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Comment by nanairo | Hacker News Reader

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities.

They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorganisations.”.

My feeling is that the person who said it is thinking of streamlining it, removing subjects which bring little profit, and increasing those with profit. So out goes "geography" but also "gender studies", and instead more money is put into "pharmacy", "genetics", "economics and MBA".

The result would be great from a business perspective, but that's what companies and business are for. If there's plenty of money many companies will be investigating in those subjects just as well.

Instead Universities should also help the student become full rounded, more knowledgable even of things that may not bring money, and should let professors study subjects despite there being no monetary advantage.

Where has the passion for knowledge gone? Let the student have a place to get knowledge, and the professor have a place to expand it.

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Completely agree with the sentiment, however you may be overestimating the fully rounded student thing. Things may be completely different in the US - what I'm writing is all UK-centric, and somewhat anecdotal - but I suspect they're not.

Here, everyone I know who studied "STEM" subjects really had to put in some serious work to get their degrees. This was true from modestly ranked universities all the way through to the top places like Oxbridge and Imperial.

For people who studied humanities it was completely different. At the very top places/courses, yes, you would have a LOT of work. At least one large essay due a week, a mountain of reading material, and a deep appreciation of your subject. However just a few steps down, at slightly less competitive but still very well regarded institutions, I have friends who were given maybe three essays a term (semester), with many spending under ten hours doing anything related to their course in a given week. Sure, people are going do a lot of important growing up in their three years, but many will admit that their course is a bit of a joke, and they're doing it for the piece of paper, not because of an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Sorry if that sounds somewhat unpleasant, I didn't mean it to be. Universities should not be run in the cynical way that you fear, but something does need to change.

I upvoted you, but on the flip side, we currently have a large number of students who are coming out of college with low real-world value degrees and huge amounts of debt.

It's probably unsustainable to have 175,000 psych and history majors[1] graduating every year with 10-20,000 dollars in debt[2]. (Not to speak of all the business/marketing majors)

I'm not saying that colleges should turn into work-training programs, but there's a huge impedance mismatch between the cost of college, the skills conferred by the degrees that most people get, and the rewards for those in the workplace.

At some point, the average decent public university degree (in a non hard-science) will cease to pay for itself over the long term. Then the only people doing the humanities will be those of a class privileged enough to afford them, which is an outcome that I don't think anyone wants.

Even when you take into account the often generous financial aid packages in the US, costs are still spiraling compared to benefits, especially in the less lucrative degrees.

1: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/figures/fig_15.asp 2: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2006-02-22-stude...

However, this may simply mean that fewer people should be going to college, not that the university system has a deep flaw. If, for example, 100k psych majors are graduating only to work in social services or some slightly related field, should these people be going to college at all? Are these skills necessary for the workforce? It's important to recognize that just because we wish it were so, 50,000 psych and history majors won't suddenly switch to the hard sciences. Now, it's possible that university is instead a luxury -- if they have the money to pay for it, it's an extremely appealing situation. However, many if not most do not have the money to pay for it. In summary, I'm not sure this is a problem with universities, but with students. How do we persuade people not to go to college?

P.S. When the author states that universities are weak and "ripe for takeover" he then uses STEM funding being too spread out as an argument. This is stupid because if we did consolidate STEM funding like he suggests, it would probably go to mostly the 50-100 best universities in the country. This would only solidify those schools' power and work against his entire argument.

The deep flaw is that too many people go to college for impractical degrees.

Are impractical degrees that bad, in and of themselves?

Provided you can afford the impractical degree or you don't mind the debt to get it, then no, they're not. The problem is that people are investing tens of thousands of dollars into degrees that won't return anything on that investment. I've heard the argument that such an investment is not in money but in making one a more well-rounded person, but I've personally never understood paying so much for knowledge that can be gotten for free with the internet and a library card.

I'm well-rounded. I can also program, do math (it's not just for high school math teachers) and speak German.

