http://www.vox.com/2015/9/8/9261531/professor-quitting-job


Continuing from the Bernie thread:

Quote :

"1) Too many people go to college As recently as a year ago, I remained willing to work inside that fractured system of pay-to-play higher education. If students wanted to take out federal loans to buy degrees, who was I to stop them? Let the chips fall where they may; graduate them all and let the invisible hand sort them out. But that system is unsustainable. Liberal arts programs, and the humanities in particular, have become a place to warehouse students seeking generic bachelor's degrees not out of any particular interest in the field, but in order to receive raises at work or improve their position in a crowded job market "

9/23/2015 9:13:00 PM

Jebus haven't you bloviated enough about this already?

9/23/2015 11:46:22 PM

Last post was in 2008. Figured it needed its own thread.

9/23/2015 11:50:13 PM

^^^ what's the solution? As long as college degrees convey a job advantage, you'll have people getting those types of degrees.

If we could get companies to pay people more in all jobs, we could address this, but the political right is stringently against this concept (even though we know productivity and pay haven't kept up with each other).

9/24/2015 11:32:59 AM

^^ what last post was 2008? you were just boring us with this in the Bernie thread yesterday or the day before.

9/24/2015 11:38:34 AM

^

Have the college somehow partly responsible for the loan the student takes on. If the loan goes in default because job expectations are not matching reality, the college is partly on the hook. Forces the college to have skin in the game on outcomes.

Don't offer loans for anthropology, unless it's a double major or the student is exceptional--some people can make anything work. It sounds it's easy, but in reality having a system that does this is probably impossible. Who gets to decide who is exceptional? How can you stop the corruption of rich kids buying into the system?

9/24/2015 11:39:53 AM

so...fuck anthropologists...right?

9/24/2015 12:15:33 PM

Fuck selling an 18 yr old on the idea he can get a job and be middle class if he just forks over the first 10 years of his earnings.

9/24/2015 12:34:33 PM

^ You can send that message without dicking over people that want to go to school for things you don't like.

9/24/2015 12:42:48 PM

Currently, Johnnie get's $40K loan to go to college. After college he owes $40K and gets on food stamps and has tons of stress trying to pay off the $40K as he works low end jobs. At some point he says fuck this and decides to be a plumber. He now has to pay off $40K on a starting plumber salary.

In my world, Johnnie doesn't owe anything for college, but he instead spent 4 years partying on his own dime learning to be a plumber. At the end of four years he has no debt and makes $30/hr.

How is that fucking someone over?

[Edited on September 24, 2015 at 1:34 PM. Reason : a]

9/24/2015 1:34:01 PM

Quote :

"If we could get companies to pay people more in all jobs"

LOL

9/24/2015 1:42:37 PM

^
LOL, so funny...
https://anticap.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/fig2_prodhhincome.jpg

9/24/2015 1:45:17 PM

If we could just force companies to pay everyone more regardless of what they do that would fix everything

9/24/2015 2:07:24 PM

Quote :

"How is that fucking someone over?"

you are saying that only rich people should be professionals, and poor people should just all be tradesman and if they want to be a professional they should just forget it

[Edited on September 24, 2015 at 2:10 PM. Reason : the poors]

9/24/2015 2:09:49 PM

^^ pay people what they're worth, are you unable to read graphs?

9/24/2015 2:18:44 PM

Or maybe we should promote skilled labor since those jobs pay well and are in demand. Not everyone should go to college and loans should still be available but there should be more education on the costs and benefits of college vs a trade. Poor people should be able to have the option to go to college as well but it does no benefit to them if all that college education does is put them in debt and does not help them get a job.

9/24/2015 2:21:59 PM

^^ show that graph with what employers pay for healthcare

9/24/2015 2:24:40 PM

just because someone is more productive, that doesn't necessarily mean they should get paid more. perhaps the productivity was raised to match the wage.

