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Comment by Eumenes | Hacker News Reader

now that race based admissions is off the table (or hopefully) and legacy admissions is on the chopping block (hopefully), how about stop forcing students to take BS filler prereqs (costs thousands in $$ and credit hours), eliminating useless majors and departments, eviscerating the bloated administrative staff, etc.

I have a friend who is a nurse in a state that allows them to practice with an associates degree. some workplaces, mostly hospitals, require them to start the process of getting a bachelors within 2 years of joining the company. the bachelor program, has absolutely zero to do with the job. its literally humanities BS. we have a nursing shortage and the schools, in partnership with corrupt hospitals, need to bleed students dry of their money and time. many jobs could do w/o the university/college system, and simply just be vocational programs at fractions of the cost and become way more accessible.

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I've argued before that the "useless majors and departments" are useful for general studies, and general studies are good for everyone. Filler prereqs are a part of all of the college concept of creating a well rounded individual. In addition, the dorm life of college is a great half way step towards living by yourself. You generally hang out with people who in many cases will become your life's best friends.

I used to feel that way strongly. All of this made sense when most people could go to a state school and earn their way through with little or no loans. Today being a well rounded student with some great friends and a bit of independent living at a state school is likely to still saddle you with a 6 figure loan.

So even though I really thing the above is the right way for people to pursue an education / career after high school, it simply makes little sense for a lot of students. To the end I'd really like to see more institutions like WGU that allow you to get through school a lot more cheaply by doing everything remotely and measuring outcomes rather than measuring grades and the number of classes you took. And somehow we need to convince employers that colleges like WGU are the best alternative for a lot of really talented potential employees.

> Filler prereqs are a part of all of the college concept of creating a well rounded individual. In addition, the dorm life of college is a great half way step towards living by yourself. You generally hang out with people who in many cases will become your life's best friends.

Let the student/purchaser of the education decide this. Not middle aged university bureaucrats trying to optimize the tuition profits. Give students the time back to volunteer or spend time locally working at hobbies/clubs. Not everyone is interested in Humanities, Arts, Diversity and Multiculturalism. They likely received 100s of hours of that in k-12. Time to be an adult.

I feel like you might have missed my last paragraph.

TL;DR: Traditional college maybe made sense before college debt became an albatross around college grad's necks. Time to find more reasonable alternatives for those that don't want that albatross.

The goal of a university degree is not to get a job. It's to create a person who is well rounded enough to drop into almost any field but very specialized in one field. Universities becoming trade schools is the reason bloated administrative staff exists.

As for your particular example that is also what I've heard. Except that the BSc is more business-oriented (not humanities). That being said, if you think something like nursing could be a vocation degree I don't think you understand how much even nursing relies on Chemistry, Biology, and Math. My nurse friends are regularly in charge of compounding drugs before administration for example. Loosening requirements will not stop the nursing shortage because it's caused by the same thing the doctor shortage is caused by. Long, thankless hours, low pay, high stress, and the nurses unions keeping headcounts in check. On one hand dumping the nurses union will likely see pay rise. On the other hand the unions are often the only reason nurse/patient ratios are kept inside of safe bounds.

The division you're talking about is why in CS they offer an ASc, BA, and BSc. You can pick just how deep you wish to go. Most people get a BSc because it's the most flexible. What people do not understand is pedigree matters very little. I paid ~$25,000 all-in for my CS degree from a decent (top 50) school. I am just as good as the MIT kids I work with through the magic of ABET accreditation enforcing a standard. Standards are good for everyone and people should be excluded from just calling themselves something.

> That being said, if you think something like nursing could be a vocation degree I don't think you understand how much even nursing relies on Chemistry, Biology, and Math.

Yes, for sure, but all of those classes are taken in the first two years, alongside clinical rotations. The remaining 2 years are almost exclusively NOT focused on hands on nursing/science/math/pharmacology related subjects. They are usually focused on healthcare policy and the soft science behind healthcare, which imo, can be learned on the job thru employer workshops/classes. That's why they let nurses practice with an Associates, because they've done their clinical rotations and stem focused classes to preform the job of RN.

If you cut out the pre-reqs and fluff classes, its pretty much a vocational degree. If we want to talk about social mobility, enabling people to earn wealth faster, is a good way.

Not sure why I am being downvoted. So I won't answer any further because the HN morons are apparently ravenous this morning.

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