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In China, Betting It All on a Child in College
- beefsack 14y agoThis seems a little off-topic for HN.
- trxblazr 14y agoNot really. There's an education bubble: too many applicants; not enough resources. Coursera/Udacity...etc may change that significantly over time. This may significantly impact the very people this article talks about. I think it's good for HN to perceive from time to time the tangential impact of technology on everyday life.
- dakimov 14y agoHN do not have a topic.
- gbog 14y agoI can confirm this from my experience in China (~9 years), but would be a little more positive on the outcome for the graduates. It is still relatively easy to find a job and turn-over is high. In the companies where I have worked, in the university I have attended, I have seen some of these employees coming from very poor families: most are hard-working and clever, and usually can make their way into the higher strates of society (up to a level).
- dakimov 14y agoI've never understood that notion of social stratification applied to modern socities. What kind of classes are we talking about? Isn't it just a plain linear function of your income?
- gbog 14y agoWhy, no, certainly not. A scholar or a writer or an artist might be able to kiss a queen on the cheeks while having very low income.
- dakimov 14y agoThe queen is just a humorous tradition in any modern civilized country. Your argument is quite stupid.
- pm90 14y agoHumorous, but very real in some. Since the queen is at the zenith of social standing, his statement is quite correct
- dakimov 14y agoThis is the current human mentality: no lower boundary for sanity. Any nonsense may be considered correct if it has support from stereotypes or prejudices.
- gbog 14y agoTo me using income as social scale is insane. It would give a very high position to cartel bosses, and these guys should be on the bottom. If you'd need a social scale for some l practical reason, I suppose the only workable one is education level. it ids not fair to everyone but I think it is the last horrible.
- michaelt 14y agoWhen we humans see things clustered together in a multidimensional configuration space we often try to draw borders between the clusters and give them names. To use a computer analogy, we divide laptops into clusters like 'netbook', 'budget laptop', 'desktop replacement', 'ultrabook', 'gaming laptop' and so on - based on their position in the screen size-performance-cost-weight configuration space. These aren't clear-cut lines, there are border cases and people's opinions vary - but we can still tell an Eee PC from a Alienware from a Macbook Pro!
- trxblazr 14y ago"Youths from poor and rural families consistently end up paying much higher tuition in China than children from affluent and urban families. Yet they attend considerably worse institutions, education finance specialists say...The reason is that few children from poor families earn top marks on the national exams. So they are shunted to lower-quality schools that receive the smallest government subsidies. The result is that higher education is rapidly losing its role as a social leveler in China and as a safety valve for talented but poor youths to escape poverty." So that's certainly true in America, and perhaps even more so in China. I think platforms like Coursera/Udacity can start leveling the playing field again for two reasons: first, if the technology is good enough (from personal experience, I would say so) and remains free, the studying-resources gap between rich and poor shrinks; second, even if you can't squeeze your way into a top school, you can still get a top-notch education for free. At the end of the day, i'm grossly oversimplifying things (i.e. the weight of credentials in Chinese society probably still far outweight actual demonstrated skill-set; or consider for a moment whether a family that lives on rice and a few vegetables a day can realistically afford a computer+internet-connection for their kids...), but i still think there's a sizable impact in here somewhere.
- wisty 14y ago> or consider for a moment whether a family that lives on rice and a few vegetables a day can realistically afford a computer+internet-connection for their kids... Only the absolute poorest Chinese won't be able to get internet access and a computer. The computer might cost ~1000 RMB (2 month's salary, for an extremely poor household). Maybe less, if they can put up with an old P4 getting tossed out by an internet cafe, which is now the color of a smoker's lungs. Internet will be ~50 to 100 RMB a month, and that's entertainment (and information) for the whole family. Getting access to online courses (which might rely on YouTube, which is blocked) might be tricky, as is the language barrier, but I'm sure China will have localised versions of the course. It's a major cost, but Chinese aren't starving, just poor. Once you have more than $2 a day, food isn't the only priority; healthcare and education is. Migrant workers might be worse off than the poorest peasants, though, as they may not have a stable abode. You can't get your kid a computer if you're sharing a shanty-town room with 2 other families. Plus, getting a connection might not be possible. That's probably why migrant workers often leave their kids with grandma. And yes, credentialism is an issue.
- rdl 14y agoI wonder how effective either MOOCs or peer to peer (Chinese person chatting online with a native English speaker) could be for language skills.
- dm8 14y agoWhat will happen when countries will start producing tons of graduates but not enough white collar jobs? I fear it will create very unhealthy dynamics in the society.
- guard-of-terra 14y agoRumours tell what's what happened in Cambodia before Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge. Too many liberal arts & french classical literature graduates, no viable agriculture to feed the country without external help, help being cut.
