Society/Culture The great myth of higher education value

[ShanDog]

World history trends and transformations sounds interesting, if it is as I imagined it would be the same story repeated over and over again.

Philip K Dick wrote of "Flow my tears, the policeman said" that a priest pointed out to him the similarity of it to the book of acts, that this story is repeated over and over and over again. I saw this in a cartoon once - "waking life".

That's what world history is like, a common-themed story repeated. This is the reincarnation, and the understanding of, that leads to Nirvana.

If a person watches a gorilla population for thousands of years, the alpha male may sire a son, the son gets to an age, the son is expelled by the alpha male, later we see another male challenge the alpha male, the alpha male on one of these occasions is defeated. The story repeats on and on and on.

Covered a lot of areas I've never had taught before like several ancient empires that are largely ignored, origins of the subcontinent people etc. Was good if surface level.

 

[RupieDupie]

Covered a lot of areas I've never had taught before like several ancient empires that are largely ignored, origins of the subcontinent people etc. Was good if surface level.

Did you get to read up on that Indus Valley civilisation, the Harappan people? Apparently they still have not been able to decipher the language. But apparently the people did not seem warlike, there is no record in for example, art and weapon caches of conflict.

 

[medusala]

I'll say one thing about university in general though - too many incompetent people pass.

That's the whole point though. Then governments can brag about how many people have degrees, the fact that so many are worthless is irrelevant (also helps youth unemployment numbers)

The standards need to be higher, which will improve the quality of graduates and simultaneously increase the value of the degree.

Yes. And lower cost to taxpayer. Common sense you would think.

 

[RupieDupie]

That's the whole point though. Then governments can brag about how many people have degrees, the fact that so many are worthless is irrelevant (also helps youth unemployment numbers)



Yes. And lower cost to taxpayer. Common sense you would think.

Your argument leads directly to the problem - munny munny munny!

 

[ShanDog]

Did you get to read up on that Indus Valley civilisation, the Harappan people? Apparently they still have not been able to decipher the language. But apparently the people did not seem warlike, there is no record in for example, art and weapon caches of conflict.

I don't think so - those names don't ring a bell. Sounds interesting though.

 

[Kwality]

Any Bachelors degree is the equivalent of an apprenticeship....Most arts student grads tend towards teaching ( which requires a further 1-2 years study, in most cases) or H/R jobs within industry....Only in my honor's year did I then focus upon the technical requirements to do with editorial & referencing skills, necessary for jobs in journalism, professional writing & higher research fields.

Thinking critically just comes naturally I'd of thought.....And if you didn't start out with that mind-set to begin with, then surely a 4 year apprenticeship is enough to have instructed a person as to the fundamental requirements necessary to that particular field of inquiry.

Openness, toleration & curiosity are just as necessary virtues to my mind.....Most undergrad courses merely instruct on the rudimentary knowledge & skills required....Post grad is more concerned with refining & specializing one's area of research. Which both sharpens & expands one's universal knowledge at the same time.

My experience is that when apprentices finish their time they are fully useable in the workplace unlike Uni grads most of whom are still wet behind the ears, effectively useless for 18 months.

 

[Contra Mundum]

No, people should read and educate themselves through life.

The idea that you need a Bachelors degree or higher to understand culture is nonsense.

If critical thinking is valuable, then why isn't it taught in the 13 years of education prior to university?

That's the problem with our education system - not university, but that kids walk out of high school after 13 years of schooling and are still seen as 'uneducated' if they go no further. That is an absurd proposition.

I suppose you are in favour of home schooling as well - you can't know a discipline without guidance. If you were to read a book on the History of Western Philosophy you would understand about half of it. It's just the reality that you need to be guided and its easier to learn that way

 

[Contra Mundum]

My experience is that when apprentices finish their time they are fully useable in the workplace unlike Uni grads most of whom are still wet behind the ears, effectively useless for 18 months.

Yeh nah - all education must have direct vocational relevance

 

[King Brown]

I suppose you are in favour of home schooling as well - you can't know a discipline without guidance. If you were to read a book on the History of Western Philosophy you would understand about half of it. It's just the reality that you need to be guided and its easier to learn that way

No, I’m not in favour of home schooling. I’m saying 17 years of formal schooling should equip someone with the ability to learn any subject with enough time and resources.

It’s sort of funny when someone says “I think a bachelors degree is enough education” or “I don’t think everyone should go to uni” they’re accused of being against education, as if those 13 years of sitting in school five days a week were nothing. If that’s the case then what does that say about our schools?

