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Higher Ed 2020s predictions
| March 14th, 2020 at 5:36:54 PM permalink | |
| Fleastiff Member since: Oct 27, 2012 Threads: 62 Posts: 7831 | You can go all the way back to The Sheepskin Psychosis (published 1960????) to see that 'education' is an industry with many facets. Lip service is paid to fund raising and academic issues but for eons the highest paid officials were the Football coaches. Lip Service is paid to academic issues but let's face it, all those Ivy League schools are really Federal Contractors making more from the State and Federal treasuries than tuition. They have fund raising drives but their endowments dwarf their expenses. In the sixties Rockefeller 'balanced the budget' by taking college construction out of the budget and the College Construction Commission became a pork barrel for constructing palaces. Most schools shifted to humungous classes taught by grad students while professors carved out narrow specialties. Only select few schools stuck with the classics and stuck with professors actually teaching core courses. That is not to say the experiences are all bad. Alot of employers wanted universities to be glorified trade schools that churned out engineers and programmers rather than liberal arts majors. Education took on an aspect of the lockstep march from Kindergarten even when graduates had trouble getting jobs or at least decent jobs. I think much of our drug problem was fueled by the disenchanted graduates who had worthless diplomas and lived at home while working as dog walkers or minimum wage drones earning a wage but not a "living wage" that would embrace home ownership or anything resembling "The American Dream" that they had, perhaps unwisely, expected. I've posted before about a peripheral suspect in the Jonbenet Ramsey murder: a guy who took three years of mechanical drawing and expected to get a starting salary of $27.00 an hour but saw only the article in the paper about John Ramsey's "Billion Dollar Mark" celebration as his company sold AutoCad programs that turned beginning jobs into $9.00 an hour mouse clickers, yet the schools kept teaching archaic classes. |
| March 14th, 2020 at 6:55:23 PM permalink | |
| rxwine Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 189 Posts: 18756 |
Have they done away with the traditional lab requirements? I imagine there also might be some new labs, like robotics. You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really? |
| March 14th, 2020 at 8:59:02 PM permalink | |
| Gandler Member since: Aug 15, 2019 Threads: 27 Posts: 4256 |
90% of college can be accomplished online. (In many cases accomplished much more effective online because you can go through presentations at your own pace and don't have to listen to people ask silly questions to prove a point.... With the exception of some hard sciences and specialized trade classes, there is no reason to be in a classroom. Why is it sad that the same information can be conveyed online? I think it is beautiful, college is more accessible than ever and you can take classes at any college anywhere in the world. The experience is overrated.... You don't learn anything living on campus to prepare you for living in the real world (especially if your family is paying your room and board and meal cards), its still a shock when you get your first apartment. Living on campus if anything is isolationist from the world. They are not going to give refunds for tuition because they are still finishing classes and awarding credits. They should give partial refunds for housing if you are forced out of the barracks. But, good luck dealing with the Bursar on that... Most colleges will probably make it more difficult than its worth. Probably the people effected the most are full-time on campus students who rely on a meal card to eat, because they have no extra money they put it all into living on campus (their meal card) which they can now no longer use and have to find a way to eat and somewhere to live .... |
| March 15th, 2020 at 4:47:45 AM permalink | |
| RonC Member since: Nov 7, 2012 Threads: 8 Posts: 2502 |
The "college experience" is going away because the costs of the experience has gotten out of hand along with the prevalence of college courses in high school. The top kids in our local school regularly graduate with 15-21 credits from the local community college. They can continue that at a very low cost there, still living at home. Perhaps they go for two years at a four year institution from there but they may not live on campus. They do not become immersed in the experience the way you did. They commute from home, saving a crapton of money. The difference in cost between the going right to a four year college and living there and the path many are taking is huge. For many in the middle class, including a lot who have degrees, they do what they can afford rather than what might be the best experience. Of course, one can always take on debt...which makes you look back at that four year experience and think about whether it was worth it in the end. A lot of this happens because money can be borrowed so freely for college...there is little reason for them not to raise tuition and fees when they know people can just borrow enough to cover it. |
| March 15th, 2020 at 5:40:27 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 135 Posts: 18204 |
