Hacker News Reader

Comment by 6d6b73 | Hacker News Reader

Next: no grades needed to get BS, MA, PhD. and no attendance necessary. After all some groups are at a disadvantage and they will not be able to attend the classes.. While we're at it - why don't we have The Degree Lottery (tm), or better yet, give degrees right after conception.

View on HN

As long as you keep taking out those sweet sweet tuition loans subsidized by fed, schools will be glad to take on more and more students. Performance doesn’t matter as long as we can keep selling prestige and keep enrollment growing

I went to Santa Clara University for my Master’s degree. People who never showed up got B’s for their final grade. It made me ashamed to get my degree there.

> Next: no grades needed to get BS, MA, PhD. and no attendance necessary.

"Soft-science" degrees from diploma-mill universities are already waaay ahead of you!

Or Masters degrees from U.K. ex-polys for any overseas student.

On my degree (chemical technology, Poland) it was very easy to get into (200 places with low cutoff score), but on the second year there was only 100 pupils. There is a general correlation between initial points (Polish standardised high school test) and future academic success, but if they were to admit 100 people, only about 65 would manage to go to the second year. Changing admission standards doesn't mean that they change graduation standards.

Regarding mandatory attendance - welcome to the German model. Most universites don't have mandatory attendance, which is good for subjects where there are many more students than available seats :). Also it's very handy for students who (have to) work in order to finance their studies.

Eh, in my experience (entirely in USA) attendance is only part of the grade when the course is kind of squishy. Attendance was never even mentioned in the math or physics courses I took. However, it was very important in history and literature.

In a society that seems to require a college degree for everything, that's probably the right answer. Find a way to give everyone a degree.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com