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Why aren't more people going to college?
Brad DeLong writes:
Altonji, Bharadwaj, and Lange do not know.
The whole post is interesting, but from this I can only conclude that Altonji, Bharadwaj, and Lange have never taught Introduction to Composition to a large group of freshman in a public university in the United States. Anyone who has taught such a class -- or for that matter talked to anyone who has -- will have some inkling why more people are not going to college. Herein lie the roots of growing inequality -- on the bottom side at least -- and don't let anyone induce you to take your eye off the ball by playing switcheroo and bringing up the (separate) topic of the growing wealth of the top one percent.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 11, 2008 at 07:34 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Wouldn't the economist's answer be: A university education is not convincingly worth the time/effort/money to a large number of potential attendees.
I absolutely agree that there is a huge premium for skilled labor. From my own experience (even though I went to a world leading university in my field) I would accuse universities of being remarkably poor at producing skilled labor. My decade or so of interviewing people for technical positions just reinforces this belief.
I believe university education is hampered by a bias against an educational program that appears to be to "vocational" in nature. Almost as though universities still see themselves as some sort of gateway to gentility. Graduates have a much greater depth of knowledge in general subjects (the three R's) but laughably little practical experience. Post-BS education finally seems to address some of that, but at the expense of 2 years more tuition, and opportunity cost.
Coming from rather humble beginnings, I know why I went to school. To get a job that paid a premium for what I was able to offer. I was very disappointed with what I received in return for a massive amount of student load debt. I worked (luckily in my field) to put myself through school, and found it much more valuable (and they paid me to learn!)
I can only remember one advisor in all my years at school who considered the practical goals of my education. I was in the Physics program at the time. One day he called me in and gave me this sage advice: "I don't think you are cut out for academia [where most opportunities in theoretical physics would be], maybe you should consider computer science." That conversation was the trigger that got me thinking critically about what the hell I was doing at school, what I wanted to achieve, and how in the hell I was going to get there. It was almost worth the tuition.
Posted by: Mark Denovich at May 11, 2008 9:17:31 AM
One of the commenters mentions expanding student loans. From what I've seen other forms of financial
aid have become more difficult to get since I went to college, which has resulted in increased reliance
on loans, which combined with increased college costs leads to a large debt burden on people just
getting started. This leads to a perceived need to pursue only subjects which will lead to an
immediate payoff(engineering, investment banking), and there are only so many people who can handle
those occupations. The desire/need for job-based education also causes students to go to vo-tech schools,
which have become increasing viable and cost-effective (my daughter is seriously considering one).
Posted by: mikesdak at May 11, 2008 9:36:03 AM
One of the commenters mentions expanding student loans. From what I've seen other forms of financial
aid have become more difficult to get since I went to college, which has resulted in increased reliance
on loans, which combined with increased college costs leads to a large debt burden on people just
getting started. This leads to a perceived need to pursue only subjects which will lead to an
immediate payoff(engineering, investment banking), and there are only so many people who can handle
those occupations. The desire/need for job-based education also causes students to go to vo-tech schools,
which have become increasing viable and cost-effective (my daughter is seriously considering one).
Posted by: mikesdak at May 11, 2008 9:37:16 AM
My apologies for the double post. I also should have said the the comment I referred to was at the
original story site.
Posted by: mikesdak at May 11, 2008 9:39:13 AM
I wholeheartedly agree with Marks beginning statement.
Two years ago I had a interviewer for a job make the comment that "college weeds people out." It was his response to discovering I didn't have a college degree. Interestingly they offered me the job - I didn't take it. My boyfriend has a dual degree in chemistry and english. He is an accountant.
Its the assumption that people will go to college after high school. But high schools and colleges do an incredibly poor job of preparing the individual for what they will spend the rest of their life doing: working.
(also in information technology - but I figured it out without spending a premium on college)
Posted by: tim at May 11, 2008 9:53:39 AM
In California I think we saw the pages of "GE" requirements expand along with the tuition (and the loans).
I always figured "get me a good job, and I can read the great books on my own time."
(I got out in '81 with my Chem BS to become another programmer.)
Posted by: odograph at May 11, 2008 10:29:27 AM
"Anyone who has taught such a class -- or for that matter talked to anyone who has -- will have some inkling why more people are not going to college."
I'm sorry -- what is your answer as to why more people are not going to college? Apparently it has something to do with freshman composition?
