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by johnnybgoode
5227 days ago
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> terrible article
> Awfully muddled thinking
> right-wing propaganda
> laughably poor argument
> propagandist rant
All of the above were unnecessary. I'll address the rest of your comment now. > First, there's an implicit value judgement that "serving the poor" is better than serving the "middle class".
Typically, when cuts are being made, people across the political spectrum prefer to cut services for the middle class before cutting services for the poor. Most people agree that cutting services for the poor is a last resort. I am not arguing here that this is necessarily correct or that you have to agree, but that is the reason for the emphasis on "serving the poor" when discussing cuts to government programs. > Universities are constantly wasting huge sums of money?
Administration costs, questionable research, credentialing, etc. That huge increase in tuition costs is going somewhere, isn't it? > And why is the student loan system a criticism of the university rather than the financial aid system currently practiced in the US.
They are part of the same system. The connection between the increase in student loan limits and the increase in student tuition has been noted many times. See elsewhere in this thread. > Who says people are expected to have degrees before they can do anything of value? Many of the most important innovators of our times do not have college degrees. And certainly nobody is erecting an unnecessary barrier to "individual prosperity".
In addition to what monochrome and yummyfajitas have said, anywhere you look, you can find job listings for relatively simple, entry-level positions that unnecessarily require university degrees. Ever since we started pushing the idea that everyone should go to college, we've seen a signaling arms race where you'd better get a college degree or face being passed over for someone else who did -- whether or not the job really needed someone with a degree. This is the unnecessary barrier. Now you have to spend money and time to get a degree just to keep up. If you can't do that, you're worse off.Yes, many great innovators do not have college degrees. They help prove my point. > Granting certifications to a few doesn't improve their prospects at the expense of others.
Of course it does. yummyfajitas has covered this already. > would've been impossible without all the academic research into computing and networking systems in the last few decades
You're suggesting the only possible way to do this kind of research is through the university system as currently structured. This is an outlandish, unsupported claim, and you denigrate the people who performed this research by claiming they could only have done it within the modern university system. |
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You haven't really addressed my first point. What's the evidence that libraries serve the poor more than universities? I was trying to point out that we can make all the assertions we want, but none of them might be true, so we need to guided by data not opinions or anecdotes. You seem to have missed this point.
Administration costs, questionable research, credentialing, etc. That huge increase in tuition costs is going somewhere, isn't it?
My understanding is that tuition is rising because of university funding being cut. In fact, some of the first few articles when you google for this are [1, 2, 3] which clearly couple tuition increases with budget cuts. Are you not aware of this?
Are you seriously claiming that university tuition is being increased simply to fund "questionable research" etc.?
This is the unnecessary barrier. Now you have to spend money and time to get a degree just to keep up. If you can't do that, you're worse off.
This is a product of the economic system we live and I fail to see how reducing university funding will solve this problem.
Yes, many great innovators do not have college degrees. They help prove my point.
No, I don't think it proves your point. You said people can't do anything of value without a college degree and the existence of people who have done things of value without a degree disproves your point.
Of course it does. yummyfajitas has covered this already.
yummyfajita's claim, if valid, is a much weaker one than yours.
You're suggesting the only possible way to do this kind of research is through the university system as currently structured. This is an outlandish, unsupported claim, and you denigrate the people who performed this research by claiming they could only have done it within the modern university system.
That's not what I'm claiming. What I said was that given that this happened, that research has already more than paid for itself.
If you want to claim all of this research could have been done in some different setting (which you haven't specified), that might or might not be true depending on what you're proposing.
I'm skeptical though that a system that eschews public funding of research will work better than the current one. I think it's not a coincidence that the US is the pre-eminent leader in high-technology research and also houses some of the best graduate schools in the world.
[1] http://www.highereducation.org/reports/affordability_supplem... [2] http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/feb/01/florida-college-u... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/nyregion/cuny-board-approv...