

How a "College for All" philosophy leaves everyone behind - j_baker
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=389

======
thaumaturgy
This was pretty hilarious to me, and I really ought to be in its target
readership: I've tried college a couple of times and couldn't stick with it. I
am far more ashamed of that than proud, however.

From the article:

> _Statistics like those put out by the College Board are misleading: they
> promote a foolish sense of tunnel vision, leading students to believe that
> the only possible way of obtaining even a middle-wage job is through the
> traditional, four-year college route._

...

> _...certain industries—business services, health care, education, and
> particularly manufacturing—have had record increases in middle-wage job
> openings, with not nearly enough qualified applicants to fill the
> positions._

Business services ... doesn't require schooling, depending on the service.
That's pretty broad, though. Health care? Requires schooling. Education?
Schooling. Manufacturing? That's not middle-wage unless ... schooling.

> _Companies manufacturing high-precision products—car and aircraft parts,
> large-scale construction equipment—encounter a dearth of workers with the
> mathematical and technical skills necessary to operate computer-controlled
> machines..._

Mathematical and technical skills ... that would be, schooling, and ...
schooling.

> _Thus, the positions remain unfilled, because the American educational
> system does not currently produce enough job candidates with the technical
> expertise to perform in the “blue-collar” jobs of the twenty-first century._

This is ridiculous. Does anyone here really expect to attend a four-year
college, or even two years at a local college, to be a plumber? Or
electrician? Or computer tech? This is blatantly conflating trades with
education.

OK, maybe there's another point here I'm not getting. I'll give the article a
fair shake ...

> _It is in this respect that the prevailing “college for all” philosophy is
> most misguided..._

ARGH. This article _really is_ saying that kids don't need to learn math,
because they can work in a factory instead. They don't need to learn English,
because they can swing a hammer instead. They don't need to learn history,
because they can wrench on a car.

Yet, if they're going to have an opportunity to be part of the force that
could renew U.S. industry, they _need_ to know math, English, and history.
They _need_ to be able to look at their job and _calculate_ production waste,
and make processes more efficient; they need to know how to measure things;
they need to be able to quantify things. They need to be able to communicate
their findings clearly and effectively, and with a minimum of
misunderstanding. and they _really_ need to understand the past; they need to
know what's been tried before, and what did and didn't work, and why. I would
love, sometime, to hear someone else say, "Henry Ford didn't invent the
automobile! He just realized that he could build cars really efficiently if he
built them like guns, with lots of cheap, interchangeable parts."

The possibly apocryphal example of Chris _was not_ a failure of the education
system; it was a failure of a social system (and, probably, familial system,
and many other systems), and that social system is failing in large part
because much of it wants to believe that nobody _needs_ to know anything about
anything, and that it's somehow wrong to have a solid general education, or
that it's even possible to be "over-educated".

I condemn this English teacher to a hell in which everyone communicates via
YouTube comments.

edit: Just to be clear, I am -- and have been for a very long time -- in favor
of increasing the amount of trades classes in high schools, mostly because I
think it's valuable to have multiple skills. However, I don't see the
connection between the college track and the decline of these trades classes,
and I _definitely_ don't think that someone shouldn't continue their education
just because they're active in a particular trade.

~~~
blangblang
I think that you're confusing the article's mention of education or schooling
with college.

The opinion I take from the article is that while the emphasis should remain
on continued schooling after high school, it's important that students be made
aware of schooling options outside of a traditional four year degree.

>This is ridiculous. Does anyone here really expect to attend a four-year
college, or even two years at a local college, to be a plumber? Or
electrician? Or computer tech? This is blatantly conflating trades with
education.

Exactly the author's point: We need to stop pushing all kids into college when
some of them really should be pursuing tradeschools or associates degrees
focused narrowly on these middle-wage skilled jobs.

>> It is in this respect that the prevailing “college for all” philosophy is
most misguided... >ARGH. This article really is saying that kids don't need to
learn math, because they can work in a factory instead. They don't need to
learn English, because they can swing a hammer instead. They don't need to
learn history, because they can wrench on a car.

I think she's saying that kids don't need a BA in Applied Maths to work in a
factory, or a BA in English Literature to be a machinist, or a BA in American
History to wrench on a car.

We're failing children by using college attendance rates as a metric and then
blindly pursuing that metric without consideration for the impact on those
kids or the economy they'll find themselves in when that first student loan
payment comes due. High school really should be putting a lot of focus on
"What do you want to do when you grow up? This is what that requires." rather
than "Get a degree in something, _anything_ , and it will all work out for the
best."

------
purpledove
I fail to see how Chris was a "casualty of the system". I have a little
trouble buying his stated desire to transfer to a vocational school for
training mechanics...in any city there are plenty of mechanics around, and you
just need a little guts to up to a bunch of them and say "I want to be a
mechanic, please tell me how". Sooner or later, you're going to get a lead.
They may or may not take you on, but I find it difficult to believe that you
can't become a mechanic if you show at least some of the signs of being worth
an investment in time - maturity, respect, willingness to work hard,
motivation, some relevant experience like, say, fixing other things that are
less expensive than but share some characteristics with cars, etc...

I get the impression that Chris' journal writings have more to do with his
gang aspirations than his desire to live an honest life. Gangs are known to
deal in stolen cars, and they deal with shady characters who perform a variety
of roles to support this illegal business - ripping cars apart, putting
together knock-offs, making illegal modifications, and so on. With a little
work, I have no doubt Chris will be able to satisfy his love of cars as a gang
member.

Being a gang member is a high risk / high reward proposition, but it has a
variety of perks: money, women, and cars among them. This leaves the issue of
morality untouched - clearly gangs are evil and mechanics are good...but you
can't teach someone to be good.

------
extension
It's odd how America can simultaneously have a problem with anti-
intellectualism and a problem with over-intellectualism. I guess they are the
same thing: the idea that you must either be part of the intellectual elite
pulling shots at Starbucks, or a working class Joe trying to save the American
dream from the eggheads.

