
Universities can’t fulfil the myth, but can’t become vocational schools either - whyenot
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/universities-cant-fulfil-the-myth-but-they-cant-become-a-vocational-school-either
======
jseliger
_I have no complaints about the modern standard of education_

Here's the thing, which I've written about before
([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-
part...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-
elizabeth-armstrong-and-laura-hamilton) and
[http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/beer-and-circus-
how...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/beer-and-circus-how-big-time-
sports-is-crippling-undergraduate-education-%E2%80%94%C2%A0murray-sperber)):
_universities are actually bundles of very different things_ , especially in
terms of major. People who do hard science, CS, or engineering have very
different experiences and earnings outcomes from people who do some of the
majors that have evolved for those who don't want or need to do much (think
majors like tourism management, sociology, some of the weaker business
schools), and even they have different experiences from people who major in
the real liberal arts (history, philosophy, English—the ones Lee cites).

Lumping all those "college" degrees together makes very little sense, since
they're actually accomplishing very different purposes.

I wish more articles on the subject would emphasize this point, and I wish I
could explicitly tell every incoming college student this, instead of waiting
for them to figure it out on their own.

 _Universities have never met the ideal that we hold them to but, on balance,
I think they are better than the alternatives_

What "we" really need is less stigma against vocational schools and related
college alternatives. Not everyone likes sitting still at a desk and doing
abstract symbol manipulation ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/the-
problem-with-ju...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/the-problem-with-
justifying-college-involves-cost/)). And that's okay! Right now we don't have
very good systems for those people, and vocational schools are stigmatized.

~~~
mgkimsal
"What "we" really need is less stigma against vocational schools and related
college alternatives. Not everyone likes sitting still at a desk and doing
abstract symbol manipulation"

Amen. Not everyone is good at it, or suited for it, either. Some of the 'blue
collar' workers I know are earning more than the college-degree holding
workers in my circle, but societally somehow we 'look up' to the office-y
professions, regardless of the value/merit of the job.

~~~
mindcrime
It would also help to reduce the "path dependence" problem by increasing the
ability to tranfer courses between "vocational" training and "academic"
training. Not to say you should necessarily get credit towards a B.S. degree
for, say, a Welding course... but to the extent that it's possible, the
English, Math, etc. should be as easily transferable as possible.

Why? So if you chose one option you aren't so tightly "locked in" later in
life, if you desire a change (in either direction).

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I happen to be a boiler-maker / welder by trade. My last non-fabrication job
was at an ISP doing project management, programmed maintenance, and fault
response. I got the job because of my trade background. I've had to move to a
~100k population centre in another state so I'm back doing fabrication and
getting paid a lot more for it.

------
hyperion2010
Might be worth bringing up that fact that a significant portion of kids who do
go to college don't go to learn, they go because it is the next step in life,
often the first step where they are away from their parents. This is a
societal problem with goal setting and inspiring the next generation to be
motivated by something other than the nebulous idea of 'success' (read: money
for most people).

Also worth recalling that the Oxford riots of 1355 started because the local
townspeople were pissed off with the Seminary students for chasing women
(among other things). Some things never change.

~~~
jrs235
Yup.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814120)

Luckily for me my aptitude made college easy. The majority of my uni
experience was about the first time freedom and responsibility of living on my
own.

~~~
marincounty
Yea--I had a friend who used to say the same thing, but he went to UC Santa
Cruz and did too many drugs. He would come home on breaks, and the damage was
very noticeable. He's fine now, actually a programmer I think, but I miss the
dude he left in Santa Cruz. (I think he did too much acid? I'm pro drugs, but
thought I would pass this along as a cautionary tale.)

~~~
tormeh
Prohibition solves nothing, as we can all see. I wonder what other mechanism
might instead prevent this kind of thing from happening. Education?
Psychologists? I wonder if we spent all the money used in law enforcement of
drug laws on therapists instead, how would that turn out?

~~~
pedrosorio
Wonder no more:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy-
decrimin...](http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy-
decriminalization-works-2012-7)

------
DanielBMarkham
I'm going to upvote this, but it was a muddled bit of rambling. In parts I
could almost feel the author pull his punches in a sad effort to try to make
as many people happy as possible.

