If high school was better, would we need college?

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/success-on-these-m-a-deals-appears-on-a-report-card/

by danielvnzla • 15 years ago

60 59 15 years ago

dealbook.nytimes.com

cmpeck• 15 years ago

If high school were better.

Perhaps we still need college?

moblivu• 15 years ago

Let's start by removing the CEGEP system here in Quebec...

warwick• 15 years ago

Could you elaborate on what's wrong with the CEGEP system? If you're planning on going to University, it doesn't add any additional time to the end of your degree (since you don't do grade 12 and you only do a 3 year degree if you've done CEGEP), and it seems like it makes education more accessible.

tedunangst• 15 years ago

The dangers of editorializing titles. The linked article never suggested better high schools as a replacement for college.

sid0• 15 years ago

I'm going to post this as a reply to every nitpicker I see bitching about the subjunctive: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005515.h...

It doesn't matter. Get over it.

I also downvoted you for contributing nothing to the discussion.

chopsueyar2• 15 years ago

Exactly.

chopsueyar2• 15 years ago

Strange that we say our public education system is in need of desperate help, yet our colleges and universities are the best in the world.

[EDIT] To clarify, the sound bites I hear from politicians and university administrators are that our colleges and universities are the best in the world.

Personally, I do not agree. I could have written that better.

cj• 15 years ago

Best in terms of what?

University reputations are built more around research than undergraduate or graduate education. The notion that the USA has the most reputable universities says more about the quality of research than education.

cincinnatus• 15 years ago

Only the elite ones, many of the community colleges are pretty bad. And at all levels they end up putting many freshmen through remedial courses to catch them up to where they should be.

yummyfajitas3• 15 years ago

People who say our k-12 education system is in need of desperate help are unaware of the facts.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...

It's ridiculously overpriced, but the value added is very good.

fanboy123• 15 years ago

There are over two thousand four year colleges in the US. Saying we have (random number) 80 of the top 200 colleges in the world doesn't mean the system as a whole is producing adequate results.

Performance metrics should always be stated/calculated to reflect efficiency.

jhuni• 15 years ago

If our colleges were better, would we need high school?

borski3• 15 years ago

Yes. Colleges aren't free and a lot of people don't have the money to pay for them. Public education is important.

burgerbrain6• 15 years ago

There are educational systems other than the current US one you know.

Presumably "better colleges" would include, among other things, better and cheaper state schools.

thematt• 15 years ago

Public education isn't free either. You just pay for it every April instead of every semester.

burgerbrain6• 15 years ago

Perhaps you could cram a liberal arts or business education into a highschool format, but there is no way in hell that you're ever going to be churning out physics or mathematics PhDs from anything that can be realisticly called a "high school".

splat• 15 years ago

That's true, but you also can't, in general, churn out physics or mathematics PhDs from anything that can realistically be called a four-year undergraduate program.

burgerbrain6• 15 years ago

I would object to the mere suggestion that a "highschool" could possibly turn out even physics or mathematics undergrads. The best you're going to do is end up with a situation where realisticly all you've done is had the students skip highschool and go straight to college.

"Highschool" implies a lot more than just "that place you went to for the last 4 years of a 12 year education"; or perhaps more accurately: "college" implies a lot more than just "that place you went to after highschool".

rgraham2• 15 years ago

I don't think there are a lot of these in the world nor is there room for everyone to devote themselves to something quite so theoretical. I'd probably rather go fishing with Joe the Plumber than Nigel the Physicist.

The point is that the world really needs essentially everyone to have a baseline education, the ability to contribute to their communities, and the skills to be gainfully employed or self-employed.

The world has a much smaller need in the grand scheme of things for advancement in theoretical astrophysics. As hackers, engineers, etc. I think we should take a lesson for ourselves and optimize education for the common case.

burgerbrain6• 15 years ago

As far as I can tell, this is an argument for sending children to vocational schools instead of to colleges. Not an argument for replacing college with more intensive highschooling.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

The recent increase in reliance on college as a prerequisite for many office and knowledge worker jobs is more of an indication of the failure of the public K-12 education system than of the beneficial qualities of college. It's no longer feasible to assume that the holder of a high school diploma possesses a basic level of proficiency with the English language (written and verbal), mathematics, reasoning skills, and basic computer systems (use of the internet, email, word processors, etc.). Thus many jobs have increasingly found it beneficial to use the filter of a college degree in order to avoid a flood of unsuitable applicants, even to entry level jobs.

joshfinnie• 15 years ago

I agree 100% with your comment. I think it was incredibly frustrating going through college in classes where people were there just since it is a requirement for basic jobs today. University should not be forced upon these people who want a four year party away from their parents... let it be for people who want to do something more focused than a general education.

