Is college too difficult for today's American students?

[Gaius]

@Eagle-Keeper

From the link I posted:

Colleges are “such a mess in terms of administrative bloat” and are “saddling people with a lot of debt,” he added. “You can’t come out of a school with lots of debt and be a good citizen — you are now a dependent of someone else.”

In this way higher education is actually contributing to the decline in the US. Many people who would likely make good parents end up putting off such things as they must spend ten years of their life getting out of debt.

Blaming administrative bloat is true, but way over-simplified,

1.) College spending is largely determined at the departmental level, eg the English department. Each department gives back 100% of all the money it does not spend.
In economic terms that is like having a negative interest rate.
(think interest vs inflation) Each department will expand and bloat.

2.) Additionally, US college professor are overpaid.

3.) Perhaps most importantly because financial aid is so widely available the “demand curve” for education is basically vertical. It does not matter if “Big State U” charges $20,000 or $30,000 a year for tuition. Demand stays the same.

[WuWei]

You said what he said with more words.

[Gaius]

@WuWei

You said what he said with more words.

LOL well administrative bloat is different.

Administration:
At Penn State they have 2-person office of “minorities in engineering,” (similar offices in many departments)
a diversity office, a n affirmative action office, and a separate black-theme student center with a 3-person office staff.

Not Administration:
The stuff I was talking about was professors-teaching-classes and professors-doing-research. Neither is part of “administration.”

[Gaius]

@Eagle-Keeper

The logical thing to do is to rethink and reform the whole idea of “higher education” including highschool as well.

Re-inventing the mouse trap is not necessary.

In most of the developed world the HS curriculum for college-bound students is RADICALLY different from what it is in the US. (And good luck getting into college with a gen ed diploma, trades diploma etc…)

• In England and most developed countries college-bound students
  attend public school K-13<— Yes 13
• In Germany, Holland, Taiwan, Japan and other top-rated countries college-track students ALSO attend school on Saturday
• In Germany and several other countries 5% of all college-bound students in every class are REQUIRED to get an “F” grade and repeat the course. (leading to repeating a year or attending summer school or to dropping the college-prep program). 10% are required to get a “D” leading to a poor chance of college admission unless you voluntarily repeat the course.
• Summer vacation is 6 weeks (in the US it is 10-12)

Then, if you want to do that, then and only then are you entitled to attend college on the taxpayers dime.
.
.
.
Is college too hard for US students? Or is our HS system not adequately preparing students for college?

[Eagle-Keeper]

@Gaius

@Eagle-Keeper

The logical thing to do is to rethink and reform the whole idea of “higher education” including highschool as well.

Re-inventing the mouse trap is not necessary.

In most of the developed world the HS curriculum for college-bound students is RADICALLY different from what it is in the US. (And good luck getting into college with a gen ed diploma, trades diploma etc…)

• In England and most developed countries college-bound students
  attend public school K-13 <— Yes 13
• In Germany, Holland, Taiwan, Japan and other top-rated countries college-track students ALSO attend school on Saturday
• In Germany and several other countries 5% of all college-bound students in every class are REQUIRED to get an “F” grade and repeat the course. (leading to repeating a year or attending summer school or to dropping the college-prep program). 10% are required to get a “D” leading to a poor chance of college admission unless you voluntarily repeat the course.
• Summer vacation is 6 weeks (in the US it is 10-12)

Then, if you want to do that, then and only then are you entitled to attend college on the taxpayers dime.
.
.
.
Is college too hard for US students? Or is our HS system not adequately preparing students for college?

I absolutely favor the approach many other countries take towards education, as it’s much more practical than our approach. What happened in the US is that going to college was pushed by many as part of the so-called American Dream, and with it this entitlement mentality that a good paying job in the career of one’s wishes. You would hear people say things like “I did what I was supposed to do and well here I am with all this debt and a job having nothing to do with my major and doesn’t pay well.” It’s the fantasy land philosophy of the left. Also, what evolved in the US education system is this idea that ALL students can become doctors, lawyers, engineers simply with the proper education. And when that didn’t work well the answer became (as it always is for the left) just pump more money into a flawed system! Another problem in our current left-wing controlled system is the obsession with race. When the SJW crowd realized that certain races were dominating in certain academic and career areas well that’s a problem that needs to be fixed. So that’s another reason that we will continue to see a further decline.

