4 ms·

Shutter the bad and mediocre colleges, law schools, and business programs. These diploma mills border on fraud. Most people who think they went to "college" did

Shutter the bad and mediocre colleges, law schools, and business programs. These diploma mills border on fraud. Most people who think they went to "college" didn't. They were expensively babysat for four years because the job market couldn't figure out what to do with them (and, alas, still can't). The upper-middle tier schools (respectable but not distinguished state schools) shall stay in business but should be half of their current size. This problem is even more obvious in law school. "California Western School of Law" is not going to provide access to the level of means that most people associate with being a lawyer. These are the schools that law students call TTTs-- third tier toilets-- and the job prospects they provide don't offset the ridiculous debt one takes in order to attend them. A law program loses accreditation if less than 50% of its students fail the bar exam. There are many shitty law schools out there that take on mediocre, doomed students (like, 140 LSAT) and fail many of them in their first year, in order to improve their bar pass rate. I think it's time to go to an "elitist" European-style system where only qualified students get to go to university and into professional programs, at least with the public schools. Only 5-15% of the population should be getting an academic college education, but it should be free (or very low-cost) for them. No student loans, no parents losing their retirement funds to tuition payments. The other ~85% can go to a private college if they can afford it, as in Europe, but it's not viewed as a universal right.

gaius 18y ago
I think it's time to go to an "elitist" European-style system where only qualified students get to go to university What system is that? Here in the UK the ex-polys churn out Media Studies grads like there's no tomorrow. You don't even need good A-levels to get in. GMTV did a story the other day on how they're working manual labour jobs now. Now don't get me wrong we need people to do those jobs but we didn't need for them to spend 3 years partying on the taxpayer first.
captainobvious 18y ago
>A law program loses accreditation if less than 50% of its students fail the bar exam. Guess a crummy school where more than 50% fail the bar wouldn't have any problems then.
cschwarm 18y ago
I'm living in Europe -- Germany to be exact -- but never noticed any "elitist" European-style system for a University degree. So I digged out some numbers. This is hard to translate, so my apologies for bad grammer. In Germany in 2006, 43,4% of people born in a certain year managed to make the necessary degree to be able go to a higher education system (universities, etc.). This is quite a difference to the 5-15% you assume to be "usual". Additionally, the majority of universities here are public schools, with (recently introduced) fees of about 1000 Euros per year. This is also quite a difference to your assumption that 85% of students go to a private college. Additionally, some traditional German qualifications ("Meisterprüfung", for example) are taught in other school forms, that are considered to be a university degree elsewhere. Looking at the other European countries, the numbers are different, of course. That's party due to the fact that some countries require collage degrees for certain jobs not necessary elsewehere. In Sweden and Finland, for example, nurses seem to need one. In Finland, up to 71% of people born in a certain year seem to start a college education. For other numbers, please see the fourth table here: http://tinyurl.com/dn22rh http://tinyurl.com/dn22rh. The third column indicates how many percent of people born in a certain year start a higher degree. For example, it was 32% in Belgium according to the 2001 OECD study.
- time_management 18y ago
  Wow. Those numbers are higher than I thought. My impression was that the percentages who go on to academic (not including vocational) university education was in the teens. This is based on family in Switzerland, but the data is probably stale at this point (1980s). I should point out that I'm not against a third or half of Americans getting some kind of free higher education. I just think it's a waste for them to have an academic education, when only a minority of jobs require one. Appropriate vocational training would be better.

gaius 18y ago

I think it's time to go to an "elitist" European-style system where only qualified students get to go to university What system is that? Here in the UK the ex-polys churn out Media Studies grads like there's no tomorrow. You don't even need good A-levels to get in. GMTV did a story the other day on how they're working manual labour jobs now. Now don't get me wrong we need people to do those jobs but we didn't need for them to spend 3 years partying on the taxpayer first.

captainobvious 18y ago

>A law program loses accreditation if less than 50% of its students fail the bar exam. Guess a crummy school where more than 50% fail the bar wouldn't have any problems then.

cschwarm 18y ago

I'm living in Europe -- Germany to be exact -- but never noticed any "elitist" European-style system for a University degree. So I digged out some numbers. This is hard to translate, so my apologies for bad grammer. In Germany in 2006, 43,4% of people born in a certain year managed to make the necessary degree to be able go to a higher education system (universities, etc.). This is quite a difference to the 5-15% you assume to be "usual". Additionally, the majority of universities here are public schools, with (recently introduced) fees of about 1000 Euros per year. This is also quite a difference to your assumption that 85% of students go to a private college. Additionally, some traditional German qualifications ("Meisterprüfung", for example) are taught in other school forms, that are considered to be a university degree elsewhere. Looking at the other European countries, the numbers are different, of course. That's party due to the fact that some countries require collage degrees for certain jobs not necessary elsewehere. In Sweden and Finland, for example, nurses seem to need one. In Finland, up to 71% of people born in a certain year seem to start a college education. For other numbers, please see the fourth table here: http://tinyurl.com/dn22rh http://tinyurl.com/dn22rh. The third column indicates how many percent of people born in a certain year start a higher degree. For example, it was 32% in Belgium according to the 2001 OECD study.

time_management 18y ago
Wow. Those numbers are higher than I thought. My impression was that the percentages who go on to academic (not including vocational) university education was in the teens. This is based on family in Switzerland, but the data is probably stale at this point (1980s). I should point out that I'm not against a third or half of Americans getting some kind of free higher education. I just think it's a waste for them to have an academic education, when only a minority of jobs require one. Appropriate vocational training would be better.