<p>the university of north carolina has said that if they defund, or fund at a lesser percentage, then they will begin to accept more OOS.</p>
<p>They only accept 18% OOS right now. Also, they will raise their tuition.</p>
<p>There will be unintended consequences people will NOT like.</p>
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<p>Oh please. Read a history book. You’re looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. There was never any time where families were “more valued” than today, or hard work was “more valued” than today, or people were less violent than today. Every generation has bemoaned the weaknesses of the ones after it, since the time of the ancient Greeks. There’s really very little new under the sun.</p>
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<p>Have there been periods of extreme violence and slovenliness in world history? Of course there has been; however, if one were to examine American culture, it’s logical and accurate to conclude there has been a breakdown on the American family (as indicated by divorce statistics), a decay in society-at-large’s work ethic (as indicated by the number of people who choose public assistance as a way of life), and an increase in violent crime (as indicated by violent crime statistics).</p>
<p>actually the divorce rate has gone way down since the 80s, and the violent crime rate has been decreasing for years.</p>
<p>However, the 24 hour news cycle has made us all more aware of the crime that does exist, and the divorce rate might be irrelevent as less young people are getting married or even want to get married.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnbc.com/id/46797203/As_TwoIncome_Family_Model_Matures_Divorce_Rate_Falls[/url]”>http://www.cnbc.com/id/46797203/As_TwoIncome_Family_Model_Matures_Divorce_Rate_Falls</a></p>
<p><a href=“Crime Down Across Nation - WSJ”>Crime Down Across Nation - WSJ;
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<p>[United</a> States Crime Rates 1960 - 2011](<a href=“http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm]United”>http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm)</p>
<p>Hmmm, the “index crimes” are down 44.1% since 1991. The violent ones are down 49.0%.</p>
<p>But it would not be surprising if fear of crime has not declined as much as crime has.</p>
<p>^ kelsmom, that is fine and perhaps your family has the level of wealth required to insulate your kids against concerns of one day earning a living.</p>
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<p>Hardly. I would go so far as to bet my family income is one of the lower incomes among those posting here. In terms of my own kids, their majors are their decisions. They are intelligent, they have counseling and career centers to use if they so choose, and I give them credit for being able to make their own decisions. Might they struggle at some point in their lives? Sure … my D worked as a barista for 8 months after graduating college, completely supporting herself in a city 9 hours from us. She majored in a social science-type discipline. She now makes more than I do, less than two years after graduation - and I have a STEM degree. S is in a STEM major, but one many on CC insist will not lead to a decent job. I am confident he will find his own way. While we do not have wealth to share with them post-graduation (and have raised them with the understanding that adults find a way to live on their own, even if it’s with roommates in an apartment with lawn chairs for furniture), we did give them something important … we did not allow them to choose educational options that would have necessitated large loans to finance. They both got into great schools that just cost too much. We would not let them even consider those schools. </p>
<p>By the way, neither of my kids is in the arts. However, I happen to work at an MFA school whose grads are able to support themselves. Maybe some don’t make as much money as you might think they “need” … but they are quite fine with their lives, doing what they love.</p>
<p>So Kelsmom you work for an academic humanities dept and no doubt your employers dislike the proposed reporting. If the kids majoring in such fields Are doing well then why do they not welcome it?</p>
<p>Who really matters? The tenured professors in these depts or the kids?</p>
<p>Again, the problem is not that too many students are choosing unmarketable liberal arts majors. Many (most?) underemployed/unemployed grads majored in things like fashion merchandising, music industry, and sports management. Or they majored in Education (no jobs there either). In other words, they majored in something the sole purpose of which is to provide a job. At least the liberal arts do not claim, and never have claimed, to prepare any student for specific employment tracks. Those departments are not lying to anyone. Why should they be particularly scapegoated?</p>
<p>Perhaps the post-graduation-stats-by-major may have the beneficial effect of giving some of the students considering pre-professional majors information as to whether the intended outcome of such majors realistic for those majors. Students going in with over-optimistic beliefs about job markets for their majors are not limited to liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>People here may bash liberal arts for not preparing students for jobs, but the pre-professional majors in areas with poor job prospects may be the ones where shedding light on outcomes may be most helpful for students.</p>
