Note: This Educational Reform series was inspired by Charles Murray's Real Education.
This is part three of four in my Educational Reform Series. Here are part one and two. Each post will highlight a (non-exhaustive) set of potential reforms, with a brief description of each suggested change.
This post deals with college in general. The focus will be on four year, residential colleges.
College as social capital: A college degree used to actually mean something. It has always been a marker of social class (especially the Big Three), but it had real-world value as well. The degree had value because it was relatively rare. In the 1950's, only five percent of the adult population had a college degree, that number is now around 30% (and people actually complain about this!). Instead of functioning as training for the job market, college has become a beer-soaked, requisite social ritual of middle and upper-class white suburbanites. Many students choose their university solely on the basis of the party atmosphere. Such a decision wouldn't be inappropriate if not for the outrageous price tag of even a low ranked state school.
Parents of the academically deficient encourage their clearly unqualified and disinterested children into the college route. As a result, said parent won't endure embarrassment at the next neighborhood function and can advertise her child's college on her car's back window. In these displays, one notes, as HalfSigma often does, that college delineates social classes.
Uselessness of curriculum: Cornell is the largest Ivy League school. They offer almost 80 fields of study, including such majors as Africana Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Now tell me, besides poisoning the minds of impressionable youth, what societal impact do these courses offer? I'm not advocating an entirely practical education, but curriculum should apply to real-world occupations outside of Out magazine. Most of the curriculum, especially that of liberal arts departments, is a complete waste. It offers nothing but intellectual stimulation (even that assertion is arguable) and considering that almost 60% of high school graduates attend college, most aren't mentally equipped for or interested in such erudite discussion. The big secret of college is that most of it constitutes a bunch of useless courses that will immediately fade after the final.
While many majors, such as English or Business, would prepare potential employees with extensive apprenticeships, others require significantly less time than currently allotted. Take engineering, the one field of study for which many consider a college degree essential. First, engineers must complete eight liberal arts courses, which amounts to an entire year of study. Second, the presentation of engineering learned in college courses is almost completely orthogonal to the work of industry engineers. While college engineering focuses on reducible systems and theoretical analysis, real world systems require mostly left-brained intuition and almost no mathematical rigor (besides understanding computer simulations). The clean differential equations on an engineer's homework are useless when encountering actual systems where computer simulations or qualitative observation dominate. I've heard that it's a miracle if an industry engineer uses any material past sophomore year. Engineering education, and other fields, should focus on hands-on work, rather than the esoteric content of textbooks.
Ivy League Myth: I won't bore you with the details of the Ivy League obsession. It pervades every top high school and upper class enclave. Yet, is such hysteria warranted? Does the Ivy League offer an education or even economic value above that of a local state school? Here's a surprise: No. The governing factor of accumulated wealth is the student's innate talent and drive. The education and peer group at an Ivy League school are slightly more challenging than that of a state school, but the benefit probably isn't worth the higher price. What the Ivy League does offer is two things: instant IQ credibility associated with the school and slightly more recruiting. Yet again, such benefits probably do not offset the higher cost. Individual merit and pugnacity can make up for lacking an Ivy degree.
Part Four: How the marketplace relates to the college degree
23 comments:
It's "capital", not "capitol".
Arrgh!
Now tell me, besides poisoning the minds of impressionable youth, what societal impact do these courses offer?
One can view the proliferation of useless college majors and degrees as an intelligence test.
Further, one can view them as separate male and female intelligence tests.
The Ivies are useless if you're actually interested in learning stuff. Just for fun, I was looking at Yale for the Masters Program in my discipline. Check this out.
http://www.yale.edu/german/courses.html
I was unable to come up with the words to describe how awful their program is, but the words "pseudo-intellectual claptrap" come to mind. Just look for yourself.
Compare it with the required reading from the University of Missouri (Missouri!) MA program.
http://grs.missouri.edu/degprogs/germasters.html
(Bottom of page)
I'd go there in a heartbeat over Yale.
-ASDF
(1) "While many majors, such as English or Business, would prepare potential employees with extensive apprenticeships, others require significantly less time than currently allotted. Take engineering, the one field of study for which many consider a college degree essential. First, engineers must complete eight liberal arts courses, which amounts to an entire year of study. Second, the presentation of engineering learned in college courses is almost completely orthogonal to the work of industry engineers. While college engineering focuses on reducible systems and theoretical analysis, real world systems require mostly left-brained intuition and almost no mathematical rigor (besides understanding computer simulations). The clean differential equations on an engineer's homework are useless when encountering actual systems where computer simulations or qualitative observation dominate. I've heard that it's a miracle if an industry engineer uses any material past sophomore year. Engineering education, and other fields, should focus on hands-on work, rather than the esoteric content of textbooks."
This could be an artifact from the old days of Engineering training. People had to do differential equations, work with slide-rulers, look up log charts, and other stuff when engineering new machinery in the sixties, for example.
