Is It Really This Bad?

[dc.]

 

What the hell are you talking about? And I do believe this is the first post I've made on this thread that is response to one of your posts.

 

Very strange. Very, very strange.

Yeah, again, I'm pretty sure it's been me all along. Especially the stuff on social security.

[GrubberRaven]

The engineering issue is our poor grade school education. The powers that be like a dumb electorate but you need smart ppl to be engineers.

 

On the trade front. That is the dumb ass everyone has to go to college route the high schools push kids to even if they shouldn't. I think HS should be more like a college and you work towards your interests and abilities. If a student is good with theri hands and not great at the writing and math end show them the trades and get them apprenticed while still in school.

 

This!!! I felt this way when I was teaching...

[thundercleetz]

The engineering issue is our poor grade school education. The powers that be like a dumb electorate but you need smart ppl to be engineers.

 

On the trade front. That is the dumb ass everyone has to go to college route the high schools push kids to even if they shouldn't. I think HS should be more like a college and you work towards your interests and abilities. If a student is good with theri hands and not great at the writing and math end show them the trades and get them apprenticed while still in school.

Yep, I absolutely agree this is an enormous part of the problem. My father didn't go to high college, went to trade school and became a master plumber/contractor. He's an absolute genius with the math he can do in his head, hand dexterity, and his ability to identify and fix problems plumbing, electrical, and structural problems. I wish I had pair more attention as a kid...

 

The investment needs to be made in K-12: infrastructure, giving teachers more support, hiring more teachers and raising pay, and focus on practical trades in high school to encourage students with those sort of skills. No more students struggling in remedial classes in college should be a goal as well.

 

There are other ways to make college affordable than throw $50B at the problem. In a way, this would further the K-12 problem and possibly water down a college education. Kids need to be prepared for college and trade schools. I went to community college for two years and a common problem I saw were kids having to take a year or two of remedial classes, get frustrated because they did not count as progress toward a degree, and drop out. Unfortunately, it is a waste of money as well.

 

Colleges need to be held accountable for the degrees they are producing and what guidance counselor are telling kids. I know guidance counselors are merely trying to do their jobs, but what they tell kids who are liberal arts majors about the job market isn't telling the whole story. College need to do a better job of accepting and graduating students in majors based on the job market. The arts are great, but art departments at colleges are too big accepting too many majors, and engineering departments are too small.

 

If colleges are given their allocation of federal/state funding based on job placement, I'm sure they will allocate their own department resources much more efficiently.

[papasmurfbell]

I have for a long time wondered where the pressure for funneling everyone to college came from. With th ealmost fraudulent way the college boards are run maybe there has been that push from their end.

I like Bernie but I am not really down with his free tuition idea. While I like the idea of kids getting out without a debt burden I think it rewards these schools for price gouging. I would rather see a full federal aid elimination and the prices to reset from pure market reasons. After that the feds can come back but will only increase at the inflation rate. It will hurt some ppl but I think it is a long term fix.

 

I also think schools should be held accountable for the jobs that can be had with their degrees. So many can't find jobs in theri field even with good degrees in say Math.

 

If I could take over say Towson bc I know the school I would eliminate vast swaths of the liberal arts education. I would actually want the styudents to take more classes in their area of study. At that point I would let it be known that departments will exist as there is demnd for their classes. Really a sociology dept is a jobs program. Force business or bio majors to take classes that they will forget the moment the class is over is just to justify having these departments existence in the first place.

 

Personally I wish I had never gone to school. Lots of debt and no skills taught.

[thundercleetz]

I have for a long time wondered where the pressure for funneling everyone to college came from. With th ealmost fraudulent way the college boards are run maybe there has been that push from their end.

 

I like Bernie but I am not really down with his free tuition idea. While I like the idea of kids getting out without a debt burden I think it rewards these schools for price gouging. I would rather see a full federal aid elimination and the prices to reset from pure market reasons. After that the feds can come back but will only increase at the inflation rate. It will hurt some ppl but I think it is a long term fix.

 

I also think schools should be held accountable for the jobs that can be had with their degrees. So many can't find jobs in theri field even with good degrees in say Math.

