BSN programs and liberal arts: IHE article

[marshwiggle]

What education exactly do you suggest for people who are of below average intelligence and thus will not be able to learn the new complicated things?

We're already seeing the problems in the next transition when what most people can do is not sufficient to be competitive for the next set of jobs because education alone is insufficient to grant the creativity and other aspects of the jobs that cannot be automated and that will continue to be paid well. 

The question isn't whether automation will kill a lot of middle class jobs.  The question is when will we hit the point at which average people cannot get a middle class job, especially those who don't start solidly middle class as kids? 

Sure, but I think you've just pointed out the basically unfair nature of the world.  There is no guarantee that anyone is going to prosper, particularly in capitalistic societies.

As opposed to communist societies, where it's almost guaranteed that no-one (outside party members) will prosper.

Intelligence is often a limiting factor, as is sanity, upbringing, substance abuse, etc. etc.  New technologies may actually leave some people locked out of the brave new world.

Historically, serfdom and poverty were the norm for most people. Advances in technology have eliminated many unskilled physical labour jobs, but the average standard of living is vastly better than it was even a century ago.

Universal Basic Income in some form may be the hext logical step in the developing social safety net in developped countries.

[Wahoo Redux]

What exactly do you suggest that those coal miners and other middle aged working class folks from dying industries do?   That they did not have the 'foresight' 30 years ago to predict what would happen to their industries, whether or not that is a blameworthy thing to hold against them, is water under the bridge, any more than similarly aged PhDs like myself, who believed the propaganda and bad predictions regarding the supposed vast increase in available professor positions set to arise by the late 90s, can do anything to change their choices, as well... now what?

I'm from logging country. 30 years ago the timber industry sounded all sorts of alarms.  Not all loggers, but many, simply refused to believe that their livelihood was endangered and then reacted with fury and obstinacy when the logging towns began dying.  They threatened, they held rallies, they slaughtered spotted owls. They refused to leave their towns or receive retraining.   Surviving now in an industry which is teetering, I understand some of this----and I appreciate your predicament the same as mine.  Logging was not just a job, it was a lifestyle; it was where one lived, what one did with one's life, who one associated with, how one dressed, the environment one worked , what one did with one's future.  Same as us.

But this sort of scenario is not a choice we make but a choice that is thrust upon us.  This is what having an agile mine is all about.  The "now what" is one's ability to move on. Otherwise I am not sure what your question is about.

Just like all of the smaller educational institutions going under, and for the same reasons.
It will be interesting to see how academics "move on".

Some will and some won't.  Whatever adjunct ranks remain will probably be populated by people with years of experience, degrees, etc.  Other academics cut from the herd will refit themselves to something else.  Some will simply retire or land on whatever safety-net is available.  Those old logging towns are still up there in the hills.  Some now can't afford police departments.  Same with the mining towns.  And a few people still log and mine.  Nothing new.

Really Marshy, do you think you've made a point there?

[Wahoo Redux]

As opposed to communist societies, where it's almost guaranteed that no-one (outside party members) will prosper.

Intelligence is often a limiting factor, as is sanity, upbringing, substance abuse, etc. etc.  New technologies may actually leave some people locked out of the brave new world.

Historically, serfdom and poverty were the norm for most people. Advances in technology have eliminated many unskilled physical labour jobs, but the average standard of living is vastly better than it was even a century ago.

Really!?  Wow Marshy!  Glad you pointed those out.

Sheesh.

[apl68]

What exactly do you suggest that those coal miners and other middle aged working class folks from dying industries do?   That they did not have the 'foresight' 30 years ago to predict what would happen to their industries, whether or not that is a blameworthy thing to hold against them, is water under the bridge, any more than similarly aged PhDs like myself, who believed the propaganda and bad predictions regarding the supposed vast increase in available professor positions set to arise by the late 90s, can do anything to change their choices, as well... now what?