9/24/2015 2:53:04 PM

Quote :

"you are saying that only rich people should be professionals, and poor people should just all be tradesman and if they want to be a professional they should just forget it "

You're assuming that college leads to professional. I'm debating that, and saying that college doesn't get you to a professional and is over sold as such to the detriment of everyone. The rich have the luxury of not being effected by student loan debt that's why I'm fine if they get Anthropologically basket weaving degrees.

College == good job is baked into every assumption and that's one of the core things we need to fix.

9/24/2015 3:07:52 PM

^^^
http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/2013/07/bg%202825/bgproductivityandcompensationchart4825.ashx

9/24/2015 3:19:52 PM

Here is another chart

in the context of what employers are spending, the PCE is probably the best metric to use

Quote :

"Different Methodology. The CPI estimates a higher inflation rate than the IPD for two primary reasons: (1) differences in its methodology and (2) differences in the goods and services it measures. On the calculation side, economists know that consumers respond to shifting prices. As iPods become less expensive, consumers will buy more of them, and fewer of those goods and services for which prices have risen. However, the CPI accounts for this “substitution effect” only infrequently. For this reason most economists believe that the CPI over-estimates inflation.[21] The CPI also uses less accurate data. In calculating the CPI, the BLS uses data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) to estimate how much consumers spend on different types of goods and services. This survey has significant biases. Studies show that households recall large and repeated purchases quite well. Consequently, the CEX measures the amounts that Americans spend on rent and utilities reasonably accurately. However, people often forget smaller and less regular purchases during their interviews. This under-reporting makes it appear that Americans spend far more of their income on housing, gas, or utilities than they actually do.[22] The costs of these goods have increased faster than other goods and services. This “recall bias” increases CPI-measured inflation—and decreases CPI-adjusted compensation.[23] The implicit price deflator does not suffer from these problems. Neither does another prominent measure of consumer prices, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index. The government calculates both these measures using sales data from businesses. Businesses keep very detailed records on their sales, so these indexes suffer from little recall bias. The IPD and PCE calculations also regularly account for changing consumer behavior in response to price changes. These technical differences in methodology do not reflect substantive differences in underlying inflation rates, although they do make the CPI less accurate than the IPD and PCE. If the Bureau of Economic Analysis used the CPI methodology to adjust for inflation, its productivity estimates would also grow more slowly. Methodological differences make real productivity appear to grow more rapidly than real compensation."

9/24/2015 3:47:02 PM

Heritage Foundation, huh? Try again.

9/24/2015 8:37:49 PM

^ their analysis is normally trash, but these numbers are in line with others'.

9/24/2015 10:35:06 PM

Quote :

""If we could get companies to pay people more in all jobs""

I, too, LOLed.

It's called globalization. People are willing to do shit for less because other countries currently suck harder than we do. Read a book.

9/25/2015 1:54:27 AM

Quote :

"In my world, Johnnie doesn't owe anything for college, but he instead spent 4 years partying on his own dime learning to be a plumber. At the end of four years he has no debt and makes $30/hr. "

The plumber example comes out a lot, but even using that as a stand in for all comparable skilled labor service jobs, you have to bear in mind that the economy can only support so many of these. There are 12 million people in college right now. On the conservative end we'll say a third of those are in some major that you think is a joke. Does America need 4 million more plumbers? If we added that many, would they still be making $30/hr? Supply and demand are real. There is a finite supply of broken plumbing in the United States and an essentially infinite demand for cheaper plumbers.

---

I got a degree in Political Science because I find that subject interesting and wanted to work in the political arena later. Over time, that took a more international bent, so I got a Masters in International Studies, focusing on politics. That Masters looks to be serving me well, even with the loans I needed to pay for it. At this point it's pretty much "masters or nothing" in the international development field.

But I agree with the line in the first post about people wanting a generic BA without having much interest. I saw it a LOT in undergrad. Poli Sci was filled to the brim with morons who couldn't tell you half the things in the Bill of Rights, and of the few that could, 95% only had some regurgitated Rush Limbaugh understanding of what they meant. It was deeply disheartening. I know that NCSU is not renowned for its political science program, but the professors are actually quite good. It's a pity that they're stuck with the slack-jawed mouth-breathers who really just want to go to frat parties for four (or likely five) years before getting into some soulless, brainless job requiring no particular specialization.

