<p>Personally I think tuition tax credits for certain majors sounds like a horrible idea and comparing it to affirmative action is just as horrid. Some of the stuff you say BIGeastBEAST is well said but then some of the other stuff you mention is rather out of this world.</p>
<p>Well the research by MIT suggests that people innovate for self-fulfillment. Let me give you an example since your delicate ears don’t want to listen to something for 10 minutes. </p>
<p>This company, in Australia, gives there employees 4 free days a year to do anything they want at work. Anything. You know what ends up coming out of those 4 days? Fixes for software bugs, new and exciting ideas, and the like. This other company called Google does it too, except they do it 20% of the year. I hear they are pretty successful.</p>
<p>New technology should be mostly done by the private sector. If they utilize the same business model described above, they can create new technology. We can also increase funding for NASA to do research, maybe DARPA.</p>
<p>Ok and yes tax credits would mean more math and science majors, but would it mean “better” math and science majors?</p>
<p>There’s tons of NSF money for summer internships for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) majors. There’s research money for Research Assistants too for STEM majors. I don’t see the equivalent for the humanities and business majors.</p>
<p>I believe that there’s a fair amount of NSF funding for graduate work too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>100% agree. It’s an absurd idea that should NEVER be implemented because:</p>
<ol>
<li>Anyone who has a natural aptitude for sciences/math/engineering will study it already.</li>
<li>It will push people to major in such who will NOT contribute anything useful to those fields because they are simply not conditioned for those engineering/science majors, and instead can benefit society the most in the liberal arts. They will experience push because of their families and themselves in the aim of saving money.</li>
</ol>
<p>In short, the idea is horrible, would not in anyway increase the amount of intelligent students in science/engineering/mathematics, and not better our nation’s deficit of them at all. Any engineering/science/math student can either go to a good school on scholarship/financial aid or easily find tons of aid available if they have any meaningful skill. Financial incentives for science/engineering/math are a waste of money and socially destructive.</p>
<p>@post 62
This theme has popped up a few times in the thread and it irks me. I agree that the humanities are important but whoever said that the liberal arts are a more human pursuit than the sciences? Yes, I know that you did not say that directly monkey king, but when you say that if we had a society of all engineers we</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>do you think I am unjustified in drawing that conclusion? I find it incredibly ironic that someone who wants to live in a “truly ‘human’” society would ever consider any human, regardless of profession, fungible with a computer.</p>
<p>Edit: I also think the tax credit for engineers is kind of absurd. There is enough inherent compensation in the field.</p>
<p>MonkeyKing1, I was accepted to several elite computer/electrical engineering programs but was forced to turn them down because I couldn’t afford the debt. And my family was willing to pay 30k+ a year. </p>
<p>“Tons of aid for any meaningful skill” is the dumbest thing uttered in this thread so far. The best engineering schools in the country (Cal Tech, MIT) offer no merit based aid to students caught in the bubble between being poor and being rich.</p>
<p>A strong sense of ethics is important no matter what you study. It can come in many forms and is not exclusively possessed by any one field of study. Really, what happens outside of the classroom may be the most important thing when it comes to developing compassion and moral values. Major field of study is a singularly bad way to evaluate moral goodness.</p>
<p>The principles stated in this thread is what will make my college application process so utterly simple. </p>
<p>I’m applying to a couple of top level, Ivy League or same levels schools. At these schools, the alumini relations and network are still powerful enough to get a decent job in spite of pursuing a liberal arts major. There’s a reason why the median salary for Dartmouth graduates is the highest out of any college - this includes the fact that Dartmouth has no engineering department.</p>
<p>However, at any college lower than this level, I’ll be planning to major in computer science or computer engineering - because at lower level colleges, majors such as these are what get you into the job market.</p>
<p>I find it incredibly insulting that people view majors such as “engineering” vocational and without educational merit. Stochastic calculus is in no way less merited educationally or less deep or has less breadth than Epistemology or British Literature. The only difference is that one lands you a career in the field of your study, while the other doesn’t.</p>
