Gen ed problems and future outlook

[mleok]

They also don't let anyone with a heartbeat into a university and certainly doesn't spend the money on retention that U.S. universities do.

These countries have seemed to accept higher levels of unemployed, people who are permanent members of the welfare system despite ability to work, and accept that some young people don't have much of a future.

Let's be honest, "universal" college education just means that jobs that in previous generations would only have required a high school diploma, now require a college degree. The Germans also have a robust system of apprenticeship and technical/vocational education that trains people to be in high-skilled blue collar jobs. I wouldn't be quite so dismissive of the European sysem just yet. The retention issue that US universities face are because of the horrendous state of our K12 education system.

[Mobius]

I don't have issues with the European system. Once four-year schools stop teaching remedial courses, the CCs or local school districts can take up the slack of that's important to the populace.

[mleok]

I don't have issues with the European system. Once four-year schools stop teaching remedial courses, the CCs or local school districts can take up the slack of that's important to the populace.

I agree that the underlying issue is that K12 should be handling the general education issues, which is how it is done in European and Asia countries.

[Ruralguy]

Sure,but I sincerely doubt that will happen.

[Wahoo Redux]

They also don't let anyone with a heartbeat into a university and certainly doesn't spend the money on retention that U.S. universities do.

Again, is that something that would fly in America?  We all pay for our universities.

And Europeans don't? Civilization depends on teaching humanities to students who spend class texting and never do the reading?

Ummmm...not at all what I am saying. 

We pay for our university systems communally.  So that means that not everyone can get into Berkeley but there is still California State Fullerton as a backup, and if not that, at least your local CC.  Everyone with a heartbeat pays, so everyone with a heartbeat has a chance to get education.

Retention is a survival mode, and it is ethical: if a kid goes into debt, we should encourage her or him not to waste their money and simply drop out.

But just to clarify:  Our counterpart students in Europe always do the reading?  Not sure that's what I have heard...

[Mobius]

Is higher education in Europe not a communal undertaking? We must have open admissions places because of taxes?

[Wahoo Redux]

We must have open admissions places because of taxes?

That was always my understanding.  Or at least it was part of the philosophy.

Maybe I'm wrong.

It does seem like a justifiable practice given that everyone from Joe the Plumber to Donald Trump pay into system...wait, does Trump pay into the system....? 

[mamselle]

Sorry to throw a quill-sharpener into the monastic analogy, but because of increased lay literacy and the growth of trade after the end of the Viking invasions (and other things), by the 12th/13th c., monastic scriptoria had declined in importance, giving way to commercial copying endeavors like those located in the area between the Sorbonne and Notre Dame, in Paris, and those that served folks like the Dukes du Barry in Burgundy, and so on.

Most of the romans, or tales, that were copied and distributed, were done by folks like Jeanne and Richard de Montbaston, and their neighbors on the rue Neuve-Notre Dame (whose work I just discussed on Saturday), who shared out copying and illustrating tasks among themselves, with up to ten flourishers, goal-leaf-appliers, copyists, illustrators, and binders all being paid for their work by a production agent who, on some other book, might serve as a copyist or illustrator themself. (Rouse & Rouse--1990, I think).

Even the more expensive liturgical books were jobbed out. For an upcoming paper, I'm using an image from a pontifical illuminated by a Flemish artist far to the north, that was made for an archbishop in a town south of Paris, later, (15th c.); the smaller, less decorated daily books were still done by the monks and nuns, and they did still work in artistic as well as copyist modes, but the transmission of western civilzation's literary corpus wasn't solely due to the cloistered orders...

   <<exeunt, stage left, chased by the ghost of an enraged monastic scribe...>>

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

Sorry to throw a quill-sharpener into the monastic analogy, but because of increased lay literacy and the growth of trade after the end of the Viking invasions (and other things), by the 12th/13th c., monastic scriptoria had declined in importance, giving way to commercial copying endeavors like those located in the area between the Sorbonne and Notre Dame, in Paris, and those that served folks like the Dukes du Barry in Burgundy, and so on.

