generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

sometimes they'll write an op ed or something.

Was going to post this to the Canadian Politics thread but seems like it may be relevant here too. (Yeah, it's an op-ed but it's a pretty good one imo + I'm not sure that protests accomplish more than op-eds):

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Tuition+hikes+solve+what+ails+system/6501275/story.html

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_auletta?currentPage=all

but iatee, intro is just a small part of what universities provide in their teaching. It's true that the giant McClasses don't well serve students or our essentiality as faculty, but any online model will only be worse at this, since what they will lack is one-on-one attention. Indeed that's their fundamental appeal: take McClasses to another level. You keep saying, "but that's what the economic model dictates", as those we are passive victims of "processes" rather than making explicit choices to McClass-ize those courses. I wish we wouldn't! But I don't have a feeling for how dominant that is as a way of teaching (it's not been the case in any department I've taught in, all big R1s). & we could choose to teach only smaller sections (as we do in my soon-to-be-ex department). But that takes more faculty..."and that's not what the economic model dictates", you'll say again; & I say bullshit, that's a choice you seem to favor, as do other know-nothings; for what reasons I can only speculate.

btw wasn't calling you a know-nothing there, not trying to hardbody in that post; I meant you're allied with the know-nothings in your support for dismantling the present model of American higher ed, the best system of higher education the world's ever known.

I've never suggested an online model will be better at teaching, as a whole I would say it's clearly worse. but that itself doesn't matter.

also I dunno where you see me suggesting we dismantle anything - I just don't think it's that hard to see what's on the horizon at this point.

yeah if you're just prognosticating then I gotta say I don't have a lot of confidence in your predictions

which of these two don't you have confidence in?

if you want the two biggest points, the first is made in the kruman article - the us economy is probably experiencing a long-term shift away from a lot of white collar work and while there are social benefits from having a highly educated populace if there aren't personal benefits to the investment, there is likely to be a massive drop in the demand.

the second is that people w/ degrees from mit and stanford (go cardinal?) are currently v. interested in the fact that one person's intro to calculus lecture can already reach a million people. as soon as a name brand college becomes willing to not only offer entire courses online - which they already do, freely, tons of them - but offer their stamp of approval for completion? there is an inordinate amount of money to be made w/ this, and it's just a question of which brand-name school is gonna take a step in the dark.

did you read the article? I mostly steal my predictions from other people, like the president of stanford xp

or paul krugman

on 1) long-term shift from a lot of white-collar work that *was* done by college grads of the past doesn't mean that *new* white-collar work hasn't emerged that present & future college grads will do.

of course, if I had my fascist ways I'd eliminate all departments except math, philosophy, computer science, cog sci (which would all be just a single department, actually) & I guess maybe econ, bio, maybe physics. those are all going to be part of future white collar work that there aren't presently enough Americans to do; & that work will only continue to grow in importance.

it might be that we won't need as many mediocre universities in the future, but I don't have a huge amount riding on that. I care about my grad students but I'd rather see them think about industry jobs as the primary trajectory than academic work.

on 2), I'm not convinced that outsourcing more intro teaching is going to affect universities all that dramatically. right now we (at R1s) already outsource plenty of it to community colleges. We do majors teaching, though, & afaict that teaching isn't the issue in this thread.

of course, if I had my fascist ways I'd eliminate all departments except...

this would be a good way to respond to the drop in demand iatee is predicting.

iatee you do realize the krugman futurology article predicts a rise in blue-collar manufacturing?