<p>I do think there is a way to limit the number of humanities/social science graduates. I think someone on this board a while back mentioned it, but I’m not 100% sure who made the point. Make the barriers to entry just as difficult, or almost as difficult as engineering disciplines. Weed out non-serious English/art history/sociology/econ etc. majors with a 2-3 course fundamentals sequence. Grade harshly; not necessarily on a curve, but for mastery. For example: make calculus and calc-based statistics absolutely mandatory for econ majors. Make everyone take econometrics. You’ll weed out half the fluff there. Ditto for all the other social sciences. </p>
<p>OTOH…fold all the ethnic and gender studies courses into anthro/history/languages. Get rid of those departments.</p>
<p>After this…anybody who can still succeed in their desired course of study should be allowed to continue.</p>
<p>Of course…your professors are going to cry foul at such a thought. </p>
<p>@IndianOptimist: Dartmouth has an engineering school.</p>
<p>^ I proposed something similar in a recent thread on this topic. Accredidation standards for liberal arts programs need to be just as demanding as for engineering programs.</p>
<p>lol, right.</p>
<p>Cowman and Moneyking:</p>
<p>Let’s waste more money on scholarships/financial aid/loans for students studying worthless majors that won’t do a darn thing to solves the challenges facing our society.</p>
<p>Saying “if a student has an aptitude, than they will do it anyways” is stupid, plain stupid. If that were true, then I guess American students are just dumb idiots, because as a country we are producing far less of these studies than other countries, so I guess we just aren’t as smart, huh?</p>
<p>Perhaps, we are focusing on the wrong stuff? A tax credit would help people WITH aptitude get more interest in these programs. If they can’t hack it, they don’t get the money. If they don’t meet the requirements, they don’t get the reward, so tell me how this “logic” from our socialist friend applies:</p>
<p>“Ok and yes tax credits would mean more math and science majors, but would it mean “better” math and science majors?” ~ Cowman809</p>
<p>Well, if they aren’t capable of completing the curriculum, then they don’t qualify for the tax credit. If they graduate and meet the criteria (like people do know), then how are they “not as good?”</p>
<p>When I bought my home, I used the $8,000 home buyer credit, does this mean I’m “not as good” as other home owners? Are my property tax not equal? Are people without the tax credit “better?”</p>
<p>Also, the idea that we would be “pushing” people into a major they don’t want is ridiculous. Would it be encouraging them to do so? Yes. Just like the home buyer credit encouraged me to buy a home. Just like several states who offer very low cost tuition to residents, are they “pushing” people into college who don’t belong their? They are giving more people the chance, they are encouraging them to go, but in the end of the day, they all need to meet the criteria for graduation.</p>
<p>WE WASTE SO MUCH MONEY ON WORTHLESS MAJORS! If we weren’t burning through millions of dollars on dumb programs we could start investing more funding into our critical specialties and start recruiting kids out of HS.</p>
<p>Here is what we tell our kids: “It doesn’t matter what you go to school for, you just need to get the degree” or “Employers just want to see that you got your degree, they don’t care what it is in.”</p>
<p>Great logic. Here’s how it plays out.</p>
<p>Students are told the above GARBAGE and they believe it. So when it comes to picking a major they see it like this:</p>
<p>A) I could pick a very hard intensive major such as Biology or Chemistry. Which will require me to study hard, sacrifice social time and be very stressful and challenging.</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>B) I could pick an easy liberal Arts major, have lots of free time, not have to study as much and be able to have a much better social life.</p>
<p>Which do you think the HS student will pick? The hard major or the easy major? Considering we tell students “It doesn’t matter what you go for”, the vast majority of the time they are going to pick the “easy” major, which doesn’t provide any skills or help move society forward.</p>
<p>Take this student and multiple it by 50 million over a couple decades, and you are left with one pathetic looking workforce. Which is what we have now.</p>
<p>If you don’t like my tax credit idea, fine, I don’t care. But at least offer a different solution. Because this is a serious problem. The most powerful country in the world is hemorrhaging from brain drain, and we are going to be stuck holding the bag. But we will have lots of Art History majors, philosophers, Political Scientists, Historians, ect., so I guess that makes the problem better, huh? </p>
<p>The Art History major can paint a picture of how bad our society became, the philosopher can think about how it morally go forward, the political scientists can study how it happened, and the historian can write it down then ponder 10 different ways it could have happened - thanks.</p>
