NBC: Why Americans are increasingly dubious about going to college

[marshwiggle]

Specifically, how should we administer your meritocracy? 

How about "moneyballing" PSE? Get some respected independent organization to evaluate scores for institutions to identify the *ratios of median income X (like 5?) years after graduation divided by median cost of the education?

So, institutions that have successful graduates because of high SES students coming in may not always come out ahead of cheaper places that don't cost much because they don't have climbing walls, etc.

In the US particularly, there's an overblown emphasis on the rankings of institutions, whereas in lots of other countries there's not nearly the same sense that where you got your basketweaving degree matters more than how successful you were in your basketweaving program.


(*Feel free to suggest other metrics that might highlight otherwise overlooked value.)

[Wahoo Redux]

Do you expect people to suddenly stop caring about US News Reports?  How are we to stop rankings in a free speech society?

I think we have evaluations like the one you describe.  Many universities exist to provide access to education.  The one we work for is one such.  Much of it is mediocre at best, but closing it would devastate the local economy and deny a great many poor students a chance.

Do you think you know enough to deny them?

[Wahoo Redux]

Sorry to keep banging away here, but I ran across this and had to post it:

That country has too much teachers in a country with a declining birth rate. Germany also needs uniform national educational system like the ones found in other countries such as the ones in Indonesia in order to reconcile the tradition of its states' responsibility for education. Many universities in western Germany is also overcrowded, understaffed, underequipped & underfinanced, with high number of long-term students & dropouts that leave higher education without graduating, & excessive study length due to its success in expanding access to secondary education. Some university students also quit their studies due to lack of correlation between curriculum content & career goals, feel unprepared for higher education, limited opportunities in labor market & poor teaching quality.

Students with immigrant background & from poorer families are also less likely to move up the education ladder, since education in rural areas in Germany are lacking compared to the ones in big cities. German education is also criticized for sharp divisions in educational opportunities between kids from affluent families & poorer kids/kids with an immigrant background. Students with more advantaged socioeconomic background outperforms their poorer peers with similar cognitive abilities, and also more likely to be recommended for the highest tracks in the German education system & attend universities. Kids with migrant background are also 4x more likely to be impacted by social, financial & education-related risk factors, with someone from Western/Northern European countries being more likely to have university degree compared to students from Eastern Europe/Turkey.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this.  Can anyone here throw some light on the subject?

There's also this:

German Universities Not Enough Students

Sounds familiar.

[marshwiggle]

Do you expect people to suddenly stop caring about US News Reports?  How are we to stop rankings in a free speech society?

The idea of "moneyball" was that all kinds of rankings and statistics were used, but they weren't identifying some players who were consequently undervalued. Apply it to higher education. For instance, graduate income BY ITSELF is going to put places like Ivies on top, but much of that is due to the high family income of students who go there. Finding places where the family income is significantly lower than the graduate income show places providing social mobility. (And it doesn't need graduate income to be super high; if students from low income families graduate and get good middle class jobs, that's a clear win.)

So the traditional rankings won't disappear; they'll just get augmented by more insightful analysis.

[Wahoo Redux]

Okay.  You know this has already been done in a number of places.

[apl68]

Sorry to keep banging away here, but I ran across this and had to post it:

That country has too much teachers in a country with a declining birth rate. Germany also needs uniform national educational system like the ones found in other countries such as the ones in Indonesia in order to reconcile the tradition of its states' responsibility for education. Many universities in western Germany is also overcrowded, understaffed, underequipped & underfinanced, with high number of long-term students & dropouts that leave higher education without graduating, & excessive study length due to its success in expanding access to secondary education. Some university students also quit their studies due to lack of correlation between curriculum content & career goals, feel unprepared for higher education, limited opportunities in labor market & poor teaching quality.

Students with immigrant background & from poorer families are also less likely to move up the education ladder, since education in rural areas in Germany are lacking compared to the ones in big cities. German education is also criticized for sharp divisions in educational opportunities between kids from affluent families & poorer kids/kids with an immigrant background. Students with more advantaged socioeconomic background outperforms their poorer peers with similar cognitive abilities, and also more likely to be recommended for the highest tracks in the German education system & attend universities. Kids with migrant background are also 4x more likely to be impacted by social, financial & education-related risk factors, with someone from Western/Northern European countries being more likely to have university degree compared to students from Eastern Europe/Turkey.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this.  Can anyone here throw some light on the subject?

There's also this:

German Universities Not Enough Students

Sounds familiar.