I'm from logging country. 30 years ago the timber industry sounded all sorts of alarms.  Not all loggers, but many, simply refused to believe that their livelihood was endangered and then reacted with fury and obstinacy when the logging towns began dying.  They threatened, they held rallies, they slaughtered spotted owls. They refused to leave their towns or receive retraining.   Surviving now in an industry which is teetering, I understand some of this----and I appreciate your predicament the same as mine.  Logging was not just a job, it was a lifestyle; it was where one lived, what one did with one's life, who one associated with, how one dressed, the environment one worked , what one did with one's future.  Same as us.

But this sort of scenario is not a choice we make but a choice that is thrust upon us.  This is what having an agile mine is all about.  The "now what" is one's ability to move on.  Otherwise I am not sure what your question is about.

In farming country, the identity issues are similar. While farm productivity is up, the need for labor is down. Some of the big grain farms are 4,000 acres with two operators. At that density, to get a town of 10,000 people, you would need an area the size of Missouri. Obviously, that is not a socially functional scenario. Those regions will empty, with individual cities existing because there is a need for a city per se, not a commercial base for the farmers.

The difference is the desirability of the employment. Hardly anyone outside of agriculture wants to be a grain farmer. High financial risk, low profit, isolation, stress, danger....

Young people in agriculture also don't want to be operators. Mostly they want to move to the city and live a secure life among people.

And everybody is becoming concentrated in a handful of huge urban areas just in time for those areas to collapse because they've become environmentally unsustainable.  One of the world's disastrous trends.

[marshwiggle]

In farming country, the identity issues are similar. While farm productivity is up, the need for labor is down. Some of the big grain farms are 4,000 acres with two operators. At that density, to get a town of 10,000 people, you would need an area the size of Missouri. Obviously, that is not a socially functional scenario. Those regions will empty, with individual cities existing because there is a need for a city per se, not a commercial base for the farmers.

The difference is the desirability of the employment. Hardly anyone outside of agriculture wants to be a grain farmer. High financial risk, low profit, isolation, stress, danger....

Young people in agriculture also don't want to be operators. Mostly they want to move to the city and live a secure life among people.

And everybody is becoming concentrated in a handful of huge urban areas just in time for those areas to collapse because they've become environmentally unsustainable.  One of the world's disastrous trends.

One of the silver linings of covid is that it's made some people reconsider whether they really want to live in a big city, especially if their work can be done largely virtually.  The longer we have to go until a vaccine, the more significant this trend may become.

[bio-nonymous]

What exactly do you suggest that those coal miners and other middle aged working class folks from dying industries do?

1. Move. It's what I did.
2. Retrain
3. Take advantage of the social safety net (most of them vote against the social safety net)

To a large extent, these workers were raised in an environment that told them they were "not the academic type" and "don't need education". They were brainwashed from a young age. Trust me on this. I lived through it. Many of the kids I grew up with drank the Kool-Aid.

With the automation that's taking place over the next few decades, the only available jobs will require many years of education. We need to recognize that. Maybe not a history degree, but education. There's no alternative.

I have to disagree a little bit. There is a large market for workers in the skilled trades that take both brains and mechanical aptitude, admittedly not a universal combination. There is a growing market for plumbers, electricians, master carpenters, HVAC, robotics repair, welders, autobody techs, etc.  Many of these trades can pay vastly more than a lot of white collar work, and are in demand. The problem seems to be that there is a barrier to entry, not of years of formal education, but rather in years of hard work as an apprentice or junior technician. There is no skipping the line from high school to plumbing contractor, you have to pay your dues. I think that some people these days do not want to get dirty or work hard physically which keeps them from considering alternatives to 4 year degrees in something at the local college.

[polly_mer]

Oh, and vote Democrat.
<snip>

If education is the lynch-pin on the future, we're sure blowing it.

1) Education is not the linchpin for the future, even if college is changed to lower barriers for those who start a lower SES.

2) Voting Democrat doesn't fix the underlying problems of the growing fraction of the adult population  who can't do anything that is worth middle class incomes. The resources just aren't there.  Often, even among the Democrats. who have the power, the will to change society is honored more as campaign talking points than actual plans that would solve any of the problems.  High-ranking Democrats benefit from the current systems every bit as much as current high-ranking Republicans.

