4 ms·

> too many graduates from certain social sciences and humanities compared to the actual need of employers / academia. The real problem is that college was neve

> too many graduates from certain social sciences and humanities compared to the actual need of employers / academia. The real problem is that college was never designed to be job preparation and (with limited exceptions) it does rather poorly at that. The idea was never that you'd go to college to research a subject at the bachelor level and then go into a career that directly uses what you learned—it wasn't always a white collar trade school. Back when college was the privilege of the elite, it was about learning for learning's sake and about making connections and meeting people. It didn't especially matter what subject you chose to learn about—you're a member of the elite after all, and you either have money already or have the family connections to get it whatever you studied. It seems to have only been once college started to democratize that we started expecting every subject to be job prep for something specific. On one level this makes sense—you can't actually democratize the experience of learning for learning's sake alone until you democratize being guaranteed sufficient money to live on. But only a few departments in most universities are even capable of reshaping themselves into job training programs, leaving the rest to now frantically justify their existence. This is a huge problem because the knowledge produced by those departments—even while they were only the privilege of the elite—has been invaluable. But they don't meet the modern economics of the university.

maxerickson 2y ago
The US state college system was pretty much never for elites, it was always about increasing the capacity of the country.
- lolinder 2y ago
  But how was "increasing the capacity of the country" conceptualized? I can believe that it was put together with the intention of strengthening the new country and building up institutions that it felt it needed, but that's not at all the same thing as being not for the elite (at the time of the founding of the first state schools we still had property requirements to vote!), much less that they conceived of it as job training. For a primary source on how they conceptualized the role of the university, see the charter for the University of Georgia (1785) [0]. It essentially says that universities are really important and it would be unacceptable to have to send youths to foreign countries, so we're starting one here. They weren't reconceptualizing the university, they were funding the rapid development of institutions that would otherwise take centuries to develop if at all. [0] https://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead%2FUA22-010.xml&query&brand=default https://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead%2FUA22-0...
- bluGill 2y ago
  The US is a young country for this discussion. Other than maybe the likes of Harvard college was already democratizing around the world when US colleges started.
  - terrabiped 2y ago
    [dead]
monero-xmr 2y ago
I’m really not sure how many more Literature papers we need on Proust, Shakespeare, Beowulf, and on and on. They have to continue to pump out papers and books, exclusively read by other people in the same subjects. “Invaluable” this is not
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  How much money do you think the Lord of the Rings, as the modern multimedia francise it is, makes? Do you think Tolkien, the first time he cracked open an Old English tome of Beowulf thought to himself, "someday, being a Beowulf scholar will lead to me creating a vast amount of money for Warner Bros."? Academic outcomes are nonlinear. Outside of the job-training-ified fields like engineering, there is seldom a direct "I studied X and then made a ton of money doing exactly that". The success stories, like Tolkien, are more like, "I studied X, then I lost a finger in the great war, then I typed up a manuscript of a children's fairy tale, fast forward 100 years and it's worth untold millions." It is a winding road. All that is gold does not glitter, not all who wander are lost.
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    I would transfer these people into making podcasts, self-published books, social media feeds, and other forms of content that are actually consumed. Trying to read one of these papers in an academic journal is mind numbing. The college model is way too expensive and has very little societal value vs. its cost
    - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
      Academic papers aren't for mass consumption. You can't replace the depth of consideration and knowledge needed to write an academic paper with hosting a podcast or self-publishing a book. Writing for an audience of leading experts is inherently different from writing for consumption by non-experts. And you can't just equate societal value with "how many people consume it". An academic paper is often as valuable as a tool for crystalizing thoughts in the mind of the author as it is a tool for communicating to the reader. I kind of feel like you are missing the point of academia.
jacobr1 2y ago
The early universities outside of Europe where mostly vocational training for the clergy. And the first big expansion of US based public universities was with the land grant system, which explicitly focused on ag an engineering type programs - still often a strong suit of these universities today.