Posted by: mk at May 11, 2008 10:42:13 AM
In this day and age of the web, any professor who packs a hundred kids into a lecture hall is not teaching.
Posted by: Matt at May 11, 2008 10:51:29 AM
"I'm sorry -- what is your answer as to why more people are not going to college? Apparently it has something to do with freshman composition?"
He probably means that most high school graduates lack the basic skills, including writing skills, to succeed in college.
Posted by: Jacqueline at May 11, 2008 11:00:33 AM
I hate to be the jackass who inserts IQ into the discussion, but I will be: certainly the education system can be improved to some degree, but if IQ is a prerequisite for skills, there's only so much you can do because IQ is pretty much fixed. The Bell Curve basically predicted this.
Posted by: kapkool at May 11, 2008 11:58:37 AM
Indeed, the problem is not that too few attend college, but that too few are prepared to take advantage of college.
We must invest more in young children.
Posted by: Michael Bishop at May 11, 2008 11:59:35 AM
We must invest more in young children.
It drives me crazy reading sentences like that. Washington DC "invests" (a euphemism for spend) a staggeringly large amount per pupil, and has horrendously poor results to show for it.
The US also spends more per capita on K-12 education than anywhere in the world, but in the developed world anyway we are merely middle of the pack.
Therefore is is illogical to think the problem is lack of spending in our children.
John Stossel did a comparison of a normal Belgian high school class and the best class in a NJ suburb that was considered one of the best in the US. He found that the average Belgian outpeformed the best students in the US class.
Therefore unless one believes that the best US students are somehow genetically inferior to the average Belgian, then IQ doesn't explain the discrepancy either.
This leaves one obvious conclusion, namely that the system of K-12 schools in the US that are run by the government is the problem, not lack of funding nor IQ.
Sounds like it is time to bring universal K-12 tuition vouchers to the US, just like Belgium has. We should probably sell off our public schools while we're at it. Why keep them since by definition we believe they are horribly run?
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at May 11, 2008 12:20:58 PM
I think the average person cannot justify the cost of a college education when sitting in a freshman English course, where most college freshman cannot justify waking up to go to such a course over the opportunity cost of sleeping an extra hour that day. A vast majority of people learn in US high schools that they do not need to learn anything, and can still graduate and get the job they want.
Colleges are already overpopulated. Anyone graduate from college and try to obtain a job in the finance or engineering industries lately? Its as hard as getting into a top 50 US college. When a significant number of college graduates cannot find jobs they want, how can we say more people should be going to college. The people who are not going may be more insightful than Altonji, Bharadwaj, and Lange.
Posted by: Brainwarped at May 11, 2008 12:24:02 PM
Compare the situation with Russia - here more people apply for colledge entrance than leave high school ( i.e. almost all grads apply for colledge and also older population tries to catch up ) . The other side the salary problem and requirements for education are reverse. I already mentioned in one reply second most rich russian Prokhorov and his blog - there he tells that big russian bussiness needs workers, not educated people. The wage premium is also reverse to US - usually ( esp in province ) low qualification jobs are paid better due to shortage of those wishing to get them.
the situation seems signal few things 1) IQ is a scarse resource 2) US is good in allocating it 3) there is some room in other countries which waster their resources. 4) overall educational system functions quite disconnected to real life requirements.
In former ussr the approach to solve the problem of practical skills was devised -to work at company during education ( but as colledge/university education was average 6 years in ussr ( no Bachelors - only MS degrees ) - 3 years at company departments gave quite good sense of what was going in specific field.
I graduated from uni which was first among those which tried the system.
and at second forth and six th years I worked at different departments of one corporation.
Unfortunately though - the industry ( military space ) collapsed just after dissolution of ussr , so I had to teach myself to become a software developer ( instead of being an engineer of control systems for space vehicles ).
The experience is that - when I got my knowledge by myself - I become really practically and profeccionally oriented but those state efforts to give 'practical' skills failed - just plainly because they did not know even that these skills are not neccesary in near future and overall it is quite difficult to formalize what is the real 'practical skill', while theoretical subjects have a deep history and clear ways to exercise in subtleties.
So I would see the solution as following - put more educational materials on the net ( like MIT opencourseware ) and allow people to get degrees by passing some exams, maybe incrimentally, according to the requirements they encounter in life ( it would be difficult to devise the system, but noneless I think that it would be neccesary to have it, and also it would be a way to earn money - sertification should cost quite a bit ) without attending colledge or uni, create some online assesment system for foreigners ( say IQ test with some educational questions ) and provide those with high IQ ( say 135 +) and specific skills a green card.