The mandatory college experience has to be stopped or I fear the race to the bottom of higher education much like what has happened in the K-12 education.

theclay• 15 years ago

Just imagine how it feels to teach in such environments.

blhack• 15 years ago

I wouldn't entirely blame the school system. While I absolutely agree that there are lots of kids coming out of high school who aren't ready for a job in an office, you can't discount the availability of money for prospective college students.

Of course employers are using college as a filter now, "everybody" has a college education, which has driven the cost of labor low enough that they can afford to hire college graduates to answer phones.

lkrubner• 15 years ago

In the USA, only 26% of the adult population has a college degree. Some thought should be given as to how the other 74% should make a living.

Dilpil• 15 years ago

I might add: especially to entry level jobs. These jobs are hard to judge candidates for- you can't evaluate their past work, you have to evaluate their potential for future work.

citricsquid2• 15 years ago

Why is nobody questioning the "need" for college.

This is a huge problem too, the idea that college is needed.

beaumartinez• 15 years ago

You don't think college―further education―is useful?

Are you as good with code as you are in catering for thousands?

It's impossible to be an expert in multiple fields. Specialized further education is essential―otherwise, we'd all be have the same small, limited, "high school" set of skills.

When you develop a pill that can give every human all discovered knowledge, then there will be no need for further education.

showsover• 15 years ago

There is a difference between needing something and finding something useful.

rgraham2• 15 years ago

Further academic education is useful for a subset of individuals. Many people would have a larger positive effect on themselves and others with the addition of skills (a trade, electrician, plumber, mason, ...) and experiences you rarely see in a four year higher education institution. Most academic learning can be gained with a library card and a discussion partner. This leaves aside the question of financial value to the type of education they are pursuing.

I also disagree that you can't be an expert in multiple fields. People that love learning can advance to that status in several fields in a lifetime if they wish. Expertise is also somewhat relative and often quite limited.

I think a highly specialized society has great benefits for economies of scale and intense utilization of comparative advantage, but I also think a lot of people would be happier if they slowed down and had greater breadth. Physical work and tangible achievement through self reliance is phenomenally rewarding. Much freedom is gained in breadth of experience.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." --Robert A. Heinlein

mkramlich• 15 years ago

you can self-educate. you can educate in ways/venues other than college. further education is-not-necessarily-or-only college

however, college/university does typically take 4+ years, costs anywhere from USD$20-100k, and there's a lot involved other than actual learning. there are many ways in which we can improve upon it.

citricsquid2• 15 years ago

oh definitely, for the right person college can be hugely valuable. However that is not every person and that's my complaint. There seems to be the idea floating around that every person will benefit from college, at least enough to offset the cost of it, this isn't true.

Every person is different.

Tycho3• 15 years ago

I think about 98% of the population are what I'd call statistically and economically illiterate. Basic economics should be a mandatory lesson at school, but unless you picked the class you can leave without even understanding the law of supply and demand. And then politicians, whose job is mainly to interfere with economic activity, blast these people with statistics (the significance of which they barely understand) about the economy, in order to secure their votes and Run the Fucking Country.

Meanwhile, people leave school and, regardless of profession, find themselves doing largely the same thing: sitting in front of a computer in an office. The productivity of virtually every job in the country depends in part on the employee's ability to use a computer. But unless they picked computing as a class (and, hell, even then), they'll have absolutely no clue how to really use a computer to your advantage, ie. to program it.

My suggestion: teach maths (which is already a mandatory subject) using computers and scripting languages. Let students practice abstraction to make computation/calculation easier; and then get them to model tougher problems and tackle them. Pick these problems from the realm of economics and finance, thereby building knowledge of another domain simultaneously (the only reason I understand what 'hire purchase' is is because my textbooks used it for exercises).

By the time they leave school, these kids will be no strangers to writing macros. In their further education and in their desk jobs, this will prove enormously convenient. Single handedly it could boost the GDP by a % or two (ok, I just made that figure up, but having worked in offices you all must have seen how inefficient the workflows are, and how one whizkid can make a big difference). It would even be useful in totally different disciplines. For instance in the study of literature, textual analysis by computer can prove very useful - finding all the references to a certain thing or instances of a certain word often shows deep patterns in the text. On my literature course only one professor/lecturer was doing this (he said it was particularly useful for Dickens), but he was definitely one of best in the department.

tokenadult2• 15 years ago

Basic economics should be a mandatory lesson at school

But if it were, and voters and taxpayers actually entered adult life with a sound knowledge of economics, they would demand that the school system be radically restructured, which is why I don't think that this will happen.