Meanwhile, my friend the psych/sociology major is out of work despite intelligence and conversational aptitude, and my friend the anthropology major works at a laundromat for what would be less than minimum wage in most other states.

These are people just as smart as I am, with much better GPAs. We all bought the "college => easy middle class" thing hook, line and sinker; I'm just lucky enough to have chosen a degree that pays.

This is anecdotal, but I know of many people who got jobs from big firms during University's career fair. They were doing things like History, or English language.

The reason why the employers were so keen on them was not that they were going to use the subject itself (e.g. History) but the techniques. A history graduate can read _a_lot_ quickly, summarise it, and hand you a report. Those are great skills that are often required in a job (in some jobs more than others).

So impractical degrees may still be... practical. :) (that said I personally don't think a degree should be judge on how practical it is. But I agree with the poster above that if you do want to focus on things that give you better job prospects in the short run, then there are colleges (in the Canadian/UK sense of shorter, more focused higher eduction courses).

Ah, but which are those, and do we really want to get rid of them all? Math degrees, for example, are not too lucrative employment-wise (except for statistics, which often is in a different department anyway). Do we really want to axe the math department?

Biology is even worse--- its starting salaries are approximately the same as most liberal arts fields. Does biology get to stay because it's science, though, despite having no better a business case than English does?

This is the point where people from my neck of the woods (Ontario, and, frankly, most of Canada) suffer severe cognitive dissonance. We have two very different post-secondary tracks, and around these parts a "college" in colloquial parlance is a diploma-granting institute aimed at providing students with marketable skills (technicians, technologists, accountants, nurses who have no aspirations to teach nursing later). The programs may be two or three years, but they are all identifiable by their practical applicability. (The full designation of such institutions is "Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology".) Quite apart from that, we have the Universities which, apart from a few professional programs (medicine/dentistry, law, etc.), come with no promise of applicability whatever. (And even professional degrees are merely preparation for practical situations that will eventually lead to real certification. A BEng degree doesn't make you an engineer, a PEng certification does, and so on.

The point is that, from my perspective, more people should probably be going to college rather than to University. It's not that we don't need thinkers, but that we need more thinkers that can translate thought into action.

EDIT: closed paren to avoid major bug.

Clear goals. Different goals require distinct methods to achieve them. College and University. Perhaps we need more ways to teach and educate people. Ideally one desire thinkers than can translate things into action, but while this is a goal, why don't we try to find the way to give every student the best way to build a good education?

That's more-or-less the point of the two tracks. To put in in a frame that will be familiar to most of the readers here, the study of computability (computer science) is a fascinating theoretical pursuit that has some practical application in the real world, but that theoretical base is often glossed over in the rush to produce "qualified" programmers. Here, at least, the coder stream is in one track (with a sound theoretical base), while the mathematical and electrical engineering streams are in the other. There's nothing preventing a computer scientist from learning to code, nor is there anything keeping a diploma-toting programmer from pursuing mathematics further, it's just far less likely that a kid going into a computer science program is going to expect to emerge from the program as a code monkey or that one entering a programming stream will be wondering when the damned algebra is going to end.

> "How do we persuade people not to go to college?"

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. The argument is always practical vs. impractical degrees - but that's not all of it.

The problem is twofold, IMHO:

- Impractical degrees are disproportionately expensive compared to their earning power. You learn a lot of stuff, go deeply into debt, and wind up not being able to pay it off. In short: impractical degrees are overpriced.

- Practical degrees are (in most places) worth the money, but unbelievably loaded in terms of curriculum. Students come up as one-dimensional idiots, who have been impeccably trained in one subject area and nothing else. This creates effective workforces, but creates ineffective citizens, contrary to the humanities (read: most of the impractical degrees).

The two problems are IMHO rather separate, but the second doesn't get nearly enough attention. I cannot begin to count the number of engineers I graduated with who had not even the faintest idea of how politics in our country works - or some of the most basic philosophies the nation is based on, or even the most basic of 20th century history. Few of them appreciate art to any degree, and even fewer practice some form of it themselves.