 

If I could take over say Towson bc I know the school I would eliminate vast swaths of the liberal arts education. I would actually want the styudents to take more classes in their area of study. At that point I would let it be known that departments will exist as there is demnd for their classes. Really a sociology dept is a jobs program. Force business or bio majors to take classes that they will forget the moment the class is over is just to justify having these departments existence in the first place.

 

Personally I wish I had never gone to school. Lots of debt and no skills taught.

[dc.]

I'm down with a lot of the above, but disagree on the liberal arts elimination. If taught well and with appropriate expectations, we need more not less in the way of liberal arts.

 

The problem is people's expectations of what liberal arts gets you... It gets you the chance to take on a lot of problems and work your butt up in a lot of fields. But it didn't guarantee you well paying or "in your field." Liberal arts is about thinking and studying and writing. We still need plenty of that. Just don't expect to get paid as a professional philosopher or start out making huge bucks for writing grants etc

[dc.]

Just adding on, I think we need more training in writing, ethics, etc that many liberal arts provide - and our other fields from engineering to business to medicine need this most of all.

 

That doesn't mean, of course, that I support every last program focused on these fields. Just that they don't need to be slashed simply because there aren't lots of jobs starting with "sociologist"

 

I also think there are so many misunderstandings re Bernie's free college plan. Including that it's not a matter of the govt just paying tuition, it's about funding schools in a way that makes tuition unnecessary. The two sound similar but are markedly different.

 

In the end, I still agree with the idea that "college or bust" is the wrong message. And a lot of it came from a combo of the 90s tech boom making some skills more needed (and some manufacturing skills less needed) and NCLB which pretty much set an official federal marker for schools to get kids there to "compete" with international schools. But the flaws in the legislative pay in particular are astounding. It corporatized the entire education system from k-college, from lessons to testing. It made schools more like industrial factories than before, which isn't a good thing.

[papasmurfbell]

There would still be liberal arts schools. Some schools would decide to fill a niche in that market. But making students waste almost half of their schoolling on busy work classes that have no bearing to their careers is nonsense. It forces students to use departments that have maybe 30 students in that major. You could not run a department on 30 ppl so you make the masses take a class or two there to justify the need for the professors and admin staff.

 

 

I get how he wants to push states to fund colleges. I think that is going to be easier siad than done. I look at schools like Towson that have that have stopped fulfilling their agreed upon founding mandate. I would love to see the state cast them out. If they want to educate the masses of the east coast be a private school. They love taking state funding but they also love getting out of state students.

[dc.]

There would still be liberal arts schools. Some schools would decide to fill a niche in that market. But making students waste almost half of their schoolling on busy work classes that have no bearing to their careers is nonsense. It forces students to use departments that have maybe 30 students in that major. You could not run a department on 30 ppl so you make the masses take a class or two there to justify the need for the professors and admin staff.

 

 

I get how he wants to push states to fund colleges. I think that is going to be easier siad than done. I look at schools like Towson that have that have stopped fulfilling their agreed upon founding mandate. I would love to see the state cast them out. If they want to educate the masses of the east coast be a private school. They love taking state funding but they also love getting out of state students.

I guess I'm saying:

1. There arent as many 30 student departments as you think. And while a business make might night need soc101, he needs something like it. So you'd still be keeping that SOC professor on so he could teach business classes focused on that.

 

2. Towson and UMD aren't going against the board, they are doing what the board wants them to... Milking out of state kids for higher tuition because the school needs the money.

[papasmurfbell]

I realize they are allowed to do what they are doing but I don't hav e to like it. They milk the out of state students but get funding for an assumed larger in state number. So really they are double dipping the system.

 

You could still have that soc 101 class but it is taught by a few profs and that is the extent of the soc for the school. Also you can do the online lecture that can teach hundreds at a time by 1 prof and get that instructor a few grad assistants to help administer the class.

[dc.]

Im done on the liberal arts stuff; I think we just see different value there and without numbers is all in the dark.

 

I don't like the out of state stuff either, but I just meant they are not abandoning the state because the state regents encourage it. Similarly, while I have students disappointed they can't go to UMD or Towson, I have very few who don't get in to at least one state institution. So I don't really think it's costing us anything in that sense. And I don't think they are doing it on purpose more than any other school in any other state. It's back to the whole system being stupid.