(2) You might want to write on how educational costs can be lowered, in part, by moving away from a degree based system. If you want to study philosophy, like I did, then go to school for a traditional four year program and degree. If you want to do to do something else, then a four year program might not be needed, and good, hard standardized testing (like for actuaries) can replace it with apprenticeship models.
It's really true about many college courses, at ivy league schools and other schools. The classes are really similar to high school classes, in a lot of cases, and there's this tendency for the school system to go over the same ground, year after year. The science curricula in colleges are really flawed, in my opinion. They provide a superficial survey of a lot of different things but don't allow for much real understanding of any of it. That said, it is true that there are aspects of science that one has to learn by repetition. A knowledge base is obviously necessary, but college science classes don't really seem to provide that, in my experience. They don't provide much that's similar to the way people learn science as researchers. There can be exceptions, though, among college science classes. It depends on the way they approach it. I think science classes need to be taught in the law-school format, using case studies that allow one to go from the specific to the general, rather than the general to the specific.
As we know, many professions require certification after graduation. Doctors, nurses, CPA's, teachers, Lawyers, etc. There is no AA for these tests. You have to pass to work in the field.
Similarly actuaries have multiple exams they have to pass. So what? Well, all pension schemes must be certified by a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, FSA. It is required by law. Also state insurance boards require FSA's to certify the underwriting of insurance.
So what has this to do with college? Well, in the US, students have to pass preliminary exams to even get their foot in the door to a job and all raises and promotions are based on passing the exams. However in the UK, passing certain classes is sufficient to get your foot in the door. So what is the problem? The pass rate for the exams is about 40% or sometimes as low as 30%. Passing the classes is easier than passing the exams. Surprise!
Now there is a push on to allow certain US and Canadian universities to exempt students who pass classes at those schools. As if we haven't seen enough trouble with financial instruments, now there is a push to lower the standards for the competencies of those who assess risk in financing schemes like insurance and pensions.
The danger to the financial industry is the loss of productivity of their workers. If all applicants have passed rigorous exams, then they can be assured of competence. However without those exams, they will be hiring people of necessarily dubious competence. Their work must be supervised much more closely and that is very expensive. Also, these 'graduates' could potentially work for years without passing any more exams, albeit at a lower rate. But hey, even 50k is a lot to pay for a worker that is worth nothing, or worse, costs you money.
Discussion at the Actuarial Outpost
http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/showthread.php?t=172883
This one young actuary sums it up pretty well in this excerpt from his letter to the SOA.
"I don't understand how anybody who's passed even one exam can think that a university can produce actuaries of the same quality. College professors are human and sometimes give preferential treatment to certain students. It is a harsh reality, but we all know this to be true (even at the best universities). I decided that I wanted to become an actuary in high school because of the exams. I saw it as a way to gain control of my future through merit. For the first time at age 23, I am beginning to question my decision because of this proposal."
Letter to SOA members:
http://www.casact.org/admissions/FEMletter.pdf
http://soa.org/files/pdf/fem-faq.pdf
Comment period until September 10. Comments to be sent to fem@actuarialdirectory.org
Fluff classes are usually justified on the grounds that they teach "critical thinking" and the like. Of course, the reality is the opposite - to succeed in those classes you normally need to toe the PC party line and avoid any critical thinking about it.
Anyway, I agree that college is basically just credentiallying. The way to see it is that pretty much no college checks your ID when you go to class. So anyone off the street, assuming they are neatly dressed and not disruptive, could easily get 4 years of Harvard instruction for free. Nobody does this because what you are actually paying for is a piece of paper which proves that you were able to get in to the school.
"Now there is a push on to allow certain US and Canadian universities to exempt students who pass classes at those schools. As if we haven't seen enough trouble with financial instruments, now there is a push to lower the standards for the competencies of those who assess risk in financing schemes like insurance and pensions."
Lowering standards? Eliminating objective tests? Now what could possibly be the rationale for that?
Uselessness of curriculum
See this? Parents are paying $50K a year so junior can take a course in video games ("Guitar Heroes (and Heroines): Music, Video Games and the Nature of Human Cognition.") - as if he didn't know enough about that already.
What the Ivy League does offer is two things: instant IQ credibility associated with the school and slightly more recruiting.
It is where the Establishment indoctrinates its cadres. If you want to have a happy and successful life, you don't need to go to an Ivy. If you want to run the country... going to an Ivy sure does help.
ACT data is now available
http://www.act.org/news/data/09/pdf/National2009.pdf
All avg. 21.1
Wh avg. 22.2
Bla avg. 16.9
His avg. 18.7
Asi avg. 23.2
Good, you fixed it :-)
Apart from that, the rest of your analysis is spot on. I have long felt that post-secondary education for the career-oriented (that is, those whose families aren't so filthy rich as to be able to indulge their offspring's penchant for fluff) should focus on the credential needed for the job, and nothing more.