As I said before in this thread and elsewhere, is that the quality of student is in decline and the way we approach education is highly flawed. So to answer your question it’s much more about it being that the current approach to college in the US is too difficult for the declining quality of student.

[Gaius]

The simple way to think about it is that:
In most developed countries there is a BIG difference in HS between college-track and other tracks.
In most developed countries college track requires 13 years and/or school on Saturday.

That means

1. their students show up at college better prepared than ours
   and
2. keeps a LOT of people from attempting college in the first place.

[Guntsu]

This is a great point, my family hosted several international students during HS and the differences between their college prep and ours was vast.

Other countries such as you listed. have a college track for their HS students with requirements that need to be met in order to even be considered for college acceptance.

[Gaius]

@Guntsu

This is a great point, my family hosted several international students during HS and the differences between their college prep and ours was vast.

Other countries such as you listed. have a college track for their HS students with requirements that need to be met in order to even be considered for college acceptance.

Thank you.

The other thing done in most industrialized countries is that
college track involves attending a separate school, often miles away from the other schools. Instead of 4 years of high school you spend 5 years, surrounded only by other students who are so serious about learning they too have voluntarily chosen an extra year of HS (sometimes including school on Saturdays.)

There is a risk of snobbery/arrogance but boy-oh-boy that is a hard-core serious learning atmosphere,

[Eagle-Keeper]

@Gaius

@Guntsu

This is a great point, my family hosted several international students during HS and the differences between their college prep and ours was vast.

Other countries such as you listed. have a college track for their HS students with requirements that need to be met in order to even be considered for college acceptance.

Thank you.

The other thing done in most industrialized countries is that
college track involves attending a separate school, often miles away from the other schools. Instead of 4 years of high school you spend 5 years, surrounded only by other students who are so serious about learning they too have voluntarily chosen an extra year of HS (sometimes including school on Saturdays.)

There is a risk of snobbery/arrogance but boy-oh-boy that is a hard-core serious learning atmosphere,

The unfortunate thing is that NONE of this will happen in America as the US system is run by idealistic and radical left wing SJW’s. The only results that will matter in the US system will be based purely on racial equity.

[Gaius]

@Eagle-Keeper

@Gaius

@Guntsu

This is a great point, my family hosted several international students during HS and the differences between their college prep and ours was vast.

Other countries such as you listed. have a college track for their HS students with requirements that need to be met in order to even be considered for college acceptance.

Thank you.

The other thing done in most industrialized countries is that
college track involves attending a separate school, often miles away from the other schools. Instead of 4 years of high school you spend 5 years, surrounded only by other students who are so serious about learning they too have voluntarily chosen an extra year of HS (sometimes including school on Saturdays.)

There is a risk of snobbery/arrogance but boy-oh-boy that is a hard-core serious learning atmosphere,

The unfortunate thing is that NONE of this will happen in America as the US system is run by idealistic and radical left wing SJW’s. The only results that will matter in the US system will be based purely on racial equity.

You are not wrong, but in fairness I cannot imagine a gubernatorial candidate running on a platform tht includes things like
– an extra year of school required to complete the college-prep track or
– school on Saturday required to complete the college prep track, or
– summer vacation cut in half required for the college prep track.

Changes this big must come from within.

[Samm]

@Gaius

I am a big fan of the “liberal arts/gen-ed” requirements in education.

I believe that any college graduate should be a well-rounded person with a well-rounded education. Ya wanna learn a trade only? go to trade school.

IMO “lib arts/gen-ed should be part of the 4-year curriculum” is true,
but that idea is completely distinct from
“Probably, too many people get degrees in useless majors,” which is also true.