It goes to show that U.S. challenges are not at all unique.  Many developed nations face a combination of declining native-born demographics and a growing immigrant population that poses a challenge to assimilate.  Japan has especially poor demographics, but has kept a very tight lid on immigration.  I read a few years ago that a number of institutions of higher education face eventual closure there.  We could no doubt learn some useful things from studying what other nations have been doing in higher ed, but there's no easy way out of the problems for any of us.

[dismalist]

Sorry to keep banging away here, but I ran across this and had to post it:

That country has too much teachers in a country with a declining birth rate. Germany also needs uniform national educational system like the ones found in other countries such as the ones in Indonesia in order to reconcile the tradition of its states' responsibility for education. Many universities in western Germany is also overcrowded, understaffed, underequipped & underfinanced, with high number of long-term students & dropouts that leave higher education without graduating, & excessive study length due to its success in expanding access to secondary education. Some university students also quit their studies due to lack of correlation between curriculum content & career goals, feel unprepared for higher education, limited opportunities in labor market & poor teaching quality.

Students with immigrant background & from poorer families are also less likely to move up the education ladder, since education in rural areas in Germany are lacking compared to the ones in big cities. German education is also criticized for sharp divisions in educational opportunities between kids from affluent families & poorer kids/kids with an immigrant background. Students with more advantaged socioeconomic background outperforms their poorer peers with similar cognitive abilities, and also more likely to be recommended for the highest tracks in the German education system & attend universities. Kids with migrant background are also 4x more likely to be impacted by social, financial & education-related risk factors, with someone from Western/Northern European countries being more likely to have university degree compared to students from Eastern Europe/Turkey.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this.  Can anyone here throw some light on the subject?

There's also this:

German Universities Not Enough Students

Sounds familiar.

It goes to show that U.S. challenges are not at all unique.  Many developed nations face a combination of declining native-born demographics and a growing immigrant population that poses a challenge to assimilate.  Japan has especially poor demographics, but has kept a very tight lid on immigration.  I read a few years ago that a number of institutions of higher education face eventual closure there.  We could no doubt learn some useful things from studying what other nations have been doing in higher ed, but there's no easy way out of the problems for any of us.

Overcrowding in German universities? Easy answer: Charge tuition! That's ll keep out those with the lowest chances of graduation and cut down on time-to-degree. There are no rules for limiting it. Interestingly, this is a charge against western German universities. Go East, young man, go East.

Lack of education in rural areas? Hell, wherever you are, you gotta cross railroad tracks just to take out the trash. Commute.

[Wahoo Redux]

Always the easy answer, huh?

Stockmann says free tuition and merit-based education like they have in Europe.

Your simple answer: no free tuition.  Look to "the East" (?).

Point being, the models from other parts of the world have essentially the same problems we do. 

Marshy wants to constrain people's life choices----for their own good, of course.

As apl says:

there's no easy way out of the problems for any of us.

Come on, folks.  This is a highly intelligent, highly educated group of professionals.  No Sean Hannity level discourse on important matters, please!

[dismalist]

Always the easy answer, huh?

Stockmann says free tuition and merit-based education like they have in Europe.

Your simple answer: no free tuition.  Look to "the East" (?).

Point being, the models from other parts of the world have essentially the same problems we do. 

Marshy wants to constrain people's life choices----for their own good, of course.

As apl says:

there's no easy way out of the problems for any of us.

Come on, folks.  This is a highly intelligent, highly educated group of professionals.  No Sean Hannity level discourse on important matters, please!

Wahoo, your fundamental point is that too little is spent on  education. I would make the point that too little is spent on everything! Education has no particular privilege, except that we're in it.  Scarcity sucks!

There is one simple way of dealing with wants that are always bigger than what's available: Charge for it!

Give money to the poor, not to college graduates.

[Wahoo Redux]

Wahoo, your fundamental point is that too little is spent on  education. I would make the point that too little is spent on everything!

Nope! Nope! Nope!

Either I am not clear or you are being deliberately obtuse.

My POINT, to make it clear, is either:

A) Spend the money to get what you want out of education; this is the way our Western societies work.  Quit kidding yourself it works otherwise and quit following your own confirmation bias.

OR

B) Simply acknowledge that education is going to continue to devolve from a number of cultural forces until only the expensive prestige universities, the giant football flagships, and a few sputtering campuses are left.  Don't pretend there is some easy way around this----all the data points to this future.  And I think this will be very damaging to our ed system.

