Common sense about college from Robert Reich

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of  Labor, has some common sense about our investment in four year liberal arts educations versus two year technical programs in this editorial.

Here are some of Reich's main points:

"For one thing, a four-year liberal arts degree is hugely expensive. Too many young people graduate laden with debts that take years if not decades to pay off."

"And too many of them can’t find good jobs when they graduate, in any event. So they have to settle for jobs that don’t require four years of college. They end up overqualified for the work they do, and underwhelmed by it."

"Consider, for example, technician jobs. They don’t require a four-year degree. But they do require mastery over a domain of technical knowledge, which can usually be obtained in two years."

"Yet America isn’t educating the technicians we need. As our aspirations increasingly focus on four-year college degrees, we’ve allowed vocational and technical education to be downgraded and denigrated."

Well said Mr. Reich!

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David Letterman says "Send your kid to college."

"If you can, send your kid to college. So they get a degree, and at least then, they will know what kind of work they're out of." David Letterman on his monologue August 22, 2014

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Self-education

"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, motivational speaker

How do we measure how well our colleges are doing?

This writer misses a critical point.  The education factories (aka colleges and universities) take in a student and then produce a graduate (with the exception of those that drop out or flunk out).  So measuring only the average SAT scores of the incoming freshman tells you nothing about how an institution of higher learning has done at the job of education. Likewise, measuring only the GMAT test scores of the graduating seniors tells one only how the graduating seniors did-not how much the students learned.  And yet both of these factors are heavily weighted in the formulas that rank our colleges and universities.   

How do we measure a typical factory? The measure of economic value created is output divided by input.  One takes something of less value and efficiently creates a product of greater value. If one takes something worth a dollar and adds a dollar of time and materials then you have $2 invested. If someone then buys that product for $4 you have produced $4 of value for $2 of input–well done. On the other hand if you spend $10 producing something and can only sell the finished product for $5 then you have destroyed $5 of economic value. You will be out of business soon (unless you are the government or have big government subsidies).

Back to how we measure college. My theory is that if I have a college or university that is lucky enough to accept only the brightest 2% of graduating American high school students (say Harvard) that four years later this same college should produce graduates that are in the top 2% of IQs (even if their "education" has been absolute BS).

But what if a college accepted students that had average incoming SAT scores in the 50th percentile and yet it produced graduates with GMAT scores in the 70th percentile? Now we’re talking. I would have to say that this college has made a real difference. Unfortunately I have yet to find this mythical institution. 

Measuring how bright the incoming freshmen are is a horrible way to measure how good a college is.  Likewise tracking how well the graduates "do from the U" without regard to the IQ of the incoming freshmen also tells me little.

What matters is how much improvement in thinking, questioning, writing, and preparedness for the job market that an institution of higher learning produces for the time and dollar spent.

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The Definition of College According to the Urban Dictionary

The Urban Dictionary is one of my favorite "research" tools these days.  If you want the real meaning of a word or the story behind the story, this is a great place to start.

Here are a few of my favorite definitions from this institution of higher learning:

"A magical place where it is rumored that learning takes place, although to those who enter it is often described differently afterward, as a beatiful land in which beer flows in amber currents next to a golden pasture, where virgins lie naked with gentle smiles upon their calm, inviting faces; but more precisely, a Shangri-La rite of passage into adulthood which involves rampant consumption of alcoholic beverages, flagrant and promiscuous sexual behavior, and a general and fundamental disregard for any form of responsibility by its habitants.

Thank you sir, may I have another?"

by Phlagellum September 23, 2003

"The place where you enter inexorbitant amounts of debt to "learn" things you will never apply once to your actual occupation. Basically, an expensive 4-year waiting period for a paper called 'degree'.

I will owe Wells Fargo my first born so I can pay off my college."

by Drenam February 02, 2003

"An alternative to buying a Ferrari (they cost about the same).

Damn, that Ferrari costs almost as much as college."

by Duesey December 01, 2003

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Being lucky enough to be born smart might be more important than if you attend college

This is about the 1000th article I have seen that mixes up correlation with cause and effect as it relates to the value of college.

They never try to compare comparable subsets (with IQs that are similar) when they make the fallacious argument that college grads make more money than high school dropouts and therefore it is a good investment.

They always forget to account for the average difference in IQs for college grads compared to non college grads.  I can tell you that one factor that always seems to pay off is to be lucky enough to be born smart.  A degree in Sociology is not going to cure this challenge if you weren't so lucky.

But alas, if this writer did attend the local U, he must have been sleeping during his Logic class.

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Using equity to fund college instead of loans.

