Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Harris tried to reach out to the non-traditional education route people too.

Free community college has been a Democratic policy priority for at least two presidential cycles. I don't know about where you live, but here, Houston Community College is the route to a lot of the trade and health certifications.

From the platform:

Free community college, particularly for certifications for trades, is a great policy, and one we should follow.

But it doesn't aid the guy who's already put in the hard sweat equity, and perhaps paid for his schooling for his certification, and taken on the risk of bank loans to start his business. He's left to wonder, along with most of the rest of us, why a certain slice of kids who happened through the system at the right time (when college debt forgiveness became a hot button issue) get a discharge, while he does not.

And as one who supports college debt forgiveness in principle (not really principle, but more as an economic policy that will aid the economy by strengthening would-be consumers) I don't have a compelling answer to that critique.

The only way to do college debt forgiveness fairly would be to make it available to all graduates from now on going forward, and give a commensurate tax benefit to all individuals who did not go to college.

The real conversation IMO involves finding a way to compel academia to run itself like a real business. Currently, it has no skin in the game. However poorly it polices costs, however profligately it spends, a new pipeline of student loan money refills its coffers each fall. Clawbacks are necessary, as is taxation of endowments, at a minimum, but they're just a small fraction of a much broader necessary overhaul of higher education.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Free community college, particularly for certifications for trades, is a great policy, and one we should follow.

But it doesn't aid the guy who's already put in the hard sweat equity, and perhaps paid for his schooling for his certification, and taken on the risk of bank loans to start his business. He's left to wonder, along with most of the rest of us, why a certain slice of kids who happened through the system at the right time (when college debt forgiveness became a hot button issue) get a discharge, while he does not.

And as one who supports college debt forgiveness in principle (not really principle, but more as an economic policy that will aid the economy by strengthening would-be consumers) I don't have a compelling answer to that critique.

The only way to do college debt forgiveness fairly would be to make it available to all graduates from now on going forward, and give a commensurate tax benefit to all individuals who did not go to college.

The real conversation IMO involves finding a way to compel academia to run itself like a real business. Currently, it has no skin in the game. However poorly it polices costs, however profligately it spends, a new pipeline of student loan money refills its coffers each fall. Clawbacks are necessary, as is taxation of endowments, at a minimum, but they're just a small fraction of a much broader necessary overhaul of higher education.

Or make it free school for people who take a job there's no candidates for.

But the problem with advertising free bailouts/school for on set of people, is the other set will just vote for leopards who eat faces out of spite.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The real conversation IMO involves finding a way to compel academia to run itself like a real business. Currently, it has no skin in the game. However poorly it polices costs, however profligately it spends, a new pipeline of student loan money refills its coffers each fall. Clawbacks are necessary, as is taxation of endowments, at a minimum, but they're just a small fraction of a much broader necessary overhaul of higher education.

This is nonsense. There are (small) parts of academia that run themselves like real businesses. They don't do academia well. The reasons for this should be pretty obvious. Academic institutions are not profit-maximizing enterprises. They create public goods with obvious value, but value which mostly cannot be captured and monetized by the institutions. Asking them to run themselves like real businesses is just as misguided as asking that government run itself like a real business (and note that the people who say this are also the people who don't ever want the government to raise its prices to them, something businesses do all the time, which is a tell that the ask is a performative gesture, not a serious idea).

IMO, the problem with much of academia is that they have been increasingly captured by the administrations, which expands its own share of their resources without contributing much of anything to education and research.

eta: Top schools should be trying to figure out how to leverage technology to educate more students, but instead they are content to maintain their current size, since that helps maintain their prestige -- a way in which the schools diminish their mission for the benefit of the people working there. You can argue that a school like Harvard is essentially an endowment fund with an educational sideline, and its board can certainly decide to do that if it wants to, but it's particularly irritating to see state schools engaging in this conduct.

[Icky Thump]

This Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks for our ancestors finding a land, inviting some hospitable natives for a feast.

Then killing them all and taking their shit.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

This is nonsense. There are (small) parts of academia that run themselves like real businesses. They don't do academia well.

I'm not talking about for profit colleges. I'm talking about imposition of cost controls.

The reasons for this should be pretty obvious. Academic institutions are not profit-maximizing enterprises. They create public goods with obvious value, but value which mostly cannot be captured and monetized by the institutions. Asking them to run themselves like real businesses is just as misguided as asking that government run itself like a real business (and note that the people who say this are also the people who don't ever want the government to raise its prices to them, something businesses do all the time, which is a tell that the ask is a performative gesture, not a serious idea).

