I recently joined StumbleUpon (and would love it if you joined, too, and "stumbled" me and any of my blog posts that you have enjoyed by using the little "thumbs-up" icon.) This morning I received my first batch of "recommendations," and it included this post from The Stump, which appears to be an opinion column on OregonLive.
The gist of the article is that "higher education" has been rendered meaningless by the admission of huge numbers of unqualified students. The author's premise seems to be that it is "higher education" itself that is at fault, because its mandate is to expand/profit as much as possible.
...the quality of education being delivered to a majority of students is closer to remedial high school rather than college....The problem is that about half of our student population shouldn't be [in college] for academic or motivational reasons. Why are they there, then? Because the higher education business, in its zeal to keep expanding, has convinced us that everyone "has to" go to college regardless of what they get out of it. We have managed to raise the bar for getting any kind of menial job to a bachelor's degree and are well on the way to requiring a master's to qualify for a barista position.
I don't entirely disagree, but I think some of this blame is misplaced.
The fact that we all now think that a bachelor's degree is necessary to do ANYTHING is a larger societal problem, and not, I don't think, one that the educational institutions alone have created. It has its roots in an attitude that service jobs, technical professions and skilled trades are somehow less valuable than professions that require rigorous intellectual training.
That said, the intellectual training itself is not particularly valued - college students (and their parents) often complain about required English and humanities courses, for example, saying that they have nothing to do with the professions they eventually want to pursue.
What's more, part of the problem is that students are graduating from high school, and even getting relatively good marks, without having basic skills or knowledge. The primary and secondary school curriculum and policies in Quebec, for example, have now reached the point that it is in some cases almost impossible for students to fail a grade, even if they don't show up for half the year or they don't pass a single assignment. Every semester I deal with students whose minds are blown because they are going to fail my course, even though "I came to every class and handed in all the work" - the fact that they got failing grades on everything doesn't seem to factor in for them.
The major issue, though, is that students, whether or not they have any talent or inclination toward academics, feel that college is their only option. There are simply not enough other paths students can take toward a rewarding and financially viable career, and, what's more, parents may not encourage their children to pursue the paths that do exist.
This may be changing - lately in Quebec there has been more public promotion of skilled trades and technical professions that require more career-focused training and less "academic" work. Some CEGEPs are offering more certificate programs where students can receive a career-specific diploma without having to complete General Studies courses (English, French, Humanities and Physical Education.)
One step toward a solution would be for parents and children to sit down together and discuss what the child really (and realistically) wants to do, at least for now, and whether college is the best place for the child to learn to do it. If students don't feel that college is for them at the moment, parents need to help them determine other realistic and responsible options (technical or trade school, or working and paying some minimal rent at home for now, for example), and make it clear that college is not the only choice that they, the parents, will support. Parents need to make it clear to children that being an electrician, a restaurant manager or a pet groomer is a noble profession if one has a talent and inclination for it, and that these choices are no less valuable, in their minds, than going to university to pursue more "academic" fields. Finally, students also need to be reassured that if they don't like or do well in school, college may not be for them, but that if they change their minds a few years down the road, the option of college will still be available.
Railing against the greed and imperial mentality of institutions of higher education is not getting at the heart of the issue. There are much larger forces at work here.
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Comments
You are quite right and I got a big kick out of my fellow Oregonian's remarks.
Schools should be made to take down those charts which show earning power going up as education increases. It was true but is no longer. We send kids to college when it the insitution or the timing that is all wrong, and they wind up paying off a debt that has done them no good.
When I job/education counseled youth at risk, I tried to match options with their ability and situation. Case in point was the young man who was so smart he made my head spin but who wanted to go to Job Corps. His living situation was toxic ,and he needed to get away, but I made sure he knew that I recognized his intelligence and urged him to follow up with college later. Another was the impatient girl who I knew would be a single mom--I steered her to a six-week medical course where she could make $13 to $16 an hour.
Sioban, you have such good sense!
I agree that equating education w/ job training and salary is a big part of the problem, not least because it warps the nature of education itself - it leads to the mindset that any learning that does not seem, on the surface, to relate directly to a job I want to do someday is meaningless. Why not have charts on the walls that show how different kinds of education (including job and skills training) can lead us to be better people? What about charts that show how learning, whether it be through going to school, reading books, or seeking out life experiences, can make us happier?
If only everyone were encouraged to pursue their real interests like the friends you describe, though, maybe more people would find the social AND professional niches that are right for them.
By the end of my last semester in a classroom I had a total of 150 students a day in six different periods. Of that 150 only three at the most ever bothered to turn in homework or work done in class. They each got an "A" solely for turning in assignments.
