5 ms·

I disagree. Because starting in the 1940s, there were large masses of less privileged people going to college on account of the GI Bill. They still had differe

by bumby 2y ago

I disagree. Because starting in the 1940s, there were large masses of less privileged people going to college on account of the GI Bill. They still had different views about college than we see currently (anecdotes not withstanding).

scarface_74 2y ago
Do you think people coming out of the military - many with no skills that they thought could help them get a job after they left - went to college to be better citizens of the world and not to get a job? If you listen to military recruiters now, they emphasize the ability to be able to get a job after you leave through training. Also the statistics show that lower income people statistically go into the military. When you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I can guarantee you that most people’s first priority is to support their addictions to food and shelter and are most concerned with making money to do so. It’s only the privileged who have parents who can support them while they are getting launched who can afford to get degrees in areas like Ancient Chinese Art History or more realistically journalism and work for low pay in high cost of living areas.
- bumby 2y ago
  >went to college to be better citizens of the world and not to get a job? It depends on the era. The data says they likely did decades ago, and less likely to share that same view now. Around the 1980s the proportions switched: prior, the majority of freshman had a goal of “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” compared to “being very well-off financially”. After the 1980s, that proportion inverted to the majority focused on material success. Because the 1940s onward had a relatively high proportion of students from lower and middle class backgrounds, I don’t think the social class argument has as much explanatory power as you imply. In other words, the differences is that our cultural attitudes about college have likely changed due to other factors. Edit: edited to soften tone and give more information. The data comes from UCLAs Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) surveys of incoming freshman. https://heri.ucla.edu/cirp-freshman-survey/ https://heri.ucla.edu/cirp-freshman-survey/
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    After your link, it still doesn’t show supporting data
    - bumby 2y ago
      You can register to get it through the "Access Data" tab. If you don't want to do that Google "HERI freshman survey". If that's still too much work, click on "Images" to see slides people have put together to summarize the data. You can also search for "The American Freshman: 40 year trends" to get summary reports.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        Instead of going through the scavenger hunt, quote the numbers you believe support your viewpoint. But just looking at one source it says no community colleges were represented and 60 private colleges and 12 public colleges were represented. That automatically skews the results to more privileged people who can consider it an outlet to “be a better person in the world and mommy and daddy can support me while I get my unpaid internship in NYC and then become a journalist who can’t support myself” over the people who will eventually have to depend on themselves to exchange enough labor for money to support their need for food and shelter. https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/HERI-TFS-Brief.pdf https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/HERI-TFS-Brief.pdf Also notice that 80% went to college to get a job. Where is the related statistic that poorer people spent money and time to go to college without the expectations of getting a better job 50 years ago?
        bumby 2y ago
        >quote the numbers you believe support your viewpoint. HN guidelines expect intellectual curiosity, not spoon feeding (maybe that's also a change in cultural norms). I've already clearly described the trend and given you multiple avenues to look at the data, if you were curious enough to do so. If it's not apparent, the two goals are not mutually exclusive. Figure 14 of the previously mentioned paper gives you the numbers: -In 1966,about 85% said developing a philosophy of life is a priority, while about 42% said being very well off financially was a priority -By 2006, nearly 75% said being very well off financially was a priority while developing a philosophy of life dipped below 50% In other words, priorities inverted. >That automatically skews the results to more privileged people The authors took measures to control for "more privileged" students when comparing public/private data. From the paper: "By disaggregating CIRP median household income by public and private institutions and comparing each set of reporting students, we are able to tease out the differences in parental income over time relative to each other and relative to the national median household income" >Where is the related statistic that poorer people spent money and time to go to college without the expectations of getting a better job 50 years ago? Note the paper also discusses how the relative wealth of parents of incoming freshman has increased. Implying poorer students were a larger share of the student body at the time when developing a philosophy of life was a more dominant priority. You should read the report and look at the data. It's rare to find longitudinal data that spans so many decades.

by bumby 2y ago

scarface_74 2y ago

Do you think people coming out of the military - many with no skills that they thought could help them get a job after they left - went to college to be better citizens of the world and not to get a job? If you listen to military recruiters now, they emphasize the ability to be able to get a job after you leave through training. Also the statistics show that lower income people statistically go into the military. When you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I can guarantee you that most people’s first priority is to support their addictions to food and shelter and are most concerned with making money to do so. It’s only the privileged who have parents who can support them while they are getting launched who can afford to get degrees in areas like Ancient Chinese Art History or more realistically journalism and work for low pay in high cost of living areas.

bumby 2y ago
>went to college to be better citizens of the world and not to get a job? It depends on the era. The data says they likely did decades ago, and less likely to share that same view now. Around the 1980s the proportions switched: prior, the majority of freshman had a goal of “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” compared to “being very well-off financially”. After the 1980s, that proportion inverted to the majority focused on material success. Because the 1940s onward had a relatively high proportion of students from lower and middle class backgrounds, I don’t think the social class argument has as much explanatory power as you imply. In other words, the differences is that our cultural attitudes about college have likely changed due to other factors. Edit: edited to soften tone and give more information. The data comes from UCLAs Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) surveys of incoming freshman. https://heri.ucla.edu/cirp-freshman-survey/ https://heri.ucla.edu/cirp-freshman-survey/
- scarface_74 2y ago
  After your link, it still doesn’t show supporting data
  - bumby 2y ago
    You can register to get it through the "Access Data" tab. If you don't want to do that Google "HERI freshman survey". If that's still too much work, click on "Images" to see slides people have put together to summarize the data. You can also search for "The American Freshman: 40 year trends" to get summary reports.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Instead of going through the scavenger hunt, quote the numbers you believe support your viewpoint. But just looking at one source it says no community colleges were represented and 60 private colleges and 12 public colleges were represented. That automatically skews the results to more privileged people who can consider it an outlet to “be a better person in the world and mommy and daddy can support me while I get my unpaid internship in NYC and then become a journalist who can’t support myself” over the people who will eventually have to depend on themselves to exchange enough labor for money to support their need for food and shelter. https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/HERI-TFS-Brief.pdf https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/HERI-TFS-Brief.pdf Also notice that 80% went to college to get a job. Where is the related statistic that poorer people spent money and time to go to college without the expectations of getting a better job 50 years ago?
      - bumby 2y ago
        >quote the numbers you believe support your viewpoint. HN guidelines expect intellectual curiosity, not spoon feeding (maybe that's also a change in cultural norms). I've already clearly described the trend and given you multiple avenues to look at the data, if you were curious enough to do so. If it's not apparent, the two goals are not mutually exclusive. Figure 14 of the previously mentioned paper gives you the numbers: -In 1966,about 85% said developing a philosophy of life is a priority, while about 42% said being very well off financially was a priority -By 2006, nearly 75% said being very well off financially was a priority while developing a philosophy of life dipped below 50% In other words, priorities inverted. >That automatically skews the results to more privileged people The authors took measures to control for "more privileged" students when comparing public/private data. From the paper: "By disaggregating CIRP median household income by public and private institutions and comparing each set of reporting students, we are able to tease out the differences in parental income over time relative to each other and relative to the national median household income" >Where is the related statistic that poorer people spent money and time to go to college without the expectations of getting a better job 50 years ago? Note the paper also discusses how the relative wealth of parents of incoming freshman has increased. Implying poorer students were a larger share of the student body at the time when developing a philosophy of life was a more dominant priority. You should read the report and look at the data. It's rare to find longitudinal data that spans so many decades.