Too little money is spent on everything except military killing machines (and I know the military wants more for that).  We just don't want to pay for the things (like law enforcement, the legal system, free medicine, infrastructure, etc.), we just want them to magically work. 

No "magical thinking."  I wish Polly were here.

(PS:  It's "Oscar Wilde"----I was typing too fast in case anyone caught that earlier.  I am not a philistine!!)

[dismalist]

Wahoo, your fundamental point is that too little is spent on  education. I would make the point that too little is spent on everything!

Nope! Nope! Nope!

Either I am not clear or you are being deliberately obtuse.

My POINT, to make it clear, is either:

A) Spend the money to get what you want out of education; this is the way our Western societies work.  Quit kidding yourself it works otherwise and quit following your own confirmation bias.

OR

B) Simply acknowledge that education is going to continue to devolve from a number of cultural forces until only the expensive prestige universities, the giant football flagships, and a few sputtering campuses are left.  Don't pretend there is some easy way around this----all the data points to this future.  And I think this will be very damaging to our ed system.

To little money is spent on everything.  We just don't want to pay for the things (like law enforcement, the legal system, free medicine, infrastructure, etc.), we just want them to magically work. 

No "magical thinking."  I wish Polly were here.

A) We are getting roughly what the median voter wants -- certification of a signal to earn the college wage premium. We can get that a lot cheaper -- by having government spend less on education, not more. Have more adjuncts, far more, and fewer FT faculty. :-) Stop the arms race. [Estimates of the share of money spent on signaling vs. education vary. One extreme is 80% signalling. Even if it's only 50/50,  there are a lot of savings from stopping the arms race.] And that doesn't include the consumption aspects of going to college.

B) Would be a great saving, though I don't see the process going nearly that far.

Medicine? 18% of GDP! That's 50% more than a civilized country such as Switzerland. [That's because of sicko institutions in the US of A.]

[Wahoo Redux]

Do you not care about the quality of the education, or the quality of your colleagues' employment, or is education simply a work credential and who cares about the rest of that?

I would not challenge you on your evaluation, since you have a right to your opinion, I am just curious.

And I am not sure education is what the "median voter wants."  You do understand the catalyst for this conversation, right?

[dismalist]

Do you not care about the quality of the education, or the quality of your colleagues' employment, or is education simply a work credential and who cares about the rest of that?

I would not challenge you on your evaluation, since you have a right to your opinion, I am just curious.

And I am not sure education is what the "median voter wants."  You do understand the catalyst for this conversation, right?

If one cares for oneself, borrow and buy.

As for the existing system, my guess stays that the median voter is getting what he wants, roughly speaking. The contemporary forgiveness of student debt is an effort to keep the median voter happy [though it's a terrible, terrible way of doing it. Allowing bankruptcy would be efficient.].

[Wahoo Redux]

Well...okay.  That answer is a bit cryptic and sounds like simplistic Libertarian ideological mumbo-jumbo.  But I guess I understand.

Hey, I am a big believer in what the "median voter" wants.  If the median voter don't want education, the median voter don't got to pay for education.

In fact, I wish we had more control of how our contributions would be spent.  I wish we had little boxes on our tax forms in which we could designate where our tax dollars would go.   You know, I might check off "Wildlife Fund, 20%; Education, 50%; Judicial System, 20%" etc.    But I guess that is not practicable.

I just don't think the median voter is happy with higher ed.  I think the median voter wants the education and the jobs.  But I think the median voter wants a simple answer that will relieve them of having to buy what they want.  They don't want to borrow.

Maybe you should run for office and explain your ideology to the median voter.

[dismalist]

Well...okay.  That answer is a bit cryptic and sounds like simplistic Libertarian ideological mumbo-jumbo.  But I guess I understand.

Hey, I am a big believer in what the "median voter" wants.  If the median voter don't want education, the median voter don't got to pay for education.

In fact, I wish we had more control of how our contributions would be spent.  I wish we had little boxes on our tax forms in which we could designate where our tax dollars would go.   You know, I might check off "Wildlife Fund, 20%; Education, 50%; Judicial System, 20%" etc.    But I guess that is not practicable.

I just don't think the median voter is happy with higher ed. I think the median voter wants the education and the jobs.  But I think the median voter wants a simple answer that will relieve them of having to buy what they want.  They don't want to borrow.

Maybe you should run for office and explain your ideology to the median voter.

I just don't think the median voter is happy with higher ed.

That's why he needed a $10K bribe! :-)

Maybe you should run for office and explain your ideology to the median voter.

Hell, I want to be the median voter! :-)