"The education system is a formalised, bureaucratic organisational structure and, like any bureaucratic organisational structure, it strives for maximum autonomy from external pressures as its cardinal principle of survival. While ostensibly devoted to the education of children, teachers, school administrators and local education officers must nevertheless regard parents acting on behalf of children as a force to be kept at bay because parental pressures in effect threaten the autonomy of the educational system. . . . I would hold that the stupefying conservatism of the educational system and its utter disdain of non-professional opinion is such that nothing less than a radical shake-up of the financing mechanism will do much to promote parental power." -- Mark Blaug, "Education Vouchers--It All Depends on What You Mean," in Economics of Privatization, J. Le Grand & R. Robinson, ed. (1985)

After edit: Mark Blaug is quoted here in large part because years ago a public schoolteacher suggested that I read his writings on the economics of education. I discovered the quotation above back then. Blaug is one of the leading economists of education in the world, one of the founders of human capital theory, and an interesting example of an economist who has changed his ideological position over time as he gained more life experience and did more research.

http://clubtroppo.com.au/2009/05/07/the-remarkable-career-of...

http://www.neaydinonat.com/blog/?p=712

http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/blaug-mark-1927-tf/

jacques_chester• 15 years ago

It's weird, seeing a link to a blog I administer (Club Troppo), on HN, that wasn't by me.

Tycho3• 15 years ago

Hmmm, interesting. I suppose even if that were true, the 'achilles heel' of such a system would be that they cannot openly admit their true intents. Thus they would be susceptible to innovative ideas (that weaken their position) when brought up in public debate.

fecklessyouth• 15 years ago

>The productivity of virtually every job in the country depends in part on the employee's ability to use a computer.

Don't you think that's somewhat of an overstatement?

SupremumLimit• 15 years ago

I also thought it's somewhat of an overstatement, but having worked on software for the construction industry (for the operators of paving machines and the like), I think we will eventually end up in a situation where most jobs involve computer use.

Tycho3• 15 years ago

Well, they could always be going on the internet to learn new tips/practices ;)

Wilduck• 15 years ago

I work for a company that grinds railroads. While 100% of the office employees spend more than half their time in front of a computer, none of the people in the shop do.

So, I'd say it's most certainly an overstatement. I'm not willing to exclude the large sections of the American workforce who still work in industrial production.

rdouble• 15 years ago

The editorialized headline might also make for an interesting article, but the actual title is:

"Success in These M.&A. Deals Appears on a Report Card"

njharman• 15 years ago

The TA teaching Calculus at college, learned that and the follow on Calculus II at his (european country I forget) equivalent of HS. He was amazed it was "college level" maths in USA. This was early 90's Univ Kansas.

The entire US education system, 1-12 through 4yr, is fucked.

stretchwithme2• 15 years ago

I think its ridiculous that we think that all brains are on the same development schedule.

Some people are ready for college level at 12, some won't be ready until they're 25.

stretchwithme2• 15 years ago

I think there are probably a lot of fields where the knowledge needed can be covered in a lot less time with the right software designing the curriculum, It always seemed to me that certain course were specified for a program even if you only needed part of what was covered.

And then there's the need to make these programs all come out to exactly 2 or 4 years in length. I suspect there's a lot of padding going on.

fleitz• 15 years ago

The primary problem is the economics of school and the perverse incentives of public funding / private benefit. People view schooling as an entitlement and when the price becomes 'free' more is demanded than can be supplied, since the essential product of schooling is a piece of paper the quality of inputs can be greatly reduced with out affecting the quality of the final product. Only once people learn to educate themselves will the problem be fixed. We need a much bigger focus on learning and education and much less focus on attempting to make schooling deliver education.

Schooling is not designed to educate, it's designed to prepare people for factory work, military service, and obedience to authority via nationalism. Just like startups the whole system works much better when fueled by productivity and bootstrapping (working through school) rather than large capital injections (loans, parents, etc). If you go to school with a mind to be educated you can learn a lot, if you go to school with a mind to graduate you've mostly already lost.

Wikiboris• 15 years ago

We've needed to restructure the college system for a long time now. It's moved far from it's original goals as being specialized for a small subset of the population while everyone else received a high-school diploma, learned on the job skills and did rather fine for themselves. Unfortunately, there are too many people who benefit from the current system in order to rework it and the rapid change of a system usually causes a lot of chaos.

However, I see no reason why we need 12 grades of school. In the European countries, they only have 10 and they seem to do alright. Add in two-years of some type of advanced English, Psychology and classes for a concentration of choice and students can be well-educated by age 18 to go into the workforce. It will require them to gain knowledge through searching and an auto-didactic method rather than being spoonfed, but if they don't learn that skill now, then when?

If high school was better, would we need college?

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