I was not allowed to give anyone less than a "B." If any parent challenged any already undeserved "B" grade the administration made me change it to an "A."
My last semester in public schools was one where I had to give all my students what those three previously mentioned working students got to be "fair" to all. I am not making that up.
I was not allowed to give any actually earned grade or send home any comment that was not complimentary.
I finally changed to teaching in a Catholic school system because I believed it to be the last bastion of academic integrity left for great dedicated teaching.
However, in these schools schools I quickly found that the need to keep as many enrolled students as possible governed grading. Any family paying tuition could get a grade changed to an "A" by a quick complaint.
No behavior was ever unruly enough to warrant suspension or explusion. Keeping the warm student bodies for their tuition trumped any accurate grading system.
If my own grown children were now in either public or Catholic schools I would insist instead that they be home schooled.
I write this in response to this article because the trend toward meaningless grades and achievement in college actually begins at the elementary level. This enforced mediocracy is sending more and more great teachers like me out of the classroom every year.
Rus The Retired Teacher
P.S. A final note on what the last straw was for the end of my teaching career:
I was attacked by a male student who was twice my size. I was hurt enough to miss two weeks of school. Since it was easier to get rid of me than to risk losing that family's tuition, I was let go instead.
yours are not the first stories like this that I have heard. I have had my own, less serious, parallel experiences, where keeping students in the class, or avoiding an administrative battle, were paramount, and so I was subtly coerced with questions like, "Do you really want to fight this? Do you really want to make a big deal out of this?"
I am lucky enough to teach at a college where grading discretion is left mostly up to the teacher and where behavioral problems are often (but not always) addressed to some degree, but there is no question that many of the students we get have come through elementary and high school never learning that their choices, both academic and behavioral, have consequences.
Thanks for your comment.
Also- this won't make me any friends on OS! - but I think we do have to ask the question- how many english majors do we really need in this society? How many sociology majors do we need? I'm not saying we don't need any. I am saying- we don't need so many.
Maybe instead of college we can channel more young people into Peace corps/Americorps type of service programs. I bet you they can learn more from doing that than from sitting in class rooms for 4 years.
The first is wrongly interpreted demographics. Regions with the best economic success are the regions that happen to have the highest percentages of residents with college degrees. People believe that there is a causal link ... want to improve the economics in an area then pump up the percentages of residents with post-secondary degrees. This is not causally valid but most people, including state and local politicians were unprepared for higher ed and also failed statistics when they were getting their degrees. The second is that higher education is largely funded by tuition and since colleges' and Universities' costs are 70+% personnel , the costs keep going up. So, to keep budgets balanced and tuition inflation under some sort of control, even in public institutions, more students have to matriculate.
We just can't go back to having only students in higher education who are intrinsically motivated to learn. The economics won't work out unless government subsidies are dramatically increased per student and governments want more graduates.
This one is unsolvable.
I have to agree, although, when I look around at my students, especially the underachieving ones, "too many English majors" is not the first concern that comes to mind - if I thought even a few of them would become English majors, I would be quite pleased. The idea of studying a subject that pleases you but is unlikely to lead to job security isn't one that many of my students entertain.
PJ: the demographic issues are quite different in Canada than they are in the States, and tuitions are significantly lower, so although your arguments are interesting, they're less applicable to the students and institutions I know. That said, the CEGEP system I work for is publicly funded, and one of our major issues is that we need to keep cramming bums in seats in order to keep our funding up. For this reason, hundreds of unqualified students are admitted each year, and we don't have the resources to help them. It's a real issue.
closer to home, my dad was personally counseled not to go to college (in texas in the 1960s) and to be a mechanic instead. he has a phd in physics. grad school is where he met my mom, who graduated high school at 15.
do you think that counselor was right? i don't.
i think it's a mistake to think of education as a means to increase your worth as a worker. that is a myth that needs to go away. education is worthwhile in and of itself, and we are failing to educate huge numbers of kids. i chose not to pursue certification because i know what a mess the public schools are in my area: the privilege of dealing with that is not worth 3k. instead, i was teaching art through a federal grant program. there was no arts curriculum in the school i taught in, which was in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country. wtf? a friend of mine who teaches in texas had to make her own ceramics tools for her class because there was no budget for them.
that truth should be addressed, instead of simply trying to protect "higher education" from the barbarians. i was pleased to see you say this in a comment:
"What about charts that show how learning, whether it be through going to school, reading books, or seeking out life experiences, can make us happier?"
and i have to ask, why isn't that expressed in the post? in my family, both of my grandmothers had bachelor's degrees and taught grade school. that's all they had. i think the real problem is that our culture is so reliant on certifications:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/teachers-plan-t.html
if we stopped tithing to the textbook/test people so much, the funding issues would be less pressing, and teachers could give students a lesson plan that was meaningful to them, instead of prescribed by some bureaucrat somewhere.
you say that you were pleased that I commented, "What about charts that show how learning, whether it be through going to school, reading books, or seeking out life experiences, can make us happier?" You add, "and i have to ask, why isn't that expressed in the post?"
