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0 points1letterunixname2y ago0 comments

It's less of a Ponzi scheme and more of a gamified, time and treasure expensive hazing ritual whereby the sheepskin "proves" "quality" and some measure of aptitude, intelligence, baseline of problem-solving ability, and ability to finish something. It has been and is also 4-N years of extended adolescence. And in the distant past, when universities were more selective and cheaper, it's where people often met their spouses.

How else should we prepare people for the various workforces: knowledge work, financial services, skilled trades, etc.?

Universities fear 2 things: bad publicity and losing accreditation. Perhaps accreditation orgs such as ABET (in the US) need to get off their collective, perfunctory rubber-stamping posteriors and ensure financial and fiduciary stewardship are occurring, and that a university doesn't become tantamount to a white-collar human trafficking recruiter demanding the life savings of their victims on the vague promises of a bright future.

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SketchySeaBeast2y ago· 1 in thread

I'd argue that the evidence of "aptitude, intelligence, baseline of problem-solving ability, and ability to finish something" has much less value now.

University is more of a vocational college now - there are specializations for most things, and if you didn't choose the right specialization and are trying to break into a field it's much harder to do so given that there are other people with better education. Because the general university education has become so ubiquitous just having a degree has much less power now.

1letterunixnameOP2y ago

That's a shame that it's still and increasingly a one-way, expensive, usually water-down, specialization guessing game without trials of what's on the other end.

Also, an increasing requirement in some fields of a Master's or PhD is doubling down on the filtering system. That started to be a thing in the 2000's.

The irreducible question is: What should be done to fix or replace it? Fixing it with a fundamentally better alternative seems superior than the continued gamification of USN&WR pole positions. Also, college tuition needs upper limits because too many universities are tantamount to international labor human traffickers.

I posit there ought to be cheaper undergrad colleges that are more rigorous, more practical, and more of a funnel filter. That is, the prestige isn't derived from acceptance but filtering for excellence like some professional postgraduate degrees. You can go through various paths and retry as many times as you'd like. The point would be specific, strategic preparation of students rather than grade inflation, honor code proctor-less examinations, partying, and endowment and CIP embiggening at the expense of student debt peonage.

brightlancer2y ago

The academic tracks are like a pyramid scheme: professors need graduate students, who then become professors who need graduate students, who become professors who need even more graduate students.

This was successful as we forced more and more young adults to go to colleges, but that growth is slowing while the academic tracks are still multiplying, which means there are PhDs and grad students who are very upset that their expensive pieces of papers will never get them the tenure job they thought was guaranteed. So we have very angry academics teaching our young adults -- and that's NEVER gone badly.

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