~~~
joshuacc
Good point. The extremes tend to reinforce each other by fueling the antipathy
of the other side.

------
jasonjei
I am surprised, in a good way, of the message that an _educator_ is striking
about America's education system. Educators usually have been blind to their
own problems. Never is the discussion about whether or not every student needs
a college education.

It seems that society expects college to be the ultimate endgame, but I have
found that people from non-college backgrounds know more about a subject than
their degree counterparts. I hired an electrical engineer straight out of
school that barely knew how to solder, while a technician paid almost a third
less than him could put together an entire PCB prototype. Similarly, I have
found the best programmers do not have degrees, but their degree wielding
counterparts less than interested at finding new solutions, always going by
the book to solve a problem.

~~~
thaumaturgy
They don't know more about a subject. They _may_ have more practice at it.

I can do fairly delicate work with a soldering iron, and I can puzzle out
simple circuits, and I can work out various values for a circuit if I have pen
and paper and a book to refresh my memory. I've also been an output smoothness
tech for <http://www.specsensors.com/> . There is _no way_ I know more about
the field than any electrical engineer, not even close. I've worked with those
guys. Their college backgrounds actually taught them stuff.

I'm less certain about the programming example. There are plenty of stories
among hobbyists and professionals of the CS kids that can't code up a linked-
list. Then again, there are also lots of non-degreed hacks that can't do that,
either. Considering that part of MIT's CS program is to write an operating
system (and I know a guy who did that in a weekend, and slapped in a GUI for
extra credit), I question whether it's true that the best programmers don't
have degrees.

~~~
jasonjei
I think you are giving a college education too much credit. There are
definitely exceptions to the rule, but one of my best engineers has been at it
since the 70s, and has no degree in electrical engineering but in math, and
what of the hackers that have been programming such as RMS before it became a
real, hardened discipline (before a CS degree was offered)?

The best and most dedicated need no degree to validate their talents. MIT is a
fine school, but I would be even more impressed if they could take an average
student and turn him into a programming whiz. The best learners are often self
taught, which is why the PhD program works to an extent (free labor for the
school, self education for the PhD student). How are you so certain a degree
less programmer couldn't program an OS, or code a linked list library from
scratch? Arrington's a lawyer--how was it that he got into an agreement
without documenting it on paper (maybe that JD is just a piece of paper)?

A lot of college graduates seem to think they are entitled to jobs, when they
haven't proven they can program. I've met a BA Chinese grad who can't speak
Chinese to save his life (I spent my middle school years in Taiwan, I have no
degree in Chinese), or the English grad who can't write. Having a degree means
you studied the subject, it doesn't mean you are an expert at it. Especially
not with an undergrad degree. They spend 2-3 years on remedial high school,
and spend maybe a year and a half on their discipline.

Like anything in life, there are no absolutes. I can say though that the ones
most driven go beyond a piece of paper. Having one helps. But having one
doesn't mean you're better, you just paid your dues in cash and time. It might
just give you the edge you need, but the last thing I look at it in a
programmer is for a degree. I seem to recall reading that one of the main
Linux kernel committers has a degree in music. That hardly gives him the
credentials to be playing with an OS internals by your reasoning.

It's like the culinary school example. You'll be on a much better footing with
a degree, but it doesn't mean you're better. A lot of culinary school
graduates end up cooking banquets at country clubs. Some chefs, like Pizzeria
Bianco's Chris Bianco (where NYT proclaimed the best pizza is not in NYC but
in AZ) have no paper to prove but hard knocks.

~~~
jimbokun
"...and what of the hackers that have been programming such as RMS before it
became a real, hardened discipline"

I'm pretty sure RMS did much of his best hacking at MIT.

