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>There's a tension right now between the university as a place to expand your mind and learn for the sake of learning and the university as a place where you pr

by lsc 14y ago

>There's a tension right now between the university as a place to expand your mind and learn for the sake of learning and the university as a place where you prepare for a job. I see this argument come up all the time. "You might be making more money than I am, but I have a degree, and that makes me a classy person." It goes right along with the theory that college degrees are class markers, made ineffective by the large number of lower-middle class and poor folks mistaking cause for effect and mortgaging themselves in order to go to school. The hard truth? For most of us, we can't afford to spend four years and a couple hundred grand "learning for the sake of learning." I have to work for a living. Sure, I enjoy reading in the evening, but even now, I couldn't afford to drop that kind of money and take four years off. If your parents can't afford to just pay for your school? well, you had better learn something that you can use to earn money, 'cause those loans? they don't go away with bankruptcy. So yeah; You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with having a four-year long summer-camp for rich kids, but if that's what you want, say so. (yes, I have been told that I have a 'Napoleon complex' about my lack of schooling. Sorry. But I do think what I say is true, even if the tone, perhaps, has more emotion than a reasoned argument ought. Spending the kind of time and money required to get a BA "for the sake of learning" if it doesn't increase your earning power, is something that only the children of the rich (and recipients of full-ride scholarships) can reasonably be expected to do.)

_delirium 14y ago
You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. I agree with that, but one obvious solution is that it shouldn't require mortgaging yourself to attend. Here in Denmark, universities are tuition-free, and students are actually paid a small stipend to attend, to cover living expenses. The intent is precisely to remove any link to parents' socio-economic status in who is able to afford to attend university. Even in the U.S. it used to be somewhat closer to that. My dad came from a poor family and attended university without taking out any loans, because at the time ('60s), public universities had very low tuition, and even what low tuition existed could be covered by part-time work on campus (e.g. in the cafeteria or library).
- lsc 14y ago
  I have been thinking schooling this week; More and more of the poor people I know have gone on to get real jobs lately, (The local job market is really hot, if you are a nerd, and nearly all of my friends and many of my acquaintances are smarter than I am[1] so it's really no surprise.) I ended up using a craigslist ad to find someone to help me shovel out the office. The random I got had an IT-related degree from one of those schools you see advertised on daytime TV, and was having a hard time of it, even in these good times. (I mean, uh, she had windows experience, so not really my field, but someone has to maintain the exchange servers and desktops for all the people hiring my friends.) >because at the time ('60s), public universities had very low tuition, and even what low tuition existed could be covered by part-time work on campus (e.g. in the cafeteria or library). This is still true for community colleges and state schools. The problem is that a degree from one of those schools doesn't mean as much as a degree from a good school, (or really, from what I've seen, much at all,) precisely because it's something most people can get. This supports my theory that degrees are about filtering rather than about learning. My belief that a degree from a good school says that either you have rich parents, or you are smart, hardworking and have some hustle. With partial scholarships, this isn't a binary thing, of course. The idea is, though, from an employers perspective, for a lot of jobs, having rich parents (and connections who are also the children of rich parents) can be just as useful as being smart and hard working. But yea, if a degree is about filtering and not about learning, then obviously, a degree from a school anyone can get into is of dubious value. Perhaps, from that perspective, what we want is a cheap school with a brutal dropout rate? But it's going to be hard to change the current status quo, as it works out pretty well for the elites; The rich pay big bucks to go to school with the best scholarship students. It's a fine system for the children of the rich (the quality of your peers, I think, has far more to do with educational quality than the quality of your teachers... and hell, if you are one of the elite, destined to control means of production? you /need/ to know competent people that can actually work.) It's also a great system for the smart people that make it on scholarships; they gain the contacts and access to capital that their birth denies them. (I mean, as a coder, rich people contacts are generally less-useful. So I guess that means google and facebook should start focusing their recruiting efforts on people that went to good schools but didn't pay for it.) [1]To be clear, I'm not stupid, but my own set of prejudices and my own brand of arrogance means that I don't have all that much tolerance for people noticeably dumber than I am. It's not a virtue; I recognize that I would be alone if many of my friends shared my prejudice.

by lsc 14y ago

_delirium 14y ago

You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. I agree with that, but one obvious solution is that it shouldn't require mortgaging yourself to attend. Here in Denmark, universities are tuition-free, and students are actually paid a small stipend to attend, to cover living expenses. The intent is precisely to remove any link to parents' socio-economic status in who is able to afford to attend university. Even in the U.S. it used to be somewhat closer to that. My dad came from a poor family and attended university without taking out any loans, because at the time ('60s), public universities had very low tuition, and even what low tuition existed could be covered by part-time work on campus (e.g. in the cafeteria or library).

lsc 14y ago
I have been thinking schooling this week; More and more of the poor people I know have gone on to get real jobs lately, (The local job market is really hot, if you are a nerd, and nearly all of my friends and many of my acquaintances are smarter than I am[1] so it's really no surprise.) I ended up using a craigslist ad to find someone to help me shovel out the office. The random I got had an IT-related degree from one of those schools you see advertised on daytime TV, and was having a hard time of it, even in these good times. (I mean, uh, she had windows experience, so not really my field, but someone has to maintain the exchange servers and desktops for all the people hiring my friends.) >because at the time ('60s), public universities had very low tuition, and even what low tuition existed could be covered by part-time work on campus (e.g. in the cafeteria or library). This is still true for community colleges and state schools. The problem is that a degree from one of those schools doesn't mean as much as a degree from a good school, (or really, from what I've seen, much at all,) precisely because it's something most people can get. This supports my theory that degrees are about filtering rather than about learning. My belief that a degree from a good school says that either you have rich parents, or you are smart, hardworking and have some hustle. With partial scholarships, this isn't a binary thing, of course. The idea is, though, from an employers perspective, for a lot of jobs, having rich parents (and connections who are also the children of rich parents) can be just as useful as being smart and hard working. But yea, if a degree is about filtering and not about learning, then obviously, a degree from a school anyone can get into is of dubious value. Perhaps, from that perspective, what we want is a cheap school with a brutal dropout rate? But it's going to be hard to change the current status quo, as it works out pretty well for the elites; The rich pay big bucks to go to school with the best scholarship students. It's a fine system for the children of the rich (the quality of your peers, I think, has far more to do with educational quality than the quality of your teachers... and hell, if you are one of the elite, destined to control means of production? you /need/ to know competent people that can actually work.) It's also a great system for the smart people that make it on scholarships; they gain the contacts and access to capital that their birth denies them. (I mean, as a coder, rich people contacts are generally less-useful. So I guess that means google and facebook should start focusing their recruiting efforts on people that went to good schools but didn't pay for it.) [1]To be clear, I'm not stupid, but my own set of prejudices and my own brand of arrogance means that I don't have all that much tolerance for people noticeably dumber than I am. It's not a virtue; I recognize that I would be alone if many of my friends shared my prejudice.