Our engineering programs are creating idiots - people who can design bridges and write code like no other, but are worthless as people otherwise.

But, are you sure that the "impractical" degree programs are actually doing any better? Perhaps at top private schools one can get a good liberal arts education, but my observation going to a public school was that the science and engineering students generally seemed more well-rounded and more broadly educated compared to the vast hoards coasting along in psych, soc, and polysci; who were mostly interested in the party scene.

I've had many friends in many colleges, some of whom went into the sciences, and others into arts... beyond a limited demographic there were few people who were solely there to party. It's a tired stereotype perpetuated by shitty movies.

My experience has been that arts students tend to be more aware of, well, life in general - politics, the arts, social issues, etc, whereas engineering students were more or less of the "oh, I've heard OF it..."

There are two beneficiaries to post-secondary education: the student, and society (particularly, democracy) at large. The problem here is that the way things are structured, the degree programs that will most benefit a free, democratic society will make you broke, forcing people to choose one that will most benefit themselves only.

We risk creating an entire generation of mindless, uncultured automatons hyper-obsessed with material wealth, wading knee-deep through a pool of educated but broke people.

It wasn't always this way - there was a time when getting an engineering degree also meant a breadth of education in indirectly related subject areas. Where engineers took music, sociology, and fine arts... I've noticed a rapid decline in breadth in engineering programs, though, and IMHO this is a silent problem that has yet to rear its ugly head in the papers.

In my experience, STEM students are interested in solving problems. They are simply uninterested in learning bout problems which they cannot solve. Many of the `life in general' subjects you speak about are problems that cannot be solved...only moved in one way or another.

If they had solutions, if they appealed to an analytical mind then you would have interested STEM students. Maybe there should be a course taught by top politicians, spin doctors and media moguls: `Hacking Public Consciousness'. I almost guarantee that this would attract the students you talk about.

It's a tired stereotype perpetuated by shitty movies.

What, and your statement that scientist and engineers don't care about anything else wasn't?

Look, this is all anecdotal, but the CS/science/math/engineering students I knew in school were generally voracious readers, well informed about current events, politically opinionated in a highly educated way, appreciative of the arts, and involved in extra-curricular activities. They were frequently well-traveled, multi-lingual, and musicians. They were reasonably well represented in student government.

Maybe the schools you went to were different, but this is my experience.

How is this the fault of the institute? If people are pursuing what they want, and the institute is providing it, then they are succeeding in sharing knowledge. Isn't this the mission statement of most colleges and universities? There are reasons schools like ITT and University of Phoenix exist; and a whole different reason for schools like MIT, RIT, Standford, etc. to exist.

People need to realize that there is no need for 175k history major graduates each year and that they will probably never use their degree. The same goes for many other majors, but you know what, if you love it, pursue it, right? Isn't that what entrepreneurship is all about? Just be realistic about your path.

If the cost of schooling is getting out of hand then the people paying for it should do something about it, as some already are. See University of Puerto Rico: http://www.workers.org/2010/world/upr_0520/

The issue isn't that 175k students love history. The issue is that 175k students have been told "This degree will teach you how to think, not what to think", and that they will learn how to free their minds while contributing to the cultural dialog of the nation. It's a great hook, but it's not always true.

Reality - arts degrees don't teach you how to think. They teach you how to argue more forcefully - give three reasons and a summary, not just one reason. Also, pretend to have considered the other side of the case before you dismiss it.

Reality - this cultural dialog is a bunch of guys with no idea of business or economics arguing about what is, essentially, business and economics.

Instead Universities should also help the student become full rounded

Full roundedness is a financial luxury, of concern only to those who are financial at least relatively well off.

If universities are serious about the love of knowledge, learning for learning's sake, and all that jazz, then they should offer 100% free degrees.

If you have your own place to live, and can do the work, you should be able to get a degree full of well roundedness for absolutely no money.

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

No, it is that I do not want to be forced to pay directly or indirectly for someone else to appreciate art, literature, or music, especially not when there are kids down my block that are barely able to read and pot holes in the roads I drive on. That truly is not a high priority for a society with other more pressing problems.

