The Education Bubble

[hobosmurf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SwrjYvPOnQ


What do you want to be when you grow up? You are going to be an indentured servant to the education-industrial complex. A true conspiracy took your family's life's savings in exchange for a piece of paper that is rapidly depreciating. Oh well, there's always graduate school.

Text:

From the 1950s until 1991, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Yale formed the Overlap Group, through which they shared data on applicants. This allowed them to artificially inflate tuition and eliminate merit-based financial aid by circumventing competition. A Dartmouth official said that had it not followed the Overlap Group, "we would effectively be out of the Ivy League, and this would have a serious impact on our applicant pool."

Thus, tuition rises.
Forty-seven universities have built billion-dollar endowments, while doubling their average tuition from 1995 to 2005. The average US public college tuition rose 35% between 2001 and 2006, while private college tuition rose 11%. Instruction has only received 21% of inflation-adjusted college spending per student since 1976. Overall, only Switzerland spends more per student from elementary school through college than the US. Although 97% of Americans with children expect their eldest to attend college, 26% have less than $5000 saved for this. Hence, half of college graduates spend 8% of their income on student loans. Those with graduate degrees spend 13.5%. To make matters worse, college graduates' real incomes fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004, as high school graduates' incomes rose 1.6%. Now, only 44% of parents think the value of a college education is worth the cost. As a matter of fact, a 1999 study found no income difference between graduates of selective universities and those who won acceptance to comparable schools but chose less-selective ones.

In 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled in Griggs versus Duke Power Co. to forbid general intelligence tests in employment because they create racial "disparate impact." So, educational credentials have served as a mark of intellectual competence. However, employers have reason to doubt this conceit.

SAT scores peaked in 1964. Twenty-two percent of college freshmen need high school-level math. From 1995 to 2005, reading proficiency among Americans with graduate degrees declined from 51% to 41%. A 2006 study found that 20% of students pursuing 4-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills, and half could not perform complex literacy tasks. In the early 1960s, the average college student completed 60 hours of schoolwork per week. In 2003, only 33% of freshman reported 6 or more hours per week. Those doing less than one hour per week doubled over 16 years to 16%. Meanwhile, 47% receive A average grades, compared to 18% in 1968.

Such dubious currency at such a steep cost has yet to impact the plentiful supply. In 1950, 6% of Americans had a college degree. In 2005, 28% had one. The master's degree is the fastest growing, with a 19% increase from 1996 to 2002.

In the words of Dr. Mark Edmundson of the University of Virginia, "It is probably time now to offer a spate of inspiring solutions. . . . Perhaps it would be a good idea to try firing the counselors and sending half the deans back into their classrooms, dismantling the football team and making the stadium into a playground for local kids, emptying the fraternities, and boarding up the student-activities office. Such measures would convey the message that American colleges are not the northern outposts of Club Med."

[sean]

The US system is fundamentally screwed up for higher education. American education system teaches you to only memorise, never question and attempt to understand. But if anything is critically analysed, the only trusted source is an authority figure, a professor. But you're only supposed to memorise his version, his critical analysis. You're never challenged or taught to develop your own ideas and defend them.

Even leaving aside the political indoctrination and extremism which has reached unbelievably toxic levels, it simply doesn't make sense for half the population to have bachelor's degrees or higher, this type of education will never be appropriate or necessary for more than about 1/3 the population. However, there are a lot of jobs out there that require a college degree.

https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1571571593337.png

Unless you're going after a STEM degree that has six figure employment lined up upon your graduation, most degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Four years at Harvard completing a degree is likely far less valuable than a 12 month mechanic program at a trade school. Colleges irregardless of their name are for-profit institutions that don't care if you get applicable skills for a career.

The problem isn't that people are going to college. It's that they are going to college to get degrees in worthless subjects from vastly overpriced schools.

Arts programs need to be small in size and competitive. Right now they're just cash cows for universities to lure retards in.

American universities and colleges have large sports teams (more specifically football and basketball teams since those two seem to be the only ones that are taken seriously outside of school). And one last thing is that these college teams are basically used as an affirmative action racket for dumb negroes who shouldn't even be in college to begin with.

I mean, I honestly find this to be a huge waste of money and resources. Not to mention from what I've heard European colleges/universities don't have these massive proto-professional college teams. And even if some do have them they're no where near as big as it is there.

Universities get paid bank in selling those tickets and merchandise. Plus, they charge the cost of constructing these programs onto the students. So it makes universities more expensive for those who just want an "education". Universities spend millions on fancy social amenities unrelated to educating students and pass the expense to the students.

American football was used to prepare people for military. Teddy Roosevelt actually stepped in to make football safer because Ivy League football represents the finest physical specimens of the smartest individuals in the US. In general, college football players should have the aptitudes to be good soldiers. Everything in America has to do with either/or/all the military, the media, and corporate interest.

Another issue is someone that had to go back to school later to graduate. What they don't understand is that an employer would much rather snag a 22 year old that is fresh out of college, than someone that's like 30 and just got his bachelors. He's going to ask you what went wrong, why you failed the first time. It's not a good look, you now have a liability. Plus, the 22 year old is desperate for that first job out of college so you can low ball him a salary offer and he will be forced to take it. And being only 21-22, he/she will most likely be healthy so there is no health insurance liability.

Canadian public universities are actually pretty good compared to our American counterparts, same with Australia. Unless you go to an Ivy to make connections, or go to MIT or Stanford for a hard science you are better off going to a school like McGill/Dalhousie/UofT/UBC. American universities that aren't the handful of elitist ones where you only go to make connections are horrible.