<p>My sister went to college late in life. Mind you, she didn’t pursue anything “practical”…a philosophy degree, plus a newly minted masters in women’s studies. She’s 56, unemployed and broke. She is probably going to have to move in with her son…who is a high school drop out (not even a GED) who has steady factory work at a decent wage with lots of overtime…in an ammunition factory!</p>
<p>It actually makes sense that in 2011, the ability to make ammunition is more highly valued that the ability to philosophize.</p>
<p>Gadad: fabulous.
I daresay, the message about bs detectors includes not to believe everything you read, even if it sells a zillion copies or brings about pages of CC chat.</p>
<p>I personally do not believe traditional colleges will go away. I do believe we will find a better place for the vast numbers of “ill prepared” or those who are less motivated to follow a strenuous course of higher ed.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is useful to generalize. We have about 18 million undergraduates in the US. They come into colleges with varying expectation and ability. The kind of classroom at Stanford described in the Forbes article is unlikely to suit most students. Jeremy Knowles should know that a college education is more than detecting rot, one at least needs to know how a phosphorous atom could be contorted to traverse within different forms of life.</p>
<p>@gadad: curious as to this date? Google tells me Al-Azhar University in Cairo is the oldest, founded in 969 CE, and I know of several European universities coming online in the 1300-1400s. One might argue that some of the ancient Greek academics functioned as “college” and I’m sure there are Asian schools that I’m unfamiliar with.</p>
<p>@" "much better than places like US NEWS college rankings, "</p>
<p>The value or lack thereof of those ranking has been oft discussed here. I fail to see the logical connection between “USNWR rankings are not worthwhile” and “college will go extinct” other than that both are things published in magazines, that have something to do with colleges.</p>
<p>If your college education did not teach you to make precise logical distinctions, than it may well have been a waste of money. "</p>
<p>i’m not sure what your question is here; i don’t see why they would have a connection. article suggests that colleges would convert to a new form of education, one that is more technical.</p>
<p>i was always under the impression that they were developed rather sufficiently in high school, and that age naturally hones the skill; i have never thought of the idea of college sharpening bs detectors, but i do not a have a current student’s perspective so i would not know exactly. would you guys disagree?</p>
<p>@padad
i guarantee you that a large group of college students don’t know anything about phosphorous, other than ones in the specialized majors. this knowledge that is seemingly “common sense” to older generations would be highly specialized nonsense to the newer generations</p>
<p>i see these things much more nowadays, which continues to have me question many aspects of college. an silly article a few years ago explained how a graduate was suing her alma mater because she was unemployed and thought that the school did not adequately help her find a job (ie this student would make a very good addition to your school, please interview her).</p>
<p>granted this one was a looney, if so many undergrads, who should be qualified and mentally mature, are having difficulty finding satisfying careers (let alone just any job), then isn’t something wrong?</p>
<p>career paths seem unnecessarily long. i don’t mean to offend, but certain fields are skill based, ones that require specific training and experience. take a medical field for example–dentistry. does there really need to be 4 years of undergrad to be a good dentist? instead of wasting those 4 years, they would be better off with more specialized learning and practice.</p>
<p>seems like jumping through hoops to me. same can be said of many, many fields. perhaps this is what the forbes article is explaining.</p>
<p>“i’m not sure what your question is here; i don’t see why they would have a connection. article suggests that colleges would convert to a new form of education, one that is more technical.”</p>
<p>Im not sure why you brought up USNWR. Its like someone said, WSJ wrote a surprising poor article about european banks, and then someone said that, well, the Daily News did an even worse article about a new bank branch that opened in Queens. </p>
<p>Though in this instance, the parallel of a critique of current education with a (yet again) knock on USNWR rankings - well in MY gut it suggests a certain agenda about attacks on elite Us in general.</p>
<p>"granted this one was a looney, if so many undergrads, who should be qualified and mentally mature, are having difficulty finding satisfying careers (let alone just any job), then isn’t something wrong? "</p>
<p>High unemployment, anemic growth, half the political system digging in their heels against the only policies that can address that.</p>
<p>The main relevance of higher education is that too many pundits and congressmen either never had a sound course in macroeconomics, or did and are ignoring it anyway. To understand that basic political philosophy would help starting with Aristotle, and the conflict between factional interest and interest of the polis.</p>
<p>Somebody’s just got to quit quoting NYT, WSJ, Wash Post, USNWR, even NPR and any other rag that wants to get into the game. (Another thread is arguing over Wash Monthly, fgs.) One point in critical thinking is to understand the value of the particular source- it’s spin. Remember: fear sells. I tell my kids: who’s driving the Mecedes?</p>
<p>I have only one thought. College education is paying my bills, it has been putting food on my table. Getting into Med. School is not possible without college degree (I am talking about my child). So, I believe that this is personal question that could be answered only on personal level. If it meant nothing ot you and membest of your family, why bother? However, it might meant the world to somebody else, so why bother changing their opinion? Either way is right as long as you leave others alone.</p>
<p>Online education is terrible, or at least it has been in my experience. This summer, I took an econ course through my local community college. Basically the entire course consisted of me reading from the textbook and reading notes online. I learned almost nothing, and didn’t understand most of the concepts given. But thanks to extra credit, I earned almost a 100 in that class. When I needed help on something (clarification on an assignment), I called the teacher multiple times. He responded almost a week later, after the assignment was due. If I really needed had needed help on something, I don’t know how sending intermittent email exchanges would help me at all. At least I didn’t have to get out of the house. Now I am taking another course online, Philosophy. Basically the interaction I have there is posting questions on an online discussion board like this one. I don’t know how that’s really supposed to help foster critical thought. </p>
<p>People have been predicting the rise of other forms of education for years - correspondence courses, TV courses, and now online courses. It’s been a long time, and none of them work. Sometimes the best communication is just face to face. Until we get full-on VR, I think everyone will still have to leave the house for a proper education in a group setting. (Unless your family is being homeschooled all at once or something)</p>
<p>There is terrible online education, and there is very good online education, and there is everything in between. (The same can be said for traditional classroom instruction, of course.) The reason that so much of online education is cr*p is that developing effective individualized instruction is a very expensive proposition. It requires thorough analysis of needs, well-thought-out strategies to meet those needs, implementation of the strategies, and then - and this is the key - multiple rounds of testing and revision to get it right. The payoff, of course, is that if your target audience is big enough, good online instruction is much cheaper than instructor-led classes, once the initial investment has been amortized.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s too tempting, and too easy, to take what is in many cases inadequate instruction to begin with, throw it on the Internet, and dress it up with fancy web design and then marked it as “online instruction.”</p>