[ren_engineer]

this is all the same rehashed Boomer garbage defending college. Reality is that all of these benefits could easily be replicated at a fraction of the cost.

Cultural inertia is the only thing keeping the current university system alive, everything about the tenure track and how graduate students have to work is broken as well. The current system in the US was not created as a program to efficiently educate a modern workforce to maintain a modern economy , so it fails miserably

[dahart]

> The current system in the US was not created as a program to efficiently educate a modern workforce to maintain a modern economy , so it fails miserably

By what metric is it failing? Why do you think it wasn’t created to educate the workforce? What is your emphasis on “modern” referring to? You clearly have strong feelings about this, and I’m curious why, but your comment doesn’t clearly communicate why you feel this way, nor give much evidence to back up the belief that education is broken and that fixing it is easy. Where is the evidence that education could be more efficient? What does more efficient mean? Are you talking about financial cost, or time & effort spent learning, or something else? If it’s “easily replicated” more efficiently then why hasn’t it already happened?

[ren_engineer]

>By what metric is it failing?

the trillion dollars of student debt that can't be paid off because many degrees don't produce real economic value to justify the cost of education. Having millions of people waste years of their lives and massive amounts of money is a failure.

>Why do you think it wasn’t created to educate the workforce?

because I know the history of the university system and it's barely changed in centuries

>If it’s “easily replicated” more efficiently then why hasn’t it already happened?

because the government subsidizes it with trillions of dollars so there is no incentive to change

[dahart]

> the trillion dollars of student debt that can't be paid off because many degrees don't produce real economic value to justify the cost of education.

Less than 10% of student loan debt is in default, and the total debt is less than 2 trillion, so I don’t believe it’s accurate to say “trillions” can’t be paid off. Also according to the US Fed, degree holders earn on average 2x more than non degree holders. (Think about the increase in tax base as a result).

Student loan debt isn’t necessarily any indicator of failure. Debt is (perhaps) a natural part of the economy. There might be reasons that we should fund education and not ask students to borrow. But the borrowing by itself is not proof that anything is wasted or wrong.

> it’s barely changed in centuries.

What are you referring to? The fields of Bioengineering and Computer Science didn’t exist centuries ago. Physics and Chemistry have changed completely. Almost nothing in the modern soft sciences did either. Modern research funding is nothing like it was centuries ago, or even 50 years ago. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

> because the government subsidizes it so there is no incentive to change

Then it means people pay less than they would otherwise? That further begs the question of what kind of efficiency you want. What should a college education cost, and who should pay for it? How much should professors get paid, and who should pay them, where should the money come from?

You complained both about govt subsidizing and debt. So how do you envision this getting cheaper? I’m in favor of govt funding education, but that’s a bigger subsidy than today. I think the govt can already afford it (since degree holders earn 2x more than non degree holders) but that doesn’t change the efficiency of the system.

[cs137]

The current system in the US was not created as a program to efficiently educate a modern workforce to maintain a modern economy , so it fails miserably

If anything, the problem with the US education system is that it was designed to do that, and does it well.

Low-income public schools have metal detectors and a significant police presence. Show up a minute late to class (the bells were put there at the request of industrialists) and you'll lose points. They're treated like possible future criminals. High-income public schools have open campuses and forgiving attitudes toward late work and adolescent mischief, but still have lots of rules about when people can do what. Prep schools have guidance counselors that tell you exactly what you need to do, and who will start setting you up at 14, to get into whatever undergraduate college you choose--they train you to expect to be handed everything you want by society.

Whether it's by design or emergence, the system funnels people into socioeconomic strata that neatly correspond to the one they were born into. In the middle class, this means they get an education that is by-and-large competently delivered and that offers a little bit of autonomy but does not, in general, reward creativity.

The average middle school, with its stultifying rules, its emphasis on memorization and busywork, and its reward/punishment systems, is great training for the median industrial job. High school, with the culture of status-seeking and social pettiness, is great preparation for the white-collar corporate world. College trains people for the kind of job that would have been available to them fifty years ago; but in today's economy, all the decent opportunities are spoken-for.

[linuxftw]

The pro college crowd has a tool the anti-college crowd doesn't: They understand that the masses respond emotionally rather than rationally. If there is to be meaningful change in society, we need to make people feel embarrassed for attending college.

[corrral]

You don't need to stigmatize college. Just get employers to stop favoring graduates, and enrollment will plummet to a tiny fraction of its current level. Meanwhile, you'll have trouble getting people to feel bad about going to college if graduates still have an easier time in the job market than non-graduates.

[dahart]

I don’t understand framing this as some kind of tribal pro or anti college. Are people against education, or upset by the costs in the US? Other countries manage to fund it a bit more sanely. You will otherwise be pretty hard pressed to make people embarrassed by learning more and earning more.

[linuxftw]

There's a lot to unpack here. College is not synonymous with education. I'm anti-college insofar as I feel that it is a net-negative for society, and greatly so. For the vast majority, college is a means to an end, a way to receive some training at best, or mere credentialing at worst, to work for some entity (mostly for-profit corporations). Does society need this to function, is it even desirable?

The university system is full of cons and frauds. Anyone that gives that system money is helping to perpetuate the system.

[dahart]

> College is not synonymous with education

Right, that’s my question to you, what exactly are you referring to when you say you’re anti college: the cost or the education?

What’s the evidence for college being a large net negative? Are you talking about the US only, or are you including, say, Norway too? (Are you actually anti college, or anti current US education funding?)

What do you mean is it needed/desirable? Are you suggesting that education alone is a bad thing, or that well rounded (non-vocational) education is bad for society, that people would be better off not taking math / writing / history? Is vocational job training unnecessary? Any reason to think it would be equally effective if corporations did it privately, or that it would cost less all else being equal?

Currently, the training plus credentialing yields 2x earnings in the US above non college graduates. Whether good or bad, the result is more money moving to society. There is no clear financial net negative, in fact the current financial benefit to society is so large that it’s obvious the US govt could fully fund college education for all on the increased tax revenue alone, and still have multiples more than that to spare. I don’t yet see your argument at all.

[2snakes]

Like Chomsky says the elites said, education is for the indoctrination of the young.

[dahart]

Without context, that’s nothing more than a platitude. In some sense it is perhaps tautological and meaningless since the words educate and indoctrinate could be viewed as practically synonymous. Anyway I’m sure there’s a pithy quote about lacking education and being less educated and/or more poor, but the real question is what is the actual, realistic, practical alternative? There is nothing wrong with choosing not to attend college with eyes wide open IMO, but globally increasing education opportunities is considered to be critical for eliminating poverty. So is Chomsky’s quote even relevant to whether to go to school, or is he critiquing or reflecting on the philosophy of our style of education? The man has a PhD after all.