<p>I like that direction NJSue and UCB. The truth is that some kids do see college as employment related, and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as it’s not seen as some superior motivation to a liberal arts education, just one use of the college system.</p>
<p>So, for those programs which do tout themselves as being “pre-professional” whatever that means… Perhaps those students should demand some stats. I mean, I don’t personally see college as vocation school, though I do see with engineering students there’s no way around it.</p>
<p>I actually think, given the way the healthcare industry is going, it might be good for those educators to take a look at how engineering programs run and find a way to graduate GPs on a similar system. JMO</p>
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<p>That was probably the case before the 1950s-1970s expansion of college education. That expansion was probably helpful to economic growth, as it allowed use of otherwise underused or wasted potential talent to become more economically useful after college education.</p>
<p>One can argue that the expansion of college education may have gone too far in trying to encourage the marginal players to attempt (with low rates of success) a college education, or pushing those not yet ready for it at high school graduation to immediately go to college. But going back to only 10% attaining a bachelor’s degree would likely leave the economy significantly smaller than it otherwise would be.</p>
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<p>There are also proposals to cut law school from 3 years to 2 years to reduce costs:
[Reforming</a> America?s legal education: The two-year itch | The Economist](<a href=“The Economist | World News, Economics, Politics, Business & Finance”>The two-year itch)</p>
<p>Note that there used to be 2 year law degrees, and law degrees that did not require a bachelor’s degree as a prerequisite. Perhaps an even more radical reform of law school would be to offer law as an undergraduate major, to be taken during junior and senior years after satisfying breadth requirements in freshman and sophomore years (and applying for admission to the major, if necessary), though it may require more than four years if a science or engineering second major is needed for patent law purposes.</p>
<p>Once again, I am confused.</p>
<p>Are we trying to discourage the study of the useless humanities and social sciences by showing that grads from these disciplines end up working as baristas until the end of time while living in their parents basement, bemoaning their bad fortune and the Sisyphean task ahead of paying of their loans?</p>
<p>Or are we trying to discourage all those unemployed or underemployed Leisure Studies, or Merchandising, or International Business majors, who plop down their money (or get their loans) expecting that their highly marketable majors will land them cushy jobs in their field? And then find out that you don’t need a college degree to work at a health club or in retail and that “International Business” is not, in fact, an actual career? And that a kid who is really interested in “International business” should have majored in Latin American Studies with a minor in Spanish, or Chinese History and Art with a minor in Mandarin, or even Comparative Literature with a minor in virtually any language?</p>
<p>I wish the folks advocating for the collection and publication of the data would decide exactly who it is we are trying to warn away from a useless college degree… or in fact, dissuade them from attending college at all.</p>
<p>I also wish that we hadn’t killed off all the historians a few pages ago. Because then one of them could have reminded us that the enormous build up/arms race in higher education did not in fact begin as a bubble in the year 2000 around the time of the tech bubble and subsequent meltdown… but in fact, began as a mechanism for upper middle class and middle class men to avoid the draft when they got terrible numbers in the lottery during the Viet Nam war.</p>
<p>The proliferation of Master’s degree programs was kicked off then- aided and abetted by University administrators, but demanded by young men (and their parents) who needed educational deferments in massive numbers. And so the devaluing of a BA degree began when so many people were getting Master’s degrees… which meant that with those folks crowding into fields which previously only required a BA, the bar was raised. Where it now still sits.</p>
<p>But without historians and sociologists to remind us of the enormous turmoil we faced as a country during the Viet Nam war and the very unpopular draft lottery, we must seek our own villains. Elites- grrr, got to hate them for studying their fancy Classics and Art History. Politicians-- oh my, only interested in getting re-elected, will of the people be damned. Bankers- sure, why the heck would they lend my nephew Ralph so much money to study something useless when anyone who knew him as a kid could tell you he’d never amount to anything. And now he has more debt than a Third World country and he’s still never gonna amount to anything.</p>
<p>I agree that there are large and systemic changes which need to be made to higher ed in this country. But I still fail to see why a Federal mandate which will produce statistics that few people will be able to interpret in a meaningful way is the solution we’re all getting excited about.</p>
