Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Wahoo Redux]

MacMurray will give no severance pay to faculty and staff.
. Note that IHE calls MacMurray "a small liberal arts college", in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

  Try as one might, the learnin's gonna get'cha if you go to school

That's not what more than fifty years of research on American K-12 education indicates.

There're good reasons why many countries have a vocational path that starts around age 12 for students who aren't academically minded.

There's a weird American thing to keep everyone in school until a given age instead of letting people take other paths as their talents and interests become apparent.

And the class structure hardened by many generations is greatly appreciated by everybody in the U.K. is my understanding.

Not to mention that at 12 years old our psyches, wants, abilities, and talents are very well defined.

Guess the American Dream is just dead.

You know what might help?  More teachers, better paid.  More resources.  You want more career paths (because that's what's important about education, right?)?  Great.  Now you have to pay for it.  I love how we pretend that we can always do more with less; our capitalist society certainly supports that idea. 

[marshwiggle]

Still reading IHE,  will the higher ed stimulus money come fast enough to matter for some institutions and their students?

Not sure who you are asking there, Polly.  I at least read it with a sinking heart.  And not just that one, but this one too. 

I don't pretend to have the knowledge base to examine these claims, I just hope that it was the right move to shutter the country, even if I perfectly understand why we did.

This is a very sad turn of events at a time when our colleges were already facing dire scenarios----which is a reason to rally all the harder once the pandemic is over. 

Rather than try more desperately to keep places going that were on the rocks before, a better result may be letting those fail, so the remaining students and resources can be consolidated with the healthier institutions. It's actually analogous to the adjunct issue; having a lot of financially precarious institutions replaced by a smaller number of financially more secure institutions is a good thing.  Replace "institutions" with "jobs" and you have the adjunct situation. Also, just like many current adjuncts wouldn't be qualified for full-time positions, many of the failing institutions would not ever be created now because they probably wouldn't be anyone's idea of what the "ideal" institution should be and obviously wouldn't be viable.  The financially healthy institutions will be more in line with the needs of society now.

[spork]

In other words, go with revealed preferences.

[polly_mer]

1) It is very, very unpleasant to be shown right, have been telling people for years what they personally can do to try to lessen their individual exposure to the problem, and still be getting rudeness because, as Cassandra found out, it's not enough to be right when everything hits the fan and scared people start feeling the consequences of their inaction, despite all the explicit, concrete warnings.

Am I sad about higher education in the US?  I've been sad for years; I'm now just tired because it turns out that people who spend a lot of time in school don't necessarily become educated in the sense of being able to apply their knowledge when it counts directly in their personal life or being able to do the jobs that need doing according to the other humans who live in the same society. 

2) Wanting something really, really hard is not the same as taking the relevant actions to make something happen, even during situations when the actions to take are very firmly connected to their solutions.

3) Expecting everything will be different if everyone just wanted it really, really hard ignores centuries of human history all across the world.  It's a lovely idea that everyone is/could be/should be/will be equal.  That's not what history, experience, or any sort of objective observation of large populations of humans teaches us.

Class structure and hierarchy is almost always the result with groups of humans larger than just a handful.  If people on these fora have free time, then they can read up on the original meritocracy (always a negative term) and some of the very recent literature on why the idea of meritocracy hurts even those who are "winning" in terms of money, jobs, and status.

[Wahoo Redux]

Polly, are you gloating about the effect the virus is having on education?

Did you think I or anyone else doubted you when you predicted hard times for educators?

Remember this:

W: What a shame we are losing so many colleges and so many quality people are under-employed in a bad system.  We should be talking about ways to fix it!

Polly:  Look!  You'll never get a good job in academia.  Many colleges are failing!

W:  I agree.  Let's begin talking about ways to correct the situation.

Polly: Look!  There are no more good jobs for the likes of you in academia.  Find another career.

W: I agree, kind of.  You own hyperlink talks about ways that colleges can revive themselves.

Polly:  Look!....

And so on. 

I DON"T think you are "right."  I think you are reactionary.  And we have talked long enough for me to believe that your criticisms of academia, while often valid, are based on personal issues.

And, my dear, bite me.  I am working to change things in my own small way as are a great many people, and we started to see the changes before the damn coronavirus knocked us on our keisters.  You and I would get along much better if you weren't so arrogant and condescending.