 

[Run n Spread]

To a point it depends on what you value.

Point a) In terms of economics and career prospects on the whole University is not much value. Universities are places of academia, research and knowledge. The move by our society to turn them into job training centres has back fired. Grade inflation, graduates everywhere means a lot of High Schoolers would be better off learning and training on the job and in the workforce.

Unless you are after a very specialist position/one that needs a licence to practice in: Law, Medicine etc then once the debt is taken into account I doubt it is worth any more.

Point b) If you value knowledge for its own sake, critical thinking and a different take on the world sure Unis are great. Not everyone is going to be suited to them however and there are many other ways to achieve knowledge and critical thinking than just Uni.

Universities some 20 years a go have basically made the decision to deregulate and are now another enterprise. People will now assess their worth on that basis I guess.

 

[Procrastinator35]

My experience is that when apprentices finish their time they are fully useable in the workplace unlike Uni grads most of whom are still wet behind the ears, effectively useless for 18 months.

The split between theory & practice is a large concern & is to be expected, when we force kids to learn in classroom environments oftentimes completely dissociated from the real world of practical applications, for almost the entirety of their formative years....Prior to the advent of a universal compulsory education, no such split existed; or was kept to a bare minimum under the guild system & father/son, mother/daughter apprenticeship....Much of what is taught in schools today is completely useless & if truth be told, a mere waste of time....And many kids know & feel this intuitively.....15-18 years of all theory & no practice is enough to destroy anyone's confidence.

If we are honest, then one of the real reasons for the existence of schools & compulsory education, is to serve as child-minding facilities & societal homogenization centers....Pink Floyd said it best.

 

[Contra Mundum]

No, I’m not in favour of home schooling. I’m saying 17 years of formal schooling should equip someone with the ability to learn any subject with enough time and resources.

It’s sort of funny when someone says “I think a bachelors degree is enough education” or “I don’t think everyone should go to uni” they’re accused of being against education, as if those 13 years of sitting in school five days a week were nothing. If that’s the case then what does that say about our schools?

I am just saying it's easier to learn these things if you are mentored - that is what a tertiary degree in the humanities is mate. Pick up and try to read Hegel or Heidegger without guidance - that is the road to madness - madness I tell you. How about teaching yourself Macroeconomics [my son's Arts major]

 

[Contra Mundum]

Contra Mundum does have a point. I'll give the example of the courses I studies for my Bachelor of Arts (History and Cultural Studies; English and Creative Communication majors) through UniSA:

Global Societies - good course centred on the study of globalisation & capitalism with no agenda pushed (very good teacher I had for a few topics)
Ideas, Innovation and Communication - foundational course. Good for understanding how to analyse things and argue
Intercultural Communication - foundational course. Talks about culture and how that impacts the way we understand each other and process info. Good.
Professional and Creative Communication 1 - writing course. Good fun. Not particularly academic.

Telling Culture and Historiography - culture and history analysis methods culminating in research assignment. Intro to the key philosphers. Good class, nothing crazy.
Shakespeare Past and Present - pretty self explanatory
Global Societies and Movements - more advanced version of the global societies class. Lecturer was a bit of a loon but didn't push an agenda.
Earth Systems - STEM class for geography minor

Writing and Text Workshop - writing class obviously
World History Trends and Transformations - class was boring as s**t but the content was great. History of the entire world as fast as possible.
The Power of Story - could have been a good class but the content was boring as hell. Wish I had the money back for that one.
Sociological Perspectives - outline from the course website: "Students will build on other introductory courses to examine some major sociological theorists including Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Karl Mannheim, the Frankfurt School, Foucault, Berger and Luckmann. In this course students will also examine issues related to the theorists including sociological models, ideology, the social construction of reality, feminism, postmodernism and poststructuralism and apply the theories to practical issues and policies." Yep. But at least they asked us to challenge those ideas a bit too.

USA History and Contending Cultural Identities - very straightforward history class.
The Writer's World - writing class
Historicising Place and Meaning - another research class using some shaky but interesting sociology concepts. Nothing sinister.
Biodiversity for the Environment - STEM class.

Literary and Creative Writing Practice - writing class again
Australia in the Asian Century - brilliant class about the emergence of Asia in the global marketplace and politics. Thought it would suck. It didn't.
A History of War - external class that could have been better. Really wanted to focus on the effect of war on minorities and women. Run by Griffith Uni.

