The higher education nonsense will continue until States put their foot down and make some common sense decisions.
1) Universities cannot have unlimited growth. Students from other States and nations cannot have State taxpayer support for their education, and must pay their own way.
2) States subsidize education so that students will have better quality employment. Thus majors that have significant job placement in their field of study within six months after graduation are worthy of subsidy, and those with little or no job placement within six months after graduation should not receive taxpayer subsidy. If students wish to study in those majors, they must do so out of vanity, paying the full price for their education. If not enough students are willing to do so, that major should no longer be offered. Importantly, this applies as well to post-graduate studies. PhDs with no chance for employment are little more than deeply indebted unemployed persons.
3) Majors have a core curriculum essential to that major. Classes taught in an “employable” major are worthy of a taxpayer subsidy. Classes that are elective to a major are not worthy of a taxpayer subsidy. If enough students see an elective as valuable to their education to fully pay for it, it should continue. If not, then it should no longer be offered by the university.
4) Community colleges are a cost effective alternative to lower division (freshman-sophomore) subjects, and students should be encouraged to take such classes there, which are then transferred to universities when the student wants to take upper division classes. Doing so will save countless millions for the State, and permit significant reductions in the size of universities.
5) Many universities actively recruit far too many students, even though they have 50% attrition rates of their freshman class, solely to get one or two semesters tuition from them and the associated State subsidies. States should create diversion programs both to community colleges and trade schools before these students are denied an education altogether, as well as being in debt $10,000-$30,000 for an education they didn’t get.
6) States also need to create far more comprehensive pre-college State examinations, to insure that no student who is not capable in *all* essential studies is admitted to school. Both the SAT and ACT tests have consistently failed to eliminate unqualified students from entering college.
7) Though very popular, college athletics neither provide job placement nor employable skills. As such, calling college athletes “students” is foolish. There is no reason that the State should subsidize it at all. If a school wants a football team as a money raising effort, it should hire professional athletes as minor league teams, and pay them a salary, dispensing entirely with the notion that they are students.
Not only would they get better athletes, and better sporting events, but by paying them a salary, they would no longer have to compromise their educational standards to maintain the illusion that they are students. And if they made more money than they cost, it would help to support the school.
I am going to argue with you on number 6. The problem comes in when a college admissions office starts doing things like weighting the score based on race, first time college student, class ranking, etc.
It’s not the test itself, but how it’s used that’s the problem.
I do agree with encouraging freshman/sophomore class taking at Community Colleges. The strongest indicator for obtaining a 4 year degree is a g.p.a. from a community college after 60 hours. Anyone with a 3.5 and above generally makes it. Anyone with a 2.5 and below generally doesn’t.
I would like to see some resources (and maybe they are there) for effective career counseling at community colleges. If some students are steered towards a trade certificate, paraprofessional program or other opportunities it would be a better use of everyone’s time and money.
That's because they're even more heavily subsidized than the public four-year colleges.
SAT scores would eliminate me from possibly going to college. I scored under 1000, before they doubled the score count. I did pretty abysmal on it, especially the math portion. Conversely, I scored a 70 on the ASVAB in 2004.
Standardized tests are pretty poor for testing a person’s core intelligence. If a certain subject doesn’t require niche knowledge about it in an argument, I can leave anybody in the dust. This is coming from somebody that spent 5 years in high school, and had to finish in another state’s specialized program.
Education today only teaches a certain set of skills. It cannot make somebody smart. Probably the smartest ones out there are those that self-educate in certain areas. My friend taught himself how to work a computer, and he’s going to tech college for it; he’s even told me he could teach a few of the classes he’s learning right now because he advanced beyond them in his own learnings.
No; they don't. That's the rationalization/.
The education INDUSTRY has them by the balls, telling them that unless they spend 16 years of their lives listening to a bunch of stuff; they'll end up with nothing but ditch diggers.
And we have MACHINES to do THAT!