Future of college-New York magazine article

[polly_mer]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/scott-galloway-future-of-college.html

[kaysixteen]

Interesting article.  Lots of his points make sense, but some things seem glaringly false, overstated, or just plain weird.  Various thoughts include:

1) granted that, as he notes, the networking/ credentialing value of an MIT degree is very high and likely to remain that, if it really does happen that MIT increases the size of its freshman class tenfold in the next decade (esp because many of the extra students will be from highly wealthy families, limiting the overall demographic pool from which MIT will be drawing these extra kids), the quality of the ed actually offered there will decrease.  It does not really matter that MIT currently rejects scads of kids who are as academically qualified to succeed there as the average kid it does accept, if you suddenly have ten times as many students, the quality of classes, access to profs, lab resources, etc., will just not keep pace.  This would only be further exacerbated if indeed many of these extra students are wealthier kids whose credentials may well have been artificially augmented by the reams of ways wealthy parents have today, and actively do use, to game the system for their kids.  And MIT has the bucks and name to generally avoid, or at least mitigate/ defer/ delay such potential difficulties in the way that many of those second- and lower-tier places simply would not have.
2)  Like it or not, the author really does not defend his usually implied but sometimes explicitly stated premise that online ed, properly run, really is just as good as traditional college ed, and that the only thing it lacks is the (dubious in his view?) 'campus experience' aspects of brick-and-moy rtar schooling.  I am, of course, an elite slac-educated classicist, but I am beyond skeptical of this view, and I am really not sure what if any evidence might be proferred to me that would convince me that ol ed can be as good as well-done ftf ed.  And this does not even consider the reality, IMO, that those 'college experience' aspects can be almost as important to a well-done liberal arts ed as the classroom/ purely academic parts (allowing that the stuff Lori Loughlin's doltish daughters wanted in to USC for do not qualify,  of course)
3)He makes a good and IMO actually understated point about the value of a gap year, even in non-covid years, and how this is likely much more true today owing to the pernicious effects of 'helicopter parenting and social media'.  Gap years traditionally were just for the Prince Williams of the world, and most average Americans who took that year off between hs and college did so to earn money for school by working at low-rate hs type jobs, which of course really do not provide the sort of 'gap year' maturational growth the author is suggesting.  So what do you think a gap year for the non-wealthy kid should look like, and how can kids get these experiences, and, as would often be necessary, afford to access them?

[apl68]

Actually I would think that for many college-bound students a gap year spent working any (presumably) low-wage job they can find to get some money for college would be a "maturational growth" experience.  I've seen a number of new college students promptly self-destruct in their freshman year because they went straight from high school to college without one single clue about life's realities or the need to exercise some self discipline. 

My own brother was one.  Like me, he did well in high school and on his ACTs, and won a full four-year scholarship to our Alma Mater.  The place was only half an hour from home, but since the scholarship included room and board we each moved onto campus.  Almost the moment he arrived an campus he seemed to forget that he was there to get an education.  He fell in with a bunch of ne'er-do-wells.  Not stereotypical college partiers--we didn't have so many of those at that school.  They were just kids who liked to drive around or hang around goofing off.  Within two semesters he had lost his scholarship from nothing but sheer lack of effort.  Another semester and he was out completely.  He only completed a college degree last year, three decades later, after retiring from a career as an Army NCO.

At least my brother made a half-hearted effort.  I know of another case of a guy who moved across the state and apparently never even tried to go to class.  He just partied and goofed off for a couple of months, until his parents found out about it and dragged him home.  Cases like this baffle me even more.  Okay, you like to party--but shouldn't you at least make an effort to pretend like you're trying to do your work, so that your college party time isn't cut short?  Are there 18-year-olds who are really that unaware of the concept of consequences?

Whatever the explanation for inexplicable, self-destructive lapses like this, it's clear that an awful lot of traditional-age college freshmen have no more maturity or ability to restrain impulses than a small child.  A year in the salt mines could potentially have a salutary effect on them.  Teach them the meaning of work and the desirability of having a goal to work toward.

[mamselle]

I did a gap year before it was a "thing" (grad. HS/1971) because
a) I was exhausted from HS (long story, ended up valedictorian plus started music and dance teaching and performing the same year/summer);

b) my sister and I had decided to go to Europe to meet our newfound cousins the next summer so I wanted to earn money);

c) I'd always felt like after schooling, I needed to drop off--like a tick, in a way--to digest what I'd learned and figure out how to apply it (did this for 5 yrs between my BA & MA, and 10 yrs after my MA, before starting doctoral work).

d) I couldn't figure out which of several schools sending me materials I wanted to attend, vs. the "more-than-good-enough" school in the neighborhood (that I ended up going to and thriving in).

The integration gaps may have looked risky to others (I think my folks were worried the first time) but I always knew I was going back.

In fact, I think I got the idea from an old Reader's Digest article, "Let's break the go-to-college Lockstep," now that I ponder the start of this.