 

But then again, the desire of so many of my students to go out of state and sirens an extra 100k just because it's cool... Well that's silly too. I do a whole lesson on those cost and loans with my students. They say I'm telling them not to go to school, but the end result is more pick in state... I think it's a winner.

[papasmurfbell]

When I met with the financial aid officer at towson the first time and she showed me an estimated aid package I was about to walk away right then. She talked me down and said it was not that big a deal with all the loans. Like they say your first idea is usually the right one. Looking back now I feel like a mark by a grifter.

[dc.]

When I met with the financial aid officer at towson the first time and she showed me an estimated aid package I was about to walk away right then. She talked me down and said it was not that big a deal with all the loans. Like they say your first idea is usually the right one. Looking back now I feel like a mark by a grifter.

Well, I don't disagree there. The money is out of control, even in state

[papasmurfbell]

They love adding more to athletics. Admins make a ton even though they do little. They keep building bigger and shinier buildings that cost more and more.

[thundercleetz]

Good discussion all around. Just to clarify, I am not advocating elimination of the liberal arts by any means. I was a liberal arts major. All I am saying is those majors need to be scaled back to what the job market dictates. Better instruction in writing and ethics can be cross-departmental and are useful for any major.

 

My wife was an Art History major. She tried both architecture and business majors, neither were a fit for her. She's an excellent writer and has a creative mind. I feel a good guidance counselor would have seen her struggles in business and architecture, and evaluated her strengths to help push her into a degree field field with professional relevance, such as teaching. In the end, she made it work and has a solid job, but what she learned in her major was useless.

 

Great points on in-state vs. out of state, DC. The whole "it's cool" to go out of state is dangerous when an education in-state is just as good. I went to community college for two years to get an affordable education, my two little brothers joined the Army to help pay for school. None of us wanted to do these things as our first choice. Hopefully the parents of those kids you are mentioning aren't so quick to sign PLUS forms. That is going to cause a crisis of its own down the line. But the retirement crisis in the US is a topic of its own...

[thundercleetz]

Btw, you seem like a really great teacher. That's awesome that you go over school and loan costs. THAT is going to make a true difference in these kids lives, even if they don't appreciate it until down the road. You can always move out of state after you graduate.

[papasmurfbell]

The CC route I like but I have seen where a 4 yr school discounts giant chunks of their transcript. So they get in with 60 credits and an AA degree but the 4 yr school wont accept 24 credits of it. So basically almost a yr was a waste of money and time. I would like to see in CCs that in their course catalog where 4 yr schools in MD will accept specific classes in the transfer. So basically an Eng 101 at CCBC is the Eng 101 at Towson or UMCP.

[thundercleetz]

The CC route I like but I have seen where a 4 yr school discounts giant chunks of their transcript. So they get in with 60 credits and an AA degree but the 4 yr school wont accept 24 credits of it. So basically almost a yr was a waste of money and time. I would like to see in CCs that in their course catalog where 4 yr schools in MD will accept specific classes in the transfer. So basically an Eng 101 at CCBC is the Eng 101 at Towson or UMCP.

I went to CC in MoCo. From what I was told when I was in CC, all four year schools in MD are supposed to accept MD CC credit. I got accepted into UMD after getting my AA. I don't remember there being an issue with my credits but I can't say for certain.

 

When you go cross-state from a CC things get messy. I didn't go my last two years in state (got a good scholarship which made it cheaper to go out of state) but here's the kicker: like you mentioned I had 60 credits and an AA, when I transferred my new college only accepted 28.

 

I went into the guidance counselor's office and explain my case. I had gone on the school's website, found comparable courses to what I had and asked if I could get those credits. I was expecting an argument, but after a couple of clicks my transcript was amended and I got the credits! I don't know if it's like this at every school (my four year school is private).

[dc.]

Btw, you seem like a really great teacher. That's awesome that you go over school and loan costs. THAT is going to make a true difference in these kids lives, even if they don't appreciate it until down the road. You can always move out of state after you graduate.

 

Appreciate it. And I agree with you on CC-route. Against the preferences of our counseling dept who like to promote 100% 4-year college numbers, more and more of our students have been going the 2-and-2 route. Especially if you don't know what you're going to do in college. Why waste so much money on pre-reqs and core classes?

