write apology letters to pass (if we were white, and male). Other non-white, non-male students got to write about their "experiences" with white-dominated patriarchy. There was nothing to learn in this class except how far the lunatic fringe has penetrated academia, and this was over a decade ago. Other ideas in the running for fringe include fringe economic ideas (reparations paid based on skin color) or full-on communist indoctrination like we have seen in various private liberal arts schools like Reed. I know your post is in bad faith so I don't intend to reply any further since these radical actors in these programs have made national headlines since 2013. Suffice it to say that the ideas of the radical left are ever present in an area that should have sufficient coverage of all ideas. This is a problem, as the arts are no longer "liberal". They simply function as political indoctrination.