The proposals are quite radical, but still they could solve the problem, but just free education ( if the scarse IQ hypotesis is correct ) will solve almost nothing. The education interest should be selfenforced and also the system should efficiently use scarse resource IQ.
Posted by: Sergey Kurdakov at May 11, 2008 12:31:15 PM
MY apologies for my last post. I hate it when I make a post on education and it is full of typos and basic error like "in" instead of "on".
I blame my public school education instead of myself for my mistakes. I am a victim. :x
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at May 11, 2008 12:32:10 PM
"have never taught Introduction to Composition to a large group of freshman in a public university in the United States."
Although it's not available online yet, read the current issue of The Atlantic, and especially the story by "Professor X" titled something like "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower." You might've already read it, as this comment seems almost like a restatement of part of its thesis.
Posted by: Jake at May 11, 2008 12:34:05 PM
Anyone graduate from college and try to obtain a job in the finance or engineering industries lately? Its as hard as getting into a top 50 US college.
????
I thought jobs are plentiful for engineering graduates.
Posted by: Peter at May 11, 2008 12:54:55 PM
I know it goes against the current dogma on the "knowledge economy", but I wish we wouldn't make so many go to university. My classes are full of students who aren't interested in higher learning or learning at all, but know that they need the degree to get a job and get on with their lives. There must be ways to filter applicants that are cheaper and less painful for all involved.
Posted by: Allison at May 11, 2008 1:59:44 PM
It's not that hard to get into a top 50 college. The ones in the 40-50 range accept 80% of their applicants or so. So if you apply to a few you're pretty much set.
Posted by: Andy at May 11, 2008 2:00:09 PM
Some related links:
America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree
The Age of Educational Romanticism
Overqualified: What's the Deal?
Posted by: TGGP at May 11, 2008 2:22:51 PM
Brainwarped--
Yes, I graduated from an engineering program recently (about a year ago) and tried to obtain a job and...it was laughably easy, especially for the amount of effort I put into it. Now I have an awesome job that pays me lots of money. None of my other engineer friends had any difficulty whatsoever finding jobs as far as I'm aware. Were you just completely pulling that out of your ass? Maybe my experience is exceptional, but I would have to see some numbers to think so.
Posted by: mtc at May 11, 2008 2:28:05 PM
I have gone through life without a degree, and it has never been an issue.
Now I live in the United States, and this is the first time I've experienced bias against college "dropouts". Not only ridiculous bias by hiring managers, but also bias in the green card and visa systems. People aren't judged based on their capabilities and experience, but on unrelated pieces of paper they've accumulated throughout life.
For instance, you'll get a green card more quickly with any degree, even one that doesn't bear any relationship to the job you're in. You get elevated to the "professional" category, whereas without a degree you're just a "skilled worker". Work experience is not brought into consideration at all.
It boggles my mind that the US would make it difficult for highly skilled individuals - and I am not ashamed to claim I am orders of magnitude more skilled than many college graduates around me - to join and participate in this economy.
In hindsight, had I known that ten years later I would face ridiculous prejudice for not having a degree, I probably would have grit my teeth and continued the mind numbing boredom and tedium of university. But at the time it was easy for me to work as a developer in a startup company earning a higher salary than senior professors at my university. Most 19 year olds in my position would have chosen the same.
And thinking back, had I been here in the US at that time, the choice would have been even more clear cut. Stay at university, accumulating a huge debt, working on toy projects and abstract concepts and algorithms you will forget after a few months? Or join a company and actually contribute to society? At least in my country of origin, the debt I accumulated in my brief time at university was not onerous, and quickly paid off.
The vocations for which university degrees are important have, unsurprisingly, courses that are fairly vocational in nature. Consider studying for medicine. You learn anatomy - something you can directly apply each day in your working life. In computer science you take a course on algorithms which you will likely never have to implement or directly use ever again. Hands up all CS graduates who've had to write a version of Boyer–Moore? Now keep your hands up if the college dropout next to you would be unable to implement the same thing?
Posted by: John Doe at May 11, 2008 2:41:08 PM
I teach intro economics at a large public university... same as teaching composition. I bend over backwards to "go easy" in the intro classes and still nearly a third get D's and F's. Some don't have the skills, but more are just profoundly unprepared for college with respect to perspective, setting goals, being held accountable. In short they are immature. I don't believe the average public high school student is held accountable, has a chance of actually failing a course.