It is not contradicted by the post, even if it is not explicitly expressed. You seem to have confused my meanings. I do not in any way advocate "shaking students out of the smart kid system" at any age, or dissuading them from attending college, if that's what they want to do and they have learned what they need to have learned in order for college to be worthwhile and productive for them. I don't think any kid should be "counseled not to go to college" if he wants to go.
I think kids should be counseled realistically about what they actually need to do to get to college, and I believe they should be taught what they need to know in order to be productive there. I believe that kids who do not demonstrate an appropriate level of learning in school - that is, kids who have not actually passed - should not be allowed to advance until they do. They should be given help and resources to improve their skills and pass eventually, but also given the opportunity to learn in different ways and within more diverse systems, perhaps even leaving school for a while and coming back later. I'm also advocating a system where students have many more options for higher learning - not just college - and all those options are valued.
The fact is, our elementary, secondary and university systems have been constructed according to extremely narrow and, in many cases, ineffective guidelines that leave no room for children, adolescents and young adults who do not work well within those guidelines. (It sounds like your father WAS someone who worked well within those guidelines and he simply received bad counseling.) One of the problems is that these young people have been told - and the whole society agrees - that university is the be-all and end-all of higher education. I deal every day with students who would not be in CEGEP if they felt they could make, and be supported in, another choice that was more suitable for them and their individual temperaments. They simply don't see what that choice could be, often because their parents have told them that there is something wrong with them if they don't go to university.
Thank you very much for your thoughts on this.
Is dropping out of college and going back to a non-professional trade really that devastating, or demeaning, or as Mr. Moyle suggests, unproductive. While much of my higher learning was in a very technical science oriented curriculum, I also got to take my share of "Arts" classes and was the better for it. There are many who simply don't want or less frequently aren't qualified for a higher degree, but are they or society the less for their time in college. I will always believe I learned as much from the people and experience as I did from the classes.
So I guess I'm asking, who should decide who goes to college. For me the only answer is the student. And if the student changes his/her mind before graduating, so be it. Developing a quota system for college entrance will be the harbinger of social decay.
When it comes down to the ability to get a paying job, move out from the grannie's house, and start a quality career, the technical school route is just fine...until you're 45, aged out, over promoted and didn't bother to continue with the education.
It's a real crapshoot to think that one is going to slip into a great job, work up to management or overpayment, then retirement without cracking a book after high school, as so many did, starting in the late 60's.
Forget being a military officer without a college degree. They will never be that hard up again. Scads of enlisted people have their graduate degrees, and move on to good jobs when they get out of the military.
Those who bad mouth the idea of a post high school education are stupid and destructive of other people's lives. They get off on giving negative advice to satisfy some sick selfish need of their own.
This kind of sick negativism worked for them in the past, works for them sometimes now, and will work for them in the future. This is why they can't knock it off on their own.
"who should decide who goes to college[?] For me the only answer is the student. And if the student changes his/her mind before graduating, so be it."
I absolutely agree. And when we talk about the student "deciding:" she needs to decide from an honest and hopeful place, not a place clouded with fear that if she doesn't go to college, she will never amount to anything.
"Those who bad mouth the idea of a post high school education are stupid and destructive of other people's lives."
Who bad mouths the idea of a post-high-school education? I'm not sure I've ever met such a person.
Having said that, there is value in learning, one hopes, that the anti-intellectual bent of American culture seems to want to crush too much.
Clearly, American high schools should be made more demanding, but at the same time, I worry that the overuse of quantification in measuring standards is really setting the grounds perfect for a soft despotism, because it lends itself to not encouraging thinking for yourself by its nature. good job, and rated.
All these comments about "there is a value in learning" are making a very important point. I think I'll later write a post about whom I'm really talking about when I suggest that some people would be happier and better off somewhere other than college. These are the people who are clearly NOT learning within the confines of "school." They are detached, resentful, bored and resistant. They fail their courses, and end up dropping out. If they had done something else for a while, and then had come to college with a bit of experience and maturity under their belt, they might have felt differently. Or they might have found a different road to follow, one that brought them a lot of joy, and done their learning in their own way. I know people like this, intelligent and accomplished people who found a road other than college, and who have never regretted it, and who have never stopped learning.
