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College town

profgalloway.com

33 pointssimonswords8226 comments

Actually learning things is easier than ever. The "educational Monopoly" can't sell themselves on the pretense of sharing knowledge anymore; they have to base their value of the artificial scarcity of "certification," which is a different thing entirely.

To my eye many employers would do better to look at people's Steam stats than at "educational achievement" as its currently shaped: Someone who put 2,000 hours into "Skyrim" can sit and tolerate pointless bullshit without going psychotic. There's doesn't need to be 4 years of institutionalization and suffering to prove that, anymore.

Maybe it's that software people are the majority on HN, and perhaps this statement can be true of CS majors, but it most definitely isn't true in general. It's also quite sad that so many people have apparently made so little of their time in college.

If you are studying chemistry for example, doing lab work with real equipment and reagents is absolutely essential for gaining basic competency.

If you want to actually, properly, learn and apply quantum field theory or the standard model of particle physics or other highly technical models, there is no substitute for face to face discussions with a true expert. In the US those experts reside almost exclusively at universities and national labs.

Universities also serve important and often less-appreciated roles in sustaining the government through both research and talent pipelines. The need to maintain these pipelines can itself be a major source of research funding (the department of homeland security's SSAP program for example).

This is a great point. Too many times I've heard of people skating by and not trying to learn anything in school. I keep hearing from others that they think a degree is only about the ability to stick with something.

I call bullshit, just because those people don't care and didn't try doesn't mean that the system is worthless when it comes to actual learning. We need to change the perspective of people on education from "just need degree to get a job" to "going to school to learn things which can be applied later or build a solid foundation for later learning"

Employment is important (I guess? private companies just exploit labor but that's another topic) but you can do so much more with a good education than just "get job"

I think this is a key distinction made in europe that we could benefit from. German high school for instance leaves people closer to where most Americans are after college, and that is considered enough to have a well paying and productive career. People who go to college and grad school generally pay nothing and receive free food etc, and that is possible in part because the system isn't flooded with people who are forced to be there to check a box.

Not that this is super relevant to the article’s thesis, but regardless of necessity… people still like going to college. People will continue to value a college education because people continue to value going to college.

People like going to the state school and rooting for the big football team they grew up adoring. People like going to prestigious institutions and feeling like they’re achieving things that others are not. People like meeting hundreds of new friends every semester, partying on the weekends, learning constantly, and living in an environment outside of the control of their parents/guardians for 4 (and often more) years before the necessities of adulthood demand more effort and action.

College is fun and gratifying for millions of people, so it’s not crazy that the world continues to give it “artificial” prestige

I don't know about the US, but in the UK the idea that you can just go online and learn things and replace University that way is absurd.

I am currently studying full time online. I'm probably learning quicker than I did during my undergrad.

But my undergrad _changed my life_. It took me out of some random little town, jumbled me around in the class system a bit and threw me into a world capital city with a cute girlfriend and not only "friends" or a "network" but with a completely different understanding of the world.

Worth the price tag.

>I don't know about the US, but in the UK the idea that you can just go online and learn things and replace University that way is absurd.

Doesn't the Open University have a pretty good reputation?

Yep it does. Well put together courses, flexible learning to fit around full time work, the qualifications are as legitimate as a "real" University.

The article seems to be under the impression that elite colleges makes elite graduates. They should expand Berkeley, another MIT, whatever. That seems backwards to me. I think that highly selective schools admit elite students and those students, over generations, build the reputations of their schools. If you doubled enrollment you would not double your Nobel output, and over overtime you might reduce it as the students who will go on to earn one preferentially select more elite institutions to study at.

> If you doubled enrollment you would not double your Nobel output

Maybe they should just give out more Nobel prizes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> and over overtime you might reduce it as the students who will go on to earn one preferentially select more elite institutions to study at.

1. Can Nobel winning students be identified beforehand ?

2. doesn’t it depend on the school research programs? Does doubling a program affect research departments?

