[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Adam

Maybe I'm biased, but I think it's misleading to think of the problem as being chiefly about student loans. The problem is chiefly about a sharp decrease in public funding for education at a time when education is more crucial than ever for anyone who wants to participate in the economy, coupled with a pronounced trend toward running institutions of higher learning as profit making enterprises. So, increased demand, decreased supply, add profit motive and stir like crazy. That leads to soaring tuitions, which are especially unaffordable in an economic situation with mostly stagnant wages, thus, debt.

This.


On a related note, I've mentioned it before, but I think we've oversold the whole idea of college. If you want to be a mechanic, or an auto salesperson, or work in manufacturing, you shouldn't have to have a degree from a 4-year school, I think.

The plain fact of the matter is that there are a lot of kids in college nowadays who -- quite frankly, in my opinion -- don't belong. Quite a lot of them don't want to be there, and quite a lot of them are unwilling and/or unable to do the work. But we've sold the idea that you have to have a college degree if you're going to be a "success." So there's a huge demand.

And more and more, colleges (especially community colleges, it seems) are being taken over by people who seem to be a lot more concerned about bringing in money than whether or not the students are actually learning anything. Heck, some colleges flat-out guarantee that you'll "earn" a degree if you attend. But if a college degree is something that anyone can earn, it's essentially worthless.

Don't get me wrong, I think that everyone who wants a college degree -- and who's willing and able to do the work -- should be able to get one. I'd go further and say that anyone who wants a college degree and can pass the entrance examinations shouldn't have to pay a nickel for their education.

Of course, while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony and my very own Constitution-class starship ...


There is nothing wrong with vocational training, in my opinion. If all you're interested in is becoming a Physician's Assistant, for example, and you're not interested in jumping through all the hoops to get a 4-year degree, then vocational training at a technical or community college is nothing to be ashamed of. But a lot of people seem to think that an Associate's Degree isn't a "real" degree, and is, if anything, something to be ashamed of.


And that brings me to a real pet peeve of mine, one that I think is very destructive. I've mentioned that more and more, community colleges in particular seem to be adopting a business model. This is happening at 4-year schools too, to be sure, but it seems to be especially common at community colleges, from what I can tell.

In the competition for students (or more to the point, the money the students bring in), it seems that more and more, community colleges are trying to poach students from 4-year schools. For example, from discussions I've had with colleagues, it seems that a recent trend is for community colleges to take the "Community" out of their names, and just call themselves "X College." But they doesn't change their programs in any way. Do they think they're fooling anyone?

More and more community colleges are offering bachelor's degrees as well. Well, in theory they are.

This has been a topic of numerous discussions with colleagues over the past couple of years, and as far as I can tell, we uniformly think it's a terrible idea.

Why?

Because Associate's Degrees and Bachelor's Degrees are not the same. They're designed to address entirely different needs, and they have entirely different goals. Just as a Master's or Doctorate addresses different needs than does a Bachelor's, and has different goals.

An Associate's Degree is all about vocational training. If you want to be Physician's Assistant or an Auto Mechanic and you don't want to waste time learning nonessential stuff, then an Associate's is entirely proper.

A Bachelor's Degree is all about making you a well-rounded scholar who has some degree of specialization in a particular branch of scholarship -- say, Biology, or English. All the classes you take other than Biology or English classes aren't distractions -- they're kind of the point. They're to help you explore your options and also to gain a greater appreciation for the breadth of human knowledge.


So, long story short: an AS and a BS are entirely different degrees. If community colleges, in an effort to poach students from 4-year schools, are offering "Bachelor's" degrees in popular fields like Nursing, are they revamping their curricula to ensure that they're turning out well-rounded scholars? Are they really giving those students degrees that are comparable to what they'd earn at a good 4-year school? I doubt that very much.

***

I left the university I taught at previously, because they were so obviously concerned more with bringing in money than they were with educating their students. There was constant pressure to "dumb down" the courses, to ensure that we "passed" as many people as possible. The morbid joke amonst the faculty was that the Administration wouldn't allow us to fail a student, no matter how poorly (s)he performed.

How bad was it? During my time there, I served on the Assessment Committee. We gave the students standardized tests when they entered as Freshmen and again when they were Seniors. The goal was to see how much they had improved during that time.

Our school scored in the 96th percentile. Maybe that sounds good. No, it wasn't. That means that only 4% of the schools we were being compared to were doing a worse job than us of educating our students. And I lay the blame squarely on the fact that the Administration made it very, very clear that they were much more concerned about bringing in money than with educating students.

So I left, hoping for someplace better. And found myself someplace that's much worse.


And I just spent 90 minutes trying to explain Sodium-Potassium Exchange Pumps to a classroom full of barnacles. Honestly, I think I would have gotten exactly the same response level and comprehension (namely none) if I'd been speaking in Klingon.

I'm honestly looking forward to the end of the semester because this class makes me fear that I'm going to snap one of these days and ask: "Just why the hell are you in this classroom? Clearly, you don't care one whit about the material. As far as I can tell, only one of you is making any effort at all to learn it. So why are you wasting my time and your [or more likely, you Moms' and Dads'] money?"

Thank goodness my other classes are much better, because at the end of this class, I'm this close to going out and looking for a high building to throw myself off of.