- sgt101 14y agoI've never heard this before. I think that pre Khmer Rouge Cambodia had a tiny graduate population <1% and had no issue of agricultural production apart from the intrinsic vulnerability of subsistence farming to crop failure and famine. The disaster of year 0 was not the result of either external aid or poor education, rather it was a political decision supported by regional powers for geo-political ends.
- guard-of-terra 14y agohttp://arkhip.livejournal.com/341078.html http://arkhip.livejournal.com/341078.html This is where I took this from (You can use some translation service) And it states that most of Pol Pot's cabinet were graduates of universities, more than half of them Sorbonne. And then it tells about previous ruler investing in education heavily without then caring about employment of graduates, all this on top of population surge.
- slyall 14y agoYou mean like in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia etc? * http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2012/061312.htm http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2012/061312.htm * http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=201102130832112 http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2011021...
- britta 14y ago
- EduardoBautista 14y agoAm I the only who feels like the parents mostly only care about themselves than their daughter? It sounded like that to me.
- potatolicious 14y agoIn traditional Chinese society each generation cares for the one before it. This assumes many forms - from mere social expectation to actual tithes of your income to your parents. There is some incentive to maximize a child's success in order to ensure your own retirement - after all, if they can't make ends meet, you're even worse off. This may seem strange by western standards, but I'd caution against extrapolating this to mean that the parents don't care for their child. The parent-child relationship in Chinese society is different than it is modern American society, but parents universally care deeply about the well-being of their children. A big caveat to all of the above is that modern, urban Chinese society is very rapidly shedding this model. There remains a sticky issue of there being a massive "lost generation" who suffered financially caring for their own parents, but due to shifting societal mores, cannot expect the same from their own children.
- EduardoBautista 14y agoAlright, that helps me look at it from a different perspective. Thanks.
- einhverfr 14y ago> This may seem strange by western standards, but I'd caution against extrapolating this to mean that the parents don't care for their child. It shouldn't be strange by Western standards. It was the way it was in the US before WWII or so. It also works very well because it frees up what might otherwise go into retirement savings, and this gets spent on helping the kids get established instead. I am not in China, but my wife is Chinese-Indonesian and her mother is starting to get closer to retirement, and that system, while it has transformed in urban environments like Jakarta, is still very much alive at least among the Chinese diaspora here.
- jacquesm 14y ago
- austenallred 14y agoI would be interested to see some analysis as far as what these students are studying, not just in this article, but in all articles that attempt to account for career placement of college students in any way. Studying electrical engineering will provide a completely different likelihood of graduate employment than will studying humanities. In this particular article these statistics I assume, would move the needle. I hope it's not considered "racist" of me to say so, but from my experience living in China and cross-studying in the humanities and computer science, Chinese students tend to study the hard sciences (engineering, science, accounting), whereas I never even saw a Chinese student in any of my humanities classes.
- mitchelllc 14y agowell, for a lot of Chinese students, they tend to study the courses that may help them get a job. These engineering courses are much more helpful than humanities course.
- alanctgardner2 14y agoThey point out in the article that these courses tend to be more like community college courses - in practical topics like logistics. You're looking at this from the Western point of view, where students are encourages to take absolutely any topic, just so long as they get a BA.
- austenallred 14y agoAs did the article. There were a lot of stats about grad rates, but nothing specific to Chinese immigrants/students.
- kamaal 14y agoVery common here in India too. At least when I was studying it was all about, "Get your kid to do Engineering/Medicine and then every thing will take care of itself". There is a big reason for this. Uneducated people get played for easily and there is that huge disadvantage in non-knowledge driven based jobs. Take for example the job of a cab/bus driver. Or some body like mason, the problem the money you earn is directly related to number or hours/quantity of work you get delivered. And since quantity is largely related to a physical activity in this case. It means you will do a lot of physical labor to earn more money. This is not scalable and becomes blatantly clear to a lot of people involved in this. Add to this that these kinds of jobs don't get much social respect. My dad was a bus driver. And I know what it was for me as a kid. It was always to study my ass off or be doomed. And yes all other standard social problems apply. You are always considered poor and assumed to remain such till eternity. No one likes knowing that he being a educated white collar knowledge worker, his kids and the kids of a bus driver ultimately get the same destiny. I even had problems getting married. Coming from a low financial background creates big problems. People find it hard to accept if you win, and pass sympathies if you don't. So the only way remains: Study and fight your way out of the situation. My teenage through early 20's was the most stressful phase of my life. Because failure was not an option. No money to do business, So if I fail it will going back to same life. I'm not saying life is rosy as a programmer. It has its own problems both financial and in other aspects of life. But yet its far better than what I saw in early parts of my life(Nothing I will tell you, can explain you what it feels to be in that place- I only hope no other kid goes through that). I don't feel sad that I can't buy an iPhone. But rather its satisfying to know I don't have break my back just to eat, wear clothes and live under a roof. Its still same here in India for a large number of people. Education and a white collar job doesn't fix all problems. But it does fix enough problems in your life to make it livable.
