

Too many students attend college, said former UCLA prof - y2002
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071202/OPINION03/712020312/1031
Wanting to be in college is not the same as wanting an education. Among the other reasons for wanting to be in college is that it is a social scene with large concentrations of people of the same age and the opposite sex.
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abossy
I've been getting the same feeling at UT Austin for a long time.

At UT Austin, there is a 10% rule that has crippled the standard to which
students are held. The 10% rule states that any student in the top 10% of
their graduating high school class is automatically admitted to the
university; no questions asked. When you consider the range of quality among
high schools in a state as large as Texas, you can imagine the disparity
between the valedictorian of the best public school vs. the 9.99%-ranked
student of the worst one.

As a result, the intro classes are populated with the type of students
mentioned in the article -- those that are there for the wrong reasons, and
don't really have any direction. The later classes suffer from this to a
lesser extent, but the university's leniency when it comes to failing classes
and the length it takes to receive a diploma is still problematic (some
students take up to 6, 7 years to graduate).

Thus, the solution is to isolate oneself among the outstanding students, i.e.,
in honors and graduate classes, in computer science in my case (or any other
difficult field that acts as a natural filter), where the top students reside,
who are truly excellent and stand among those from any top school.

Case in point: I am often surprised to meet students that were accepted to
top-notch schools - -- but couldn't enroll for one reason or another, such as
money, that I wouldn't consider outstanding students. I wonder if a more
competitive school would be "easier" because I would be pushed to excellence
instead of striving for excellence in spite of a standard of mediocrity.

That said, Computer Science at UT is an excellent and competitive program.
This is true of most of the hard sciences, math, physics, and a few others,
but I truly question the validity of certain degrees...

~~~
utnick
Some of the most successful people people I know graduated in so called 'less
valid majors'. The real world requires a different skillset than just
memorizing what a euler path is for the exam next week.

~~~
abossy
Please don't misinterpret my post -- it wasn't intended to bash certain
majors. I should have pointed out that many fields are a "catch-all," i.e.,
those which students default to that either lack direction or greater ambition
in their studies. Take psychology, for example; while psychology is a VERY
difficult science of which little is understood, and much has to be
discovered, it does not have a rigorous workload, and doesn't provide the
curricular challenges that the majors I mentioned do. I use this as an example
because my sister plans to study in psychology, and I have preached this
lesson to her repeatedly; that it is most commonly the largest major at
universities, and thus the "catch-all"; therefore, the lowest common
denominator is reduced to a minimum for the standards of that school. At UT,
that is quite low. That is not to say that all psychology majors will be
unsuccessful -- of the top of my head, I can think of two brilliant
contributors to my field of study, computer science, that were psychologists
(Minsky and Licklider) -- but rather, that their journey toward success will
be hampered by an expectation of mediocrity.

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andrewfong
He assumes that the main value of a college education should be traditional
education. For many students, college offers the first opportunity to live on
their own away from home but in a substantially less frightening environment
than the "real world", i.e. college allows you to practice swimming in the
shallow end before hopping into the deep end.

That, plus the friendships and connections you get from college, may well be
worth the price of admission, even if it isn't what you (or your parents) are
paying for.

~~~
Xichekolas
I have a friend that works in the registrar's office at my alma mater. He was,
just the other day, bitching about some helicopter mom calling up to drop a
class for her son. Before you write this off as some random freshman momma's
boy, know that the son in question was a junior that was majoring in business.
Inspires confidence doesn't it?

I wonder if his mom will manage his employees when he inevitably gets put in
charge of someone someday. I think colleges are definitely diluted nowdays, so
the degree means little more than "I had the money and time to finish it," but
you can still excel in your education there if you choose to do so.

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ajmoir
I grew up in the UK and now live in the US. In both countries a college
education has gone from being something of value to waste of time due to
lowering of standards.

Leaving no child behind will probably destroy what little respect anybody has
left for a college degree.

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cstejerean
I tend to agree. A lot of folks in a lot of colleges are there for the wrong
reason. Make highschool education more comprehensive and don't require most of
the population to waste another 4 years just so they can get a "decent" job.

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amichail
Related:

"Why I am Not a Professor OR The Decline and Fall of the British University"

<http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/decline.htm>

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tel
I feel like more and more this dumbing down of college leads into making
undergraduate degrees a second high school diploma.

That begs the suggestion that grad school becomes the "new" college, but that
kind of idea isn't too fun in the Startup Crowd.

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y2002
First UCLA gets creamed by SC and now this.

~~~
tlrobinson
I voted your comment up because I'm a Trojan, but I have to admit, I somewhat
agree with this. I do think its much more applicable to undergraduate students
than graduate students though.

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downer
Oh yes, let's return college to its former status of being only for the elite.

Why do you think so many people go to college? Because it's a practical
necessity for most decent-paying jobs. _Not_ to _do_ the job, but to _get
hired_ in the _first_ place.

Telling people they shouldn't be in school is akin to telling them they don't
deserve a decent standard of living.

As long as having a decent standard of living means having to _make_ a living,
and as long as making a living still means _being employed_ for most people,
then as long as employers still require degrees, people will go to college to
get them.

There's a general solution that solves a lot of problems and is not specific
only to this one. Make employment obviated, preferably by technological
advance, so humans no longer have to slog away at mind-numbing "jobs" under
the threat of homelessness and starvation.

That's the humane approach. It will do away with crimes of poverty, television
advertising (people watch TV to escape, which they won't need to do when
there's nothing to escape _from_ ), and college over-enrollment, among a
zillion other problems.

~~~
nostrademons
Thing is, I don't think employers ask for a college degree because the job
actually _requires_ one. I think they do it to separate the top 25% from the
bottom 75%. A degree is the easiest way to look at an applicant and be able to
say "That person is not stupid" (whether or not that judgment is true...)

Now, even if everybody got a college degree, there would still be a top 25%
and a bottom 75%. And I don't think that employers would suddenly stop
discriminating because suddenly everyone was qualified. I think they'd add
other qualifications, like "must have a masters degree" or "must have commit
privileges on a major open-source project".

Then all the workers are back where they started, except that they're out
$150k for their college degree.

I guess the only way to win is to refuse to play the game. Which is why most
of us are on this site, I guess...

~~~
neilk
Yes. Once upon a time, businesses took responsibility for training their
employees. Now they expect the student to come to them having blown a huge wad
of cash on speculative investment in education for a job. One that they aren't
sure they really like, that they'll probably abandon in 10 years anyway, and
where the employer considers them disposable.

In most cases, the state also subsidizes this huge gamble.

~~~
Xichekolas
I think, for the first time ever, I wish I could click the up arrow on a
comment more than once.

Thanks for that.