Wonder if that's online....I'll have to look!

M.

[secundem_artem]

I see.  MOOCs on steroids with the curriculum designed by our techno-libertarian overlords.  What could possibly go wrong?

[Wahoo Redux]

I certainly don't know, but I dismiss any pundits at this point.  We simply don't know how this is going to play out.

And this is an admittedly superficial way to judge a commentator, but I got to this boorish little yawp---

I tell them it's a great year to take a gap year. I think most 18-year-olds are not prepared for college. A combination of helicopter parenting and social media have stunted and arrested the development of America's youth. University administrators have unwittingly become mental-health counselors. I think a lot of young people, especially boys, could use another year of seasoning experience, work experience, or some sort of service. A lot of these kids just aren't ready for the competition and the kind of intense environment that is college.

This guy is a year older than I am.  We were the generation of Van Halen, Mtv, Ferris Bueller, and "Party hearty!"  He has no business talking about the post-AIDS, post-meth, post-9/11, post-2008 generation being "unprepared for college."

Wrongheaded on my part, perhaps, but he lost all credibility for me.

You kids get off my lawn!!!

[mamselle]

Found it.

   "Let's break the go to college lockstep," by Edmund K. Faltermeyer, Feb. 1971, vol. 98, no. 586;
       [Orig. pub. in  Fortune, 1970, vol. 83 (Nov.): pp. 98-103.]

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

Found it.

   "Let's break the go to college lockstep," by Edmund K. Faltermeyer, Feb. 1971, vol. 98, no. 586;
       [Orig. pub. in  Fortune, 1970, vol. 83 (Nov.): pp. 98-103.]

M.

Looking for that I found this.

The current crisis has been a long time coming.

[mamselle]

Very interesting.

(I wonder if the title should be "Money Crunch," however? Some translation of a visual object to text missed the lettering, maybe....)

M.

[Caracal]

I certainly don't know, but I dismiss any pundits at this point.  We simply don't know how this is going to play out.

And this is an admittedly superficial way to judge a commentator, but I got to this boorish little yawp---

I tell them it's a great year to take a gap year. I think most 18-year-olds are not prepared for college. A combination of helicopter parenting and social media have stunted and arrested the development of America's youth. University administrators have unwittingly become mental-health counselors. I think a lot of young people, especially boys, could use another year of seasoning experience, work experience, or some sort of service. A lot of these kids just aren't ready for the competition and the kind of intense environment that is college.

This guy is a year older than I am.  We were the generation of Van Halen, Mtv, Ferris Bueller, and "Party hearty!"  He has no business talking about the post-AIDS, post-meth, post-9/11, post-2008 generation being "unprepared for college."

Wrongheaded on my part, perhaps, but he lost all credibility for me.

You kids get off my lawn!!!

Yes, exactly. I'm pretty suspicious of people who predict that this is all going to result in "thing I've been rattling on about for years and years" happening. I have no idea what the results of this are going to be long term, but I doubt it is going to just accelerate the thing you think should happen. We see a fair amount of this on these boards too.

[mahagonny]

I certainly don't know, but I dismiss any pundits at this point.  We simply don't know how this is going to play out.

And this is an admittedly superficial way to judge a commentator, but I got to this boorish little yawp---

I tell them it's a great year to take a gap year. I think most 18-year-olds are not prepared for college. A combination of helicopter parenting and social media have stunted and arrested the development of America's youth. University administrators have unwittingly become mental-health counselors. I think a lot of young people, especially boys, could use another year of seasoning experience, work experience, or some sort of service. A lot of these kids just aren't ready for the competition and the kind of intense environment that is college.

This guy is a year older than I am.  We were the generation of Van Halen, Mtv, Ferris Bueller, and "Party hearty!"  He has no business talking about the post-AIDS, post-meth, post-9/11, post-2008 generation being "unprepared for college."

Wrongheaded on my part, perhaps, but he lost all credibility for me.

You kids get off my lawn!!!

Someone can always argue that the students don't belong in college, but it's moot, because the college wants them. It's just faculty complaining. They'd complain more if the enrollment dipped low enough to affect them.

[apl68]

I certainly don't know, but I dismiss any pundits at this point.  We simply don't know how this is going to play out.

And this is an admittedly superficial way to judge a commentator, but I got to this boorish little yawp---

I tell them it's a great year to take a gap year. I think most 18-year-olds are not prepared for college. A combination of helicopter parenting and social media have stunted and arrested the development of America's youth. University administrators have unwittingly become mental-health counselors. I think a lot of young people, especially boys, could use another year of seasoning experience, work experience, or some sort of service. A lot of these kids just aren't ready for the competition and the kind of intense environment that is college.

This guy is a year older than I am.  We were the generation of Van Halen, Mtv, Ferris Bueller, and "Party hearty!"  He has no business talking about the post-AIDS, post-meth, post-9/11, post-2008 generation being "unprepared for college."

