<p>I can't believe the extent to which college is overhyped in this country
For all you parents out there drinking the Kool-Aid.. you should
check out this book.</p>
<p>Higher Education?
By Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus </p>
<p>Reviewed in the WSJ last week....</p>
<p>Very interesting book review. Given the economic climate I suspect it will do well in sales.</p>
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<p>And on what authority are these authors making such pronouncements?</p>
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Debt-free is good. :)</p>
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<p>Probably been reading CC. The trashing of Harvard undergrad education by people who never went there is a self-perpetuating cottage industry on CC.</p>
<p>MidWestMom, that does sound sensible but one can draw that conclusion without needing to read any book.</p>
<p>I haven’t read this book, but Andrew Hacker is a political scientist or sociologist at Queens College. I’ve read a few other things he’s written and my recollection is that he is thoughtful and relatively data-driven. </p>
<p>As a former academic who still keeps a hand in his field, it does seem to me as well that the vast majority of academic research will never change anything (either the world or even how people in the discipline think) and thus could easily be foregone. The problem is that it would be hard to know a prior which subset of the work really would make a difference, although a certain segment of the research could be eliminated beforehand. While there is some absolutely fabulous academic work which will change how people think or change how organizations, governments or people act, there is also a lot of bad academic work out there, at least in the social science areas I know.</p>
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<p>It seems rather unfortunate that the authors decided to write such sentence and that the reviewer decided to incorporate it in his review. </p>
<p>It is unfortunate because many of the “other” comments are hitting the right notes, especially the description of the teaching at major research universities. While the authors picked on Harvard because of the name recognition, the scandalous use of unqualified “instructors” is rampant at all schools that have large graduate schools and rely on TA or GSF to “educate” the hordes of unsuspecting undergraduates. But as the reviewer noted, this seems to please everyone who is part of the “system.” </p>
<p>What remains a mystery to me is why students and their parents are so willing to support such a disgraceful system.</p>
<p>xiggi, what would you suggest students and parents do to challenge the system?</p>
<p>Okay, so you want to put down a college education? How about this statistic from the NYT editorial section yesterday.
</a> “The latest dismal news on the leadership front comes from the College Board, which tells us that the U.S., once the world’s leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations.” I sure hope readers don’t think “not going” to college is a good alternative. I may be one of those parents, like xiggi described, who is “so willing to support a disgraceful system”, but I don’t like the alternative of not getting a college degree at all.</p>
<p>xiggi,
We support this system because there isn’t another option. If you have a better idea, please share it with us. As of right now, it seems that all a student can do when they have a bad techer is to write a bad review at the end of the class. Does anyone ever listen to these reviews - who knows. And if so, it does no good for the students who had to endure this teacher for the past semester.</p>
<p>As parents, you can opt to send your child to a school that does not use TA’s to teach undergrads. Usually, these are the smaller liberal arts colleges. Not exactly a cheap way out, but at least you get professors who are there to teach, rather than do their own research.</p>
<p>The info about Harvard and their undergrad system is not new nor unknown.</p>
<p>limabeans - does the ranking take into consideration how many foreign students we allow to come to the US for four years (or more with graduate school) but then force them to leave since we won’t allow them to work/become citizens here? We are educating the rest of the world with the finest college system in the world but then sending them back to their countries to the benefit of their countries not the US.</p>
<p>amtc, that is one way of looking at it, but another is that majority of those internationals are full pay and subsidizing the rest of US students. And great many of them are staying after graduation with work or H1B visas with path to greencard offered by the employers.</p>
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Everyone hates on the TA’s, but sometimes they are better than the regular professors.</p>
<p>ttparent - not so many of them are getting green cards and staying, although they would like to. It makes my husband crazy at work - there are number limits and it’s very difficult to actually take a work visa and move it to a green card. He’s lost some of his best employees that way, they don’t want to leave but have to. We educate them (tuition cost is not real cost to educate student) and then make them go back home.</p>
<p>Well, you say not many are getting green cards while many would say otherwise taking jobs or at least lowering salary of many American jobs in technical fields. Facts, the quota is 65,000 H1B per year but congress has been routinely granted more than 100,000 per year for awhile now. I think lately, it is not a big deal because some companies actually want them to go back and stay with the company while working for a lot less in their own countries. It seems like my company is having no problem keeping anyone they want, maybe they have good lawyers?</p>
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<p>Battling a system of education that IS built on the expectation that parents and students should be silent is obviously … not easy. On the other hand, it is not entirely impossible to make single voices heard, and overcome the fear of … retaliation. Let’s face, most of us do not want or dare to speak up because we fear that the “people in power” might retaliate. Speak up against the teachers and GC in HS? Well, good luck with that LOR! Speak up against a teacher college, and better be careful with your next selections! And, so it goes! </p>
<p>However, there is plenty of power, starting with participating in sites such as this one. Sharing OBJECTIVE information about the schools your children attend is a good start. Resist the urge to make it look better it is or perfect. Do take the time to expose the army of poor instructors, the unqualified TAs, the unresponsive faculty, the heartless administration. Do take the time to write to the college presidents and tell them that you DO expect the teachers to teach more than three classes AND in the case of a public school, DO copy your elected officials. </p>
<p>Go back to your high school and tell them the truth!</p>
<p>And, although many have few choices, in case you do have the ability to take your education dollars where YOU want, DO reward the schools that value their students enough to have them taught by professors who understand that their main function should be to … educate first, and research and publish later. </p>
<p>And, when you do, take the time to write to the schools you did NOT support WHY you will spend your money at a different school. </p>
<p>Will it help you? NO … but it will help plenty of generations to come.</p>
<p>A lot of what you learn, you learn from fellow classmates in discussion groups in and out of the classroom. You learn a lot from experiences you get from contacts and opportunities you encounter in school, and after, as well. A mediocre TA can not keep a hungry and smart student down.</p>
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<p>Neither do you get a discount or a refund for the subpar “teaching.”</p>