World Literatures and English - very good class about world literature with a research assignment I chose to do about the emergence of English in SE Asia.
Researching Culture and History - batshit insane SJW lecturer but interesting subject. Chose to do a research assignment on how the media portrays men as victims of domestic violence just to piss her off. Very postmodern, poststructural angle to the class again.
Australian History from 1900 - class geared towards future history teachers. Very good. Everyone should do it as a foundation course IMO.
Migration, Diversity and Citizenship - interesting but nothing worth mentioning here. Followed on from other similar topics.


Honestly, most of the content was really good. I didn't like some of the lecturers, but by and large, they toed the line of appropriateness and didn't push their agendas too hard if they had one (with the exception of one noted above). It was far more likely the students within the class would be the ones showing the stereotypical "SJW lefty neo-marxist liberal" behaviour. Not that it wasn't eaten up by the lecturers who loved that s**t, but they didn't push it so much.

Having said that, the research topics I saw so many people cover were so asinine that I can completely see where that 'real peer review' Twitter account gets their material - the rubbish some people want to research can be laughably pointless. The main critics I agree with on the topic of the Humanities point to this as a manifestation of the issues in many other countries - something like 90% of peer-reviewed papers in the Humanities are never cited (or perhaps cited once - can't remember the specific stat). It's because the topic is so subjective that people can spew out shitty paper after shitty paper about things that are irrelevant or, quite frankly, batshit insane. If that goes on unchecked, it is what will make the Humanities lose all value.

Perhaps we are lagging behind other nations like the US in this regard (which is good IMO) and we won't quite see the same off-the-rails stuff at all. But there is certainly an issue there across the world.

That sounds like good stuff mate

 

[Kwality]

The split between theory & practice is a large concern & is to be expected, when we force kids to learn in classroom environments oftentimes completely dissociated from the real world of practical applications, for almost the entirety of their formative years....Prior to the advent of a universal compulsory education, no such split existed; or was kept to a bare minimum under the guild system & father/son, mother/daughter apprenticeship....Much of what is taught in schools today is completely useless & if truth be told, a mere waste of time....And many kids know & feel this intuitively.....15-18 years of all theory & no practice is enough to destroy anyone's confidence.

If we are honest, then one of the real reasons for the existence of schools & compulsory education, is to serve as child-minding facilities & societal homogenization centers....Pink Floyd said it best.

Yep but there are exceptions to the rule, the Chris Judd effect, at home & effective from day #1 & I've worked with some outstanding examples.

 

[Seeds]

Staggering. So much for the myth that education spending is an "investment". The obvious question is why is so much wasted on degrees that provide no benefit to the taxpayer and society?

Monumental waste of cash at a time of supposed "austerity". Why should the working class pay income tax so Jacinta and Tarquin can do a Bachelor of Arts in peace and conflict studies?

Its simply taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Who could possibly support that?

http://www.independent.co.uk/studen...nt-institute-for-fiscal-studies-a7824016.html

Most graduates will still be paying off student loans into their 50s, and three-quarters will never clear the debt, a new probe has found.



http://www.spu.ac.ke/spu-academics/...or-of-arts-in-peace-and-conflict-studies.html

so you dont believe doctors, engineers, scientists, mathmaticians etc. provide any value to society?

oh and the working class would all be peasants on farms owned by aristocrats if it wasnt for all the technology and capital developed by higher educated people for the working class to use and benefit from. Not to mention the working class wouldnt have any of their current basic rights if it wasnt for the democratic values that were first developed by art students.

 

[skilts]

The goal of every humanities student should be to walk away from their education not more sure about their beliefs, but considerably less so.

This. The central theme I took from my degree was not, "What (or this) is Truth?", but, "What can be said with any surety?" If you examine the latter seriously, you end up with a very limited list. The next thing to learn is not to be bothered by this, and to get on with the lived existence. The pursuit of certainty is a fraught and misguided mission. Education should be more about dispelling often deeply-felt, personal illusions, rather than claiming some sort of 'knowledge'. Education never ends.

 

[Procrastinator35]

This. The central theme I took from my degree was not, "What (or this) is Truth?", but, "What can be said with any surety?" If you examine the latter seriously, you end up with a very limited list. The next thing to learn is not to be bothered by this, and to get on with the lived existence. The pursuit of certainty is a fraught and misguided mission. Education should be more about dispelling often deeply-felt, personal illusions, rather than claiming some sort of 'knowledge'. Education never ends.