Nobel output is just the symbol from the article for consequential science output. I'm using it in the same way.

If I run a track program and take the 0.1 percentile people by speed at age eighteen, and then give them average training for four years, and you run a track program taking the top fifty percentile by speed and give them the best instruction, my team is going to win.

Because elite institutions are selective the are pupiled by high capability students. High capability students who get to network with other high capability students and who get elite signaling go on to do consequential things. Students who do consequential things enhance the reputations of the school they matriculated from. The cycle repeats.

Professors and the quality of instruction isn't much different between good and great universities. The difference comes from the selection and if you take that away you'll take away the difference.

Berkeley/Cal system/California are outliers, but they could be a sign of what's to come for medium-to-large sized public systems, such as those in the Big Ten. There are some good ideas here.

- Quarterly semesters would reduce downtime for area business and would increase housing occupancy rates. Professors would still need semesters off for research, publishing, vacations, etc., but otherwise it seems like a great way to grow college towns into larger, less monopolistic cities. Unless I am missing something obvious.

- Satellite campuses would be more marketable if the quality of instruction and research/publishing is the same. Specialized, but not inferior.

What do you mean by quarterly semesters? As I read it, the OP was proposing three terms per year, including in the summer. That's different from semesters or quarters.

Don't make generalizations from the behavior of the residents of Berkeley!

The old joke goes, "People who are too crazy for the rest of the world come to the USA; people who are too crazy for the rest of the USA come to California; people who are too crazy for the rest of California come to San Francisco; and people too crazy for San Francisco go to Berkeley."

I'm used to being the weirdest person on any given block, but in Berkeley I don't crack the top ten. Berzerkeley is weird.

this is true in the previous decades; post-dot-com boom and biotech growth, pro-sports prep, and aging boomers filling in the residences, not as much.

LSD was really very common for a long time in Berkeley; the inventors of MDMA had their memorial services nearby; these are not coincidences..

ridiculous sexual politics and overt hostility towards free speech by non-PC people are more accurate now-a-days IMHO

The hippies grew up and became all sourpuss like.

hmm maybe partly true since people do sometimes lose patience in the golden years, but instead I think that a lot of shades of hippy moved away long ago to far-flung and lower cost places to live. The homes in Berkeley sell of stunning amounts of money, and many of them do not sell even once in decades. Meanwhile, an emphasis on non-USA students who pay a lot, and serious competitive programs at UCB, it just makes for a lot less elbow room for fun it seems.

"Old folks don't want change ". Maybe. I bet they want more craftsman and fewer kids in a life indentureship for careers they don't want

The obvious solution is to get rid of the idea of prestige.

Why have we never had a president who went to a state school?

In fact, someone who went to a state schools probably more in touch with what normal people go through versus some ivy League elite.

? The sitting President went to the university of Delaware (state school). Ford went to Michigan, Johnson to Texas State… West Point and the Naval academy both have a few graduates who made it to top office (these are high prestige but they are the only purely public schools in America (all cost paid by the government). William and Mary can also claim a few Presidents…

To be fair, those are a few exceptions that buck a greater trend of Presidents and lawmakers almost universally attending expensive and prestigious undergrad and graduate institutions

Politicians have to be wealthy and connected, so it's not too surprising that they attend elite institutions. I see it as more of a correlation than a requirement.

That's actually a large amount of recent Presidents because Presidents are such a small group. I'm pretty sure Carter went to a state school. Reagan went to a private school that was certainly not an ivy.

We have to dig all the way back to Truman to find a President who never attended to college, so there's definitely "a greater trend of Presidents" to be college-educated.

While I think your point is correct in general, the current sitting president is actually an alum of the University of Delaware.

> The obvious solution is to get rid of the idea of prestige.

All animals are equal...

> Why have we never had a president who went to a state school?

We literally have one right now.

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