[Wahoo Redux]

Oh, and vote Democrat.
<snip>

If education is the lynch-pin on the future, we're sure blowing it.

1) Education is not the linchpin for the future, even if college is changed to lower barriers for those who start a lower SES.

2) Voting Democrat doesn't fix the underlying problems of the growing fraction of the adult population  who can't do anything that is worth middle class incomes. The resources just aren't there.  Often, even among the Democrats. who have the power, the will to change society is honored more as campaign talking points than actual plans that would solve any of the problems.  High-ranking Democrats benefit from the current systems every bit as much as current high-ranking Republicans.

There is no panacea.  I cannot believe how many times I've posted something to this effect.

Education is one of the linchpins.  Always has been.  Sometimes, for some individuals, it IS the linchpin.

And electing Democrats is a better choice than Republicans at this period of time (even if there is no panacea).  Despite their family-values/working-class rhetoric, the Republicans are simply bad for the underlying problems facing working families.

[kaysixteen]

"1. Move. It's what I did.
2. Retrain
3. Take advantage of the social safety net (most of them vote against the social safety net)

To a large extent, these workers were raised in an environment that told them they were "not the academic type" and "don't need education". They were brainwashed from a young age. Trust me on this. I lived through it. Many of the kids I grew up with drank the Kool-Aid."

This sounds like the standard 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' claptrap that you would hear from numerous conservative 'pundits' etc.   Moving 1) takes money 2) requires you to go  somewhere that would somehow allow you to get a better job than you could get where you were coming from, regardless of your qualifications, experience, etc., as well as with your not having any local connections, references, etc., to assist your job search (think the same sort of advice I was given when I interviewed for library school, and asked the dean what my chances were of getting gainful library employment with the degree, and was told 'virtually 100% if you are willing to relocate'-- this was not true, largely because it was very hard to get people in areas that I had no connections to, to consider hiring me over candidates with local ties).  Retraining, moreover, requires 1) aptitude for whatever one is going to seek retraining in 2) some interest in potentially pursuing that credential (people really do not want to do things that they really have no interest in, after all, esp i f they are middle-aged career changers) and 3) some knowledge of what realistic options there would be for such a change (as opposed to the useless and often impossible to  take (and often unsolicited) job advice that they may well be getting (a well-meaning 80yo man in my church, for instance, has repeatedly advised me to find some business in my area, and volunteer to work for nothing in order to 'get my foot in the door', as though this were the 70s (he has an example of someone he knew doing that then), and as though I were 24), heck, and 4) money.  Indeed, it is very very difficult to turn on a dime, and rearrange your entire social and political network, often going against one's cultural, religious, etc., connections, preconceptions, and attitudes (I recall this from Anthro 101 almost 35 years ago, in answer to the 'why don't they move' question someone asked of out of work auto, steel, etc., workers.

Now you are very very right about the idiotic, well-propagandized and mesmerized allegiance many of these selfsame folks have to the GOP, and apparent sincere belief that things like social safety nets which would   very much benefit them, are bad things to be opposed.   There are many  and complex reasons for this, one of which is that most of these folks are indeed less educated and adept at critical thinking and reasoning than people like us are, and another of which concerns that tribal identity politics and extreme difficulty with asserting, or even quietly assuming, views that are contrary to those of one's group.

[polly_mer]

Education is one of the linchpins.  Always has been.  Sometimes, for some individuals, it IS the linchpin.

Education only matters to the extent that it gives someone sufficient competitive advantage to be able to get the necessary resources in a given situation.

When resources are mostly allocated according to family status, personal connections with the powerful people, or other characteristics that aren't substantially within one's personal control, then individual education in the formal-go-to-school-as-a-mandatory-minimum doesn't matter.

The school system that currently provides an education-like experience has only existed for about a hundred years.  Any claims of (formal) education always being key ignores nearly all of human history and indeed even much of the world right now.