On that note; some interesting quotes from Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding:....The first is from the Historian Ernst Cassirer, in his summing up of Lockes' work:

"Not doubt but dogma, is the most dreaded foe of knowledge: Not ignorance as such, but ignorance which pretends to be truth & wants to pass for truth, is the force which inflicts the mortal wound on knowledge. For here it is not a matter of error, but of deception; Not a matter of an illusion arising inadvertently, but of a delusion of the intellect. This axiom holds not only for knowledge but also for faith."

"If we can discover how far human understanding can extend it's view; How far it has faculties to attain certainty; & in what cases it can only judge & guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is attainable by us." - John Locke

"Our fallibility & the shortness of our knowledge should make us peaceable & gentle: Because I may be mistaken, I must not be dogmatic & over-confident, peremptory & imperious. I will not break the certain laws of charity, for a doubtful Doctrine of uncertain truth." - Locke

For Locke & the men of the Enlightenment, it was Dogma, arising from hubris & over-weening pride, that was the mortal enemy of truth, reason & peace....Those who were swept up by their own convictions in a tumult of pride & emotion, were the true enemies of reason, knowledge & human understanding....In other words: Religious Zealots full of the contagion of ignorance & Enthusiasm.

What Locke was offering here, was a prescription against the causes for Sectarian violence.....Of all the religious sects warring against each other, over whose religious beliefs & opinions were the correct ones, which was blamed for the English civil war....These proscriptions led to the establishment for the separation between Church & State....I.E The concrete delineation between human knowledge & human opinions/beliefs....Between the nature of human reason & human faith....And all prefaced upon Locke's examination upon the limits & nature of Human understanding itself.

 

[Pessimistic]

Just a stopgap till we get AI

Funny thing is aus would be a big importer of skills

Other countries education spend is subsidising our economy

 

[parsons nose]

The Ivy League universities in America have a policy of diversity with regard to their student intake. They construct heterogeneous student populations at the expense of meritocracy. The social dimension of campus life is a massive factor in tertiary education's contribution to society.

 

[El Dubya]

Some people don't belong at university. Before I transferred to UniMelb, I had to deal with some of the most mathematically illiterate students at La Trobe. I'm talking people that couldn't work out that to turn something from annual to quarterly, you only had to multiply by 3/12 or .25. These people would quite literally spend 30+ minutes having these very basic concepts being explained to them.

I'm not really sure that most gender studies classes benefit society much more than a cooking class down at the local community centre.

Made the same transfer, was shocked by the difference. La Trobe is a genuine shithole.

 

[Kwality]

Made the same transfer, was shocked by the difference. La Trobe is a genuine shithole.

Are the motives of the education sector self interest/promotion or delivering? Its not only the Banks that need a thorough going over.

“While the results show most institutions are supporting the vast majority of their students through to completing their courses, some with already below-average results have seen further declines,” Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham said.

“It’s clear some of our universities need to take a close look at their efforts and do more to support the students they enrol with significant taxpayer subsidies.”

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/re...9c6b0488174b8b4107f05ce03fd6a0?from=rss-basic

 

[King Brown]

I am just saying it's easier to learn these things if you are mentored - that is what a tertiary degree in the humanities is mate. Pick up and try to read Hegel or Heidegger without guidance - that is the road to madness - madness I tell you. How about teaching yourself Macroeconomics [my son's Arts major]

Mentored - sure. Formal education? Not so much.

 

[ShanDog]

Found a fun Twitter account to follow - https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview

There's some doozies in there.

 

[Patrick Bullet]

Are the motives of the education sector self interest/promotion or delivering? Its not only the Banks that need a thorough going over.

“While the results show most institutions are supporting the vast majority of their students through to completing their courses, some with already below-average results have seen further declines,” Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham said.

“It’s clear some of our universities need to take a close look at their efforts and do more to support the students they enrol with significant taxpayer subsidies.”

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/re...9c6b0488174b8b4107f05ce03fd6a0?from=rss-basic

I'd say they are. This is perhaps largely due to the current funding models that reward universities most of all for attracting overseas money. To achieve that means getting higher up the rankings tables that the overseas markets value. Doing this is not necessarily compatible with looking after students' interests.

 

[madmug]

I'd say they are. This is perhaps largely due to the current funding models that reward universities most of all for attracting overseas money. To achieve that means getting higher up the rankings tables that the overseas markets value. Doing this is not necessarily compatible with looking after students' interests.

If its not in the students best interests, it won't last long. Social media, like with most things, spreads the word quickly.