Some years after I graduated with a degree in engineering, my alma mater got a new chancellor who voiced that opinion and set out to add humanities to the curriculum of science and engineering students. But of course to do that, the Science/Engineering Colleges had to strip science/engineering classes from the curriculum to make room for them so that their students could still graduate in four years. The result was a dumbed down curriculum for the students which lowered the status of their degree Nationally. At the same time, the humanity students had the equivalent of general science classes added to their degree requirements that were pretty much useless to them.

At the time I was working at the University in an applied engineering research lab. I noted to the Dean of the Engineering Department (who I knew well) who was struggling to decide which classes to cut, that if this Chancellor wanted to make this change, he should put 100 random science/engineering students up against 100 random humanities students and test them to see what they knew about the other’s discipline. My conjecture was that the science/engineering students would know considerably more about the humanities than the humanity students would know about science and engineering. I still believe that today.

[Samm]

@Gaius

In Germany and several other countries 5% of all college-bound students in every class are REQUIRED to get an “F” grade and repeat the course. (leading to repeating a year or attending summer school or to dropping the college-prep program). 10% are required to get a “D” leading to a poor chance of college admission unless you voluntarily repeat the course.

I don’t follow this. Are you saying that they are required to fail 5% of the students in every class and deny 10% of them a shot at college? No accounting for the level of learning performance they actually demonstrate?

[Gaius]

At a typical US University today engineering students are not exempt from “Gen Ed” requirements including

• 2 classes in humanities (history, philosophy, literature, sometimes foreign languages count)
• 2 classes in social sciences
• 2 classes in natural science (engineers are gonna take physics anyway)
• 2 classes in writing
• 2 classes in math
• 2 classes in “gym”
• 2 classes in creative arts

.
.
.
The humanities are not worthless. ot even to an engineering student. If you are an engineering student and absolutely HATE the humanities you can still satisfy the requirement by leaning and ore importantly you will still benefit from taking courses such as these
-History of Science, Isaac Asimov even wrote a book "How we know what we know about Atoms detailing each step in history from the Ancient Greeks to Robert Boyle etc.
- Philosophy of Sciences Why is science important? How did the scientific method develop. What did Michelangelo say about science? What did Galileo say about science? What do todays anti-science eco-weenies say about science?

Two actual examples from an actual college catalogue below.

[Samm]

I didn’t say they are useless, and I was required to take a number of humanity classes long before the Progressive Chancellor came along. What I said was the typical science/engineering student knows more about the subjects taught in the humanities category than humanity majors know about science and engineering.

But the effect of the watering down of the curriculum in science and engineering has had a detrimental effect. When I graduated, my school was rated in the top three for engineering at small universities in the country. Now, I don’t think it’s even on the list.

[WuWei]

“Gym” in college?

[WuWei]

@Gaius

-History of Science, Isaac Asimov even wrote a book "How we know what we know about Atoms detailing each step in history from the Ancient Greeks to Robert Boyle etc.
- Philosophy of Sciences Why is science important? How did the scientific method develop. What did Michelangelo say about science? What did Galileo say about science? What do todays anti-science eco-weenies say about science?

White folks epistemology and big part of the problem. Where da Asians?

[Samm]

@WuWei

“Gym” in college?

Physical Education. It was a requirement for freshman and sophomores (4 semesters) when I was in college. with ROTC being an acceptable substitute. ROTC was 1-1/2 credits of A per semester for me. PE would have been 1 credit of B or C.

[Samm]

@WuWei

@Gaius

-History of Science, Isaac Asimov even wrote a book "How we know what we know about Atoms detailing each step in history from the Ancient Greeks to Robert Boyle etc.
- Philosophy of Sciences Why is science important? How did the scientific method develop. What did Michelangelo say about science? What did Galileo say about science? What do todays anti-science eco-weenies say about science?

White folks epistemology and big part of the problem. Where da Asians?

Yeah, and besides, while it may be interesting, students who are already studying the sciences, don’t need to study that stuff. They already know that science is important.

[WuWei]

They don’t do that anymore and shouldn’t.

[Samm]

@WuWei

They don’t do that anymore and shouldn’t.

Take it up with @Gaius. He’s who posted that they do. I don’t know.