Interesting article about the antiquated system we have for funding college today.

At least with the federal home loan programs, the system attempts to qualify their borrowers, such that a borrower has a chance of not defaulting.

But this kind of evaluation is not even a consideration in the college student loan programs. It doesn't matter if you study petroleum engineering or sociology - you can borrow the same amount. And yet the job and income prospect for the two majors are obviously quite different.

This article suggests an equity-like program where an investor funds college in exchange for a part of the future income stream of the student. Conceptually it might work well, but if it is just another government program you can be assured that it will bring in a whole new set of subsidies. The college establishment hates the idea that the petroleum engineering student might get a better deal than the sociology major.

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What is she trying to achieve?

On Charlie Rose Show March 28, 2014 at Bloomberg:

As Charlie Rose introduced Drew Faust, President of Harvard, he said “In her installation address, she said: ‘A university is not about results in the next quarter, it is not even about what the student has become by graduation. It is about learning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage of millennia, learning that shapes the future.’”

Here is my question:  How in the heck do we know if the President is achieving her goals?  How would we know if she is an utter failure or a grand success with her stated mission?  Do we have to wait until the President and we are all dead?

It is a noble sounding mission statement.  But is it possible that it is all puff? Pure BS?

Maybe we should state the goals and the mission of the university in more down to earth terms. Perhaps we should express it in simple language such that when the President of Harvard is failing we will know it and we can replace her. Maybe we should be able to measure the results rather than rely on her "gut feeling" or the President's gut feeling as proof of success.

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Beware of Propaganda about College like this Pew Study

These social “scientists’ spread this propaganda and consistently mix up causation with correlation.

Here would be a way to actually test the Pew’s hypothesis that college education results in substantially better incomes and life styles: Take 1,000 high school students and send them to college.  Take another 1,000 students and direct them to non-college alternatives.  Each of the groups would have the same distribution of SAT scores.

Then look at the results 10-15 years later.

The reason the Pew’s results are so skewed is that on average high school grads with higher IQs go on to graduate from college in greater proportion than those with lower IQs.  This factor alone probably accounts for most of the differential in salaries 15 years later.

I am not saying that college cannot be valuable.  But based on the Pew propaganda we have allowed the cost of college to get out of hand and college students are going ever deeper into debt to finance it.

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A Great Spoof!

OK - I know this is a spoof, but the strange thing is that it is very close to reality today.

"Saying that his great grandparents could have never even dreamed of squandering such a fortune, recent college graduate Eric Singer told reporters Monday that he is the first person in his family to throw away $160,000. 'This level of debt was just out of reach for my father and grandfather, which makes my wasting so much money all the more meaningful,' said Singer, noting that his mother only flushed $12,000 down the toilet during her time in school."

The Private Sector Expects Results!

Here is a great piece on education by Libertarian John Stossel.  My favorite part was a clip from the movie Ghost Busters where Dan Akroyd is explaining to Bill Murray why he is crazy to seek a life outside of the academic world: "Personally I like the university. They give us money and facilities; we didn't have to produce anything. You've never been out of college. You don't know what it's like out there.  I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

"The college drinking game"

Jonathan Zimmerman from NYU tells it like it is relative to college drinking and weak academic challenges at many US colleges.

College should be interesting, broadening but most importantly - hard work.  Many colleges have failed this last criteria substituting gorgeous campuses, climbing walls and resort-like dorms for more hours at the chemistry lab.

We don’t require today’s college students to read enough, write enough and study enough.  What do you expect for your $250,000 education?

Zimmerman has a few sobering statistics:

1    *      “In 1961, the average full-time college student spent 25 hours a week studying; by 2003, it was down to 13 hours a week.”

2    *    “In a typical semester, half of our college students don’t take a single class that demands 20 or more pages of writing. A third don’t take a class requiring 40 or more pages of reading.”

College is not what it used to be

Here is one of many articles about the problems with college today found at the Thiel Fellowship.  He is the billionaire that is providing scholarships to a few bright kids to pursue a non-college alternative.

Here are a few points from this article:

"The promise that an expensive degree at a traditional university will pay off rests on some questionable assumptions; for example, that no cheaper way of attaining this educational premium will emerge."  Or that the education itself is what made the difference rather than the students underlying intelligence, curiosity and drive.

Colleges are surviving by making the experience a cushier, softer experience.  "A remarkable 43% of all grades at four-year universities are A's, an increase of 28 percentage points since 1960. Grade point averages rose from about 2.52 in the 1950s to 3.11 in 2006."  We don't want our college students to face any discomfort at their country club schools.