- lolinder 2y ago
  That's why those programs are some of the exceptions in being good at job prep, but rates of college attendance remained very low for another 80+ years until after WW2, so the elite who could afford to study whatever still made up a big chunk of most schools' income. As college attendance rates went higher and higher the job preparation need became the primary one the school is serving, which changed the economics in a way that simply having a few job preparation programs didn't.
guappa 2y ago
University started to learn law and medicine. Two things that were and still are very remunerative.
- lolinder 2y ago
  There's a reason why those have different degree abbreviations—they're a different kind of thing than the degrees universities later arrived at and spent centuries developing. And they and a few others (like engineering fields) are still the only ones that really work as job training. It's a good point insofar as it shows the institution has never been static.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
  Theology was the main subject in first universities.
  - guappa 2y ago
    Can you share a source for this? The oldest known university in europe wasn't about technology. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_di_Bologna https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_di_Bologna
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
      You are reading too fast:)
golli 2y ago
I think another important issue is how the societal and cultural evaluation of university degrees compared to alternatives like apprenticeships in crafts has shifted. The former is held in much higher regard as far as social standing goes even if we probably need many more of the latter, it requires lots of training as well, and you can even earn pretty good money.
- Spivak 2y ago
  > and you can even earn pretty good money. This has not been true in my experience, I can't say I did it on purpose but I'm very thankful my primary profession is as a knowledge worker and I took on a trade as a side-hustle after the fact. A professional carpenter around here makes about $18-25/hr for what is a fairly time and labor intensive job with tight margins since customers are usually really price sensitive.
  - golli 2y ago
    I think right on calling me out on that statement as it was likely a bit to broad. One differentiation that probably has to be made is whether you work as an employee or go self-employed/own your own small business, where you can earn significantly more. Also my first thought was more towards craftsmen like electricians, plumbers or basically anyone working within the field of renewable energies/heating (espeically heat pumps)/insulating older houses. And at least those are in such high demand where i am at that they can demand high prices.
confidantlake 2y ago
Colleges started out as vocational schools for priests. For much of American history colleges were places for farmers or engineers to learn their crafts. For my entire lifetime colleges were places you went to prepare you for a career. Colleges being mainly a place for elites to fraternize, if it ever really existed, was a short lived phenomenon and certainly not how they were founded or the role they serve now. No one is giving out hundred thousand dollar plus loans so that you can learn for the sake of learning.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- allturtles 2y ago
  Your history isn't really right here: > Colleges started out as vocational schools for priests There were three advanced schools (~graduate departments) at the typical medieval university: medicine, law, and theology. > For much of American history colleges were places for farmers or engineers to learn their crafts. I'm guessing you are basing this claim on the Morrill Act, which was to "provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the Mechanic arts."[0] It certainly doesn't describe the earlier American colleges like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, King's College (later Columbia), etc. But even the state colleges that were founded with the help of the Morrill Act typically had loftier ambitions than acting as craft schools. e.g. from the inaugural speech of the founding of the University of California: "The University is the most comprehensive term which can be employed to indicate a foundation for the promotion at diffusion of knowledge--a group of agencies organized to advance the arts and sciences of every sort, and to train young men as scholars for all the intellectual callings of life." [1] But surely schools like Texas Agricultural and Mechanical were founded from the beginning with a focus on those practical skills? Nope: "Despite its name, the college taught no classes in agriculture, instead concentrating on classical studies, languages, literature, and applied mathematics." [2] [0]: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/morrill-act https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/morrill-act [1]: https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb267nb0qk&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb267nb0qk&brand=oac4&doc.v... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Texas_A%26M_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Texas_A%26M_Univers...