In health care, for example, do we really need to see a full-fledged MD with investment of four years of med school, internships, residencies, etc. etc. for a simple sniffle? We need a delivery system more tiered than what we have.
As for the useless majors, the NY Times had an article about such nonsense yesterday on five emerging possibilities--including service engineering (whatever that is) and "sustainability studies".
I wonder how useful a degree in "critical queer studies" will be?
"I wonder how useful a degree in "critical queer studies" will be?"
In the liberal version of America, that's an indispensable area of study. Six figures, and possibly a cabinet position. Appeasing the gays is second only to accommodating the blacks.
In your opinion, what is the Ivy League school that is the least poisoned/multiculturalized?
"In your opinion, what is the Ivy League school that is the least poisoned/multiculturalized?"
In the same vein, who (in your opinion) is the best white cornerback in the NFL?
Colleges now are full of people who every weekend drink to excess, use drugs, and have sex with random people. It amazes me that there hasn't been a movement of parents not wanting to send their daughters to a far away college where the parents will be paying tens of thousands of dollars a year so their little girl can drink and fuck.
It's true that it's just about credentialism. The Harvard degree says you were smart/ambitious/connected enough to get into harvard.
"In your opinion, what is the Ivy League school that is the least poisoned/multiculturalized?"
See mike's answer. The Ivy League used to be WASP paradise (though, this wasn't great either as there were so many rich kids of privelege who think the world is theirs b/c of their parents' money).
Now, it's all really multicult/PC. If I had to pick a conservative campus, I'd say Dartmouth, but it's more frat boy conservatism, not Buckley or Reagen conservatism. Let me know if the distinction is clear.
The most liberal, by far, is Brown (lots of gays, no core curriculum, pass/fail for all courses, naked parties). Cornell is heavily practical academically, but still, they don't have even one Republican government prof. Yale is the 'gay ivy", so that about says it all and Harvard produced Obama (and Gould), they lose just for doing that. Princeton used to be slightly more WASPy than the other big three (H and Y), but I think in their mock election this year, 70% of students voted for Obama and they have Cornel West. Here's what you need to know about Penn: In 93, a student yelled "water buffalo" at a bunch of black girls and the campus exploded. Seriously, look up the controversy.
The water buffalo incident was in Rush Limbaugh's first book, incidentally.
Anyway, I agree that college is basically just credentiallying. The way to see it is that pretty much no college checks your ID when you go to class. So anyone off the street, assuming they are neatly dressed and not disruptive, could easily get 4 years of Harvard instruction for free.
I read a while back about a man who did just that at one of the Ivies. It may have been Harvard, though I'm not positive. He got away with it for several months but eventually got caught and busted for trespassing.
You could never do that at New York University. All of the campus buildings (I work not far away) have guards at the door checking ID's.
Peter
"He got away with it for several months but eventually got caught and busted for trespassing."
I would guess he was harassing coeds or something.
"You could never do that at New York University. All of the campus buildings (I work not far away) have guards at the door checking ID's"
That's more to keep out derelicts and other trouble makers than to keep people from stealing an education. At schools where NAMs do not have easy access, I've never seen anything to stop people from sitting in on classes.
You say you want an Ivy-league school, but free of the hypocrisy and cant(liberal and not)? If you must remain on the east coast, i'd also recommend dartmouth and cornell---but i highly recommend the 'ivy-league' college of the rustbelt: university of chicago --- home of 'milton friedman' for all you 21st-century conservatives. i can attest to the humanities and social-science depts., but the law school and business school, particularly economics, are all first-rate, too.
"The clean differential equations on an engineer's homework are useless when encountering actual systems where computer simulations or qualitative observation dominate. I've heard that it's a miracle if an industry engineer uses any material past sophomore year. Engineering education, and other fields, should focus on hands-on work, rather than the esoteric content of textbooks."
This is simply not so. I have both taught mechanical engineering at several universities and practiced in a number of different industrial and consulting settings. The fact that I knew how to use differential equations was always of high value, always something that made me unique among all the engineers.
The real difficulty, I think, is that many engineers in industry do not use these skills on a daily basis and thus become rusty. When needed, the skills simply are not readily available, so they are said to be not used at all which may be true, but it is not because they would not be useful. It is just that they are not sharp, so a work-around is found instead. This is less than optimal.
Yet again, such benefits probably do not offset the higher cost. Individual merit and pugnacity can make up for lacking an Ivy degree.
No. Imagine Obama's campaign without his Columbia and Harvard degrees. Far fewer people would be lauding him for his high intelligence and speaking skills.
The Won has proved himself a most clumsy off-the-cuff speaker. About all he does is to read a Teleprompter with some skill. Do you suppose they offer degrees in Teleprompter at Columbia and Harvard Law? It is a cinch he did not study real world economics at either of these schools.
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