Why education is about more than jobs | Hacker News Reader

Why education is about more than jobs

lizw.livejournal.com

19 pointsAndrewDucker21 comments

I have no experience with university education over the pond, but I have to personal observations about the US system: 1) far too many people go to college and 2) the wrong people go to college.

Political pressures have created a huge demand for colleges while supply remains comparatively inelastic. Consequently, the student population has become dominated by people whose parents can afford to send them to college, but whose intellectual credentials and academic interest are far from stellar. College revolves around teaching the mean -- and I don't like it.

I hope graduate school is different.

I should follow this up by correcting myself: obviously, the pressures are not only political. If a college education offers the perception of competence, then market pressures increase the demand that the universities are more than willing to accommodate. I think -- somehow in a way that I do not see -- universities have to just start being more selective.

I might just be imagining it, but I seem to be getting an 'anti-college' vibe, or at least 'anti-traditional education' vibe from HN these past few weeks.

Sure, we probably can't afford to send 50% of the country to college. But why not try to send as many as possible, at least of those who want to go?

Dominated by those whose parents can afford to send kids to college? Hasn't it always been that way? After all, if you can't afford it, no matter how bad you want to go, you won't. Not without assistance.

I'm not sure I understand this negative bent on college education - or am I just reading things wrong?

Like everything else in politics, there is a nice gray area in education. The internet is very bad at gray areas, and tends toward extremism.

The gray area here is between "pursuit of knowledge, become better citizens" and "career school, what is history for anyway".

Universities used to be #1, and have shifted toward #2 over the years. Now people see it more as the default to be the career school, and laugh at people who are in favor of learning for the sake of learning.

Then the problem is that while both approaches are relatively valid, they lead to different conclusions to the answer of "who should go to college".

That makes sense, actually, since I definitely reside solidly in the middle of the two. Prior to college, I was definitely in the 'what is history for' crowd, but college broadened my horizons so much, and I enjoy learning to the extent that I could easily argue the 'pursuit of knowledge' reasoning these days. I went to a liberal arts college for an applied degree, so I guess that's a little of both worlds.

I think this attests more to the dangers of early tracking in European societies (didn't take the right tests in high school? You're never going to college) than the benefits of education as access to knowledge. In the us, taking classes like this COULD lead to a job, if you were willing to fight really hard for it.

If there are intangible benefits, then by all means, have all the intangible support you want.

We can't afford to put 50% of the population through university, it's as simple as that.

A modern industrialized society can't afford not to put about 50% of the population through an education that gives them at least something like a bachelors degree.

Are we trying to make University trustees rich or have a well-educated and civil society? I don't think 4 years of college are required to teach someone to think critically, be rational, and right/speak well.

I don't want my open heart surgery to be performed by a dropout, no matter how passionate and relentlessly resourceful they might be.

That's a total strawman. It's not even worth expanding on this reply further.

That's a total strawman.

Not really. It's probably not a terribly popular sentiment on a site for web-based hacker startups, but there are plenty of jobs that actually require some sort of meaningful education. Most of the medical system is composed of such jobs, as are large chunks of the legal system. Government bureaucracy (while the benefits of having a degree in such a job may be questionable) commonly requires them, at least in Canada. The government is not a small employer.

50% may well be excessive, but there are a huge number of jobs out there that demand a degree.

Yes, really. You're responding to something that wasn't said.

Who said "Hey, let's do away with higher education entirely, such that doctors won't have an education?"

Total strawman. Thinking there's too many people going to college is not the same as thinking nobody should go to college, and you're not helping anybody with anything by conflating the two.

That might not work out for the universty trustees. Once the median qualification is a B.A., many academic professions will no longer command a significantly above-average wage level, and an expensive college degree will be a bad investment. Countries with a mostly public funded university system might be at an advantage here if they invest theit tax money wisely.

you mean write well, right?

Show me the economy where 15% - let alone 50% - of jobs require a degree.

There are an awful lot of graduates doing work they could just have well have started 3 years earlier and without 5-figures of debt.

Statements like yours sound nice but you didn't really provide any reason what so ever to back it up.

What proof would you use to make your statement stand up?

... from a teacher at open university, apparently.

I'm sure I'm biased as a college drop out myself, but I've never been impressed by abstract ('learn how to help society!', etc) type reasons to go to college.

Understanding what you read on the news, being able to communicate clearly and effectively, and being able to spot bullshit and faulty arguments when you see it - great reasons to go to college.

But 90% of people won't be using what they learn to "improve their community" and whatnot, not unless they're specifically going to school to learn that.

Understanding what you read on the news, being able to communicate clearly and effectively, and being able to spot bullshit and faulty arguments when you see it - great reasons to go to college.

It's a pity, then, that these skills aren't very well taught in university (at least on the humanities side). Indeed, if you do a course on, say, Foucault or Derrida then you'll need to unlearn how to spot bullshit and faulty arguments if you want to pass the course since a final essay which says "Derrida in this book says a whole bunch of vague bullshit that doesn't make any real sense" will get low marks.

Interestingly, I don't think spotting bullshit or faulty arguments is that difficult a skill -- relatively uneducated people can easily spot a BS argument when it's used to argue for something they don't want to believe. The really hard part is developing the discipline to be able to spot a BS argument even when it's arguing for something you do want to believe.

I don't think this skill is very well taught, either.

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