Individual stories, including mine, are not arguments for the value of mass education for everyone.  Few of the people who graduated high school with me have the kind of life I do.  Almost none of my friends from college have the life I do.  In fact, most of them here in middle age have jobs that don't require a college degree or are teachers, nurses, or scientists/engineers.

Lacking literacy or numeracy at an eighth grade level is a big problem, but more formal education, unless it is specialized enough to be a competitive advantage compared to similar people, is not necessarily anything more opportunity and other costs that will not be recouped.

Tell us again about your jobs as an adult other than faculty jobs.

I ran across https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-07-24 today and it seems really relevant here.  "No panacea, but vote Democrat" as a blanket prescription is asserting we should try unreasonable scenarios instead of dealing with reality.

[Hibush]

In farming country, the identity issues are similar. While farm productivity is up, the need for labor is down. Some of the big grain farms are 4,000 acres with two operators. At that density, to get a town of 10,000 people, you would need an area the size of Missouri. Obviously, that is not a socially functional scenario. Those regions will empty, with individual cities existing because there is a need for a city per se, not a commercial base for the farmers.

The difference is the desirability of the employment. Hardly anyone outside of agriculture wants to be a grain farmer. High financial risk, low profit, isolation, stress, danger....

Young people in agriculture also don't want to be operators. Mostly they want to move to the city and live a secure life among people.

And everybody is becoming concentrated in a handful of huge urban areas just in time for those areas to collapse because they've become environmentally unsustainable.  One of the world's disastrous trends.

One of the silver linings of covid is that it's made some people reconsider whether they really want to live in a big city, especially if their work can be done largely virtually.  The longer we have to go until a vaccine, the more significant this trend may become.

The environmentally and economically optimum population density is really quite high. Some cities are above it, so there are some examples of going too far. But wise urbanization is good for the environment as well as meeting many people preferences.

Infrastructure is a lot cheaper at high density. There is a reason internet is bad in rural areas. District heating is super-efficient for northern cities where there is enough demand within a mile or two of the heating plant.

Transportation, if planned well, is shorter and mass transit is effective. Rural people (I am one) waste an enormous amount of resources driving to work, the store, entertainment. School districts spend an enormous amount of money on busing (~$20/student/day) and waste an hour to an hour and a half of each child's day. Vast area are paved over and maintained to store cars.

[Hibush]

Education is one of the linchpins.  Always has been.  Sometimes, for some individuals, it IS the linchpin.

Education only matters to the extent that it gives someone sufficient competitive advantage to be able to get the necessary resources in a given situation.

When resources are mostly allocated according to family status, personal connections with the powerful people, or other characteristics that aren't substantially within one's personal control, then individual education in the formal-go-to-school-as-a-mandatory-minimum doesn't matter.

Paying a premium for an education that provides access to people with high family status and personal connections with powerful people would be a good investment for and individual hoping to get better resources in the future.

The Varsity Blues parents are and extreme pathology of this principle, but it should work for anyone who uses the opportunity intentionally.

Can schools that do provide that opportunity be deliberate about it? Even at the level of having first-generation college students get in with a college-educated crowd and feel like they belong and maintain those relationships.

[spork]

This discussion has drifted toward a topic I actually know something about. It is very difficult for a system of mass education to overcome the effects of inequities that are built into other social institutions. It's much like the focus on the affordability of medical care when medical care accounts for only about twenty percent of the general population's health status. Environment, household income, and diet have a far greater effect.

Data indicate that a child's immediate neighborhood has a profound effect on their future earnings: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/upshot/maps-neighborhoods-shape-child-poverty.html. And there is some evidence that, as discussed in the article, providing housing vouchers to poor families so that they can live in non-poverty trap neighborhoods generates big dividends for society. Policies like this might lead to far greater benefit than the "you must go to college and get a degree no matter what" mantra. 

[marshwiggle]

One of the silver linings of covid is that it's made some people reconsider whether they really want to live in a big city, especially if their work can be done largely virtually.  The longer we have to go until a vaccine, the more significant this trend may become.