The key problem is this: whatever a university is, it's too expensive for the
ability of the average student to pay back. That means it's a bad deal for
both the student and society. Paying for more of it is just going to continue
the spiral.

I have a different question. We know that training for future jobs is a
requirement of some post-secondary institution. That's just a given for many
fields with the complexities of modern life. So what about a good, solid,
liberal arts education? The one thing that universities were supposed to be
masters of for centuries? The one thing that allows each of us to participate
in and enjoy life to its fullest? Where does society go for that?

We can't go to the universities, because we'll end up in a long, pointless
argument about what the purpose of universities are. And, frankly, there's a
lot of jumping on the bandwagon going on at most institutions, just google
silly college courses.

Can we offload that to local tutors? Teach online? Is there some delivery
mechanism for a liberal arts background that we haven't considered yet?

~~~
notahacker
>So what about a good, solid, liberal arts education? The one thing that
universities were supposed to be masters of for centuries? The one thing that
allows each of us to participate in and enjoy life to its fullest? Where does
society go for that?

Europe. Reduce your university fees by an order of magnitude or two, study for
longer with less emphasis on grades, and enjoy a bit of culture on the side.
I'm only half-joking.

------
analog31
Speaking as a parent of kids who are headed towards being college age, you can
imagine that I've got mixed thoughts about college education. It's going to be
expensive. An outcome is not guaranteed. There are a lot of problems with
higher education.

On the other hand, there's an anti-college "movement" that itself could just
be a fad, or even fueled by a political "wing" that has always relentlessly
attacked public education and higher education. The skill area that's often
mentioned as accommodating of people with alternative training (Internet
programming) may very well be a major bubble right now.

Edit: Removed gratuitous snark.

So while I'm willing to give lip service to experiments in alternative
education for 18-22 year olds, I'll probably hedge my bets and advise my own
kids to attend college while offering them a dose of realism about what
they're getting into.

------
unclebucknasty
It's always seemed odd to me that we send kids through 12 or 13 years of
school, then say that it's university where they're expected to get their
critical thinking skills, exposure to new ideas, and other "mind-expanding"
experiences.

It's kind of silly, really. For one, it seems an awful waste to not take
advantage of 12 or 13 years of opportunity to expose kids to these elements.
Secondly, compressing such important experiences into only 4 years seems
insufficient, especially given that they are supposed to also be preparing for
a vocation during this time and not just "mind expansion".

Finally, it's a very expensive time in a kid's educational career. Why wait
until then to impart these "soft skills"? Economically (i.e. from an "ROI"
perspective), it makes more sense for such an expensive education to focus
solely on the skills that would make them viable in the labor market.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I'm all in with this. Is there something about year 9-12 students that makes
them unable to understand university level education? I left school in after
year 10 because I was having a terrible time of it and went back to studying
when I was 23, but there were plenty of other students who were doing really
well, or well enough, to go way beyond the meagre intellectual offerings of
high school.

------
Tycho
This was my impression of undergraduate university: cognitive dissonance. Why?
a) why do we have this ridiculously inefficient model of pedagogy, and b) why
are all these people here who don't express/display any real interest in their
subject.

You have been through primary and secondary school, where the function is
pretty clear: you are children, so you need to be somewhere supervised by
adults; you need to learn to socialise with other children; and you need to
learn basic skills like arithmetic, reading, composing essays, studying,
punctuality. Then you go off to university which doesn't seem to make any
sense. I think it depends on your course - it will be much better if you
already have a strong, realistic idea of what you want your career to be, and
find yourself among like-minded students.

------
dnautics
_In short, any student who emerges from university with good critical thinking
skills has achieved that by accident, not by the university 's design. I would
also argue that the courses that come closest to achieving the ideal are
history, English, and philosophy._

How about abstract mathematics? I would argue that these days those might be
the _only_ courses where you learn those skills.