I am however quite willing to pay with my own money so that I and my family can learn to appreciate literature and culture. I am also quite happy to support the artists whose work I enjoy. But I am not happy to have tax money support it until long after ever child learns the basics well and the local police department is fully funded.

[Edit, fixed typo.]

You seem to think that these are independent issues. I.e. if we just throw more money at basic literacy, road-maintenance, and policing, then society will be better. If we throw money at art and cultural education, then we're losing out on money for the above.

The fact is that a lot of social problems stem from cultural problems. You can keep throwing money and teachers at those kids down the street, but it won't get them to read. Instead, you need to change their culture (and their parents') to one of scholarship.

I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited, but more importantly, to be one of the cultural problems that helps to foster the ills you cite.

I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited,...

He advocated spending money to educate illiterate people rather than already-educated people. I think it's pretty clear he isn't illiterate, so how is he advocating only spending money that directly benefits him?

Yummyfajitas said it quite nicely, but permit me to say it on my own behalf.

I am not at all saying do not spend my tax dollars on things that don't directly benefit me. I said that we should not spend it on things like art and literature until after we have taken care of things like basic education, infrastructure, law enforcement, and yes even universal healthcare and gaurunteed access to sufficient food.

I am a great lover of America and I think (with perhaps some admitted bias) that it is a truly great country. But I know kids on my own block that can barely read and I pass by a homeless shelter with large crowds outside it on my way to work, and there is an active police officer sitting behind me in law school class because he doesn't make enough to support his family comfortably. I strongly object to spending tax money on art and literature until long after those issues are fixed.

And no, throwing money at those issues won't fix them, but it would be a start. Money is not sufficient for a solution, but I suspect it is necessary (or at least highly helpful).

It sounds like you have the attitude of the government just providing the basics. I've taught you to read to go read what you want. But without access to a decent library, without training on how to appreciate literature it seems that your point of view is to utilitarian. The arts enrich us all in ways that can't be counted merely by monetary utility. I would like to live in a society that recognizes this and is willing to support it. It's not like it would cost a great deal or that the money could not come out of the budgets of other government agencies. It doesn't have to mean an additional expense.

Maybe my experience wasn't typical, but my liberal arts classes in college were a joke. They were crowded, hurried, narrowly focused, and taught by professors that didn't seem to have the time or the inclination to provoke the students into new ways of thinking at all.

I suppose it's different at schools that can afford to staff these classes at 1:15 student teacher ratios with good teachers but the money that was spent on making me a "well rounded" student would have gone a lot further if I'd just been given a pile of books to read and some time at a quiet desk.

Ok, I read too much into your comment, so I apologize for the "selfish" remark.

I've composed a few half-responses, but I'm wrestling with what I'm trying to articulate.

I think what it comes down to is that the issues you cite will never be fully fixed. Second, but more importantly, the amount of money required to support cultural projects is tiny compared to, say, infrastructure upgrades.

So, I object to the idea that we can't do any of that (with tax dollars) until these other things are done. In reality, if we adopt that attitude, it'll be too easy for fear-mongers to kill any cultural project.

There is the thorny issue of the government using tax dollars to fund art work that I hate, or that offends me, but one of the cultural goods I value is a tolerance of that. I.e. I don't like that, but I'm glad to live in a society that could produce it, alongside the stuff I do like.

Many of the problems you name have little or nothing to do with lack of funding. You can't fix poverty by throwing money at it. At least, nobody has ever managed to do it.

IMHO, this is shortsighted. Art is of almost zero practical use. Investing a tiny fraction of society's resources in art is a sign of a society that has evolved beyond the starvation stage.

Are you saying that all art should only be commissioned by rich private interests? No investment in art by the public? You would demolish the National Mall, Statue of Liberty and other such art works?

Or do you draw the line at hoity-toity works (as decided by whom?).

IMHO, it is super important that societies develop the "refined" sides of the brain to control our atavistic instincts.