Why do they go to college? Good question. I think because that's what their buddies from high school planned to do, their parents encouraged, and because it seems like a good way to "get a good job." I would strongly encourage an average high school student to go to community college and work... to grow up a bit, see what's out there, investigate vocational programs etc.
Posted by: Martin Kennedy at May 11, 2008 2:50:56 PM
I have taught many introductory science classes, and can unequivocally say there are already far too many people going to college. Especially with the expansion of the community college system. There are too many people going to college, precisely because of the financial incentives, who simply don't have the ability to become a highly skilled worker. Not everyone does, and the reasons are many (not a discussion I care to get into).
Posted by: efp at May 11, 2008 3:16:45 PM
I've never taught freshman comp. I have taught freshman music theory and ear training, classes almost exclusively taken by music majors. It's strange to look around the class in the second week, knowing that at least a quarter of them don't honestly belong here and more than half of them are unlikely to be sitting in the follow-up sophomore class. Keep in mind, all these kids are here because they have been successful musicians at the high school level; many are on scholarships.
But between lack of money, and trouble in my class, and trouble in the rest of the meatgrinder of freshman classes, and relationship issues, and wondering how the hell they are going to make a living when they graduate, and the issues of becoming an independent adult, I can count on half of them being gone in a year.
Posted by: ShortWoman at May 11, 2008 3:18:20 PM
Peter, MTC -
I read a job market analysis for engineer majors I found on a train to NYC 4 years ago... It says yes, there are more jobs than people pursuing the jobs, but the jobs were not what someone with a college education would expect to be doing, which is why they are not filled. The majority of engineer jobs involves factory work, IE. tightening screws. Someone with an engineer degree would expect to work with equations or in R&D, not in manual labor. The essay predicted that by 2008, obtaining jobs for engineers that require a college degree will be competitive. I do not have a good random sample on the current hardships of finding an engineering job. (I only know 4 engineer majors, 1 of which got a job they wanted, all of which get paid "a lot of money".) Maybe I should have used Theatre as my second example?
Martin Kennedy - I agree. Most people go to college for the same reason most people go to church.
Posted by: brainwarped at May 11, 2008 3:42:36 PM
Hillary Clinton's fans - hardworking white Americans, white Americans without a college degree - if they are not old (i.e., before a large portion of the population was going to college), are laboring at low wages today because they didn't labor in high school, or never had the aptitude to begin with. The return to brawn is down. There's a return to skill - if you can obtain it, but not everyone has the gumption, aptitude, or opportunity.
Posted by: John B. Chilton at May 11, 2008 5:10:24 PM
There are two different mistakes we can make when making the decision about admitting someone into a university. The first is that we admit someone who doesn’t really belong there. That has a modest cost to the university and its students, perhaps, in that he may dumb down the curriculum, the environment of learning, etc. For the student, assuming he’s at a second-tier state university where such students typically matriculate, there are probably benefits to going to college even for a year. He’ll probably have some fun, be exposed to a few ideas, get the general gist of college (should he decide to attend later in life when he’s more mature) and the tuition cost (and opportunity cost) won’t be that great. It’s also worth something in the labor market to have gone to college even for a year.
The second mistake is that people who belong in college don’t matriculate. When I taught at a second-tier state university I had an evening class in statistics for students working full-time, and almost every one of them fit in that category. They were all bright and motivated but at the age of 18 they either had a decent job already and didn’t see the point in college or their family and high school teachers never bothered to inform them that college would be in their best interest. Ten or fifteen years after this decision they had all run into the roadblock that not having a college degree represents and they were pissed about it. Most of them had no problem whatsoever mastering the material of what most college students find to be a very difficult class.
The second mistake is, I submit, very costly for society, but I think that if we want to reduce the incidence of this mistake we’re going to have more of the first mistake as well. Having rhetoric classes full of people who really don’t belong in college is the price we way to make sure that we don’t dismiss a few talented souls to life on the assembly line.
Posted by: JIB at May 11, 2008 6:01:14 PM
Large universities are run shabbily and demand way too much bullshit from the student. In my one year at university, I was able to take two courses that were both interesting and in the field I wanted to study - the rest were requirements that bored most everyone to tears. The only thing keeping most students in these institutions for four years is the partying and the fear of something different from what they've had as a life for the last 12-16 years.