~~~
pjmorris
I suspect the author would argue that training in abstract mathematics is
comparable to the other sciences in the sense of 'data analysis within a
framework', subject to the problem of under-training in the ability to
recognize the limitations of the framework. I suspect s/he chose History,
English and Philosophy because they are fuzzier than the sciences, including
mathematics, and so they require understanding how to choose - or define - a
set ground rules to apply in a given situation.

~~~
tikhonj
> _understanding how to choose - or define - a set ground rules to apply in a
> given situation._

Which, of course, perfectly describes abstract mathematics... just not the
sort that non-majors ever get to.

Many of the interesting parts of mathematics (and, I should add, computer
science!) are all about coming up with the mental framework and abstractions
needed to look at a problem, give you a new perspective and ultimately come up
with a solution. Choosing or coming up with the logic to treat a situation is
_exactly_ what you'd be doing.

It's also particularly good at illuminating the underlying structure of
different domains and giving you tools to recognize similarities between them
that may not be readily apparent. This goes well beyond what most non-
mathematicians regard as "mathematically accessible": just look at all the
various modal logics[1] both for the breadth of their applications (belief,
knowledge, time...) and their internal similarities.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_logic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_logic)

Moreover, I would argue that mathematics goes further than most fields in
talking about and working with its own limitations. Metamathematics and logic
as fields are all about this—with greater clarity than the fuzzier subjects,
in the usual mathematical style. Mathematics is also great for consistently
and rationally accounting for uncertainty and limitations of other systems,
fundamental to probability and any sane treatment of risk.

Mathematics, as practiced by mathematicians, also teaches another really
important idea: having _different_ levels of rigor, as appropriate. Often, an
argument only needs to be convincing, and many of the important details can be
left out. However, in math, this is always done with the understanding that
those details _can be_ filled in, and the understanding that _you_ should be
able to fill them in given enough time.

I figure the focus on clarity, thorough introspection and different levels of
rigor, abstractions and logic all make mathematics _qua_ mathematics one of
the ultimate "humanities". The problem is that classes for non-majors (and,
perhaps, many undergraduate classes _for_ majors) often don't teach
mathematics for itself; instead, they teach mathematics as a tool for
engineering or solving specific problems or getting a specific result. And
that, certainly, could be fairly described as "data analysis within a
framework".

But mathematics in general? Much deeper!

~~~
pjmorris
Though I am no mathematician, I deeply respect mathematics, and appreciate
your defense of it as a humanity, and the importance of its rules for choosing
rules to suit the situation.

That said, as I understand it, mathematics in the deep sense you describe
gives great tools to specify patterns and how they repeat, but it breaks down
somewhat when specifying exceptions to those patterns. For example, consider
the debates around 'natural kind' in modal logic (Is a cat with three legs
still a cat? How about Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat?). Wrestling with what
becomes part of the 'data analysis within a framework' is essential. As it
turns out, philosophy has lately turned toward the tools of mathematical logic
to specify these things, while its concerns remain essentially human. That's
at least one reason why I think the author preferred philosophy to mathematics
in the choice of majors suggested.

Without recognizing the limits of mathematics and its abilities to describe
what occurs in the real world, mathematicians are prone to being caricatured
as the physicist is in the XKCD cartoon the author links.

------
doc_holliday
Basically > 90% of my year at school in the UK went on to university. A lot of
these people IMO were never really of the inquisitive mind or drive that I
thought would be the type to go to university. However for one reason or
another it was pushed by my school that pretty much everyone in the final year
should go to uni. Most were of middle class and I think, at least within the
UK, it is the done thing to do if you are middle class or above to go on to
uni. We don't really encourage or present alternatives.

My own experience with university has been a mixed bag. I've loved the
lecturers who have challenged my ideas and not just presented solutions.
However others I feel encouraged wrote learning through the way they presented
courses and a lot of exams are question guessing to gear up to pass. However
on the whole I think I have come out of it with more logical basis and
reasoning for things, it's definitely been at least beneficial intellectually
and I love that. I think that part is wasted on quite a lot of people though
who go to uni merely as the done thing.