Part of delivering that "public good" is operating in a responsible manner that doesn't turn a significant portion of the public that takes on debt to acquire this good into a serf.

IMO, the problem with much of academia is that they have been increasingly captured by the administrations, which expands its own share of their resources without contributing much of anything to education and research.

Agreed. They're like hospital systems. Too many layers of superfluous middle managers.

eta: Top schools should be trying to figure out how to leverage technology to educate more students, but instead they are content to maintain their current size, since that helps maintain their prestige -- a way in which the schools diminish their mission for the benefit of the people working there.

You like Galloway, I assume. He beats this drum on Pivot endlessly. I agree with this.

You can argue that a school like Harvard is essentially an endowment fund with an educational sideline, and its board can certainly decide to do that if it wants to, but it's particularly irritating to see state schools engaging in this conduct.

Given the high pricing, and loss of brand status and perceived ROI among selective private institutions, a lot of students who'd normally go private are seeking state school admissions. Particularly in the South (I'm not sure exactly why, but I assume the South is seen as a future growth area). They're just doing what the private schools did years ago.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm not talking about for profit colleges. I'm talking about imposition of cost controls.

Part of delivering that "public good" is operating in a responsible manner that doesn't turn a significant portion of the public that takes on debt to acquire this good into a serf.

I don't understand what you are suggesting or arguing, so maybe you could explain.

Given the high pricing, and loss of brand status and perceived ROI among selective private institutions, a lot of students who'd normally go private are seeking state school admissions. Particularly in the South (I'm not sure exactly why, but I assume the South is seen as a future growth area). They're just doing what the private schools did years ago.

I don't see any loss of brand status or perceived ROI among selective private institutions. The selective ones are only getting harder to get into.

Your answer here implies that you think public schools are acting like profit-maximizing businesses in trying to grow, but I thought we just agreed with Scott Galloway that that's not how those administrations are acting.

I grew up in the Northeast and live in California now, and the two areas are dramatically different in attitudes towards public schools. In the East, the best schools are almost all private schools, and the college admissions game is a process of sorting out the status ranking of the various schools and then where you as an applicant fit in that hierarchy. In California, there just aren't that many private schools, and most people are much less hung up on the status significance of the choice. Also, it's much more common to go to a two-year school and then transfer to a UC.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

In the East, the best schools are
almost all private schools

I have no idea what you two are talking about, so I’ll just make 1 point. “Best” is subjective. My son played HS basketball. Detroit Metro is the second most segregated area in the country. I’ve seen the boy’s basketball team from every HS. Lots are 11 or 10 white kids, maybe 1 or 2 black kids. Or 11 or 12 black kids. My son’s team was 50% each, and the school also diverse with Asians including Middle Eastern, and also economically diverse. That is how I define the “best.”

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I have no idea what you two are talking about, so I’ll just make 1 point. “Best” is subjective. My son played HS basketball. Detroit Metro is the second most segregated area in the country. I’ve seen the boy’s basketball team from every HS. Lots are 11 or 10 white kids, maybe 1 or 2 black kids. Or 11 or 12 black kids. My son’s team was 50% each, and the school also diverse with Asians including Middle Eastern, and also economically diverse. That is how I define the “best.”

I'm talking about colleges and universities, not elementary and high schools, and that's what I thought Sebby was talking about also.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I have no idea what you two are talking about, so I’ll just make 1 point. “Best” is subjective. My son played HS basketball. Detroit Metro is the second most segregated area in the country. I’ve seen the boy’s basketball team from every HS. Lots are 11 or 10 white kids, maybe 1 or 2 black kids. Or 11 or 12 black kids. My son’s team was 50% each, and the school also diverse with Asians including Middle Eastern, and also economically diverse. That is how I define the “best.”

The best private schools in NY even let some poors in.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

The best private schools in NY even let some poors in.

So Penske can't get a discount?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

I don't understand what you are suggesting or arguing, so maybe you could explain.

I'm advocating that colleges and universities manage themselves (and their costs and elective expenditures) more efficiently.

I don't see any loss of brand status or perceived ROI among selective private institutions. The selective ones are only getting harder to get into.

An aggregate brand degradation, no, but that does appear probable down the road. What we're seeing here (and yes, of course YMMV) is a calculation, even by families that can easily afford to pay elite private school tuition, that it's just not worth it.

For some reason, as I said, southern and big state schools seem to be attracting kids I'd otherwise expect to be going Lesser Ivies, Patriot League, etc.

Your answer here implies that you think public schools are acting like profit-maximizing businesses in trying to grow, but I thought we just agreed with Scott Galloway that that's not how those administrations are acting.

