NBC: Why Americans are increasingly dubious about going to college

[downer]

There are lots of ways in which a college education is useful. For prestigious places, there is both signalling value and also networking value.  Those who go to good schools are able to draw on their connections with people in power. It's long been pointed out that higher ed perpetuates inequality in the US.
https://academicmatters.ca/higher-education-and-growing-inequality/
The value of expensive schools is rarely in the education. It's in the social step up they provide.

Signaling makes higher ed like an arms race. The less it is subsidized, the better. Borrow on commercial terms.

Networking gives individuals an advantage, so let individuals pay. No cause for subsidy. Borrow on commercial terms.

Anyway, all this, including more education, can be done in high school.

It is done in high school. I am familiar with some of the private high schools on the upper east side of Manhattan. There are those nice boarding schools in New England too.

There are also various clubs in NYC where people socialize. Golf Clubs and Country Clubs are places for the rich to socialize and make deals.

Come the revolution, all these things will be made illegal. Inheritance tax will be 100%. And no private colleges. No private high schools.

Who knows how things will be post-revolution. I may well be out of a job. Let's hope people don't really start believing in equality of opportunity.

[dismalist]

There are lots of ways in which a college education is useful. For prestigious places, there is both signalling value and also networking value.  Those who go to good schools are able to draw on their connections with people in power. It's long been pointed out that higher ed perpetuates inequality in the US.
https://academicmatters.ca/higher-education-and-growing-inequality/
The value of expensive schools is rarely in the education. It's in the social step up they provide.

Signaling makes higher ed like an arms race. The less it is subsidized, the better. Borrow on commercial terms.

Networking gives individuals an advantage, so let individuals pay. No cause for subsidy. Borrow on commercial terms.

Anyway, all this, including more education, can be done in high school.

It is done in high school. I am familiar with some of the private high schools on the upper east side of Manhattan. There are those nice boarding schools in New England too.

There are also various clubs in NYC where people socialize. Golf Clubs and Country Clubs are places for the rich to socialize and make deals.

Come the revolution, all these things will be made illegal. Inheritance tax will be 100%. And no private colleges. No private high schools.

Who knows how things will be post-revolution. I may well be out of a job. Let's hope people don't really start believing in equality of opportunity.

Voucherize, voucherize, voucherize, and the poor can have all that , and more. They can then compete with the rich buggers on an even footing!

Equality of opportunity is not a problem except for rich potential losers. Equality of outcome, achieved by low standards, is the problem because it destroys the incentive to produce.

[Wahoo Redux]

And, of course, with Google, the results go on for pages.  Point being, yeah, plenty value their college degrees.

Then there's no problem.

If only it were that easy.

[dismalist]

And, of course, with Google, the results go on for pages.  Point being, yeah, plenty value their college degrees.

Then there's no problem.

If only it were that easy.

Looks like our sector is gonna continue to shrink. I think it's good, others don't. It's the arguments for propping up a shrinking sector that I don't buy.

[downer]

As if vouchers were some kind of panecea.

[dismalist]

As if vouchers were some kind of panecea.

Panacea? Miracles, man, miracles! :-)

[Anon1787]

There are lots of ways in which a college education is useful. For prestigious places, there is both signalling value and also networking value.  Those who go to good schools are able to draw on their connections with people in power. It's long been pointed out that higher ed perpetuates inequality in the US.
https://academicmatters.ca/higher-education-and-growing-inequality/
The value of expensive schools is rarely in the education. It's in the social step up they provide.

Signaling makes higher ed like an arms race. The less it is subsidized, the better. Borrow on commercial terms.

Networking gives individuals an advantage, so let individuals pay. No cause for subsidy. Borrow on commercial terms.

Anyway, all this, including more education, can be done in high school.

Colleges have been providing less education over time (making college more about signaling, networking, and--as noted by downer--recreational leisure), which reduces opportunity. They could provide a bit more education.

We've been trying to improve K-12 education for decades. Vouchers can help, but they're not sufficient.

[Wahoo Redux]

We've been trying to improve K-12 education for decades.

Try since the 19th century.

We've never been happy with our educational system. 

What we don't want to do is spend to support it----just look at this thread.

[Anon1787]

We've been trying to improve K-12 education for decades.

Try since the 19th century.

We've never been happy with our educational system. 

What we don't want to do is spend to support it----just look at this thread.

Plenty of school districts have increased spending and seen no significant improvement. The culture must change, but it is embarrassing to certain narratives popular in academia.

[Wahoo Redux]

We've been trying to improve K-12 education for decades.

Try since the 19th century.

We've never been happy with our educational system. 

What we don't want to do is spend to support it----just look at this thread.

Plenty of school districts have increased spending and shown no significant improvement. The culture must change, but it is embarrassing to certain narratives popular in academia.

As I said...

Just as examples, we've got killer stealth bombers and hypersonic ICBMs, sports arenas and feature movie budgets that exceed $400M, and Hillary Clinton spent a record $1.2B on her campaign----and I support the military, the entertainment industry, and our democratic system----but we have not supported education enough, increases included, to do the job was want education to do.  We have the wealth, and your increases are not enough.

We can adjust our expectations only downward with our attitude.

[Anon1787]

As I said...