The environmentally and economically optimum population density is really quite high. Some cities are above it, so there are some examples of going too far. But wise urbanization is good for the environment as well as meeting many people preferences.

Infrastructure is a lot cheaper at high density. There is a reason internet is bad in rural areas. District heating is super-efficient for northern cities where there is enough demand within a mile or two of the heating plant.

Transportation, if planned well, is shorter and mass transit is effective. Rural people (I am one) waste an enormous amount of resources driving to work, the store, entertainment. School districts spend an enormous amount of money on busing (~$20/student/day) and waste an hour to an hour and a half of each child's day. Vast area are paved over and maintained to store cars.

True points. However, certain primary industries (agriculture, forestry, mining) require space, so there will always be part of the population working in rural areas, and probably living there. Also, technology has made the cost premium due to lower population density much lower than it has been in the past for several things. Covid has made this apparent, with many people working remotely, and things like telemedicine allowing doctors to consult with patients remotely.

Furthermore, cities tend to have very big income disparities; the bigger the city, the wider the range between the poorest and richest neighborhoods. Rural communities tend to be much more homogeneous. And, as covid has shown, all of that centralized infrastructure means that things like natural disasters can paralyze cities by knocking out services relied on by everyone. And again, as covid has shown, an epidemic in high population density areas is devastating. (The same would go for water contamination, chemical spills, etc.)

Summary: urbanizing as much of the population as possible is not the best solution any more than moving everyone to the suburbs (or the country).

[tuxthepenguin]

"1. Move. It's what I did.
2. Retrain
3. Take advantage of the social safety net (most of them vote against the social safety net)

To a large extent, these workers were raised in an environment that told them they were "not the academic type" and "don't need education". They were brainwashed from a young age. Trust me on this. I lived through it. Many of the kids I grew up with drank the Kool-Aid."
This sounds like the standard 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' claptrap that you would hear from numerous conservative 'pundits' etc. 

Not really. They're the only options. If you can't find a job where you are, you can move to somewhere they are hiring, you can change to a different field where there are jobs, or you can get government or private support to pay your bills. There's nothing else.

Moving 1) takes money 2) requires you to go  somewhere that would somehow allow you to get a better job than you could get where you were coming from, regardless of your qualifications, experience, etc., as well as with your not having any local connections, references, etc., to assist your job search (think the same sort of advice I was given when I interviewed for library school, and asked the dean what my chances were of getting gainful library employment with the degree, and was told 'virtually 100% if you are willing to relocate'-- this was not true, largely because it was very hard to get people in areas that I had no connections to, to consider hiring me over candidates with local ties).  Retraining, moreover, requires 1) aptitude for whatever one is going to seek retraining in 2) some interest in potentially pursuing that credential (people really do not want to do things that they really have no interest in, after all, esp i f they are middle-aged career changers) and 3) some knowledge of what realistic options there would be for such a change (as opposed to the useless and often impossible to  take (and often unsolicited) job advice that they may well be getting (a well-meaning 80yo man in my church, for instance, has repeatedly advised me to find some business in my area, and volunteer to work for nothing in order to 'get my foot in the door', as though this were the 70s (he has an example of someone he knew doing that then), and as though I were 24), heck, and 4) money.  Indeed, it is very very difficult to turn on a dime, and rearrange your entire social and political network, often going against one's cultural, religious, etc., connections, preconceptions, and attitudes (I recall this from Anthro 101 almost 35 years ago, in answer to the 'why don't they move' question someone asked of out of work auto, steel, etc., workers.

Now you are very very right about the idiotic, well-propagandized and mesmerized allegiance many of these selfsame folks have to the GOP, and apparent sincere belief that things like social safety nets which would   very much benefit them, are bad things to be opposed.   There are many  and complex reasons for this, one of which is that most of these folks are indeed less educated and adept at critical thinking and reasoning than people like us are, and another of which concerns that tribal identity politics and extreme difficulty with asserting, or even quietly assuming, views that are contrary to those of one's group.

A major problem is age discrimination. It's only gotten worse since the economy died. There are no easy answers to that in the absence of a form of UBI.