University should be entirely vocational, period. These people are adults - they can make their choices.
Posted by: DPirate at May 11, 2008 6:07:26 PM
It isn't any institution's fault that the majority of students are not prepared to join the workforce. They are immature and unfocused.
The value of a liberal education is learning to think clearly and to learn on one's own.
Becoming part of the academic community is important since a tiny part of the student body will become replacement parts for the institution or others.
The current popularity of college education is a result of making education into commerce, constantly pumping it and pushing it into popular culture. To the target audience of consumption oriented students, it is a resort. They have a kind of love-hate relationship with it.
Posted by: Bob Calder at May 11, 2008 10:06:22 PM
Just for the record, George Mason, Tyler's university, limits its freshman composition classes to 19 students. I have no doubt that part of the motivation is to game the US News rankings (which counts the number of classes with registration below 20), but still it does mean that one doesn't, there, teach "Introduction to Composition to a large group" at any one time.
Posted by: jim at May 11, 2008 10:52:27 PM
Can anyone link to a study that compares salaries of 4-year grads with high school grads who have been in the workforce for 4 years? It would of course have to correct for variables such as aptitude (IQ, SAT?), family finances, and ambition (which is probably very hard to do, especially given that most ambitious people go to college).
I can't help but think the apparent higher salaries and success of college grads has little to do with education and a lot to do with selection bias.
Posted by: Grant at May 12, 2008 3:06:32 AM
Happyjuggler:
Aren't the Belgian schools government-run? If so, then it's not obvious why being government-run is what holds the American schools back. It must be how they're run or something else.
Anecdotally, I teach philosophy at an ivy league school and have done a few intensive freshmen seminars. There is no noticeable difference between the American and non-American students, except that so far the very best students (in my classes, at least) have been American. That might have to do with the value of being a native English speaker for doing philosophy, but the foreign students are such excellent speakers of English that I doubt that's the case.
Posted by: J. at May 12, 2008 3:23:48 AM
Engineering jobs seemed to me to be highly volatile with the economy and also highly dependent on discipline, which defines areas of concentration.
When I graduated the first time in Chem E the only plentiful jobs were for oil companies in Alaska and the Gulf coast.
One year difference in graduation can make a huge difference. So, I suggest building in some flexibility to your graduation date. Be resigned to getting a Master's if you think you could get a better job in a better economy. And put in a little research on where the industry concentrations are for the disciplines you are choosing between. And if you want to hedge your bets, do mechanical engineering.
Posted by: Andrew at May 12, 2008 4:05:20 AM
Next piece of advice: Hedging your bets is a remedy against the extreme downsides of ignorance. Wouldn't it be better to not be ignorant?
College is in one sense a failure and in another sense a necessity.
To address John Doe's comment, one of college's functions is to get you that piece of paper. In my opinion, this is how company's externalize the cost of recruiting and evaluating candidates to the taxpayer, the student and the family. Call me a cynic, but I do not get warm fuzzies when industry leaders decry the state of education. Thought they may be right, I don't think they are taking time to express humanistic concerns (even when they truly believe they are.)
The other function of college is that of supplying an education. In my opinion, the needs of the economy are changing too fast (especially in certain fields) for the university departments to keep up with the skills needed on the ground. Many people in the IT field don't need degrees, and degrees wouldn't help them if they got it. Many professors nowadays have never even set foot outside academia. Why again do we think they should have a handle on the skills needed for a non-academic post? That's not a slam. It is what it is. They have essentially specialized in the career of academia. I see that as a fact, and you must draw your own conclusions from it.
So, why do I think college attendance can be viewed as a failure? The future is uncertain. How realistic is it to invest four years specializing in something that may not be needed and you may not like? If on the other hand you could know beforehand that you would be successful at a passion, you are better off building general skills and spending a lot of time determining your passion, rather than specializing too early. Invest in things that have lasting value and a high probability of utility. To go to college in a field you don't know you will love aren't gifted at, and maybe even become a professor in, means you haven't figured yourself out yet. College does an abysmal job as "simulator of the workday." So, college will help you get the job, but you may be miserable in it. Beware, the reverse is also true. To attempt to become a professor without a boat full of credentials would be another kind of failure. Again, you must know what you want and how to get it. Tough on a high school kid. But biding time doesn't help.