Years later, in a graduate Public Administration class, the professor made me think about it in a slightly new light. He said, in effect: "Why are we here? It's not really to learn public administration. Realistically you will retain little of the actual information imparted in this class unless you go directly into something that uses it, and probably no more than one or two of you will do that. No. We are here taking this graduate class to show future employers that we are capable of taking a graduate class. Ideally we are doing it to show them that we are capable of doing well in a graduate-level task that addresses some of the same issues they do."

There's a lot to this. Nobody in this thread can even remember the names of all the classes they took in college, let alone much of the material in them. The flip side of the OP's argument -- that universities are just degree factories selling kids on the idea that a diploma gets a job -- is that even a factory-produced degree generally still tells employers that the recipient has:

1) Decent adult literacy
2) Basic problem-solving skills
3) The follow-through to stick with something for 4 years to achieve a goal
4) The bare minimum of social skills necessary to survive in a working environment
5) The mental flexibility to pass classes on a variety of subjects

And so on. Demonstrating these qualities is not of negligible value. I agree with you that they are also not worth what many colleges currently charge, and I allow that a degree does not demonstrate any of them with 100% confidence -- those sickening for-profit online schools are doing all they can to erode even that. However, I do not think it is the worst thing in the world that some people get a degree just to have a degree.

Here I want to make a distinction that I don't think CaelNCSU is adequately making, as evidenced in this line:

Quote :

"Fuck selling an 18 yr old on the idea he can get a job and be middle class if he just forks over the first 10 years of his earnings."

This can go one of two ways:

1) "If you get a degree, you WILL get a middle class professional job." This is false, and universities should not be claiming it
2) "If you DON'T get a degree, you WON'T get a middle class professional job." This is essentially true, and it's not just the university's fault. Yeah, they've oversold the relevance of their degrees for a long time, but they've been aided and abetted by virtually every white-collar employer outside of Silicon Valley and plenty inside of it, too.

Look through any set of job listings. You're lucky if you can get even the most basic "professional" job without a degree, and you're luckier still if you ever manage to rise beyond that station. Employers demand degrees for jobs that require no specialized education at all. Even if a job doesn't explicitly require a degree, you're going up against other people that have one. Unless you're shooting so low that having one makes you "overqualified," being the sole applicant without that BA works against you.

---

There's a better solution than just banning loans for degrees that CaelNCSU thinks are stupid. There should be an alternative to the current specialized degree tracks. Have a couple of "generalist" branches. You'd still have to take classes in all the core subjects that we all have to take, both to demonstrate some mental flexibility and to expose you to different things, which also has value. But you would not need the more detailed or in-depth courses associated with a specialty or concentration. I would add in a couple of courses on operating in a professional environment and basic life skills (though honestly I think these should be required of everybody in high school). This would tell an employer essentially everything that a communications BA would, but you could get it in 2.5-3 years. Employers get their generically-educated new wage slaves, students spend less time and money in college while still reaping almost all of the benefits, the university system doesn't collapse for want of generic-degree seekers.

You'd have to work hard to sell it, so that students and employers wouldn't look down their noses at the alternative degree, but I think it's more realistic than selling them on the idea of not going to college at all. And, just to keep piling it on poor moron, it's a damn sight more realistic than making everybody get paid more.

9/25/2015 5:45:04 AM

Quote :

"1) Decent adult literacy 2) Basic problem-solving skills 3) The follow-through to stick with something for 4 years to achieve a goal 4) The bare minimum of social skills necessary to survive in a working environment 5) The mental flexibility to pass classes on a variety of subjects"

This reminds me of the Chris Rock skit where he talks about people bragging about not going to jail, "You dumb ass, you aren't supposed to go to jail!" In this example bragging about basic problem solving skills and decent literacy is the bare minimum of being an adult and shouldn't be held as any standard. It says nothing of your competency as a professional or skills as an artisan or skilled labor. The economy only cares what you produce for it--sad but unfortunate truth.

