I would cut all federal aid to college students. Why is that the job of the government. This is one area that is SUPPOSED to be self paid for. I mean maybe if the kids and parents were paying the entire bill the kids would take it more seriously. Our bloated government is beyond help. Even Sarah can’t help this mess. I would love for her to say no more student aid at all.....not one penny. Kids who complain, she would say, “Get a part time job.”
The short answer is “no”.
But the reason is not, as most FReepers would like to believe, that the professoriate is largely loony-left (which is true), but because the K-12 schools don’t produce enough graduates capable of fully benefiting from a proper college education, yet we push almost everyone into going to college.
The place where the professoriate being loony-left takes its real toll is through the colleges of education, which the several states have given monopolies on producing K-12 teachers. “Whole language” as a replacement for phonics, “discovery learning” as a substitute for drill in basic arithmetic (not a supplement to drill in basic arithmetic, which would be a grand thing, but as a substitute), and “social promotion” are all the result of doctrinaire leftist enthusiasms in colleges of education. The result is high-school graduates whose writing ability ranges from formulaic (every paragraph must have a topic sentence. . .) to virtually non-existent (no real grasp of grammar or standard usage: they write as they speak, which is not well), who have “calculus” or “pre-calculus” on their high-school transcript, but who can’t add fractions correctly, many of whom can’t read at the level needed for real university-level courses. We professors do the best we can with such folks, but they are a drag on educating the folks who really should be in college. (And yes, unaccountably, our K-12 schools still turn out a fair number of them, despite the best attempts of the Deweyites and Vygotskians to ruin education.)
We would be far better off if our credential-happy society stopped demanding a bachelors degree for jobs whose content could be learned at a trade-school or on-the-job. Of course, we probably can’t do this until we fix K-12 education, because quite frankly, college is now what high school was in the 1940’s (the faculty at my father’s high school didn’t have ed degrees, they had masters degrees or doctorates in the subject they taught).
The first step is for the several states to abolish the monopoly given to colleges of education to produce “qualified teachers” and permit, nay, encourage, the hiring of high school and even middle school faculty whose qualification consists in a masters or doctorate in the subject they will be teaching.
Depends on what you’re studying.
If you’re just going to university to get a piece of paper that will get you a generic job, then no.
If critical thinking, problem-solving, and training in complex disciplines is what you’re seeking, then, yes.
The excess tuition payments made by kids getting loans is just shuffled over to non-qualified minority students as "scholarships." Most of these non-qualified minority students never even graduate.
Net result; Twenty-somethings buried in debt that they will never be able to dig out from under.
so.. if we use “MWB” to represent what the market will bear in terms of price on anything being sold, we know that for any given product
Price = “WMB” + “G”
What's “G” you say? “G” is whatever the government is paying towards that purchase in any form (loans, grants, subsides, ect) So.. If the government sees that colleges are charging $10,000 a year for college... and they think that's too much and try to "fix" this problem by giving student access to loans and grants totaling $5,000 in an effort to drive the cost down to $5,000 per year... The result will actually be an INCREASE in the cost to $15,000! Remember that price will always = WMB + G In this example the market will still only support a $10,000 a year price tag, so if the government pitches in an additional $5,000... instead of the price going down like the government wants... the price will go UP! And thus as always, the government doesn't solve the problem... GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM!
Higher education in America has become largely “vocational.” This is because years past aptitude tests by employers were all but shut down because of racial and sexual discrimination concerns. Hence the higher education filled the void in certification and licensing of what in the past was simply a hands on test by an employer or vocational trade learned on the job.
The number of math, science and engineering degree seeking Americans is flat or declining with many of the students in US schools being from China, India, or elsewhere. Americans want to study the soft sciences like sociology, psychology, anthropology, womyns studies, history....... fluff. The types of degrees that many pursue are a waste of time.
Our education system has many egg heads in it. Inbred idiots that never actually worked in the field they are instructing. You have kids going straight for a masters and PhD to then teach without ever having any real experience. Completely theoretical and largely lacking any applied knowledge or skills they then turn around and teach nonsense.
Our education system is infested with social theories and dogma that has caused the relevant to be superseded by the irrelevant in the name of diversity. Major art goes untaught (Gericults Raft of the Medusa) for the sake of presenting a female, Asian, black or whatever else artist, example Artemisia Gentileschi (who until the feminist movement had faded into obscurity but was recesitated when we went on a crusade to find a “female” painter in that era). Think of it this way: An American kid will graduate from college today and will not have read Mark Twain (who helped shape our language and was the most influential writer in his time), they will live in a Republic but never have read Plato's Republic, they not even know that Beowulf was an epic poem (The first written in the English language), nor will they have read the Odyssey etc. However, they will have read the Story of Pi (Asian), some poems by Maya Angelou (Black). Things are taught with a revisionist spin such as Malcolm X where all the hate and criminal behavior is brushed off as racist. MOST IMPORTNATLY, we do not teach kids how to think. There is no teaching of formal logic nor even what a fallacy is and since math skills are inherently weak among American kids, they essentially “can't think.” The need to be “current and “diverse” in race, sex, national origin, sexual orientation etc has led to the over valuing of the irrelevant at the expense profound works.
Ethics vs. Morals. Our education system is secular, for the most part even the formerly religious schools that are only hollow shells of what they once were. Ethics is a meaningless term, created by secularists where the true nuance meaning is the teaching of right and wrong in the ansense of the “G” word. It's situationally dependent and unfortunately it is the result of a society that embraces diversity vs. assimilation. The problem is that even on a behavioral level our education system is a complete failure. Kids don't learn right and wrong in grade/high school or higher education. You can't even expect someone with a certain attitude, code of conduct, work ethic etc if they have a masters degree. It's not like 100 years ago where you could expect someone to be a “scholar and gentleman” if they had a higher education.
Standards are extremely low. Today a kid in his second year of college and going for a degree will have the same math that my father in 1961 was “required” to have just to graduate from high school. You can get a degree without ever really learning much. Just pay your money, spend the time and eventually you'll have the degree.
What does a degree mean? Not much.
The more government comes in to help, the more prices will soar for a higher education. Government expenditures are directly relational to increases in the cost of a higher education. Essentially the government through its spending creates a sort of niche specific inflation when they pour massive resources into it.
The losers in this story are the ones that will not fall under some government entitlement via a loan, special urban, minority, employment etc. program.
I am appalled at some of what is written on my school's sports boards, I really hope they are just fans, not grads.
Come on! The purpose of the American university system is to keep young people out of the workforce for four years. It’s an overflow reservoir to reduce unemployment numbers.
Are we getting our money’s worth? He!! no!
The entitlement crowd isn’t going to like this report.
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Here’s my modest proposal for education reform.
We have been discussing ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda and other idiocies:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84
Proposal for the Free Republic High School Diploma.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1316882/posts
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