maxerickson 2y ago

The US state college system was pretty much never for elites, it was always about increasing the capacity of the country.

lolinder 2y ago
But how was "increasing the capacity of the country" conceptualized? I can believe that it was put together with the intention of strengthening the new country and building up institutions that it felt it needed, but that's not at all the same thing as being not for the elite (at the time of the founding of the first state schools we still had property requirements to vote!), much less that they conceived of it as job training. For a primary source on how they conceptualized the role of the university, see the charter for the University of Georgia (1785) [0]. It essentially says that universities are really important and it would be unacceptable to have to send youths to foreign countries, so we're starting one here. They weren't reconceptualizing the university, they were funding the rapid development of institutions that would otherwise take centuries to develop if at all. [0] https://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead%2FUA22-010.xml&query&brand=default https://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead%2FUA22-0...
bluGill 2y ago
The US is a young country for this discussion. Other than maybe the likes of Harvard college was already democratizing around the world when US colleges started.
- terrabiped 2y ago
  [dead]

monero-xmr 2y ago

I’m really not sure how many more Literature papers we need on Proust, Shakespeare, Beowulf, and on and on. They have to continue to pump out papers and books, exclusively read by other people in the same subjects. “Invaluable” this is not

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
How much money do you think the Lord of the Rings, as the modern multimedia francise it is, makes? Do you think Tolkien, the first time he cracked open an Old English tome of Beowulf thought to himself, "someday, being a Beowulf scholar will lead to me creating a vast amount of money for Warner Bros."? Academic outcomes are nonlinear. Outside of the job-training-ified fields like engineering, there is seldom a direct "I studied X and then made a ton of money doing exactly that". The success stories, like Tolkien, are more like, "I studied X, then I lost a finger in the great war, then I typed up a manuscript of a children's fairy tale, fast forward 100 years and it's worth untold millions." It is a winding road. All that is gold does not glitter, not all who wander are lost.
- monero-xmr 2y ago
  I would transfer these people into making podcasts, self-published books, social media feeds, and other forms of content that are actually consumed. Trying to read one of these papers in an academic journal is mind numbing. The college model is way too expensive and has very little societal value vs. its cost
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    Academic papers aren't for mass consumption. You can't replace the depth of consideration and knowledge needed to write an academic paper with hosting a podcast or self-publishing a book. Writing for an audience of leading experts is inherently different from writing for consumption by non-experts. And you can't just equate societal value with "how many people consume it". An academic paper is often as valuable as a tool for crystalizing thoughts in the mind of the author as it is a tool for communicating to the reader. I kind of feel like you are missing the point of academia.

jacobr1 2y ago

The early universities outside of Europe where mostly vocational training for the clergy. And the first big expansion of US based public universities was with the land grant system, which explicitly focused on ag an engineering type programs - still often a strong suit of these universities today.

lolinder 2y ago
That's why those programs are some of the exceptions in being good at job prep, but rates of college attendance remained very low for another 80+ years until after WW2, so the elite who could afford to study whatever still made up a big chunk of most schools' income. As college attendance rates went higher and higher the job preparation need became the primary one the school is serving, which changed the economics in a way that simply having a few job preparation programs didn't.

guappa 2y ago

University started to learn law and medicine. Two things that were and still are very remunerative.

lolinder 2y ago
There's a reason why those have different degree abbreviations—they're a different kind of thing than the degrees universities later arrived at and spent centuries developing. And they and a few others (like engineering fields) are still the only ones that really work as job training. It's a good point insofar as it shows the institution has never been static.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
Theology was the main subject in first universities.
- guappa 2y ago
  Can you share a source for this? The oldest known university in europe wasn't about technology. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_di_Bologna https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_di_Bologna
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
    You are reading too fast:)

golli 2y ago

I think another important issue is how the societal and cultural evaluation of university degrees compared to alternatives like apprenticeships in crafts has shifted. The former is held in much higher regard as far as social standing goes even if we probably need many more of the latter, it requires lots of training as well, and you can even earn pretty good money.

Spivak 2y ago
> and you can even earn pretty good money. This has not been true in my experience, I can't say I did it on purpose but I'm very thankful my primary profession is as a knowledge worker and I took on a trade as a side-hustle after the fact. A professional carpenter around here makes about $18-25/hr for what is a fairly time and labor intensive job with tight margins since customers are usually really price sensitive.
- golli 2y ago
  I think right on calling me out on that statement as it was likely a bit to broad. One differentiation that probably has to be made is whether you work as an employee or go self-employed/own your own small business, where you can earn significantly more. Also my first thought was more towards craftsmen like electricians, plumbers or basically anyone working within the field of renewable energies/heating (espeically heat pumps)/insulating older houses. And at least those are in such high demand where i am at that they can demand high prices.

confidantlake 2y ago

Colleges started out as vocational schools for priests. For much of American history colleges were places for farmers or engineers to learn their crafts. For my entire lifetime colleges were places you went to prepare you for a career. Colleges being mainly a place for elites to fraternize, if it ever really existed, was a short lived phenomenon and certainly not how they were founded or the role they serve now. No one is giving out hundred thousand dollar plus loans so that you can learn for the sake of learning.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
allturtles 2y ago
Your history isn't really right here: > Colleges started out as vocational schools for priests There were three advanced schools (~graduate departments) at the typical medieval university: medicine, law, and theology. > For much of American history colleges were places for farmers or engineers to learn their crafts. I'm guessing you are basing this claim on the Morrill Act, which was to "provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the Mechanic arts."[0] It certainly doesn't describe the earlier American colleges like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, King's College (later Columbia), etc. But even the state colleges that were founded with the help of the Morrill Act typically had loftier ambitions than acting as craft schools. e.g. from the inaugural speech of the founding of the University of California: "The University is the most comprehensive term which can be employed to indicate a foundation for the promotion at diffusion of knowledge--a group of agencies organized to advance the arts and sciences of every sort, and to train young men as scholars for all the intellectual callings of life." [1] But surely schools like Texas Agricultural and Mechanical were founded from the beginning with a focus on those practical skills? Nope: "Despite its name, the college taught no classes in agriculture, instead concentrating on classical studies, languages, literature, and applied mathematics." [2] [0]: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/morrill-act https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/morrill-act [1]: https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb267nb0qk&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb267nb0qk&brand=oac4&doc.v... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Texas_A%26M_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Texas_A%26M_Univers...