- bjoe_lewis 14y agoYes it is. It felt home reading the chinese family's whole story. It's common teachers and lecturers here do tell, that studying and getting a Job is everything for the amount of money paid.
- fosap 14y agoI think China has an advantage here. While most Chinese have only one (or maximum two) children to support, the average number of children is higher in India. It chinese parents can afford to spend more money per child on education and I think on the long term this will result in a higher education for the average person.
- contingencies 14y agoHere in rural China (on and off ~11 years), honestly the most educated and worldly person I spoke to in the last week or so was an exotic dancer from another province who had picked up some foreign language and was evidently far more intelligent and motivated than the majority of downtrodden graduates. She said she didn't finish high school. I thought to myself: "that's probably causation not just correlation".
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago> was an exotic dancer from another province Do you mean rural china or a second/third tier city? I'm not sure what an exotic dancer would be doing in a village.
- jhancock 14y agoI was at a small Sichuan mountain village wedding a few weeks back. Several "exotic" dancers and the village drag queen and a magician. All locals. Great performances. The most fun I've had at a Chinese weeding ;)
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoWas it a Han or Zang area? Sounds very interesting.
- contingencies 14y agoFor the record 4th tier town (县). That's how I roll. ;)
- OGinparadise 14y agoHere in rural China (on and off ~11 years), honestly the most educated and worldly person I spoke to in the last week or so was an exotic dancer Playboy has articles, eh? :) Obviously they are two kinds of educations /smarts: street and book smart. I have a feeling (could be wrong) that people in those parts of the world, maybe due to pressure, just lock themselves in a room and study /memorize, "day and night."
- robinho364 14y agoWhen I click this link to read, the page turns out to be not avaliable…… I should get access to it by ssh, I suddenly remind that I am just a junior studying in China.
- vixen99 14y agoThey describe a sub-project examining the DNA of people with IQ > 160? On the basis of 'one fact can slay a theory', I would suggest that the example of Richard Feynman (IQ at 124) indicates that this study may garner a rather small return on investment. Of course it depends on exactly what they are looking for.
- jiggy2011 14y agoAccording to wikipedia that figure for Feynman seems to be based on 1 IQ test he did in high school. I'm assuming IQ testing practises have improved since then, it is also possible that his IQ raised significantly as he got older due to extensive study as it is also possible that his IQ test was simply poorly administered for whatever reason.
- eqreqeq 14y ago>>t is also possible that his IQ raised significantly as he got older due to extensive study as it is also possible that his IQ test was simply poorly administered for whatever reason. Which is why an IQ is useless. If it can rise then it is not really measuring intelligence. Rather it is measuring what you know so far. Which explains why kids from better income families have better IQs. And yet people treat IQ as a constant. Glad I decided never to let a single number define me. To all you that believe the IQ is important I say ...
- jiggy2011 14y agoI'm not an IQ expert by any stretch but I doubt that it fluctuates that much (in the population in general). Based on the limited reading I have done your IQ will tend to rise as you get older, however in general people will stay in roughly the same position relative to others. Whilst you can probably influence your IQ by working your brain really hard every day or lower it by doing a lot of drugs I doubt it is really that meaningless as it does tend to correlate well with success. However I'd be curious to know how it correlates with lifetime income once you control for family income. I assume this has been researched.
- sasanrose 14y agoRight now, after the sanctions, in Iran a software engineer earns 500$ a month (It is a good salary right now in Iran). So seems china is not bad at all comparing to Iran.
- staz 14y agoYou can't really compare salary without taking into account the cost of living there
- megablast 14y agoIt is amazing how many people do not understand this.
- sasanrose 14y agoBelieve me, I live in Iran and I understand this. First, cost of living in Iran is now really a pain in the ass. Prices in Iran are now raising with the speed of light but salaries in Iran are decreasing. I know people who can not afford their food in Iran. I understood the article and I completely understand people in china. I just saw that in the article, and it was just amazing for myself to compare economy in China with Iran. In Iran parents also work so hard to provide their children's cost of education. A term in a college in Iran costs about 400$ and a normal salary here is about 250$ a month. When you are living in a country with the one of the worst economies in the world, these things in an article gather your attention.
- kkwok 14y agoReally recommend watching The Last Train Home. It's a documentary about a family that works in Guangzhou in order to pay for their children's education in their rural village. Deals with many of these same issues. And is a haunting and fantastic documentary. Also it's available on netflix
- inoop 14y agoFor those who cannot access netflix: http://documentarylovers.net/last-train-home/ http://documentarylovers.net/last-train-home/