Getting a Ph.D in Medieval History doesn't make you worth anything more than a $20K a year service job and ALSO doesn't signal that you even know Midieval History. So you've got a really expensive product that produces no return on investment whose knowledge you could get by spending a few years in a library flirting with librarians.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

Quote :

" Look through any set of job listings. You're lucky if you can get even the most basic "professional" job without a degree"

Necessary, but not sufficient. The chance of getting those jobs with a degree is low, and requires other skills. Taking four to six years off your life for a small chance isn't a good gamble. You used to play poker--what's the EV of a small chance of middle class or higher if the bet is $40K and four years?

Quote :

" But I agree with the line in the first post about people wanting a generic BA without having much interest. I saw it a LOT in undergrad. Poli Sci was filled to the brim with morons who couldn't tell you half the things in the Bill of Rights, and of the few that could, 95% only had some regurgitated Rush Limbaugh understanding of what they meant. "

I think it's criminal to saddle these people with debt and worse to pretend like they'll get a job. Maybe we can send them to law school and extract even more money from their ennui.

Quote :

"There's a better solution than just banning loans for degrees that CaelNCSU thinks are stupid."

I value education on a personal level a lot--180 credit hours, two full BS degress, one course away from an additional BA and a minor. Three were in all different colleges (CHASS, CALS, Engineering)--one was even in CHASS! In short, I don't think anything is stupid and understand why people are interested in history, philosophy, or basket weaving.

Only my minor helped at all in my quest to support myself.

Quote :

"No. We are here taking this graduate class to show future employers that we are capable of taking a graduate class. Ideally we are doing it to show them that we are capable of doing well in a graduate-level task that addresses some of the same issues they do."

This is an ad hoc justification for "What did I do with my life". Kind of like I feel, "Why did I spend 180 credit hours on all that education when Matt Damon said I could get it with a library card".

[Edited on September 25, 2015 at 10:08 AM. Reason : a]

9/25/2015 10:05:59 AM

aaronburro?

9/25/2015 2:22:22 PM

Quote :

"I value education on a personal level a lot--180 credit hours, two full BS degress, one course away from an additional BA and a minor. Three were in all different colleges (CHASS, CALS, Engineering)--one was even in CHASS!"

the humblebrag is strong with this one.

9/25/2015 2:48:38 PM

A lot of fucking good it did me. My point is that I'm not on the sidelines, I understand very much the pain of spending money and time on education. I knew I should have left that out

I thought my first stint, "People really just care if you have a degree". Which I found to be false when I spent 8 months looking for a job.



[Edited on September 25, 2015 at 2:54 PM. Reason : a]

9/25/2015 2:52:41 PM

Quote :

"There should be an alternative to the current specialized degree tracks. Have a couple of "generalist" branches. You'd still have to take classes in all the core subjects that we all have to take, both to demonstrate some mental flexibility and to expose you to different things, which also has value. But you would not need the more detailed or in-depth courses associated with a specialty or concentration. I would add in a couple of courses on operating in a professional environment and basic life skills (though honestly I think these should be required of everybody in high school). This would tell an employer essentially everything that a communications BA would, but you could get it in 2.5-3 years. Employers get their generically-educated new wage slaves, students spend less time and money in college while still reaping almost all of the benefits, the university system doesn't collapse for want of generic-degree seekers."

Wouldn't this be what an associates degree was supposed to be?

9/25/2015 2:54:15 PM

Quote :

"I thought my first stint, "People really just care if you have a degree". Which I found to be false when I spent 8 months looking for a job. "

So you thought that just because you paid money for a degree you could get a job that you want? Srsly? That's not a system problem, that's a "you assuming" problem. I suppose you were supposed to just be allowed to get into the college you wanted to just because you graduated high school too?

#Entitlement

9/25/2015 3:18:15 PM

Yup. At least now we know why this guy won't shut up about this.

