Posted on 09/12/2005 10:31:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The pessimistic tone about Social Security, aging population, government deficits, taxes, the dollar, ways to compete with hundreds of millions of hard-working Chinese and Indian youngsters, assumes that there isn't much to be optimistic about the United States when it comes to the labor force. Solutions include increasing the age of retirement and taxes, diminishing Social Security benefits, or attracting qualified immigrants. There is another solution, however.
What if instead of spending 16 years of schooling (including college), one could do so in 15 years? Or, in the case of community colleges, get to the finish line in 13 rather than 14 years? In Israel, undergraduate studies take three years and the work force there is amongst the most highly skilled in the world.
There are about 16 million college students in the United States. Assume that from now on, four million join the labor force a year earlier. Each subsequent generation could then stay one year longer working, making greater contributions to America's economy.
The indirect impacts may be as significant. Finishing one's studies a year earlier brings about greater discipline. If youngsters feel they made a bad education choice, they have one more year to correct the mistake. And if toward middle age, they become bored, they have a year gained to invest in a transition, and correct their mistake.
Israeli undergraduates' stellar performance suggests that completing studies in three years does not mean less education. It is true that Israeli youngsters arrive at the university two to three years older relative to their western counterparts because of two years' service in the army (for girls), and three years (for boys). This provides maturity and valuable experience a classroom can't provide.
The implication then for American youngsters is to gain practical experience earlier on, rather than study additional years. It is not accidental that Israel has the largest concentration of high-tech firms outside Silicon Valley, and, with a population of 6 million, has the third largest number of companies listed on NASDAQ, after the United States and Canada. Working under intense pressure prepares one to see with whom one gets along, who is a leader, who works well under pressure and who does not. It is not surprising that teams shaped in the Israeli military founded many of the high-tech companies.
The fact is that U.S. students are bored. Many spend hours watching TV and playing video games instead of focusing on more productive endeavors. Meanwhile, the level of mathematics, reading, and writing proficiency has been declining.
This brings us to execution: What do high schools and colleges have to do to give students the options to spend a year less "delaying real life," as a popular book title among students puts it?
The onus then is on colleges to do the serious restructuring, without sacrificing the quality of learning. To illustrate, consider this: in 2005, accounting seems to be among undergraduates' top choices. But do students specializing in accounting really have to spend four years as "business undergraduates"?
Accounting is a trade that one learns by practicing, rather than passing multiple choice exams. Until the 1960s one could become an accountant or a lawyer by working, rather than studying the trade at universities. What does it mean to take courses with titles such as "management," "strategy," "organizational behavior," and "psychology of organizations"? Further, the classes are taught by lecturers who, more often than not, have no experience in ever managing, executing, financing, or marketing anything.
Imagine if lecturers in medical schools never operated, but wrote 100 papers on "optimizing procedures in operation rooms" instead. The same pattern holds true for most undergraduate studies: they can be offered in three years with positive outcomes. Israel's experience, where youngsters spend a year less at university, and spend more time in a disciplined, workforce-type environment demonstrates this.
Do universities have an incentive to restructure along the above lines? No. But pressures are coming from outside and many directions. Indian and Chinese youngsters are ambitious and hard working. The U.S. middle class is squeezed with high college tuition rates, while often questioning the curriculum.
Education is now ripe for reform in the United States. Although restructuring of education may seem difficult to fathom in the eyes of many Americans who are used to the status quo, experience in other countries demonstrates that sometimes, less education leads to more positive benefits for society.
Cato adjunct scholar Reuven Brenner lectures at McGill University's Faculty of Management, and is partner at Match Strategic Partners. The article draws on his last book, The Force of Finance: Triumph of the Capital Markets.
Yup. See my note below (part is sarcasm, but part is true).
I would have done the same.
What about the parties?
If I could do it all over again, I would have gone to college first, then joined the military....
I did a bachelors in three years.
The dirty little fact is that too many colleges DO allow students to goof off and merely con their teachers...
But some of us had to work part time, and get A's to keep our scholarships...so worked our tails off...
