Track how many people graduate: - Go into a career in their field - Continue on to a different field of their own choosing - Never use their degree.
This information would align the goals of students with the goals of institutions a little bit better.
I know that it would be hard to track, but that kind of program feedback would have guided my choices more than graduation statistics.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/biden-student-loan-d...
Those schools, like ITT Tech and the Court Reporting Institute, probably deserve to be shut down, but somehow it's only trade schools that receive this punishment.
Columbia Film, despite having a far worse career placement rate than ITT Tech, won't be accused of fraud. (At least not officially.)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard this sentiment from anyone, regardless of political affiliation. The only criticism I’ve ever heard about trade school is that the jobs can be tough on your body as you get into your 50’s and 60’s.
I work in edtech and have heard arguments on both sides, and of course the extreme positions aren’t very thoughtful. One thing that would be helpful is more data on student outcomes, as suggested above.
Not doubting that it happens, but who does this?
i imagine that trade schools can face similar problems.
that said, there has been no shortage of scams in education. this is why i think financing for it is best run and regulated through the government.
I have a masters degree in Japanese studies. It helped me get my first commercial software job at Sybase, testing localized products for the Japanese market. I have not done anything related to Japan since then, but the critical thinking skills and understanding of economics stayed with me my whole career. Not to mention the discipline of defending ideas when other people try to beat the crap out of them.
Looking back, it was one of the more worthwhile things I've ever done, up there with learning Latin and reading Cicero.
I would hate to see a scheme of incentives against following your curiosity.
I work as a programmer, but have an MFA in creative writing (poetry).
The messy human story is that I started undergrad in CS and was quickly worn down by pulling all-nighters on projects I wasn't invested in while trying to hold down a part-time night job. I realized it was over at the beginning of my second semester, in the first session of my required technical writing course.
Writing was one of very few sources of joy for me, and I knew I couldn't throw it under the steamroller, too. I'll leave a lot out--it took me a while after this to even realize I could major in writing--but I eventually came back to programming through creative projects and literary analysis in grad school.
I realize _studying art for several years to find yourself_ is a bourgeois luxury few get, but I was just a bright lower-middle-class kid from nowhere who'd never been intellectually engaged. Being engaged helps you build muscles you won't build warming a seat, but then you can use them for whatever you set your mind to.
I think it’s important to remember that a large number of college students aren’t there to partake in the fruits of a liberal arts education. They are enrolled because they know good jobs require a college degree. Or it was expected for middle class students to attend college and not go directly into the workforce.
I don’t want to be a cynic, but college was much more of a life experience for myself and my peers than an enlightening process that taught me how to think critically.
As an example, I used to work in equity research. It was 100% possible to tell within ten minutes of talking to an analyst what their UG was in (and whether they did the CFA). If they studied accountancy or finance, it was like talking to a brick wall. They would list a series of data points, they wouldn't really know how to balance them, and they would never ask second-level questions like: how did the company gather this data? Why did they gather this data? Those kind of questions just didn't compute.
To give you another example, I later did a lot of work with retail investors. I got to see how people from different backgrounds made decisions. The number one worst investors were engineers, by a long shot. They had huge confidence in their own reasoning ability, (again) would overemphasize the data that was available, and ask no real relevant questions...they didn't even seem to know what questions were relevant (and btw, the best were usually lawyers...they usually had no information but they were able to think at that second-level...I also worked somewhere that had a former world heavyweight boxer as a client, and he was unbelievably switched on...again, literally no knowledge of finance but his reasoning ability was out of this world, he asked the right question every time).
It is very hard to say whether this can be taught to everyone, it is almost intangible...but this kind of general critical thinking/reasoning is vitally important. And, imo, the US produces far too few of these people (with some reason, liberal arts in the US has been hijacked, I studied econ history but I would have studied a science in the US if I grew up there...US business schools are top notch in this area though, I will grant that). If you look at countries, East Asia particularly, that (often for political reasons) don't teach these subjects, it has a macroeconomic impact: company creation, r&d, how companies function, etc. And to be clear, what I am saying here is that these skills are universal...it isn't about science vs social science, that is just a dichotomy that doesn't exist (both areas need more of the other).
Part of the reason it's so expensive is easy government-backed student loans have enabled that.
I'm fine with people studying film at Columbia, but at $250,000, not with government subsidized loans. Follow your dream, just don't make me pay for it.
It will be interesting to see how the experiments by Purdue and Texas pan out. Both have initiatives in "affordable" degrees, and both have enough of a brand to be attractive alternatives.
Edit: End up using their degree is also poorly defined, although the bureau of labor statistics measures something similar with underemployment.
It's been a while since I faced this, but I'm guessing it's even worse now with uni's becoming less financial viable.
Heck, in my day, long before the intertoobs, a common topic among students was starting salaries for the various majors. It was well known, for example, that you couldn't get a job in AY. The AY students would do a double major - AY for fun, the other for money.
Most college students are not good at gauging what a good salary is. They don't have family, and haven't dealt with expenses, and know little about retirement. When I was in grad school, $70K sounded like a lot to almost every student.
Occupational Outlook Handbook - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
Also wouldn’t this make it very hard for the poor to ever get student loans?
that said, it also makes it harder for individuals to make big bets on themselves until the market corrects (assuming it even would)
Why not do that now as soon as you get any type of loan?
You don't just "declare bankruptcy". And bankruptcy law can be changed as desired to prevent that. There's nothing special about student loan debt versus other types of debt.
In any event, requiring repayment based on income (like 7% of income up to a certain monthly amount) is almost certainly a better policy. The students and lenders both have the right incentives with those schemes.
> Why not do that now as soon as you get any type of loan?
With other assets your bank can repossess something - but there’s no real way to repossess an education.
Colleges will have to adapt though, because there are not that many rich people to sustain such high prices.
Some complain that this will make universities effectively become vocational schools and cut liberal arts and humanities programs. But I see that as a feature: putting more emphasis on education on the fields with higher labor demands.
Loaning to people with nothing to lose is going to look like 15% interest rates.
as long as those loans are plentiful and uncapped, the upper bound on tuition remains so as well.
If you study math, and then go coding videogames.... technically, you're not in a math field anymore, but a math degree helps you a lot with programming.
On the other hand, if you flip burgers in McDonalds, no matter which degree you have, it's gone to waste.
The question for me in a country that almost (90%) fully funds students going to college, is about whether we fund them as much as students going for degrees that will lead to jobs.
The government's role would likely be to collect and distribute the income, but the actual financing would be set up between colleges and banks, both of which would have a vested interest in student success.
What you measure is what you will get.