 

Most of my students that get the cost lecture/discussion are 4-year bound... but it really opens their eyes about how big the in-state/out-of-state difference is and how long it can take to "break even" on debt, loans, or just having to make up more of your money spent ... as I said, they walk out joking that "you just told us to never go to college!" but by the end of the year come back talking about making smarter decisions. Luckily, I have the freedom (and time) in my classes to bend to current events and student events! Mostly.

[papasmurfbell]

I went to CC in MoCo. From what I was told when I was in CC, all four year schools in MD are supposed to accept MD CC credit. I got accepted into UMD after getting my AA. I don't remember there being an issue with my credits but I can't say for certain.

 

When you go cross-state from a CC things get messy. I didn't go my last two years in state (got a good scholarship which made it cheaper to go out of state) but here's the kicker: like you mentioned I had 60 credits and an AA, when I transferred my new college only accepted 28.

 

I went into the guidance counselor's office and explain my case. I had gone on the school's website, found comparable courses to what I had and asked if I could get those credits. I was expecting an argument, but after a couple of clicks my transcript was amended and I got the credits! I don't know if it's like this at every school (my four year school is private).

I knew a few ppl from the state that went to various CCs and when they got to Towson giant chunks of their credits were not taken. They had to plead and some got credits back but many still were short.

[dc.]

I knew a few ppl from the state that went to various CCs and when they got to Towson giant chunks of their credits were not taken. They had to plead and some got credits back but many still were short.

I think it depends on programs. And I think the state has worked to get better at the system in general. I don't hear that issue much anymore.

[Spen]

Btw, you seem like a really great teacher.

Let the record show I couldn't disagree more.

 

A few thoughts. I do not think free college is feasible and I am not sure if it should even be a goal, but it should be affordable and in many cases nowadays I do not think it is affordable. I do think college should be more than job training yet I understand why people do not want to be forced to take classes that do not pertain to their major. I took every history class my college offered and its never helped me get a job, yet I do think it has had a positive effect on me as a person.

 

On healthcare my thoughts have changed over time and completely feel that we should have socialized medicine. I have worked with a bunch of English born people and know a few Canadians and every single one of them prefers there country's system to ours. I myself have a moral problem with for profit healthcare. I think its a moral failing of our country that we do not have socialized medicine.

 

 

Oh, and to take one more shot at Spen who thinks the economy is so great because he got a job

in McDonalds

Oh I wish! I could brighten so many people's day if I worked there.

Edited March 26, 2016 by Spen

[cravnravn]

Something has to be done about our healthcare and insurance system. What gives the insurance company the right to deny any person a prescribed treatment? Who are they to say a person is not sick enough for that prescribed by a doctor treatment?

 

It's happening to a co-workers wife right now, she was misdiagnosed last summer on a small lump on her breast, she was told it was calcium deposit. Turns out the lump was getting painful so in December she went back to the doctors, its stage 4 breast cancer. She's had the double mastectomy, and is going through chemo.

 

Because chemo kills all blood cells they prescribed a shot to boost her white cell count. Aetna denied paying for the 1100 dollar shot, because she is still not sick enough.

 

It's not sad enough to 1. Hear you have cancer. 2. Go through the operation and the shock of missing part of your body. 3. Being young as this couple are and figuring out what the future holds. You have to fear or better yet call the insurance company and plea or beg as to why the treatment you were prescribed has been denied.

 

It's a sad situation

[dc.]

100% agree crav. As Spen said, it's a moral failing.

 

I understand the concept of insurance in general, and it works for homeowners and auto even life... But our health insurance system is simply a designed series of middle men who skim

[RavenMad]

Trust me, a paid for system isn't much better. Our waiting lists for many operations are as long as the Florida coastline. It almost forces you to put your hand in your pocket and go privately. For those fortunate enough to have taken private health insurance then great you get sorted in no time at all. For everyone else that has paid their taxes thinking they were covered only to find that operation they need to fix a knee or a hip won't happen for 18 months its tough shit, hope the pain isn't too bad.

 

I'm afraid the perfect system only exists in some dystopian future.