How a "College for All" philosophy leaves everyone behind

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=389

by j_baker • 16 years ago

33 25 16 years ago

jasonjei3• 16 years ago

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.

bad_user• 16 years ago

Unfortunately the law requires college degrees, as it's the best ranking mechanism they have ... e.g. what a working Visa in the US? You need a college degree. Want to work for the government? You need a college degree.

thaumaturgy2• 16 years ago

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.

jasonjei3• 16 years ago

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.

arethuza• 16 years ago

Complaining that an electrical engineer isn't very good at soldering is a bit like complaining that a CS graduate can't touch type.

blahblahblah• 16 years ago

"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• 16 years ago

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?

JoeAltmaier2• 16 years ago

We can have all the morals we can afford

extension• 16 years ago

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• 16 years ago

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

purpledove• 16 years ago

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.

thaumaturgy2• 16 years ago

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.

Alex3917• 16 years ago

"Education? Schooling."

Actually research shows that teaching degrees don't predict whether a person will be a good teacher. It wouldn't surprise me if the others you mention don't require schooling either, although I'm less familiar with the research in those areas.

jimbokun4• 16 years ago

"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."

The article says none of these things.

"However, I don't see the connection between the college track and the decline of these trades classes..."

Um, the connection is more kids following the college track, and fewer attending trade classes. Unless you expect kids to simultaneously pursue both, I don't see any excluded middle here.

blangblang• 16 years ago

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."

lvecsey• 16 years ago

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.

jimbokun4• 16 years ago

Clinton?

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

Gormo• 16 years ago

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.

JoeAltmaier2• 16 years ago

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

agentultra2• 16 years ago

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?

jimbokun4• 16 years ago

"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.

agentultra2• 16 years ago

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.

nroach• 16 years ago

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.

How a "College for All" philosophy leaves everyone behind

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