So, while the value of the education at college is going down (for some fields), the emphasis on the credential may be increasing, especially for certain groups like H1-B's (and professors!). I think long-term the credentialling thing will attenuate too as alternatives arise and temporal effects like xenophobia diminish. Companies will begin to realize that the world is uncertain, and no amount of credentialling will erase all the uncertainty.
For my next installment, I'll rail against the posts who seem to be saying that if the overall student population were to get bad enough, the universities would be right to become empty ghost towns ;)
Posted by: Andrew at May 12, 2008 4:45:14 AM
I put this in DeLong's comments, it seems to fit here as well: Largely missing from this discussion is the idea that half the kids are below average. Below 100 IQ. The Army has decided that it really cannot make an artilleryman of someone with an IQ below 92, and that's their cut-off. Still 35% below that. So no matter how much education some folks sit through, they won't get to a place where they can do high-intellect-demand jobs. It's not in their interest to go and indenture themselves for the next 25 years paying of student loans which have done nothing for them.
Posted by: dave.s. at May 12, 2008 6:25:14 AM
The university system needs a revolution. It needs to accept that teaching may be localized, but that the internet library is now universally available.
(Universities should not "hold on" with General Education requirements designed to keep butts in chairs (actually designed to apportion butts between departments))
Kids should have the option of using the new tech, and challenging every exam through to their Bachelor's degree.
Youtube the lectures.
Posted by: odograph at May 12, 2008 7:13:36 AM
I remember my first year (1983) as a teaching assistant to an English comp prof. When we looked over the first group of papers I graded, he handed them back to me with the admonition that I could not give the grades I did. These papers, the first from this particular class in Bonehead English Comp, showed serious struggles with spelling, structure, and noun-verb agreement, and this at a selective private institution!
I can't imagine the situation is any better now; given the spelling and grammar corrections supplied by your computer now, kids don't need to learn grammar.
Posted by: Brutus at May 12, 2008 8:28:27 AM
"This leaves one obvious conclusion, namely that the system of K-12 schools in the US that are run by the government is the problem, not lack of funding nor IQ.
Sounds like it is time to bring universal K-12 tuition vouchers to the US, just like Belgium has. We should probably sell off our public schools while we're at it. Why keep them since by definition we believe they are horribly run?"
The public, government-run education system of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and yes, 70s produced some of the brightest of the brightest. I fail to see what merits there are in a privatized education system changes other than higher salaries (and you contend that throwing more money at the problem will fix nothing, so I'm particularly puzzled by your stance).
If you think the curricula in public schools are crap, push for change (like I certainly will when I have a child in the educational system). Rail against the "intelligent design" movement.
Posted by: at May 12, 2008 9:08:53 AM
Washington DC "invests" (a euphemism for spend) a staggeringly large amount per pupil, and has horrendously poor results to show for it.
Spencer Ackerman criticized our "aid" to Pakistan as the equivalent of delivering them black Hefty bags full of cash. Of course, very little of that money went where we wanted it to go.
Throwing bags of money at K-12 education is not doing us any good, either; but that is not the same as saying that *investing* the money wisely would not do good.
Posted by: Anderson at May 12, 2008 10:26:37 AM
Johnny still can't read [or write]!
Posted by: Al Abbott at May 12, 2008 10:54:41 AM
In 10 years will the ability to write a coherent sentence be important?
Being a good speller is already becoming obsolete and the grammar checkers are getting better.
I have a dream of a future Google word processor with the grammar/style checker that would look for sentences that convey similar ideas to the writer’s but that are well structured and offers the writer replacement text.
Boy I need that program!
Posted by: Floccina at May 12, 2008 12:10:23 PM
Floccina,
Your dream word processor would have to be good enough to spot "typical" errors such as misuse of to, too, or two, and other things like that. Not to mention "then" vs "than", which sadly makes it into books from time to time too. This despite the fact that book publishers are supposed to have "grammar nazis" that routinely flag obvious mistakes like that in addition to far more esoteric stuff that mere mortals would laugh at for hair splitting.
Effect and affect (as verbs) would likely be quite tricky for a program to "grammar check".
Finally, one gem I spotted in an online discussion was the poster who was unhappy at the sad state of are public schools.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at May 12, 2008 12:27:24 PM
DeLong concludes with:
This raises the possibility that the only easy way to reduce market inequality is to greatly increase the supply of the skilled and educated in the long run by making higher education free--which is a very dubious policy on the inequality front, because it starts with a honking huge transfer from the average taxpayer today to the relatively rich well-educated of tomorrow.