<p>Like I said, don’t like my idea? fine. I don’t care. But stop living with your head in the sand thinking we are going in the right direction with our education system. It’s a train wreck, and Liberal Arts program shoulder some blame - along with the universities who create these “majors” just to draw in more students to increase their enrollment.</p>
<p>Colleges are now offering a major in Leadership. Yep, Leadership; a non-tangible, unmeasurable personal trait that is completely open to interpretation. What majors come next? Friendship? Goodness? Kindness? Courage? </p>
<p>But guess what? I bet 10 years from now Leadership is going to be one of the most popular majors in the country. Why? Because it’s easy! </p>
<p>So somehow, we need to start recruiting. We need to recruit HS students into critical specialties. Whether it be more scholarship programs, tax credits, I don’t care. Perhaps just eliminate some of these other “easy” options, that might help.</p>
<p>P.S. I never said I wanted tax credits for just engineering majors. I would like them to go to Medicine, Engineering, and Sciences.</p>
<p>Personally I think tuition tax credits for certain majors sounds like a horrible idea and comparing it to affirmative action is just as horrid. Some of the stuff you say BIGeastBEAST is well said but then some of the other stuff you mention is rather out of this world. ~ Xptboy</p>
<p>Why, what’s so horrid?</p>
<p>We give scholarships based on skin color, what is so wrong with giving scholarships based on filling a need in society? A critical need at that…</p>
<p>The only difference is that my idea doesn’t exclude anyone.</p>
<p>OTOH, if the market demanded majors in science and technology, wouldn’t the supply of students majoring in those subject rise to meet the occasion?</p>
<p>I also find it intriguing that everyone is so against the idea of a tax credit.</p>
<p>I think this is partially because most of you on this board aren’t yet taxpayers, rather tax recipients or dependents (and I’m not talking about getting taxes taken out for your summer job). </p>
<p>Tax credits, really aren’t that scary of a thing. In fact, I got a tax credit this year for making payments on my student loans.</p>
<p>[Tax</a> Benefits of Paying for College](<a href=“http://www.tgslc.org/borrowers/tax/]Tax”>http://www.tgslc.org/borrowers/tax/)</p>
<p>So it’s not like this is some looney-toon idea.</p>
<p>OTOH, if the market demanded majors in science and technology, wouldn’t the supply of students majoring in those subject rise to meet the occasion? ~ Schaden</p>
<p>There is an absolutel demand for science and tech majors, the problem is we aren’t producing students to fill those specialties.</p>
<p>Instead, we are “importing” these skills from India, Pakistan, ect. They are coming here, getting their education (not becoming citizens) and then getting the jobs. No foul there, they are just doing the smart thing.</p>
<p>It’s time we start doing the same thing. Our public education system is so broken we can’t produce these sort of students (but we produce lots of philosophers and historians), so the market relies an influx of foreign students to meet the demand.</p>
<p>That sounds backwards though- why would we want to produce cheap technically skilled labor by the masses?</p>
<p>That sounds backwards though- why would we want to produce cheap technically skilled labor by the masses? ~ Schaden</p>
<p>You consider a Surgeon or BioMedical Engineer a cheap technical skill?</p>
<p>I sure as hell don’t.</p>
<p>I’m not talking about some Dell IT staff over in India for customer support. I’m taking advanced science, M.D.s, biology, chemistry, ect. Capable of doing advanced research in pharma, medical technology, energy, tech exploration, ect.</p>
<p>I live near Carnegie Mellon, great school - almost all foreign students. Let’s get some home-grown in there.</p>
<p>Unfortunately you are ignorant enough (or you feel your argument isn’t strong enough) that you need to cry socialist at the opposition.</p>
<p>Not finishing this debate. Anybody who uses the socialist moniker to discredit someone is not worth arguing with.</p>
<p>GLHF</p>
<p>The US has regions of expertise and those interested in the fields move to them. What would be terrible is if a competing region in another country got strong enough to wrest control away from the US. We saw this with autos, television sets, and many other things.</p>
<p>There are many more interested in science and engineering majors with the economic downturn. Many students interested can’t or won’t make it through though. We still have major problems in K12 preparation for math and science engineers. I’m sure that there are many that have the intellectual horsepower for math and science but with insufficient preparation in K12 to move smoothly into STEM majors at the university level.</p>
<p>
College students are stupid and don’t realize the effect of income and job prospects on their futures. That’s why engineering enrollment has been stagnant, despite being the degree solid enough to immediately vault you into the middle class upon graduation.</p>