------
SushiMon
The timing of this post is impeccable. A very exhaustive new study came out
showing that the value of a college degree is higher than ever.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth-
it...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth-it-clearly-
new-data-
say.html?action=click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article&_r=0)

Basically, you go to college in America or you risk being poor for the rest of
the your life. Sure, some coders / entrepreneurs can do it without college.
And maybe college is the selection process for these success traits. But with
this size of differential on a very large sample size, I think its pretty hard
to say, at least in earnings power, universities are not fulfilling the myth.

~~~
VLM
On a stats blog I just saw that article cited as a classic example of mean vs
median propaganda.

The average is ridiculously high because a very small percentage of people get
most of the income in our society, and all of them do higher ed and send their
kids to higher ed. So all the Doctors, lawyers, MBA exec types, pro (post
college) athletes, engineers...

WRT the median, its a lottery ticket purchase. It turns out that the lifetime
financial value of a PHD Divinity degree is negative in the pool of potential
seminary students, and its not a terribly high number for most students in
general. If you (or your parents) win the lottery ticket of life, you probably
went to university, but the vast majority of people not only aren't going to
win, but are going to take on enormous debt. This is probably not a wise long
term societal policy.

The point is there exists a pro football player who earned $100M thus the
average "value of a degree" for him and 99 philosophy grads is $1M on average,
but that doesn't mean a philosophy degree is automatically a ticket to unlock
uncountable piles of gold coins. It merely means rich people (and this is
almost certainly not going to be you) did get a degree.

Necessary but not sufficient.

------
graycat
While his history of higher education in old England is interesting, my view
of current college education in the US is quite different from his:

In short, my view, from my experience as a student, is that the best teacher
is essentially always the best researcher. Why? Because he (she) knows the
most about the subject, thus, has the best judgment about what's important in
the subject, has the deepest and most mature view of the subject, likely knows
where the subject is headed for the next 5-10 years, and is likely one of the
brightest and hardest working guys around. For his ability at 'teaching', I
learned not to care: It's just not very important for the learning. That is, I
didn't really need the polished, practiced, proven, trained, highly developed
'pedagogical techniques'; instead, what the best researcher brings is much
more important and, really, enough for 'pedagogy'. Sorry 'bout that.

Next, the universities are the source of crucial parts of essentially all
important research in our civilization, and research has a long history, back
at least to Newton, of being by a wide margin the most valuable activity for
civilization, the economy, standards of living, return on investment, etc. So,
for anyone who wants to learn, apply, or add to such research, start at a good
college and get for teachers the best researchers can get.

I've seen 'teachers' who were good with pedagogy, and I've seen good
researchers; the mere teachers far too often just didn't know the subject well
enough, and hands down the researchers were the much better deal. Or, it's (A)
high quality pedagogy of low quality content or (B) high quality content from
someone who really understands the subject and is a good teacher because of
that understanding; I've seen both, and I'll take (B) any time. Or, to heck
with the pedagogy; instead, I'll just study some of the best texts and papers;
in that, a good researcher can help me pick the texts and papers and help me
find the most important points, and a mere teacher just can't, especially for
material close to the leading edge of research.

------
nether
One approach I've heard is to create more "engineering technology" degrees
with a focus on practical, industry engineering. These would lack the coverage
of theory of traditional degrees but would be cheaper and better suited for
engineering in the real world. The purpose of traditional engineering degrees
would be to prepare future professors and researchers to advance fundamental
theory.

~~~
slavik81
How would those be different from existing engineering technologist degrees?
They sound the same.

------
guard-of-terra
It is interesting that continental european higher education IS mostly
vocational schools. You go there to earn a grade in specific skillset. I
imagine this is most pronounced in central and eastern europe (including of
course Germany).

Yet somehow US and UK universities seem to beat continental schools by most
metrics and ratings. They don't set on teaching skills and science but that
they also do successfully.

------
bindley
As things constantly change, especially in post secondary education, I think
it's important to look at the landscape objectively. If you know what
direction your want to take your life and career, a university isn't always
the right answer, and it shouldn't be the default.

------
colemorrison
People that go to college likely put more value on their degree to in order to
defend the fact that they haven't wasted their time.

People that didn't go to college likely put more value on not going to college
in order to defend the fact that they don't have a degree.

Anecdotal of course. But college will increase your chances of success due to
the connections you make. It will not, however, by any chance in freezing
hell, guarantee it.

------
leorocky
The title is misspelled, it's "fulfill" but it's wrong on the original post
too.

~~~
chime
It's the correct British spelling -
[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fulfil?...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fulfil?q=fulfil)

The author lives in Netherlands so he uses the UK spelling 'fulfil' instead of
US 'fulfill'.