~~~
jasonjei
Was there a Computer Science degree when he was at school? His degree was in
Physics.

How do you get a degree in CS when no degree in CS is offered? To imply you
need a CS degree implies that there has to be a degree for you to be
considered an expert in it.

What if you invented the computer? Are you not qualified because you didn't
get a degree in your invention?

------
nroach
A "diplomas for all" philosophy probably does leave everyone behind.

But, an "opportunity for college for all" philosophy does not. With higher
education, you get out of it what you put in. The technical schools aren't
much better. If you're going just for the certification/degree, you'd better
be damned sure that the increased debt you take out is going to be offset by
increased earning potential. Often, that's not the case.

I've been through two rounds of post-secondary education, earning a bachelor's
degree and a law degree. I can say without hesitation that I wasted my time
with the bachelor's degree. Not because the school was bad, but because the
effort I put in wasn't proportionate to the tuition paid. Law school was just
the opposite. It hasn't necessarily increased my earnings (I co-founded a
technology services company before law school and probably made more money at
that) but I expect the law degree to pay out over a longer period of time.
Even if I were to completely abandon the practice of law, what I learned will
pay dividends in any number of fields.

To say that someone can simply engage in a trade and make money doesn't
reflect the full value of an education. A dedicated student may study in one
field and wind up working in another. But the thought process and skills they
obtain through their education give them a higher probability of success in
whatever field they may choose.

The flip side is that an unmotivated student who drops out of college three
years in hasn't gained anything but debt.

The trick is figuring out your motivations _before_ starting school.

------
blahblahblah
"The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce
hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to
produce responsible citizens"

-Robert Maynard Hutchins, "The University of Utopia"

See also, "The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent" by John Erskine

~~~
invalidOrTaken
Awesome, and I agree. But that sort of idealism should only be advanced if it
can be implemented and maintained. How long will superintendents and school
boards advocating such principles remain in their positions when parents and
students complain that they can't get a job out of high school/college?

------
agentultra
I just don't understand why education has to be so closely tied to vocation.

16 year olds are not completely unaware of what's being foisted upon them. My
16-year-old-self was at least some what aware. I had no idea then what I
wanted to do _for the rest of my life_ , but I did have a pretty good idea of
what I _didn't_ want to do. I just find it sometimes difficult getting by
outside "the system" and I don't think I knew how challenging it would be when
I was so young.

Tracks are so restricting. Why is it so hard to change careers?

~~~
jimbokun
"I just don't understand why education has to be so closely tied to vocation."

Because modern vocations require specific skills that must be learned somehow,
somewhere. Perhaps you want to name this something other than "education," but
that does not change the amount or nature of learning necessary to do a job
proficiently.

"Why is it so hard to change careers?"

It is probably harder than it needs to be. At the same time, much of the
reason that changing careers is so hard is inherent in the training and
experience necessary to get good at something. If you decide at 50 to become a
doctor, you have some hard work ahead of you.

~~~
agentultra
_If you decide at 50 to become a doctor, you have some hard work ahead of
you._

Understandably so.

In my experience, universities in my area admit adults into their "continuing
education" track. It's sadly nothing more than a collection of humanities and
introductory liberal arts courses. For some reason I cannot attend a
university to study physics for the pure joy of it (granted, most people
including myself wouldn't have the financial backing to return to the ivory
tower for the joy of it).

I'm simply a life-long learner. I think it's a shame that universities have
simply become expensive job requisites.

------
lvecsey
I'd like to see the department of education put out a list of skills that are
needed and for what purpose, or end goal. There needs to be some grand vision,
perhaps to unify the country like the moon landing did. Clinton wants people
to instantiate jobs by focusing on alternative energy projects. Mostly I just
see this desire for jobs, schooling, and a few other things as a means to keep
people busy and to fit the mold or dream of a finely balanced social,
psychological, utopia.

~~~
jimbokun
Clinton?

What does the Secretary of State have to do with education policy?

~~~
Gormo
And what does education policy have to do with education?

It seems very common today for people to form opinions and make decisions
about very specific things, but base them entirely on generalizations. How
would the Department of Education know what skills and knowledge are necessary
for a specific job function better than the actual people who require the
work? This mindset is the same one that leads to the same presumptions about
the necessity of college that the article is challenging.

We don't need a system unified around a consistent vision. We need the exact
opposite of that: less universal systems, more focus on the particulars of
every situation by the people who are actually involved.

------
JoeAltmaier
Strange doubletalk: too many kids are attending college; not enough graduates
for industrial jobs. ???