9/25/2015 3:38:09 PM

I was told that by my boss at coop & internship, numerous professors, and everyone in this thread. Also, I said A job implying any job. I certainly wasn't looking for a perfect gig and don't understand how you could derive that from what I said.

[Edited on September 25, 2015 at 4:04 PM. Reason : a]

9/25/2015 3:44:33 PM

because you didn't find a job. what did you major in and what jobs did you apply for?

9/25/2015 4:30:31 PM

Quote :

"I was told that by...everyone in this thread."

What did we tell you exactly again?

9/25/2015 4:59:21 PM

rule #1 of TWW...never take advice from TWW, even if the advice is rule #1.

#paradox

9/25/2015 5:33:01 PM

Its a two pronged solution. Actually 3.


1. Make all college tuition publicly funded. Anyone who has the grades to get into a school, should be able to go to that school, study whatever they want and have it paid for in full, plus room, board, and spending money.

2. Take away pressure of college by raising minimum wage to an absurdly high amount. This should be different in every place but there needs to be a mathematical formula for enforcing minimum wages across the country. Everyone full time worker should earn something like 125%-150% the cost of a median one bedroom apartment in the city they work in. Thats what we call a livable wage. All of a sudden, all of the people who go to college solely to earn a livable wage are out. In fact, high school upperclassmen, could now take high school vouchers to go to trade school for two years instead of preparing for college in high school. Everyone wins.

3. Take away the pressure of having a job by providing basic needs to all, regardless of employment status. Companies don't have to hire/keep people who aren't worth the minimum wage they are forced to pay. Everyone is guaranteed to eat and have a place to live, healthcare, etc.

Currently, people are going to college building up debt then going unemployed straight to number 3 or companies are hiring bad workers and forced to pay 15/hr to someone who isn't really accomplishing anything for them. All three points must be included for any to work.

9/26/2015 8:43:08 PM

suspend

9/26/2015 9:53:42 PM

Come work in real estate in NYC.

You can be a complete idiot with no college degree and push 6 figures if you have a work ethic and arnt a social leper.

[Edited on September 27, 2015 at 7:31 AM. Reason : But I doubt this guy has a work ethic or isn't a social leper]

9/27/2015 7:31:10 AM

^^^ that sounds easy and cheap to fund

9/28/2015 1:27:39 AM

Quote :

"In this example bragging about basic problem solving skills and decent literacy is the bare minimum of being an adult and shouldn't be held as any standard. It says nothing of your competency as a professional or skills as an artisan or skilled labor. The economy only cares what you produce for it--sad but unfortunate truth."

First, I don't think it's "bragging" any more than a driver's license is bragging that you have received instruction in how to drive a car without crashing and killing everybody. It doesn't signify that you are a particularly good driver, and doesn't even guarantee that you won't crash and kill everybody. But every time a police officer pulls somebody over he can't then subject them to a rigorous driving test to assess their skills, so the license is a stand-in for that.

Likewise getting a college degree is a stand-in for demonstrated ability. It's difficult for employers to make you come in and demonstrate all your abilities before they hire you. Yes, an employer should just be able to assume that applicants have the skills above, but of course they can't, any more than a police officer can assume that anybody driving a car knows how to do so.

And nice try, attempting to shift the discussion from college degrees in general to things like "Ph.D in Medieval History."

Quote :

"Necessary, but not sufficient. The chance of getting those jobs with a degree is low, and requires other skills."

The chance of getting any one job is low, the chance of getting a job in the category is at least decent. Unemployment is high, but not so high as that. I'm not sure I can think of any of my friends or acquaintances who got a degree and have not subsequently found a job they liked (and that paid them enough to keep them off food stamps).

Your poker comparison (and the thrust of your arguments in this thread generally) fails to take into account other parts of the value of a college education. I would say that most people value their college experience in and of itself, because culturally we have built certain sought-after things into that. In fact, I would say that more worrying than "people who go to college for a generic degree" is "people who go to college because COOOLLLLEGE WHOOOOO!" We all know idiots who would have gladly taken out massive loans to be drunk and fuck everybody for four years.