I could do it...but many students were not grown up enough to do it...that little thing called maturity...
Indeed, I support having kids take two years off to go into service type volunteer jobs...without losing the chance to go to college or losing their scholarship...
Or maybe do like kids in the "work study" programs at Drexel University...take five years toward a degree, because you work on and off
There are already plans in many states where this can happen.
My 17 year old is a senior in high school (but he doen't really go to high school and never has.)
Our county has "dual enrollment," so when he was in 10th grade (15) he started taking all his classes at the local college (we have two state colleges in town, both participte in the program.)
Going into this term, he has 57 credits, finishes his three needed to complete his AA, and has started this term and next taking more classes toward his major. (Yes, most of the classes up to now are "required courses" and some are aimed at leftist indoctrination...that's the beauty of having the kid at home, you can get a sense if the indoctrination is having any effect...which in our case it didn't.)
Technically, this puts kids 2 years ahead, so they finish their bachelors about the time they're 20, i.e. graduate high school and get an AA all at the same time.
And did I mention that the program is tuition free?
college ping
To parents, I say help cover the costs if you absolutely must, but only to a certain degree. From experience, I know that kids will put in much more effort if they're the ones footing the bill for their education.
When I first went away to college at age 17 (and I was an honor roll student in high school, back when that actually meant something), my dad was of the opinion that I needed to concentrate on my studies only, he he would worry about the finances. Guess who flunked out in record time?
Fast forward 26 years. Guess who has a mortgage, kids, a job, college to pay for, and has had a 4.0 GPA nearly every semester? Sure, maturity has a lot to do with it. But just a year after I originally flunked out of school, I went back for 2 semesters before getting pregnant, and got 4.0 both semesters. I was paying for it.
If they stuck to actual teaching, a student can get our current 16 years' of education in 12 or less. But of course that would undermine the left wing's immensely profitable academia scam.
I second that - I wish I'd joined the military out of high school.
Notice how much "core curriculum" is required of all college students; often ridiculous courses "taught" by grad students or TA's to hundreds at a time. It's all about revenue, folks; NOT learning.
3 years? Why go to college at all, unless you expect to specialize in something? Way too many kids are going to college merely because it's expected (by parents, culture, and prospective employers) rather for any rational reason.
My one English teacher was (English, that is), and that made that course worthwhile, imo.
Then, too, I think I was one of the lucky ones...and that was nearly 30 years ago.
I do not even recognize some of the 'majors' now when I hear what people received their degree in.
With them, even if you do not know squat, you can get a really good job regulating the folks who know what is going on...
What the H... do you want? I spent 4 years plus a summer in college to get a BS degree. (Ticket to drudgery).
Then 30 years in a career. Retired from that after 30 years of public accounting (45 human years?).
If I had known then what I know now, I would have found a way to spend 7-8 years in college. Maybe got MS or MBA, retire after 25 years in career. College was way more fun than career, just slightly less fun than retirement. Screw work!
No. Most universities live under the fiction that they are creating "scholars," or giving every enrollee the opportunity to have the chance at receiving a liberal arts education and becoming one. That's why there are so many elective courses that Junior takes, laughs about, and never remembers by the start of summer.
I agree with the author. Get the training or education done with and move on to adulthood.
We could just hand our children over the Village at birth. Once they have worked off their debt to the Village we can have them back.
I worked my behind off for 4 years. Of course, I was a dual major engineering student at Duke. I had many friends that didn't do a thing their senior years, other than drink. Of course, many of those friends are now finishing their residencies and are practicing doctors... :)
"A lot of young people would rather acquire the knowledge and skill necessary to a productive career than to waste precious time in an extended adolescence. Teams, clubs fraternities, and student government are forms of recreation, and unless the student is footing the bill for his education, housing, and all expenses, he is not learning to live on his own. He is still a subsidized child."
I couldn't agree with you more and I am a college student. I want to get out of here and start taking care of myself but am forced an environment of "extended adolescence" that I loathe so much. Great way to put it.
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