Just as examples, we've got killer stealth bombers and hypersonic ICBMs, sports arenas and feature movie budgets that exceed $400M, and Hillary Clinton spent a record $1.2B on her campaign----and I support the military, the entertainment industry, and our democratic system----but we have not supported education enough, increases included, to do the job was want education to do.  We have the wealth, and your increases are not enough.

We can adjust our expectations only downward with our attitude.

Building things is different from educating people. Clinton outspent Trump by a large margin and lost the election (ditto Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 Democratic primaries). Admittedly, status can be viewed as a substitute for payment, so if that's what you mean (e.g., increasing the status of effective teachers), then that could help based on the systems in Finland, Singapore, and S. Korea.

[Wahoo Redux]

You missed the point.  Perhaps I was not clear: We have the wealth to do great things; we do not want to spend that wealth on things like education.  Which is how our system works.

Instead, we would like to compare our massive, overcrowded educational system----that spans an entire continent, with everything from little farm villages to massive urban centers with their many, many disparities and differing property tax bases----to tiny countries which do not spend $759B on a defense budget.

Look, you buy a used Ford it will work for a while and then start to fall apart, it is old and cheap.

You buy a brand new Lexis and you are driving in style.

Julliard, Lamborghinis, Stratovarius, and Dolce & Gabana all cost massive bucks because they are awesome.

The jeans I buy from Walmart are really cheap because they are crap.

You don't shore up your infrastructure, bridges collapse.

Defund cops, you get less cops, and crime explodes as it has in Portland, OR.

Pay $130M for an Air Dominance jet fighter and you get a fantastically effective and amazing killing machine.  Ever seen what a B-1 bomber cost us?

You get what you pay for.

I'm not saying we should throw YUGE amounts of money at education (although it seems to me it would be smart), just that it is egregious and quixotic to lowball anything and expect any kind of success. 

Can't have both, my friend.

[Anon1787]

You missed the point.  Perhaps I was not clear: We have the wealth to do great things; we do not want to spend that wealth on things like education.  Which is how our system works.

Instead, we would like to compare our massive, overcrowded educational system----that spans an entire continent, with everything from little farm villages to massive urban centers with their many, many disparities and differing property tax bases----to tiny countries which do not spend $759B on a defense budget.

Look, you buy a used Ford it will work for a while and then start to fall apart, it is old and cheap.

You buy a brand new Lexis and you are driving in style.

Julliard, Lamborghinis, Stratovarius, and Dolce & Gabana all cost massive bucks because they are awesome.

The jeans I buy from Walmart are really cheap because they are crap.

You don't shore up your infrastructure, bridges collapse.

Defund cops, you get less cops, and crime explodes as it has in Portland, OR.

Pay $130M for an Air Dominance jet fighter and you get a fantastically effective and amazing killing machine.  Ever seen what a B-1 bomber cost us?

You get what you pay for.

I'm not saying we should throw YUGE amounts of money at education (although it seems to me it would be smart), just that it is egregious and quixotic to lowball anything and expect any kind of success. 

Can't have both, my friend.

I don't think we're lowballing education. And showering money on a bad system--be it the Navy's Littoral Combat Ships (Rep. Smith: "We can't use them, number one because they're not ready to do anything. Number two, when they are, they still break down."), Bloomberg's presidential campaign, or many schools--doesn't produce better results. Nor is it clear that even with much more money we could design and implement a much better educational system.

[marshwiggle]

We've been trying to improve K-12 education for decades.

Try since the 19th century.

We've never been happy with our educational system. 

What we don't want to do is spend to support it----just look at this thread.

Part of the problem is that the goals for the education system have been a moving target. In the 19th century, what was important was what a person who graduated would be capable of. By the latter part of the 20th century, what was important was how many people graduated.  As I've pointed out many times, it's a lot easier to raise the "graduation" rate by lowering standards than by figuring out how to get the most problematic students to learn more. The need to pretend that that we know how to do that undermines the system.

Kids even from middle class backgrounds, in reasonable schools, still struggle (and are poorly prepared for university even after they graduate) so it's not likely that money alone is going to solve all of the problems.

[Wahoo Redux]

I don't think we're lowballing education.

Parts of our campus are literally---and I mean literally---falling apart.  Not a little deferred maintenance, but pipes corroding, bricks falling off walls and sidewalks crumbling.  Literally. 

My first urban grad campus, where I dipped my toe in graduate school work, strung nets under the eves of several of their buildings so chucks didn't fall off and kill people.

I was downsized from my 5/5 lectureship and, incredible friggin' chump that I am, I was immediately hired back for three classes.  Other adjuncts are now covering the other two.  They simply did not want to pay my measly FT salary.  And being a chump, I signed up.  They are going to get the adjunct-pay level of teaching that they pay for, too.

They downsized our IT and hired a couple of brand new grads...I'll let you guess how that is going.  All but one or two of our open computer labs were closed.

I remember marching in high school in support of the levy to keep our school open.

Anybody here think they are overpaid or even paid commensurate with their experience and credentials?

"Low ball" is a subjective term, but I cannot think how else to describe American educational funding.

And the system does work.  People are educated.  The majority of graduates are happy they went to college.  The all-important employment pipeline is still functional. 

The system does not work as well as it could or as well as we want it to, and we don't want to pay to make it better as literally everything costs more----we just want it to work better magically.  Is Hogwarts hiring?