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<p>The students considering going into these pre-professional majors (and biology and chemistry) are the ones who would most likely benefit from the publication of post-graduation outcome data by major, since they are the ones most likely to have over-optimistic expectations about major-specific job prospects at graduation. Giving students a reality check may encourage them to be at least a little more careful about student loan debt, or may help them tie-break between two majors of equal interest, but with greatly differing post-graduation job and career prospects.</p>
<p>The H/SS students generally know that their majors offer little in terms of major-specific job opportunities or preparation, so they presumably will adapt their internship and post-graduation job searches accordingly. Offering post-graduation outcome data by major is unlikely to affect students considering H/SS majors that much, compared to those considering many of the aforementioned pre-professional majors, and biology and chemistry. Note that pre-professional majors comprise about two thirds of bachelor’s degrees granted in the US.</p>
<p>Great post Blossom!</p>
<h1>6 argbargy</h1>
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<p>Our first colleges were seminaries, so classics were important. The mission of the university was very clear.</p>
<p>In the 60s a lot of middle class (and some lower class) students had access to humanities education in a way they hadn’t before. I agree with you about the Viet Nam war driving this. Does it also seem to you that now we have professors from a much wider variety of backgrounds than prior to that war? Because of the proliferation of graduate programs? Do we still have any of those dollar a year men that used to be professors?</p>
<p>I don’t really see how all those graduate programs are going to be able to continue. I have very mixed feelings about that. Is it a good thing when only the upper classes have the luxury, and societal approval, to study classics, history, art history? Also, just in practical terms - many colleges rely heavily on graduate students for teaching. Their budgets are already based on taking advantage of this really inexpensive labor. There will probably be enough unemployed PhDs willing to work for less than minimum wage in many departments for a number of years but I don’t know if it is a really good solution to the problem of “sinecure”? Maybe it is okay to reach the point only trustfundarians can afford to be college teachers? Full circle?</p>
<p>I guess I think we need to decide just what we want the mission of the university to be.</p>
<h1>310 poetgrl:</h1>
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<p>I can’t really understand why, when we need more health care personnel, we aren’t opening more medical schools and nursing schools or expanding the ones we already have. I’m sure we all know many qualified students turned away from these programs.</p>
<p>I think these statistics are meaningless, too, and agree with JHS # 298 explanation of the uselessness of the data gathering in NC.</p>
<p>I also agree with everything NJSue writes, especially this #292:</p>
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<p>Again, it’s poor critical thinking to think that there was some magical time in which families were “happier” because they weren’t divorcing. All that means is that women stayed in abusive or unhappy marriages because it was socially frowned upon to divorce and they couldn’t support themselves anyway. Why you think it’s a “breakdown” is beyond me.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s me, but this thread sure needs a sociology major or two.</p>
<p>Divorce statistics show that the more “conservative” the state or region of the country, the higher the divorce rate. It’s liberal places like Massachusetts which seem to be able to sustain higher rates of marriage.</p>
<p>Not being a sociologist myself, I leave the interpretation to others. But it always amuses me when the useless and maligned disciplines end up having something productive to add to the national debate. Especially now when politicians and journalists are jumping over themselves to connect gun violence, mental illness, Second Amendment, video games, lack of a father in the home, etc. Sort of seems counter-intuitive that precisely now is when we want everyone in college studying engineering and computer science with nobody left to ponder the broad trends in family formation, social and cultural development, etc.</p>
<p>Sorry, back to our regularly scheduled programming.</p>
<p>Who really matters? The tenured professors in these depts or the kids?</p>
<p>Two distinguished sociologists have the answer for you:</p>
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<p>[Gazette</a> | Feature: Failing Grades](<a href=“Penn: Page not found”>Penn: Page not found)</p>
<p>More interesting quotes from the fascinating article:</p>
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<p>Well worth a read.</p>
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<p>The introduction of no-fault divorce laws made it easier to end marriages when no abuse was involved. There are cases when divorce is necessary, but a study has found that it does not make people happier on average.</p>
<p>[Does</a> Divorce Make People Happy?](<a href=“http://www.americanvalues.org/html/r-unhappy_ii.html]Does”>http://www.americanvalues.org/html/r-unhappy_ii.html)</p>
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<h1>318 - I especially liked this excerpt:</h1>
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