My daughter went to a 4-year liberal arts college and graduated with a double major degree and started working the day after graduation. She moved on to an even better job five months later. I really don't think she would be doing so well if it were not for the experiences and course work she had in college.
My son is going to a two year tech school 80 miles away because that is what he wanted. He is also gaining valuable technical, academic and "intangible" experience.
There are so many different variables in trying to decide what course of education a child should have. But the Stump article bothered me because it seems to be endorsing a system where a student with more well-heeled parents will go to college, and under-privileged students should be steered towards "the trades." What a waste.
I went to Ohio State University and get their Alumni magazine. They had an article about a program they instituted that mentors first-year students from small towns and high schools through the their first months away from home, and teaches them how to deal with all the vagaries of college life. Anyone can sign up for the program, but most of the students who sign up are from small towns and/or are the first in their family to attend college. So far, the drop-out rate for students in this program is a fraction of the student body at large.
I think we also need to keep in mind that many students go to community college to get trade certificates and this is a good thing. One of my kid's friends is getting a degree in auto mechanics, but the college allows "electives" for trade certificate students if they pay full time tuition, so he is also taking some English and History courses.
I don't want to see a time in the future where talented kids are condemned to languish because of some nebulous caste system.
That integration program sounds like a terrific system. My college has a few similar programs, but they are mostly geared toward dealing with academic rather than "college life" troubles. They are not as successful; many of the students whom the programs are trying to help need much more help than the programs can offer.
I also don't want to "see a time in the future where talented kids are condemned to languish because of some nebulous caste system." I'm not sure whether that was the upshot of the Oregonian article, but it's certainly not what I'm endorsing here.
The chaos of the high school to college transition in this country certainly deserves another look. I have no doubt there are kids waking up in their third year of college with no more idea of what they want to do with their lives, alongside high schoolers who have a very good idea of what they want, but no one around, including parents, who will give them the encouragement, guidance, or access to the funds they need. With college getting more expensive, and funds getting harder to find, things are not looking up for this latter group.
Yesterday, I was speaking with a woman who used to run remediation programs for my school district. She told me how many of the schools fought with them about the program and claimed it wasn't working. I explained to her that I think our school system likes mediocrity. It is acceptable at every level.
Rated just because.
Colleges increasingly sell themselves as 4 year summer camps, places where kids can cut loose from their parents and drink and be "independent" and "discover themselves." This is generally BS, as expensive and selective schools offer students extraordinarily manicured and pampered social/living resources. And while I'm all for the Liberal Arts, students are misled into thinking that a few essays on Proust can somehow prepare them for a real world working situation.
You write, "The idea of studying a subject that pleases you but is unlikely to lead to job security isn't one that many of my students entertain." Well, I disagree that this is not a highly normal way for students to select their majors. They are encouraged to do what interests them in the moment, not to formulate a plan which they can stay interested in for the long term. There ARE too many english majors, and it is 100% the fault of for-profit colleges who more resemble entertainment centers than bastions of education.
When I was in college, everyone was either going for an English major, Psych or Business. Oddly, most were going for Psych.
I definitely agree with you when you say there really are some things that people can do without college. But it seems to me that colleges are making every field into a degree, even when it didn't used to be. A friend of mine who teaches Court Reporting at a business college says she just discovered this thing called Voice Writing, which is where someone simply repeats immediately after the speaker into a machine and it's magically transcribed with the right software (as opposed to typing the words). She says all the research shows that this skill is learned thoroughly after nine months of training, but she is helping her college turn it into a two-year program with filler.
This same woman's son is going into law school but was told that now "everybody" needs an MBA along with their law degree. Now I ask you, what has changed? What was not being done 10 years ago when we had only MBAs and lawyers, separately? I don't understand this.
What you're saying here suggests that Ken Moyle's argument may have some merit - maybe there really are forces within the institutions of higher education that are pushing the idea that everyone needs a degree for everything, including talking into a transcribing device.
There's another possibility, too. Maybe we are becoming such an educated society that, in order to distinguish ourselves from others in the job field, we need to reach higher and farther. That's an encouraging notion. It also needs reexamining, though, if "reaching higher and farther" always and only means getting more university degrees.
“For NPR’s Adam Davidson, dropping out of college is the worst thing any young person can do in this economy. So when Adam’s favorite cousin DJ does just that, Adam brings in a professor of economics from Georgetown University to help persuade DJ to get back on the right track. Only after hearing them both out, the professor thinks Adam, not DJ, might be the one on the wrong side of things.”
And here’s the link:
http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1287