Decline in craftsmanship

[krw]

So there is no reason to pay teachers any more than babysitters, right?

[krw]

the business practices at HD to the general decline in craftsmanship in our country:

>>>>>>>>> Remember that quote in Pogo "we have met the enemy and it is us". >>>>>

Student loans should be abolished because they do exactly the opposite of what they're intended to do.

I can't help it if you can't follow along.

OK, I didn't understand your meaning. I'm certainly not against minimum standards but be prepared to be called a racist.

I don't put too much credence into stories about Phoenix. I haven't seen much information that didn't have an obvious axe to grind (i.e. don't know). OTOH, from what I gather, they do a good job of finding instructors who have real-world experience. I am more familiar with ITE (I think that's what it's called) or DeVry. From the people I've seen come out of there, it's a pretty good technical school.

How about requiring full disclosure; graduation and employment rates (within the field of study) at the university, college, and department levels? Publish it in every marketing blurb.

[Ed Pawlowski]

The present system does not seem to be working well. Kids are graduating with huge dept and a Master's Degree in 8th century Lithuanian Art and the only work they can get is flipping burgers. Maybe some common sense would help too.

[Ed Pawlowski]

While I did start with teachers, they are only part of the problem. The spawn of the hippie generation are the parents you speak of.

Yes, it is the generation that let it go to crap. Our parents would not let that happen.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Some barely deserve that. Most teachers get a decent wage today. I was looking at the pays of teachers in Worcester MA just last week. They ranged from mid 50s to mid 80s in real salary even though starting scales are less.

many professions, some are terrific, others much less so. Hard to get rid of the bad ones though.

[krw]

Even where the degree may lead to a useful career, there is no guarantee of graduating. These debt loads are ridiculous. They're only needed because these debts drive up the cost of education, in general.

[krw]

_Unlike_other_professions_, it's hard to get rid of the bad ones. *Unlike* other professions, their retirement and health benefits are out-of-sight.

[J. Clarke]

The ones who graduate in rocket science are flipping burgers too you know.

[Han]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I have absolutely no problem with some subsidies for art for art's sake. The "some" is rather stretchable, of course. Governments of all levels have sponsored artists and engineers to build buildings, parks, bridges, what have you. At times they were nice, functional, pretty, whatever good adjectives you want. Sometimes they built ridiculous things, sometimes they built ugly and dysfunctional.

When you invest in startups/entrepreneurs/venture capital firms, you expect some duds, as well as some really good outcomes. In art I'd expect the same. (Even to the extent that some "investments" are rigged by the "judges".)

Greater benefit than costs? One would hope that all investments pay off handsomely, but I'd think that reinvestment would be the best thing that could happen.

Maybe I rose up in the ranks too far, but I have heard the complaint also from administrative staff, and I have seen the office of the division head expand like balloons, especially during the last 5-10 years.

I agree with the idea, just not the specifics here. As in politics, it is really easy to focus laser-like on out of context statements.

Grin. Rights here can be stretched too. How stringently do you apply standards of performance, if perhaps the subject student has had repeatedly bad luck in his family and/or health? I know shit happens, and sometimes you can wipe it off and go on, and at other times you can't get rid of the bad luck.

Surely true in some cases. In others, there is a lack of guidance, help, supervision, whatever.

[Han]

Swingman wrote in news:vtidnWFFcaxv-pHNnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

[Bill]

the business practices at HD to the general decline in craftsmanship in our country:

>>>>>>>>>>> Remember that quote in Pogo "we have met the enemy and it is us". >>>>>>

That's a reasonable idea. Be forewarned that those rates are not automatically available. Graduates don't automatically keep colleges aware of what they are up to anymore than they keep the address on their driver's licences current. Note that a department have 40 student majors may only graduate 10 students a year or less. The results may not statistically significant and angle shooters would appear. For example, do students receiving "work-study" support count as employed? How about students who go on to graduate school?

[Bill]

They do form an interesting part of the supply-demand equation. Cutting to the chase, if you remove student loans you'll have fewer colleges and fewer college students.

[Bill]

That varies immensely from institution to institution. Many offer very modest benefits. Unfortunately, the trend (for years now) is to hire adjunct professors instead of tenured faculty and provide them with very low pay and low benefits. Having no other responsibilities, they do a LOT of teaching. Unfortunately, that is a very popular business model. At least, it's not hard to "get rid of the bad ones".

[dpb]

Think????? :)

It's ridiculous--these kids are going through school living better than I did for probably 10 years after graduating. It's just stupidity and an absurd level of expectations of "need".

...

In particular the diploma mills would almost all entirely cease to exist; many exist only to milk that subsidized revenue stream.

The real schools will continue to exist; the numbers of students may drop some but there are other ways the deserving and dedicated can find to finance school as well as simply as noted above, dropping the level of expectation of living standards, etc. You don't _require_ a new Beemer and a 3-br apt and to spend every break somewhere exotic to get a degree.

--

[J. Clarke]

And the question then becomes whether the ones that survive will be the ones that provide the best education or the ones that are most effectively marketed and beancounted.

[Bill]

I think that more high school kids make the trip to Florida. It's not the college student who is working part time at close to minimum wage to help make ends meet.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Is that a bad thing? Many students get an education in a specialized field and never use it. They would be better off going to a trade school or still flipping burgers, just without the debt. They may lead happier and more productive lives that way.

[Bill]

Good luck on coming to a concensus on what "best education" means!

If you are going to run a college, you can't afford to ignore the beans--or you won't have a college. Colleges have to pay heating bills too--and big ones!

The Internet will most-likely result in more education options in the marketplace. That comes with it's own set of issues, but I anticipate it could help lower the cost of tuition--maybe even at existing instituitions.

[Bill]

I understand your point completely. However, many (most?) people would prefer a choice. People are free to go to trade-school now if they prefer. It appears that the path of an HVAC-tech is paved with gold.

[-MIKE-]

TN started a scholarship from lottery proceeds ironically called the "Hope Scholarship." I won't even get into the fact that lotteries never raise any money for schools, as they always promise to do. The money that does go from the lottery to schools actually just replaces what used to come out of a state's general fund, which now gets reallocated to something else. So not only do the schools no get any extra money, but the government now gets to waste even more tax payer dollars without any accountability.

The big problem with these scholarships is they end up dumbing down the entire college education. When this scholarship first came out, students had to have a certain gpa in high school (which was too low to begin with) to get the scholarship and had to keep a certain gpa to keep the scholarship. The first few years saw record numbers of students losing scholarship aide. So instead of accepting the fact that they probably set the bar way to low in giving out scholarships, they didn't want the program to look like a failure and they lowered the gpa needed to keep the scholarship.

This, along with other misguided educational policies in the US are resulting in a dumbing down of high school and college degrees to an eventual point at which a college diploma will be the equivalent of a

1960's high school diploma. At that point, in order for graduates to compete for good jobs, they will need a masters degree. The masters degree will be the new college diploma and since everyone is getting college paid for by someone else, meaning there is no personal sacrifice or penalty for failure, the bachelors degree will be looked at with no more esteem than a high school diploma is now.

Meanwhile, in China and India, 14 year-olds are learning calculus and organic chemistry.