Wrongheaded on my part, perhaps, but he lost all credibility for me.

You kids get off my lawn!!!

I was a member of that generation too.  So were the examples of crash-and-burn college freshmen that I mentioned above.  Whether today's college-bound students are any less mature than our generation, they certainly don't seem to be any MORE so.  And that's definitely not mature enough.

I should say that I don't see this coming academic year as a great time to take a gap year.  For obvious reasons, students are going to have an awfully hard time doing either the "travel/cultural enrichment" type of gap year or the "work hard and get a cold dose of reality" kind.  I suspect that the coming year is going to do for the public perception of gap years what this past semester has done for online education.

[spork]

Gap year is great if there are paid employment or service opportunities for the hundreds of thousands of 18-year olds graduating from high schools every year. But there aren't. So it won't happen.

Galloway repeats what was said about higher ed from about a decade ago. See, for example, Kevin Carey's article "The Siege of Academe" in Washington Monthly. But it seems likely to me that the financial realities of 2020-21 will in fact accelerate closures of low-reputation colleges/universities that have had enrollment declines and budget deficits since the 2008 recession. I think it will also cause more of the 18-year old prospective college students and their parents to question the value of the in-person recreational campus experience that's been historically touted by such institutions as an essential part of college.

I wonder what the finances of the Minerva Project look like right now?

[Wahoo Redux]

Kids will always be obnoxious.
Parents will always complain.
Town and Gown will always brawl.

The St Scholastica Day riot took place in Oxford, England, on 10 February 1355, Saint Scholastica's Day. The disturbance began when two students from the University of Oxford complained about the quality of wine served to them in the Swindlestock Tavern, which was based at Carfax, in the centre of the town. The students quarrelled with the taverner; the argument quickly escalated to blows. The inn's customers joined in on both sides, and the resulting mêlée turned into a riot. The violence started by the bar brawl continued over three days, with armed gangs coming in from the countryside to assist the townspeople. University halls and students' accommodation were raided and the inhabitants murdered; there were some reports of clerics being scalped. Around 30 townsfolk were killed, as were up to 63 members of the university.

Violent disagreements between townspeople and students had arisen several times previously, and 12 of the 29 coroners' courts held in Oxford between 1297 and 1322 concerned murders by students. The University of Cambridge was established in 1209 by scholars who left Oxford following the lynching of two students by the town's citizens.

Now if Oxford had had a winning (American) football team, none of this would have happened.

[mahagonny]

Interesting article.  Lots of his points make sense, but some things seem glaringly false, overstated, or just plain weird.  Various thoughts include:

1) granted that, as he notes, the networking/ credentialing value of an MIT degree is very high and likely to remain that, if it really does happen that MIT increases the size of its freshman class tenfold in the next decade (esp because many of the extra students will be from highly wealthy families, limiting the overall demographic pool from which MIT will be drawing these extra kids), the quality of the ed actually offered there will decrease.  It does not really matter that MIT currently rejects scads of kids who are as academically qualified to succeed there as the average kid it does accept, if you suddenly have ten times as many students, the quality of classes, access to profs, lab resources, etc., will just not keep pace.  This would only be further exacerbated if indeed many of these extra students are wealthier kids whose credentials may well have been artificially augmented by the reams of ways wealthy parents have today, and actively do use, to game the system for their kids.  And MIT has the bucks and name to generally avoid, or at least mitigate/ defer/ delay such potential difficulties in the way that many of those second- and lower-tier places simply would not have.
2)  Like it or not, the author really does not defend his usually implied but sometimes explicitly stated premise that online ed, properly run, really is just as good as traditional college ed, and that the only thing it lacks is the (dubious in his view?) 'campus experience' aspects of brick-and-moy rtar schooling.  I am, of course, an elite slac-educated classicist, but I am beyond skeptical of this view, and I am really not sure what if any evidence might be proferred to me that would convince me that ol ed can be as good as well-done ftf ed.  And this does not even consider the reality, IMO, that those 'college experience' aspects can be almost as important to a well-done liberal arts ed as the classroom/ purely academic parts (allowing that the stuff Lori Loughlin's doltish daughters wanted in to USC for do not qualify,  of course)
3)He makes a good and IMO actually understated point about the value of a gap year, even in non-covid years, and how this is likely much more true today owing to the pernicious effects of 'helicopter parenting and social media'.  Gap years traditionally were just for the Prince Williams of the world, and most average Americans who took that year off between hs and college did so to earn money for school by working at low-rate hs type jobs, which of course really do not provide the sort of 'gap year' maturational growth the author is suggesting.  So what do you think a gap year for the non-wealthy kid should look like, and how can kids get these experiences, and, as would often be necessary, afford to access them?

The task for the academic culture will be how to maintain the winners/losers arrangement of employment while concealing perceptions of a resulting winners/losers scenario among students. Look for faculty with the good jobs being assigned to whatever method of delivery is seen as most productive, irrespective of how much success each has had doing it.