There may be no "easy way to reduce market inequality", but wouldn't encouraging people to graduate high school be better than encouraging high school grads to go to college? 35% of Americans do not finish high school.
Posted by: John Kunze at May 12, 2008 1:23:21 PM
IMO, it's a class game. I'm not usually one for conspiracies, but degree-snobbery has become the new acceptable prejudice. Having a degree no longer holds the same message of "You were smart enough and learned enough to be trusted with more responsibility." It now means "You or your parents had enough money or could take on a large debt. Welcome to our club. Now go build me a Power Point deck."
Posted by: econ2econ at May 12, 2008 4:04:33 PM
Andy sez: "It's not that hard to get into a top 50 college. The ones in the 40-50 range accept 80% of their applicants or so. So if you apply to a few you're pretty much set."
Um, no.
US News & World Report Top Universities: #50, tie, Syracuse University (acceptance rate 51%), Tulane University (45%).
US News & World Report Top Liberal Arts Colleges, #49, tie: Pitzer (37%), DePauw (68%), Rhodes (49%).
Posted by: Cardinal Fang at May 12, 2008 10:59:23 PM
Floccina said:
"In 10 years will the ability to write a coherent sentence be important?"
Language does change continuously over time. But, if we presume that coherent thought is useful, then coherent sentences will be required. Language is, after all, our means of processing and communicating concepts and thus achieving learning and knowledge. Loss of precision in language must have terrible long-term consequences.
Posted by: Al Abbott at May 13, 2008 10:36:56 AM
The price of college, even in taxpayer-subsidized state schools, has been steadily rising three times as fast as the general rate of inflation for the last fifteen years, and thirty percent of families in the U.S. have an annual income of less than $27,500. Most of the children in these families realistically conclude that they have no more chance of paying for a college education than they have of acquiring a Lear Jet. Meanwhile ninety-nine percent of teenagers whose families's incomes are among the top five percent will attend college, whether or not they have any academic interests or aptitude at all. If you wonder why some of your students are so underqualified, look at that second group of students.
Posted by: W. Kiernan at May 13, 2008 11:51:37 AM
The current popularity of college education is a result of making education into commerce, constantly pumping it and pushing it into popular culture. To the target audience of consumption oriented students, it is a resort. They have a kind of love-hate relationship with it.
Posted by: Bob Calder at May 11, 2008 10:06:22 PM
The current popularity of college education is a result also of the disappearance of manufacturing jobs that used to absorb a large number of high school graduates for whom those jobs meant secure, decent-paying work until retirement. Now, those students often must choose between low-paying service jobs and going to college in the (in many cases, vain) hope that a college degree will be the ticket to a secure, decent-paying job.
Posted by: Soprano at May 13, 2008 12:39:39 PM
> I can only remember one advisor in all my years at school who considered the practical goals of my education.
Who cares about your petty practical goals! University education is about knowing about stuff! There is no substitute for knowing your stuff!
If all you want is money go study to be a plumber! If you want more money, go study economics! Some firms always make an error and employ fools with a diploma in economics!
I can't believe that you poor bastards are not tired of repeating that same BS! Nobody takes your whining for real!
Posted by: I Know My Stuff at May 14, 2008 1:21:54 PM
Dave S.: "half the kids are below average. Below 100 IQ. The Army has decided that it really cannot make an artilleryman of someone with an IQ below 92, and that's their cut-off. Still 35% below that. So no matter how much education some folks sit through, they won't get to a place where they can do high-intellect-demand jobs."
Thanks for stating succinctly what I was about to write a long post about. Implications:
The law of comparative advantage means US companies cannot make money creating products and services based on low-skilled work.
Only a certain percentage of people can succeed at high-skilled (knowledge/cognitive) work.
Those people's lack of knowledge skills does not make them less meritorious.
But in a "meritocracy" defined by certain cognitive skills, they are rewarded as less meritorious.
Should we, as a society, address this inevitable modern syllogism via government transfers?
It's worked in Europe. Much more equality, less poverty, and no difference in long-term prosperity growth. (*No difference.* Look at long-term GDP-per-capita growth over multiple lengthy periods. Over some periods we're ahead, over other periods they're ahead. Small differences. Net difference near zero.)
Yeah, it's not fair and some people will cheat and skate. No duh. But overall, everyone's better off (except the very rich, and arguably they are as well, because the world they live in is happier and less strife-ridden).
Posted by: John Stevens at May 16, 2008 10:37:39 AM
