by NewYork44M 22 Replies latest jw friends
And with higher education you would be less likely to annoy me on this site, which is by far the most important thing. LOL.
Yeah dude! I toootallly no what you mean! So many idiots say like so many stupid things that are just like sooo dum! I just wish only smarterer people would say shit on here all the time sometimes
The link you provide makes a gross mistake when it sites a Census Bureau report as being false and irrelvant because it uses the mean instead of the median. If you review the report, it is using the median and thus not skewing towards the results by super wealthy individuals. Even this chart not mentioned, but nonetheless showing similar results, uses the median.
To Everyone:
I do think that the education system in America is boken. It's grossly expensive and some members of our government are trying to continue to cut costs and privitize education. They are pushing MOOCs as a way to fight the rising costs, but this will lower the quality of education for all but the most wealthy individuals who can afford to attend the schools where the MOOCs are being produced (flagship, ivy league, etc). I'm not against these types of college classes. I've taken 10 free or nearly free courses in the past year and learned a lot. They are great as supplements, but they currently don't count as credit towards an accerdited degree and 8 out of 10 of them were not as rigorous as a real class would be. You're lucky if you even get the chance to interact with a TA on the forums, let alone the professor as tens of thousands of students are taking the class with you. You watch, in some cases, prerecorded interactions of the professor with students at MIT. It's very engaging (such as professor Eric Lander in Intro to Biology), but you are still watching an interaction, not participating.
One way we can make our education system better is to return to the model we had in the 1950s where the US government invested heavily in education and public universities were free. For example, did you know that in the 1950s the cost to attend UC Berkely was $0. Today it's $11,000 a year. So in my opinion any concern that education has a low return on investment is in part due to the high costs of attending, which is an artifcat of the effort to reduce spending on public inititives like education.
If we want education to offer a better ROI we need to start electing the type of people into our government that will reduce the costs of attending by increase public funding. A healthy working class that is well educated is what will improve our economy. The whole concept of companies and captialists being job creators is faulty. The job creators are those that create demand (the working class). If the working class has supressed income (as we have now with income inequality being nearly as high as it was in the 1920s), our economy will likewise be supressed.
For more details on this see the excellent documentary by Robert Reich, a best-selling author of thirteen books, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, and a foremost expert on economics: Income Inquality for All.
I am always weary of ANY business letting me know how great it is, and how much I need thier services. I see so many young people in debt and they are Baristas at Starbucks. You need alot of hours at Starbucks to pay off a student loan. I understand that IF you land the dream job, you can pay it back quickly. Sadly that American Dream does not always come true.
I also know a Master Plumber who makes a VERY nice living. He did not go to college. I think the system needs an overhaul. It's a forrest of mirrors out there. It's expensive. There are certain courses that REQUIRE classes that you really don't need for what you want to learn. I have a relative who is a High-ranking Fire-fighter and he tell me all about mandated courses that have ZERO relevancy to his particular goal, but they are required.
College is a HUGE business. Some people get taken. If I ever consider a class, I will be VERY, VERY careful.
DD
There are certain courses that REQUIRE classes that you really don't need for what you want to learn.
I totally emphathize. I used to feel that way too.... Why exactly do I need to take an anthropology class to be a computer programmer? This was until I realized that liberal arts education helps people build the reasoning and critical thinking skills that will help them make decisions in all aspects of their lives, not just the career they wish to pursue. Education is not a synonymn for Job Training. It's more than that. Additionally, the reasoning and critical thinking skills, the ability to view things from different perspectives, helps people find novel solutions to problems, something that doesn't necessarily happen when eduction is merely about how to perform a task (such as programming a computer).
I opted to take a terminal associates degree that had more computer science classes and less "fluff" as I called it back then. I'm now regretting that choice and am taking those "fluff" classes now. Back then I thought, why waste my time taking calculus and biology. What do they have to do with programming I thought... Of course if you want to figure out how to program computers to research cures for diseases or to deal with the mass amount of biological data we have acess to today, I guess these are just fluff classes too.
I see so many young people in debt and they are Baristas at Starbucks.
Fair enough, but this is anecdotal evidence, not statistical. I'm sure there are many more workers at Starbucks that don't have a college degree.
College is a HUGE business.
Yep. Sure is. And is why I would like to see the trend to capitalize it even more reversed and be something that all citizens can utilize if they choose to for free, or at least a reasonable cost.
I also know a Master Plumber who makes a VERY nice living.
I know plenty of people without degrees who make a great living, but that's not usually the case. Many others work harder for less money and are given less opportunities. Also college forces you to study things which will make you a more well-rounded a knowledge individual. But again, i've met some pretty dumb college graduates, and some pretty bright people without a college education.
Gollege is not for everybody, and not everybody is meant to go to college. If everybody went to college, then there would be nobody to fill jobs which involve a lot of manual labor, since everybody would think they are above it. The issue is not so much that everbody should go, but instead that someone who wants to go, is being told by a religious group that they shouldn't.
Some of the responses illustrate why college is valuable. Often I read strongly held views on this site, from those who have considered exceptions rather than rules or read a study that was essentially about the tail ends of bell curves, where the 'data' (and I use the term loosely) is extrapolated/projected over an entire population based on the extreme behaviors at either end of a behavior curve for a population.
It's like someone who smokes telling you that their grandmother smoked for 50 years and lived to be 90. As if that's supposed to mean something. Smoking takes years off the AVERAGE life and even more years of quality life. Lots of successful individuals never went to college; that's not the point. On average those with college degrees make more money on an annual and lifetime basis, are unemployed less often, are promoted within organizations more often. In addition, studies suggest that those with college degrees are healthier, smoke less, abuse prescription and illegal drugs less, are less obese and less likely to get divorced.
Those are averages. Anecdotal or experiential comments about specific individuals have no bearing on the OP.
And WallsofJericho, I'm glad you agree with me.
Community College and Trade School combined are worth it. The money for University might not be worth it, but the time is. The JWs don't want the youth to have the time to think at a collegiate level, or even to think about what they want in life.
I also know a Master Plumber who makes a VERY nice living.
Everyone needs to chart their own path. I am a great accountant, however I am afraid I would make a terrible master plumber.
Which is kind of the point of education - it gives you options.
Troubled mind, you made an interesting comment:
her Mothers response was, " Well are you going to get a job at McDonalds now? ".......sadly the typical JW mindset that a college education is worthless ......
I have heard too many comments like this; Some were hurlded in my direction. I have no response to such stupidity.
NY,
It's as I said, too many uneducated and under-educated don't know how to analyze data. An anecdote or personal experience, though not without merit, hasn't much to do in many cases with facts. The Dubs haven't been trained to think, so they aren't very good at it.
