What is happening to my country? (Page 3)

Wow, good luck with that.

I've got several friends who pay $10k/yr for private elementary and high school (times 3 or 4 kids).  I tell them they're absolutely CRAZY!!!
Especially in Nebraska where the public schools are all pretty darn good.  Compared to the nicer suburb public schools I'd take them any day of the week over the private schools because I feel they give an inferior education.

The part that drives me crazy is the amounts of loans an 18 year old kid can get for a degree that has zero chance of paying it back.  I could get a degree in museum history with a dream of working in a museum and the government would have no problem letting me go to an elite private school and rack up $300k+ in debt knowing full well that I'll likely make $12/hr. when I get out of school.

There has to be a qualification process that comes into play to ensure you have at least a little chance of repaying at some point (at a bare minimum).  It's one thing to spend $300k if you're going to be a doctor and make $200k/yr., but for a lower paying career field it shouldn't be backed by the government which means you get no loans and have to go to a cheaper public school.

Look, our college education system is not broke.............the student loan system is broke.  We don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water here....we just need to use some common sense when it comes to the education we are willing to subsidize.  This is really not hard stuff. 

I swear.......eggheads and whiners run this country today.  My Grandpa is laughing.

I think you should also get automatic A's in all your classes so as to not hurt your self worth.  Maybe a nice trophy to show off to your friends as well.

You have no idea tuwood.  Working at a University I see this almost first hand.  While I'm not a professor I am involved in teaching labs.  I have had parents call me yelling at me about giving their kid a F and that it hurt their feelings.

Well guess what, when little Johnny shows up 1/2 of the time drunk and misses the other half of the time and does an unsatisfactory job on their assignments they are going to get that grade. 

The great part about it is that I cannot discuss it with the parents, even if they are footing the bill for the education.  You can have releases signed, but I have to have ever seen one.

Relating to what LB said about the education system is not broke, I disagree to some extent.  I think what we have worked in the past but doesn't work any longer.  I think that their should be some help for education and paying for it, I also think it should be based on merit and frankly focused on STEM activities.  I am working on doing something like this at my University.  I run a lab in a University that essentially does contract research work (we get paid from clients).  I am reaching out to the private sector in hopes to forge relationships where they help fund students to work in our labs and on specific projects.  Many of these projects are long term (~2 years). 

I have had good success so far.  Some of my students have gotten tuition reimbursement from us (paid by the company we are working for, but for various legal reasons it has to go through us first, and yes we do take a small cut of it).  They also make a great hourly wage for a student employee.  Over $10/hr. 

What is even better is that these students are working on real life problems, and having to be accountable on finding real solutions.  Some of these projects are rather large ($100.000+ investment).  We are just having our first crop of students venturing out into the workforce and they are many steps ahead of their peers.  Frankly they are coming out of college with a year or so of work experience.

Of course the private companies have their own interests, but that doesn't mean we can't work together.  They are hoping that some of these students will come work for them, which is great.

There are some of my colleagues in the University who are more traditional academia that think this is a terrible idea.  The way I look at it is academia needs to evolve with the rest of the world.

My point, Justin, is that the system works just fine for people who are not stupid about it.  In other words, the "infrastructure" of the system is sound......we just need to get back to the idea of it being merit based, as you said.   We went the other direction and the idea now is "everybody deserves a college education"....well, no they don't.  The housing market crashed because "everyone deserved a house"......that ended just as poorly as the student loan ridiculousness will.

You and I are not at opposite ends on this.  I agree with your points.

I'll agree with that.  Looks like I just misunderstood. 

That's quite the moving target isn't it? 

Could you define your definition of college and what type of a degree?

What is the purpose of wanting to know the answer to your question?

I don't care if they go to college or not.  $7.50 an hour seems about right to flip hamburgers.

Why?

I wish I could find the article, but I read something a month or so back that was a pretty compelling case for college being more and more of a waste for so many career fields.  With technology things change so fast that the knowledge you gain in college is antiquated before you graduate.

For myself personally I was making big bucks and very successful with zero college.  Then I started going to college because it was "the thing to do" and I already knew more than most of the professors in the technology classes.  I never finished because it seemed like a waste of money.
Now I own a business and have quite a few employees of which maybe one or two of them have degrees.  I don't even care if they have them let alone where it's from because I know it's not applicable to their job here.  (I work in technology)

Obviously things like being a Doctor are only going to be learned through education, but with the advent of this internet thing it's amazing how much you can learn without ever stepping foot in a classroom if you're so inclined to research it on your own.

Oh, without a doubt, the internet is a PURPOSELY underused resource for higher education. 

I agree with this to some extent as well.  For some professions there will always probably be a need for a formal education (at least certain aspects of a profession).  I don't see what the difference is, so long as it's from a credible source.  Of course there needs to be the exams in place to ensure that you know what you are doing.

I myself taught myself c++ and java.  I'm not the best at it but I am now able to do what I needed it to do.  Saves me a bunch of time.  All of it taught from free on the internet. 

On the other hand you'll never gain some of the experiences such as lab experience if you never step foot in a lab. 

What I would love it see is more of a hybrid of online / in class schooling.  It's starting to become more mainstream.

Originally posted by chirunner134

Originally posted by Justin86

I myself taught myself c++ and java.  I'm not the best at it but I am now able to do what I needed it to do.  Saves me a bunch of time.  All of it taught from free on the internet. 

and it probably shows. . Then again you never know. As a person with a master degree in Computer Science I spend my day fixing code that programmers who get a 6 month to 6 week crash course in programming are constantly doing wrong even after couple years experience. They just never learned how to do it right. I have my baby which I took over from them and I try to make sure its an example of how to be a better programmer. Of course there is a lot more to computers than just writing c++ or java code. I did not even learn java programming in college. Like probably most people's college education most of my day to day skills comes from about 3 to 4 courses and none of them involve actual coding. College is about deeper knowledge and understanding of a subject as well as the idea of think for yourself rather than just repeat facts. Does it achieve this goal is another question.

And your right here as well.  i of course didn't mean to say that programming was easy by any means either. 

But for what I needed it for my programs work great.  Most of it is programming sensors that we have built in our lab.  Simple stuff really.  But this is also where I think on the job training is good.  I learned much of what I know from other people.  Not what I learned in school.

The bolded is something that I agree with.  But I think we are no longer achieving this in many of our schools.  So many of them are all about enrollment, numbers and getting people diplomas.  So many of my students are lacking the critical thinking skills that they need.