Discussion Forums > Politics
2012 US Presidential Election
jaybug:
Leave that to professionals like yourself and zherok?
I didn't say you said anything. Not other than the usual wild ravings that is. Just kidding.
No. The problem I see is that sure you can make higher education more accessible, but for what purpose? Just to keep up with degree inflation? To have more even more MSWs than we can afford or use? Yeah, we need more psych majors like we need more holes in our heads.
But what good is college when it is only replacing high school, at the person's personal expense? Isn't that what you guys are bitching about the conservatives doing to public schools? Shoving the costs of education onto the individual as opposed to the community? There isn't enough money for that. And what in great googly moogly gives you the idea that China would want to finance its competition? Just because the US does, does not mean that our lenders are so stupid.
Yeah, Mexicans are going to be making our houses, and paving our roads, so no need for US to bother with that either.
zherok:
It was a call to higher education, not a call for lowering admission standards.
But your solution to raising standards by keeping people from going is great. Just as awesome as encouraging failing high schoolers to drop out in order to raise average testing scores.
jaybug:
--- Quote from: zherok on October 30, 2012, 01:02:29 AM ---It was a call to higher education, not a call for lowering admission standards.
But your solution to raising standards by keeping people from going is great. Just as awesome as encouraging failing high schoolers to drop out in order to raise average testing scores.
--- End quote ---
Yeah right. Just like they did back in the 60s. It was called "mainstreaming" back then. And it's a large reason why American schools suck ass today, when comparing them to foreign schools. Sure, they got more kids in school, but at the price of boring the hell out of kids who while smart enough, did not have enough money to further their education.
Back in my father's day in college, they called it bonehead math. Now it it's a class that everyone takes. Why? Because their high schools either cannot or will not teach it. They are just passing along the problem. Just like they passed kids into the next grade in my day.
Haven't you watch "Waiting for Superman"?
Now the problem is that while they are admitting students to really great schools, with all kinds of nifty financial aid packages, they are finding that a large proportion of these kids are not capable of the work then expected of them, and so they either fail, drop out, or other things that do not include the obtaining of a degree. Recent article in the LA Times.
But now they owe money they cannot afford to repay. They don't have the skills to get a good enough job, nor do they qualify for any further financial aid.
I'm not sure what you are actually speaking about, it seems to shift to the left, and then nose-dives down. But what passes for a two-year college education used to be what you got out of high school. Did you know that they used to teach calculus to 12 year olds? Now it's a second year college level course.
So instead of a kid getting a good education, now she has to bulk up on loans to get what should have already been taught. How is this doing anyone any good?
But then I am almost perpetually amazed at how little college graduates know about almost anything. Except for their specialty. And how does this make for a good democracy?
zherok:
I seem to remember you bemoaning missing out on some critical period of the GI Bill and not getting the same ability to go to college as your predecessors had the opportunity to do. You didn't seem eager to shit on THAT particular drive to encourage more college education.
And you keep conflating encouraging higher education with increased accessibility. Obama didn't even single out college, he specifically mentioned alternatives like trade schools. No one called for everyone to get a four year degree.
Options like those schools and community colleges are far more economically viable, and help encourage a better educated society at a point where it's unlikely we'll recover the low-skill labor jobs we had in the past.
And it's not like you've even offered an alternative here. All I see so far, "nah, don't go, so the average will look better."
Burkingam:
Jaybug, yeah perhaps the reason why college graduation correlate so highly with social class in the USA has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that your universities are the most expensive in the world and I'm sure it's all because poor children are all born mentally retarded. I'm sure even if you made high education more available to them but lowering it's cost it would do absolutely nothing to improve your incredibly low inter-generational economic mobility. /sarcasm
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