And a key stat that is rarely discussed is how often students don't even graduate from college - "the chances of an American student completing a four-year degree within six years stand at only around 57%."  But the debt still has to be paid off for all those that walked away with no diploma in hand.

We need to rethink the assumption that everyone needs to attend college.  It is a good fit for some and a horrible one for many.

Peter Thiel on College

Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.

"I can say that with confidence because it’s about Peter Thiel. And Thiel – the PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist – not only has a special talent for making money, he has a special talent for making people furious."

"Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. 'Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”"

"Like any good bubble, this belief– while rooted in truth– gets pushed to unhealthy levels. Thiel talks about consumption masquerading as investment during the housing bubble, as people would take out speculative interest-only loans to get a bigger house with a pool and tell themselves they were being frugal and saving for retirement. Similarly, the idea that attending Harvard is all about learning? Yeah. No one pays a quarter of a million dollars just to read Chaucer. The implicit promise is that you work hard to get there, and then you are set for life. It can lead to an unhealthy sense of entitlement. “It’s what you’ve been told all your life, and it’s how schools rationalize a quarter of a million dollars in debt,” Thiel says."

By the way - a the full price of a Harvard Education today is much more than a quarter million dollars.

What does a Sociology student study?

I make fun of Liberal Arts degrees so frequently that I decided to delve deeper into one major, Sociology, to understand what students in that major at the University of Southern Indiana might learn. Here are some of the course requirements for this “degree”.

SOC 121 Principles of Sociology: An examination of social dynamics and consequences of social life. The main topics are culture, social groups, socialization, deviance, social stratification, race relations, gender, and family.

SOC 225 Criminology : A consideration of criminality, its nature and extent, particularly in the United States. Includes analysis of the etiology (for those college grads like me that don’t know what this word is, it is the study of causation) of criminal behavior, the sociology of criminal law, and societal reaction to criminals.

SOC 231 Social Problems: Examination of the nature, extent, causes, and effects of selected contemporary social problems, such as gender, sexual behavior, drugs, environment, economic inequality, racial inequality, crime, and education.

SOC 335 Juvenile Delinquency: Definitions and interpretations; theories of causation and prevention; organization and functions of community agencies and institutions including police, courts, and probation services.

SOC 345 Simulated Games of Society: The study of society through the use of simulated games. The power structure, the social class system, the justice system, sex roles, different cultures, whole societies, ghettos, economic systems, municipal politics, and national political parties are simulated in classroom games to provide the student with experiential knowledge of these processes.

SOC 375 Social Change: An investigation of change in cultural patterns, behavioral relationships, and social structure. Topics comprise social movements, work, urbanization, family, computerization, social organizations and other aspects of American society.

SOC 415 Sociology of the Environment: A sociological approach to understanding the interaction of society and the natural environment. It focuses on social causes and consequences of environmental problems and mitigating actions taken toward them. It also addresses inequality in the distribution of environmental problems.

SOC 421 Race and Ethnicity: A sociological exploration of the origins and influence of race, ethnicity, and cultural/national identity in American and international stratification systems.

SOC 431 Gender and Society: An exploration of gender patterns. The course focuses on gender differences. It analyzes the causes and the consequences of these differences for social life, including the various social inequalities between males and females that have become institutionalized in American society.

SOC 441 Social Movements: Consideration of social movements as attempts to establish a new order of life. Analyzes states of development from inception to the achievement of full institutionalization. Specific social movements are examined such as the labor movement, the women’s movement, and racial, religious, and political movements.

SOC 463 Wealth and Poverty: An examination of social stratification in U.S. society with comparisons to other countries. The course explores different indicators of inequality, the social class system, theories of inequality, poverty, social mobility, and legitimization of inequality. It also explores racial and gender stratification.

Do you think there might be a certain liberal spin and propaganda to these classes that explains why the criminal is in fact the victim? I can find you many of these graduates that are looking for a job. Do you need this skill set for your business?

The unsustainable cost of education

The quote I have always loved is: “If you hate the cost of education wait until you see the cost of ignorance.” I love the logic. It is only when you take it to the extremes that it no longer works.

Mish Shedlock has a unique perspective in his post: PhD's In Distress and the Unsustainable Cost of Education

We are in an era when basic classes like Algebra and History can be taught at a far lower cost – and yet the costs are going up not down. We need to question the models, question the assumptions and teach that which will lead to jobs rather than academic enlightenment. Let’s get real – education like everything else needs to be cost competitive.

I love college!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43pkqeamXe8

This video is fairly representative of kids perspective on college. Why go
to work or start a new business when you can enjoy college parties like this?