Galloway also argues that schools are limiting enrollment to goose prestige. I think state schools are doing this now as well.

I grew up in the Northeast and live in California now, and the two areas are dramatically different in attitudes towards public schools. In the East, the best schools are almost all private schools, and the college admissions game is a process of sorting out the status ranking of the various schools and then where you as an applicant fit in that hierarchy. In California, there just aren't that many private schools, and most people are much less hung up on the status significance of the choice. Also, it's much more common to go to a two-year school and then transfer to a UC.

I think the west is a much more healthy environment in this regard. The push to get one's kids into exclusive east coast private schools has created a really coarse environment. When you aim that many avariciously aspirant professionals at the same goal (getting junior into Dartmouth), you get a horrid set of behaviors and an emphasis on gamesmanship. You also create some seriously stressed kids.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm advocating that colleges and universities manage themselves (and their costs and elective expenditures) more efficiently.

No one could possibly argue with that.

An aggregate brand degradation, no, but that does appear probable down the road. What we're seeing here (and yes, of course YMMV) is a calculation, even by families that can easily afford to pay elite private school tuition, that it's just not worth it.

For some reason, as I said, southern and big state schools seem to be attracting kids I'd otherwise expect to be going Lesser Ivies, Patriot League, etc.

You say this based on what? There are surely exceptions, but I see the opposite happening.

Galloway also argues that schools are limiting enrollment to goose prestige. I think state schools are doing this now as well.

Overall enrollment is down relative to a few years ago, so less prestigious schools are seeing the effects. But that doesn't mean they are turning people away whom they would have taken.

I think the west is a much more healthy environment in this regard. The push to get one's kids into exclusive east coast private schools has created a really coarse environment. When you aim that many avariciously aspirant professionals at the same goal (getting junior into Dartmouth), you get a horrid set of behaviors and an emphasis on gamesmanship. You also create some seriously stressed kids.

Well, we do have USC out here.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

You say this based on what? There are surely exceptions, but I see the opposite happening.

I see a lot of well-heeled folk whose kids took the prep school route going to big state schools, and a lot of southern schools. Idk why. These people can afford the freight for private colleges in the NE.

I think it comes down to hiring afterward. You can go to a fancy school and get a liberal arts degree and you're still only as hireable as a kid who went to a state school and has a STEM degree.

(That stuff about hedge funds, PE, and banks wanting liberal arts majors to create a more well-rounded workforce is BS. First, they're trying to eliminate everyone they can with AI. Second, the English major from Haverford is only getting hired at a fund because he's Greenwich money and his uncle is in the Senate.)

Overall enrollment is down relative to a few years ago, so less prestigious schools are seeing the effects. But that doesn't mean they are turning people away whom they would have taken.

YMMV, but big state schools like MD, PSU, OSU, and MI have become far more competitive in recent years.

Well, we do have USC out here.

I think the NE/Mid-Atlantic is dusty, and backward. Sclerotic. Galloway is a good example. Guy went to UCLA, had middle of pack grades, and went on to make a fortune. Here, there's still a bizarre class thing about undergrad. I went to a private HS and college. If someone asks me about them, I immediately assume that person is a jackass. If someone tells me, "Oh, well, he went to [insert school]" as if I should be impressed, I immediately register that person as a dimwit.

YMMV, but the older I get, the more I realize my old man was right about school. "It's a badge. Advertising." I see little difference in terms of life outcome between the friends I know from college and HS and those I know who went to public HS and state universities. The NE's fixation on school is social climbing nonsense.

But, if one gets into an Ivy, he still must go. The free marketing that provides for the rest of life is just too good to reject.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

An aggregate brand degradation, no, but that does appear probable down the road. What we're seeing here (and yes, of course YMMV) is a calculation, even by families that can easily afford to pay elite private school tuition, that it's just not worth it.

For some reason, as I said, southern and big state schools seem to be attracting kids I'd otherwise expect to be going Lesser Ivies, Patriot League, etc.



.

I live in a bubble, but I'm seeing parents not letting their kids go to southern states due to regressive policies/attitudes. But again, bubble.

But I do agree that there are are many kids who could get into T10 schools who are, for example, going to Illinois (honors program) instead. It's a whole lot cheaper than full pay at Northwestern or U. Chicago.

Edited to add: And I'm still surprised at the amount of east coast families who are willing to send their kids full pay to the LACs. I get that the good LACs apparently carry a lot of water in the northeast, but many people outside of that region have never even heard of them. For example, I had never heard of Williams until about 2 years ago, and it's apparently the top LAC and just as hard to get into as the Ivies.

[Icky Thump]

If there are three people here?