Or consider the panic over ''downsizing'' that gripped America in 1996. As economists quickly pointed out, the rate at which Americans were losing jobs in the 90's was not especially high by historical standards. Downsizing suddenly became news because, for the first time, white-collar, college-educated workers were being fired in large numbers, even while skilled machinists and other blue-collar workers were in demand.

which is exactly what you said wouldn't happen upthread when you were arguing that manufacturing was on the outs and it was service all the way.

and now you're arguing that white-collar is on the outs and...

of course, if I had my fascist ways I'd eliminate all departments except math, philosophy, computer science, cog sci (which would all be just a single department, actually) & I guess maybe econ, bio, maybe physics

You realize that there are many people who basically agree with this except for the philosophy part? (They'd preserve engineering and medicine too.)

yes and they are all completely out of their minds

xp

again, I wasn't arguing that manufacturing being on the outs was *a good thing* - just that it was a thing. it wasn't a good thing, for the most part.

and now you're arguing that white-collar is on the outs and....

tax mark zuckerberg and give money to poor people or mark zuckerberg gets 100000 slaves.

Philosophy's the same thing as English imo, anything useful you can get out of it you can just figure out on your own. If you can't you're probably no good at it anyway and should stick with what comes naturally. /challops

or mark zuckerberg gets 100000 slaves

...for whom he is legally required to provide nutritious food, health care, child care and decent housing. (But that would require allowing the slaves to vote.)

the key to the krugman thing is interpreting blue collar as 'not white collar' ie not just plumber but also food service, health care workers, personal care etc.

Which would be a valid reading if he didn't specifically describe skilled machinists as being in demand in the exact section I quoted among others. And if he didn't in fact cite plumbers specifically in the first page.

So yes, the key to reading the krugman thing as you do is to pretend you're reading another article.

do you think skilled machinists are going to make up a significant % of the job market in 50 years? I mean I'm willing to say "I think that part was probably wrong"

Is there going to be increases in machinery or pipework that needs to be taken care of in the future? Seems like a pretty weird argument. Sometimes it seems like people think jobs appear out of thin air, as opposed to being directly tied to things that exist in the world...

robots, dude

also w/ the blue collar stuff there's a big difference between machinists and plumbers, between nontradables and tradables - the nontradable blue collar workers - plumbers, construction workers etc. - are a very different thing than auto workers and there's no reason to think that they won't do fine when the downturn is over. .

I'm still voting for iatee's government pays people not to work platform. Or some other way of keeping the economy moving without everyone having to have a job.

anyway a good article on skilled machinists in america:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/8844/

i agree. good article.

then I don't even know what we disagree on w/ this cause the article is almost 100% line w/ my take on the subject. there were better ways to prepare for globalization and technological productivity gains and there are better ways to address them now, but eventually those two things ensured that the type of manufacturing jobs that built the american middle class weren't gonna be around forever. the service sector wasn't a panacea, but it was something for people to do. for how much longer, idk.

do you think skilled machinists are going to make up a significant % of the job market in 50 years?

yes

maybe I should have phrased that 'significant % of the american population'

lol @ Florida cutting their CS department btw

wait waht

for real

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226477/Florida_university_plan_to_decimate_computer_science_draws_protest?source=rss_keyword_edpicks

"How can you run a computer science department without computer systems staff?" Sitharam asked.

a computer science any

I have thought about this and hear is my measured response:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

otm

it is basically a lunatic maneuver from any level

especially the analysis that the dean is playing 11-dimensional chess with the legislature

this while opening up a new school at the same time:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/scott-approves-states-12scott-approves-states-12th-university-florida-polytechnic-after-2317216.html

gfs parents are (retired) profs there, incidentally (not in cs)

in the coming higher ed retrenchment there's gonna be schools that reaffirm that, whether they are focusing on pre-professional training or liberal arts education, the source of their economic and cultural value is in the academic program

and schools that gut the computer science department, apparently

well they're sorta just gutting the research side (which is still a bad decision in this case)

Florida gets what it deserves IMO

is there really any downside to ejecting Florida from the Union?

passport required to enter Disney World

some people like citrus fruit I guess idk

legions of elderly Jews once again a stateless people

continental US that much closer to looking like a big rectangle

worth it to strip Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush of US citizenship IMO

poor Alfred

have to break some eggs to make an omelette, etc

someone should ask Tebow what he thinks