Waitress was talking to the next table about this Friday night. I don't know what came of it, thought I gave her an extra buck in tip figuring every little bit helps. It is a rare college today as it is booming and expanding. But the real thing is the progression of what college is. Pre-WWII only rich and smart guys went, probably a few women slipping in. After WWII the GI Bill changed all this. College was now in reach of the average guy if he was a vet. The need for grads was large, from teachers needed to teach the coming Baby Book kids soon to start school to the new white collar factories of places like IBM. Conditions were still sparse, and there was still a bit of discipline. My school they told us how until the early 60s men had to dress in shirt and tie if the wanted admission to the cafeteria and the dorms locked up tight at 10 PM, get there at 10:05 and you had better have a car to sleep in. The 60s changed things again. More women came, though the Husbandry majors still had a favorable ratio and would for 40 more years. Socially things would liberalize little by little for the next 30 years. Things would still be sparse as far as living arrangements went, but a shared dorm room was no big deal to kids who probably shared a room with siblings all their life. But the model was changing. For the "better" schools the undergrads became a bit like slots in Vegas. Too profitable to not have but not the sexy part of the business. The real thing was publishing papers and doing research to get "respect in the academic world." Meanwhile the undergrads were still needed to pay the bills. So by the 90s it was time to change again. Shared dorms with common showers and a basic cafeteria would no longer do. "Campus Life" was the new selling point and the degree almost secondary as more and more jobs demanded a degree just because they could. Fancy dorms, fancy food, fancy athletic clubs. It was a 4 year club-med all-inclusive vacation. The price went up and up. Now another change is happening. A degree does not have the meaning of even 25 years ago. Certifications rule the day, and they take just a few months and no mandatory prerequisites of unrelated courses. Thus we are probably back to just the really rich and really smart will be taking the full 4 years. It will not be as exclusive as pre-WWII, but the post-WWII "college experience" is going to keep fading, coronavirus or no. The President is a fink. |
| March 15th, 2020 at 7:38:52 AM permalink | |
| Gandler Member since: Aug 15, 2019 Threads: 27 Posts: 4256 |
I agree, and that is not a bad thing in my opinion. A four year degree, where you spend the majority of classes in unrelated required classes (liberal arts, arts, and even pysical ed in some colleges) is a lot of bloat, I understand the point is to be well-rounded, but when you have a specific goal or desire, it really is just a lot of wasted time.... I agree that specialized programs with just core classes and training are far more effective. And, probably are the future (they already are on some levels if you look at the debt/income ratio of trade program graduates vs most 4 year degrees). |
| March 16th, 2020 at 6:40:45 AM permalink | |
| DRich Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 51 Posts: 4961 |
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| May 16th, 2020 at 4:05:13 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 135 Posts: 18204 |
For some reason this morning it popped into my head that time to revisit some of this. Well, it was buddies talking about college age kids and what they are doing. This fall many colleges will be having the freshmen go the online route. The china virus will touch every college in at least some way. I see two big things that will happen. On the student side, some kids are not going to want to stay in dorms, considering them a "germ factory." Even more protective parents will feel the same way, and may tell the kids "you are going to stay home for now!" The student loan system will encourage some to take some kind of education instead of look for a job in the current market. But we know it will be not the traditional model with freshmen crammed into huge classes where the college will milk tuition from many who will not return for their sophomore year. From the standpoint of the colleges, they will see how much money is saved by doing this all online. Even courses taught by graduate serfs, er student teachers, require faculty pay. And so many of these can be taught YouTube style. I had an astronomy class that was very interesting, the prof was no slouch--he even got to borrow a Moon rock to show the public way back. But the whole thing could have been YouTube videos. I have seen some YouTube videos on the subject recently that were far better presented given today's publishing tech. That cannot be the only example. Thus this fall will speed up what was going to happen. The china virus will falsely be labeled as the "cause" of it all, when it is really just a convenient catalyst. DISCUSS. The President is a fink. |
| May 16th, 2020 at 5:00:58 AM permalink | |
| SOOPOO Member since: Feb 19, 2014 Threads: 22 Posts: 4170 |
Sadly, I think you may be correct. You and I disagree on the 'value' of the experience of going to college versus just the value of the degree. I am definitely 'who I am today' in part because of the non classroom stuff I experienced back at Columbia in the late 70's. No way I could put a price on my 4 year experience. Wife's daughter is starting SUNY Brockport, 4 year college an hour or so drive away. She was going to live in a dorm of course, and has already been assigned a roommate, went to meet the girl and has become friends, and the two were excitedly looking forward to starting their college lives. I will feel so bad for her if her college career starts in our basement for 4 hours a day. She was going to be a perfect distance from home.... far enough away to be away at school. Close enough to home to come home when she wants. The majority of the education that she was going for of course can be done on line. I pray Cuomo allows her to GO to school.. |
| May 16th, 2020 at 6:27:13 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 135 Posts: 18204 |
I fully understand the value. I benefited from it. But much of it is just "moving to adulthood." The Army would do the same for example.
I am sure she is upset, but remind her in your day guys were shipped to Vietnam instead of getting to go to school. Or WWII years before. Or just could not go at all. As life tragedies go, it is not the hardest. The President is a fink. |