We don't know what this unprecedented event is going to mean to our future.  Right now there are an army of unemployed waitstaff who are reconsidering their futures.  Somewhere there is a parent shaking a finger at an unemployed Uber driver who is saying, "See, if you'd completed that college degree like your brother Bob you would have more options when this is over..."   So we'll have to hold off on the final dispensation of higher ed for some while yet.

My favorite is your contention that the lib arts faculty are about to be eliminated.  You couldn't figure out a way to deny that the work was there for them chopped into many fine bits, so you just decided they would disappear.

[marshwiggle]

I DON"T think you are "right."  I think you are reactionary. 

From Wikipedia:

In political science, a reactionary or reactionarist can be defined as a person or entity holding political views that favour a return to a previous political state of society that they believe possessed characteristics that are negatively absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.

Based on that, I'd say you're the reactionary; Polly is the one talking about change.

[tuxthepenguin]

We don't know what this unprecedented event is going to mean to our future.  Right now there are an army of unemployed waitstaff who are reconsidering their futures.  Somewhere there is a parent shaking a finger at an unemployed Uber driver who is saying, "See, if you'd completed that college degree like your brother Bob you would have more options when this is over..."   So we'll have to hold off on the final dispensation of higher ed for some while yet.

Maybe I've posted this before...

This is an opportunity for small colleges. Some have leadership that will find a way to get through this and then prosper, if for no other reason than the survivors getting the students and faculty from failing institutions. They need to be working on this right now, not once the storm has passed. Faculty should be putting together ideas to improve what they're doing now and to add new things employers want.

[Wahoo Redux]

I DON"T think you are "right."  I think you are reactionary. 

From Wikipedia:

In political science, a reactionary or reactionarist can be defined as a person or entity holding political views that favour a return to a previous political state of society that they believe possessed characteristics that are negatively absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.

Based on that, I'd say you're the reactionary; Polly is the one talking about change.

Are we in political science class, Marshy?

These are the dictionary definition of "reactionary":

re·ac·tion·ar·y

adjective
(of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.
"reactionary attitudes toward women's rights"

Definition of reactionary
: relating to, marked by, or favoring reaction
especially : ultraconservative in politics

reactionary
noun [ C ]   POLITICS   disapproving

a person who is opposed to political or social change or new ideas:
Reactionaries are preventing reforms.

contrarian

noun: Marshwiggle

[marshwiggle]

I DON"T think you are "right."  I think you are reactionary. 

From Wikipedia:

In political science, a reactionary or reactionarist can be defined as a person or entity holding political views that favour a return to a previous political state of society that they believe possessed characteristics that are negatively absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.

Based on that, I'd say you're the reactionary; Polly is the one talking about change.

Are we in political science class, Marshy?

These are the dictionary definition of "reactionary":

re·ac·tion·ar·y

adjective
(of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.
"reactionary attitudes toward women's rights"

So, for instance, wanting to preserve the form of higher educatiion created for the scions of the rich decades in the past, rather than adapting to something more reflective of the needs of a diverse society?

reactionary
noun [ C ]   POLITICS   disapproving

a person who is opposed to political or social change or new ideas:
Reactionaries are preventing reforms.

Yup. That's exactly the point.

[Wahoo Redux]

So, for instance, wanting to preserve the form of higher educatiion created for the scions of the rich decades in the past, rather than adapting to something more reflective of the needs of a diverse society?

Nope, my dreary, limited little friend.  I've said all along I am for reform.  Just intelligent reform that doesn't gut the important aspects of education as we conceive of it.

And I wasn't aware that, say, University of Iowa or the California State system were founded for the "scions of the rich."  Do these "scions" go to community college too?

[Wahoo Redux]

We don't know what this unprecedented event is going to mean to our future.  Right now there are an army of unemployed waitstaff who are reconsidering their futures.  Somewhere there is a parent shaking a finger at an unemployed Uber driver who is saying, "See, if you'd completed that college degree like your brother Bob you would have more options when this is over..."   So we'll have to hold off on the final dispensation of higher ed for some while yet.

Maybe I've posted this before...

This is an opportunity for small colleges. Some have leadership that will find a way to get through this and then prosper, if for no other reason than the survivors getting the students and faculty from failing institutions. They need to be working on this right now, not once the storm has passed. Faculty should be putting together ideas to improve what they're doing now and to add new things employers want.

Amen, brother.

[Stockmann]

  Try as one might, the learnin's gonna get'cha if you go to school

That's not what more than fifty years of research on American K-12 education indicates.

There're good reasons why many countries have a vocational path that starts around age 12 for students who aren't academically minded.