Most of the romans, or tales, that were copied and distributed, were done by folks like Jeanne and Richard de Montbaston, and their neighbors on the rue Neuve-Notre Dame (whose work I just discussed on Saturday), who shared out copying and illustrating tasks among themselves, with up to ten flourishers, goal-leaf-appliers, copyists, illustrators, and binders all being paid for their work by a production agent who, on some other book, might serve as a copyist or illustrator themself. (Rouse & Rouse--1990, I think).

Even the more expensive liturgical books were jobbed out. For an upcoming paper, I'm using an image from a pontifical illuminated by a Flemish artist far to the north, that was made for an archbishop in a town south of Paris, later, (15th c.); the smaller, less decorated daily books were still done by the monks and nuns, and they did still work in artistic as well as copyist modes, but the transmission of western civilzation's literary corpus wasn't solely due to the cloistered orders...

   <<exeunt, stage left, chased by the ghost of an enraged monastic scribe...>>

M.

That is very interesting.

It sounds a lot like our current milieu with our $26B book publishing industry (the professional illuminators) and recondite academic scholars (the monastic scribes) overlooked by the aristocracy.

I was thinking of the 10th and 11th centuries, the Benedictines and Irish monasteries, which kept the coal of learning alive to be reignited in the high middle ages.

I looooooooove the Dukes du Barry!!!!!   

[Hegemony]

I'm not sure what Mobius's question means, but free higher education does not mean higher education for all. It is in fact much more selective. Which means that there also need to be provisions for those who are not suited for higher academia, or who just want to get into the work world faster. Even in England, which abandoned this model in recent years, has some larger banking companies and the like that take on school-leavers (i.e. high school graduates) direct to work and training for higher-level finance jobs.

[Mobius]

I know that Europe doesn't have higher ed for all. I was pushing back at Wahoo's argument on how we have higher ed open to pretty much anyone because taxpayer pressure. However, the same argument doesn't apply in Europe because of the two-track system.

Several are trying to be smart and putting more money in technical schools (tuition-free for career programs, etc.) .

The LACs and smaller regional comprehensives should be scaled down if half of students can't graduate in six years. Retention programs don't work, and they get changed up too frequently to gain traction.

[Mobius]

Dixie State in Utah spending money to pick up the slack by educating those not ready for college. Of course doesn't address many issues why students don't succeed. A few extra classes won't cut it.

57% retention rate and 37% graduation rate.

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2021/4/18/22380186/dixie-state-has-a-proposal-to-help-students-who-arent-quite-ready-for-college

[Wahoo Redux]

I know that Europe doesn't have higher ed for all. I was pushing back at Wahoo's argument on how we have higher ed open to pretty much anyone because taxpayer pressure.

I seem to have confused you and you have confused me.

I don't know very much about European education and was saying nothing in particular about it.

Are you saying that this is NOT how the American higher ed system works?

[mleok]

I know that Europe doesn't have higher ed for all. I was pushing back at Wahoo's argument on how we have higher ed open to pretty much anyone because taxpayer pressure.

I seem to have confused you and you have confused me.

I don't know very much about European education and was saying nothing in particular about it.

Are you saying that this is NOT how the American higher ed system works?

I think the point being made is that the European system of higher education is funded by taxpayers, but it is quite elitist in comparison to the US system, so just because higher education is paid for by taxpayers, does not mean that it has to be universal.

[Wahoo Redux]

I know that Europe doesn't have higher ed for all. I was pushing back at Wahoo's argument on how we have higher ed open to pretty much anyone because taxpayer pressure.

I seem to have confused you and you have confused me.

I don't know very much about European education and was saying nothing in particular about it.

Are you saying that this is NOT how the American higher ed system works?

I think the point being made is that the European system of higher education is funded by taxpayers, but it is quite elitist in comparison to the US system, so just because higher education is paid for by taxpayers, does not mean that it has to be universal.

Okay.

But I don't think that's the way Americans think.