No he is saying that there is a slight flaw in the logic that:

1, An educated population is good for society.

2, Education happens by going to university

3, People that don't want to study hard and become doctors/engineers/scientists can go to university and do media studies.

5, Since they have been to university they are educated and therefore good for society - see 1.

6, Since more people want to do media studies than chemistry the chemistry depts are be shut down to increase funding for media studies.

There's obviously a spectrum between fully investing in arts & culture studies and fully investing in STEM disciplines or public infrastructure, so let's try to avoid superlatives - in an ideal world, all disciplines would be fully funded and productive, but I doubt anyone in this forum is claiming that we should cut off funding entirely for anything, and certainly not destroy(!) existing art.

Interesting you mention the kids who are barely able to read while saying you don't want to pay for someone else to appreciate art, literature, music, etc. What sort of reading do you have in mind for these kids to learn? Should we just teach them how to read an operating manual for machinery or the instruction set for putting something together? Reading is an essential part of learning to appreciate art, music, literature.

I think it was Socrates that said the unexamined life is not worth living. I guess I'd like to give everyone a chance at having a life worth living by exposing them to thoughts, ideas, and experiences that are essential to an enriched human life. This means teaching us all how to appreciate art, literature, music, etc. It also has the added bonus of making society a better place to live.

I think they should have the ability to read anything and everything they want or need to. If they choose to read only operating manuals then they will at least be able to. If they choose to read Faust, The Inferno, and Paradise Lost, they should be able to. I am troubled when we want to spend tax money to help people who already have basic education appreciate art and literature when we are not doing enough to make sure everyone learns the basics first.

As to the Socrates quote, I think he was right. But I believe he was talking about introspection, not art, literature, and music created by someone else. And we as a society should be concerned with making sure everyone learns the basics they need to function in modern society before we worry about making sure those priveleged with already having those basics down can appreciate art on taxpayer money.

If we teach someone the skills they need to earn a respectable living they will then have every opportunity to pursue the arts with the money they earn. If we spend taxpayer money supporting the arts for those who are already earning a middle class income, we may very well be short changing those who are not.

I am personally a great fan of literature, theater, and certain types of music. But I purchase my enjoyment of those things with my own money because my father made sure I got a good basic education that enabled me to go to college first then get a solidly middle class job and now pursue law school at night while I work. I went to public school but my parents especially my father provided me his own time and materials bought with his own money to supplement that to make sure I learned well. I want to make sure that children whose parents cannot or simply do not do that still have the same chance I did.

That's great that you benefited from good parent(s). I wish everyone was equally well off. I think it's OK to allow people to enrich their lives by exposing them to the arts. It's a pittance to do so in comparison to war, a prison-industrial complex, ag subsidies, etc.

EDIT: I should say to allow government to provide people with the opportunity to enrich their lives.

I think it's sad and I think we are sliding more and more into that mindset. But I also think the situation is brighter than you describe it in some countries.

In Italy (where I come from) school is extremely generic, with around 12 subjects being taught in secondary school. University is similarly open, with courses being done simply because "it's good for the mind", and people being free to pick and choose courses, and even change degree.

On the other hand it's a very old syllabus (especially at school) so there is a lot of pressure to modernise it. But EVERY time someone tries to modernise it and decides for example to drop latin, or history of arts from schools and add a foreign language and computers, you hear an uproar of people who complain that school (and partially Uni too) shouldn't be a place to get you ready for a job (for those you can go to specialised colleges) but instead one to feed the mind.

But yeah, I agree with you that all societies are becoming less and less concern with non commerciable knowledge. And as long as we judge people's worth and achievements by their money, I have little hope this will change.

There are two sides to a price calculation - the supply and the demand side. The price for teaching is low because the supply is huge - there is a vast pool of people who want to teach literature, and are willing to do it at very low prices. If a literature adjunct quits, the college can immediately go to the waiting list and find someone else willing to take the job for $5k/class.