There's a weird American thing to keep everyone in school until a given age instead of letting people take other paths as their talents and interests become apparent.

And the class structure hardened by many generations is greatly appreciated by everybody in the U.K. is my understanding.

Not to mention that at 12 years old our psyches, wants, abilities, and talents are very well defined.

Guess the American Dream is just dead.

Actually, the UK does better than the US in terms of social mobility. Ironically enough, if you're born poor you're a lot more likely to achieve the American Dream in multiple European countries  (including several monarchies), as well as in Canada and Japan (both monarchies), than in the US. The US does rather badly by Western standards, although better than the other republics in the Americas. Some things have actually changed since the 18th Century. Source: http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/

But more to the point, Polly is right that streaming students by ability works. It's how K12 operates in Germany and, to varying degrees, practically everywhere in Western Europe. It's part of what allows these countries to have, compared to the US, dirt cheap HE. Could it be that cheap HE and modern apprenticeships as an alternative (not a replacement) for college works better for social mobility than sending everyone and his brother to hyperexpensive colleges?

[Wahoo Redux]

  Try as one might, the learnin's gonna get'cha if you go to school

That's not what more than fifty years of research on American K-12 education indicates.

There're good reasons why many countries have a vocational path that starts around age 12 for students who aren't academically minded.

There's a weird American thing to keep everyone in school until a given age instead of letting people take other paths as their talents and interests become apparent.

And the class structure hardened by many generations is greatly appreciated by everybody in the U.K. is my understanding.

Not to mention that at 12 years old our psyches, wants, abilities, and talents are very well defined.

Guess the American Dream is just dead.

Actually, the UK does better than the US in terms of social mobility. Ironically enough, if you're born poor you're a lot more likely to achieve the American Dream in multiple European countries  (including several monarchies), as well as in Canada and Japan (both monarchies), than in the US. The US does rather badly by Western standards, although better than the other republics in the Americas. Some things have actually changed since the 18th Century. Source: http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/

But more to the point, Polly is right that streaming students by ability works. It's how K12 operates in Germany and, to varying degrees, practically everywhere in Western Europe. It's part of what allows these countries to have, compared to the US, dirt cheap HE. Could it be that cheap HE and modern apprenticeships as an alternative (not a replacement) for college works better for social mobility than sending everyone and his brother to hyperexpensive colleges?

Perhaps.  I grew up in one of the towns where half the students were heading for college from the moment they started high school and half the students were heading right into local construction, supermarket, warehouse, metallurgy factory etc. jobs or into the military---these were, by and large, not people who would have (and did not generally) enroll in college and never wanted to.  We wouldn't gain very many of these folks in our halls no matter what. 

Nevertheless, I am dubious that it would be better to segregate these social classes of students.  I wasn't speaking about "social mobility" based upon income, actually, even though I used the "American Dream"----my old classmates who became contractors and metallurgy workers make a hell of a lot more than I do, I guarantee you, and they probably own their houses while we rent and they buy new F-150s while we buy Civics and used RAV4s.

I am thinking about American class warfare in which the working class look at me, a guy from a gray collar town who did a lot of blue-collar and white-collar work in his life, as an "elitist" because of my education and their assumptions about me and my lifestyle.  President Trump is a perfect symptom of the divisions in our culture. 

I will admit that I don't know a lot about streaming students, but I would worry about training teenage welders in one building and teenage journalists in another. 

But I am open-minded about this idea.  I can do my own homework, but do you have a source?

[Wahoo Redux]

I started a thread on streaming in "General Discussion."

[Stockmann]

I will admit that I don't know a lot about streaming students, but I would worry about training teenage welders in one building and teenage journalists in another. 

But I am open-minded about this idea.  I can do my own homework, but do you have a source?

My source is what I learned through the grapevine living in Europe, and long conversations about streaming with others who've lived in Europe. Wikipedia probably has a decent summary of the various systems.

But basically, in Germany at least kids are split into three streams: college prep, prep for trades that require good technical skills, and peparation for low-skilled trades. Many of those not doing college prep then go into a modern apprenticeship. What someone on this thread described as job prep for an underwriter sounded to me to be exactly what these apprenticeships do; they're not solely for manual labor, there are also apprenticeships for white collar jobs. There are Swiss bankers who started out doing a modern apprenticeship in finance. Again, this is an alternative to college, not instead of college. All European systems I'm aware of (and almost any non-US college I think) don't do gen-ed post K-12, and some drop it in HS, like England (which has a separate educational system from Scotland).