There's also the social prestige factor, which contributes to earnings but also to overall life satisfaction. I don't like this aspect of our culture, the attitude that denigrates potentially highly skilled trades because they don't involve a degree, but it exists, and for somebody who does not want to spend the rest of their life as a socioeconomic beta, that adds a certain willingness-to-pay to college.

Now, given the general tone of internet debate, you may be inclined to respond with an accusation that I am saying that the college experience and social prestige are worth $40k and 4 years or whatever specific numbers. I am not saying that. I am merely saying that estimating the value of a college education is not so cut-and-dried as "cost of college in years and dollars vs. probability of employment times expected salary."

Quote :

"I think it's criminal to saddle these people with debt and worse to pretend like they'll get a job."

It would be criminal to force them to do so. Unfortunately, nobody did. Virtually every aspect of society is guilty of goading them into it.

Quote :

"I thought my first stint, "People really just care if you have a degree". Which I found to be false when I spent 8 months looking for a job."

We both agree that a degree is often necessary but not sufficient, and as I said in my first post, it is wrong to tell people that if they get a degree they will get a job.

I spent a lot of time un- and under-employed after undergrad, and then again after graduate school. Even now I'm just a bloody Peace Corps Volunteer, which I enjoy immensely but which is hardly lining the bank vault with fat stacks. I still have 0 regrets about getting an education (except maybe with the begrudging admission that I should have gone to some other school for my masters, just to satisfy the popular belief you shouldn't go back to the same school). That's because I know the kind of work I like, and I know that it absolutely requires an MA. It also requires other things, sure, which is why I didn't immediately jump to being USAID country director or ambassador to Cuba (boy, that second one stings).

Quote :

"Wouldn't this be what an associates degree was supposed to be?"

I honestly have no idea. I don't think I know anybody who got an associates. But, OK, I accidentally reinvented the wheel there. Still, we clearly need to work more on making such degrees acceptable.

9/28/2015 4:44:30 AM

Quote :

"what's the solution? As long as college degrees convey a job advantage, you'll have people getting those types of degrees."

I would tie a kind of job placement percentage to certain programs, similar to what law schools are required to do. Yes, this is heavily gamed by law schools, but people with college degrees getting jobs that don't require college degrees is not job placement, and is in fact negative for the recent graduate because the job they're in doesn't help pay for the degree they just got all that much.

Job placement can have two metrics:

1. Placement in that particular field (if you get a marine biology degree, you're placed if you have a job in marine biology or heavily related)
2. Placement in a decent-paying job (defining this will be torture and will be heavily gamed I admit, but it stops people placed as secretaries, factory workers, baristas, etc. from being counted as "realizing the benefits of their degrees"; the reason for this distinction is it will account for people that got jobs that can payoff their degree while discounting those that did not)

Anyone with serious interest should seriously check out the "law school scam" online. Far too many grads for the amount of jobs available, the prospective students got wise, and now law schools have heavily reduced their entry standards for university business reasons, meaning we now have worse lawyers (and worse Bar Exam pass-rates).

[Edited on September 28, 2015 at 9:20 AM. Reason : /]

9/28/2015 8:59:21 AM

There's also a lot of people that are admitted to college and have no business being so. Cousin of mine just graduated from high school in May and had a 2.000 GPA at a run-of-the-mill farmkid high school. She found a junior college that would take her and (what I half-think is her real reason for going to college) she will cheerlead for them. She wanted me to calculate her GPA when she graduated for what I suspect was her cheerleading scholarship money required her to have a 2.0 GPA, and I was as blunt as possible telling her she'll flunk out if she doesn't work harder.

But the private junior college is taking thousands of dollars a year from her all the same.

9/28/2015 9:12:26 AM

oh man ... derisive commentary, quote bombs, charts and graphs ... this is like the soap box of yesterday year.

9/28/2015 4:59:35 PM