In contrast, if I (a programmer) were to quit, my company could probably not find someone willing to take the job for $35k/year.

It would be very shortsighted if society overpaid for college teachers, just as it would be shortsighted if they overpaid for military contractors or the stock of bankrupt automakers.

I wasn't referring to pay as evidence society doesn't want to pay for art, culture, education, etc. The low pay is one consequence of this fact. There is definitely an oversupply of teachers in the humanities and sciences. But it is true that funding levels per student are decreasing and that there is increasing pressure to 'streamline' the process. This is a buzz word for cutting out the unimportant stuff like art, music, etc. It's bad for society in the long run.

You are making some broad generalizations and it doesn't exactly work like. Replacing any programmer is just as easy as replacing as replacing any adjunct. Replacing a specialist scholar is just as hard as replacing your special programmer. Adjuncts are Luke your basic php programmer. Thye know just enough to get the job done. But a university chair is like an architect, you don't give just anyone that job.

Liberal Arts is a luxury that many cultures cannot afford. When you're just starting out or trying to survive as a culture, you need engineers, hard-core scientists and business people. Take China and Israel for example. The upper class can go for Liberal Arts at any time, but the culture as a whole will lean strongly to hard science until they're established enough to enjoy that luxury. Times are bad now (but getting better) and soft majors are not wanted, but when times are good again, they'll be more jobs for the softies to fill.

This is a most unenlightened point of view. Music, art, story telling have been part of human cultures for thousands of years. One of the finest aspects of being human is enjoying these things. Literature, art, and music are always needed. They make life worth living.

Some societies don't have the money to make these things available to everyone. That's a shame. The U.S. and EU are societies that can afford to make these things available to everyone.

Why downvote me when you agree with my original post. You yourself say that "soft majors are not wanted". Indeed, they aren't wanted but they are needed and it's a shame that they aren't wanted. There's a reason dictatorial governments always control the arts, music, and literature. They fear the ideas, the progress that these things bring to a country.

I've not down voted you. It's a matter of survival. I sleep on the ground under a tree until I get a sleeping bag, and then maybe a cot. Before I buy a nice soft comfy mattress, I need a safe, secure structure for it.

Think of the liberal arts in this way. Once we have what we must have to survive, then we can go after the things we want as humans to enrich our lives and those around us. I love art and English majors... I just can't enjoy Rembrandt when I need a place to live or clean water to drink or a sewage system, etc :)

You have a point, but keep in mind that taxpayers are subsidizing all of this through federal student loans and Pell grants. With the administration pushing student loan forgiveness, private universities, including the high-priced ones like Harvard and NYU, can sell people degrees in subjects like gender studies and religious studies that do little to improve the employability of graduates who possess them, sometimes for as much as $40k a year in tuition alone. Years down the road, when those graduates are unemployed or underemployed and can't pay back their loans, the loans will be forgiven, Harvard et. al. will keep the money they were given, and the taxpayer will have to eat the debt.

If the government is going to pay for this, there needs be a serious discussion about educational outcomes and what best serves the national interest. Should we subsidize people pursuing degrees in gender studies or Latino/Black/Asian/Minority Interest Group Studies, and if so, why? How will that make us more competitive in a global market or result in innovation that improves our quality of life?

You post raises a very important question: What is the purpose of universities?

In my mind, the original goal of expanding knowledge for its sake alone is the rightful place of "higher education" and in and of itself means that these institutions will be expensive to attend and therefore not for everyone.

The secondary purpose though of equipping a modern workforce is something that more and more, universities have chosen to assume. You fricken need a post-secondary degree to be a secretary these days. This is where the problem is.

Current institutions should be forced to accept their role as either the former or the latter. As a society we should place less emphasis on the need for the accreditations that stem from the former as well.

You are right, Universities are not only for getting money or for making profits. Society should clarify what they want university to be, what is their goal. When the goal is well defined is time to think about the best method to pursue it. Money is one of the factors but not the only one.

  A place for knowledge, research and innovation is not a factory and can't be managed as such.

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