3 ms·

Some good points made, but the author ignores a lot of things about the state of undergraduate (and graduate, to a lesser extent) classrooms. Factors like ramp

Some good points made, but the author ignores a lot of things about the state of undergraduate (and graduate, to a lesser extent) classrooms. Factors like rampant grade inflation and students with large varieties of extra needs mean that the professor's attention is hugely split between teaching and administration. I'm happy to go on record and say that I do not want our best minds wasting a lot of time with course admin, metrics, evaluations, and "collaborative digital learning". Maybe there is a good reason that the senior, storied profs want to distance themselves from these things. The solution I see is to disincentivize the university for the large swaths of students (again both grad and undergrad) who have no business being there in the first place.

germinalphrase 12y ago
I agree with you, but we can't de-incentivize high education without de-coupling educational certification with age-based grade advancement. Everyone knows that 80-years-ago you could get a 'good' job with only a high school education, while you now need some level of higher-education. This isn't because young people are (necessarily) gaining important life/job-related skills during these four years after high school. It is social signaling, or - if you like - credentials inflation. The thinking is: if you can make it through a bachelor's degree then you must be reasonably intelligent to do entry-level work. This says nothing about the actual need for higher education. By de-coupling educational attainment from age offers the opportunity to advance young people through stages of education based on their skills, not merely their age. In doing so, graduating from high school becomes a standard moment for progress benchmarking. Some students will show significant ability, others won't. Advanced students will go on to do advanced work and lower skilled students won't be penalized (as they currently are) with having their high school diploma withheld from them (a significant employment problem for many low-skilled workers). It allows businesses to look at high school graduates and assess whether or not their skills are adequate for the current opening rather than merely assuming that a bachelor's degree is necessary to do the work. In this way, we incentivize trying to advance quickly through high school while also de-incentivizing the default choice of a four-year degree.
- nickstefan12 12y ago
  It's the law of unintended consequences. Political people saw how much better off the college educated were way back when and decided that "everyone should go to college". What they did not understand was that scarcity of college grads and the socioeconomic signaling it provided were the true source of better life. The now "everyone is college educated" are no better off because of the signaling and scarcity has been lost. It's deeply connected to socialist ideals to have everyone go to college. If people are upset that everyone going to college don't get to be ahead of everyone, then what they're really mad at is socialism, not college.
VLM 12y ago
A good end goal. The process of getting there looks complicated. An interesting "kill two birds with one stone" idea is to merge medical records and care with the educational system. So asking for someone's diplomas or GPA as a hiring criteria would be as socially unacceptable as asking a gay application for HIV status, a female applicant for her "measurements", or demanding genetic test results from anyone when hiring. A completely portfolio and experience oriented hiring procedure would look similar to how contractors get "hired"/contracted. "Sorry by HIPPA regulations I can't tell you my diploma or even what school I attended, but I wrote this really nice fizzbuzz just for you..." The two birds with one stone idea is much as you wouldn't ban kids from grade school for the crime of not being born to wealthy parents, if the medical and industrial complexes merged, then presumably there would exist free health care for everyone, which would be a net societal good.

germinalphrase 12y ago

I agree with you, but we can't de-incentivize high education without de-coupling educational certification with age-based grade advancement. Everyone knows that 80-years-ago you could get a 'good' job with only a high school education, while you now need some level of higher-education. This isn't because young people are (necessarily) gaining important life/job-related skills during these four years after high school. It is social signaling, or - if you like - credentials inflation. The thinking is: if you can make it through a bachelor's degree then you must be reasonably intelligent to do entry-level work. This says nothing about the actual need for higher education. By de-coupling educational attainment from age offers the opportunity to advance young people through stages of education based on their skills, not merely their age. In doing so, graduating from high school becomes a standard moment for progress benchmarking. Some students will show significant ability, others won't. Advanced students will go on to do advanced work and lower skilled students won't be penalized (as they currently are) with having their high school diploma withheld from them (a significant employment problem for many low-skilled workers). It allows businesses to look at high school graduates and assess whether or not their skills are adequate for the current opening rather than merely assuming that a bachelor's degree is necessary to do the work. In this way, we incentivize trying to advance quickly through high school while also de-incentivizing the default choice of a four-year degree.

nickstefan12 12y ago
It's the law of unintended consequences. Political people saw how much better off the college educated were way back when and decided that "everyone should go to college". What they did not understand was that scarcity of college grads and the socioeconomic signaling it provided were the true source of better life. The now "everyone is college educated" are no better off because of the signaling and scarcity has been lost. It's deeply connected to socialist ideals to have everyone go to college. If people are upset that everyone going to college don't get to be ahead of everyone, then what they're really mad at is socialism, not college.

VLM 12y ago

A good end goal. The process of getting there looks complicated. An interesting "kill two birds with one stone" idea is to merge medical records and care with the educational system. So asking for someone's diplomas or GPA as a hiring criteria would be as socially unacceptable as asking a gay application for HIV status, a female applicant for her "measurements", or demanding genetic test results from anyone when hiring. A completely portfolio and experience oriented hiring procedure would look similar to how contractors get "hired"/contracted. "Sorry by HIPPA regulations I can't tell you my diploma or even what school I attended, but I wrote this really nice fizzbuzz just for you..." The two birds with one stone idea is much as you wouldn't ban kids from grade school for the crime of not being born to wealthy parents, if the medical and industrial complexes merged, then presumably there would exist free health care for everyone, which would be a net societal good.