That anti-intellectual thing

[perdidochas]

Badenp,

 

Didn't you mean left wing?

[SeattlePioneer]

I had a friend in school who was an electrical engineering major. He LIKED the idea of having added arts and sciences requirement to obtain a degree.

 

For openers, he suggested that everyone receiving a degree be required to complete a minimum of a year of regular college calculus.

[Horizon]

What the governor should be doing is shifting money into Vocational Technical training for kids in high school so that they can learn a trade.

Then he can look at the engineering programs, but they can be worthless unless you are cutting edge.

 

As for social sciences - I have one of those degrees (Political Science and Economics), but from a top tier school. Engineers work for me, coding products that I design. I don't care HOW they design it, I focus on the end user experience. We need both.

 

I would rather hire a psychology major who wants to work in business and understands that they do not know business terms, than a business major who thinks that they understand my world. Psych majors require statistics (more important than calculus), lots of writing (something most engineers need more of), and the understanding of people (great for market research, customer support, etc.)

 

Long ago, we believed in the concept of the renaissance man - someone who had skills across all spectrums. Over time we have fallen back into specialization, and lost the understanding that a good citizen should know art, history, politics, mathematics, etc.

[perdidochas]

I'm not against a liberal arts education--meaning a well rounded education. In fact, I am a firm supporter of it. However, I'm against an education in the liberal arts, meaning the purpose of education simply being to get a degree in the humanities, etc. Yes, we need some people in those fields, but we need to be encouraging all the students who are intellectually able to go into the sciences and engineering. The ex-wife of a friend of mine has a degree in Italian studies. As he used to joke, the only possible career that could lead to is mobster's wife :-) He couldn't talk much, as he has a bachelor's and master's in philosophy.

 

In terms of Governor Scott's views, they have to do with state subsidized education. The state shouldn't be subsidizing useless degrees (like, for example, Italian studies). Private colleges should feel free to have those kinds of degrees.

[Fehler]

You cannot legislate what majors or studies students pursue. That's bad. If a student wants to go into hock for a Victorian Literature major, that's their decision. And if the school wants to teach it, fine, supply the demand.

 

But what should happen is to stop guaranteeing student loans. If a student gets out of college and finds no job, they cannot declare bankruptcy to get out from under student loan debt. If banks were forced to accept the risk of bad debt, then loans to students/studies with poor financial outlooks would dry up very, very quickly. Switching your major from Electrical Engineering to Renaissance Poetry? Ok, your interest rate just went from 0.32% to 14.79%.

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

 

Hello Horizon,

 

 

Once people have a year of college calculus, they are well positioned to study mathematical statistics, a course based on regular calculus.

 

 

 

I agree with you though --- one of the most valuable classes I took as an undergrad was an algebra based statistics class.

[perdidochas]

Fehler,

 

Of course you can legislate that for public colleges. Simply eliminate major programs in those areas.

[BadenP]

perdi

 

Public colleges are there to support the interests of their student body, supported by taxpayer dollars, not the wishes of the administration or any political agenda. If there are courses of study that are not supporting themselves then they can reduce the number. Practically speaking those who REALLY want to be in engineering or science schools like MIT, CalTech,etc have the expensive facilities already in place to meet their needs. The problem is that most wanting to go into those fields are not adequately prepared academically and their applications are denied. Too many teens go to college totally unprepared and in my state 40% of the freshman only last a year or less before they drop out.

 

If Obamas hairbrain scheme of allowing foreign graduate students in the sciences to remain in the USA and become citizens goes through this will just compound the problem for US students even more. Universities with a good science/engineering program will be overtly recruiting foreign students in bidding wars against each other, since foreign tuition is over triple what a US citizen pays.

[Horizon]

Fehler - bankruptcy does not erase student loan debt.

[Beavah]

The fact is we crank out far too many of those folks, and dump them into an economic system which makes it tough for them to find a job and may doom them to unemployment or low wage jobs unless they abandon the field they have been trained in.

 

Yah, there goes SeattlePioneer da closet liberal (aka "modern" conservative) again. Has to have the government regulate and limit da choices of the people, because the government always knows better than the market and the citizens. Can't trust da people with freedom.

 

We conservatives know better. We'd like to see vouchers so that kids and their families have choice in education, and can find schools and programs that are a good fit for them, not be locked into government education dictated by a parade of ill-informed politicians each pushin' their own agenda on our young people.

 

Beavah

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Beavah,

 

 

Heh, heh! Where did I say government should be regulating such things?

 

Usually schools limit access to engineering, computer science business, nursing medicine and other such schools. Usually no limits on art history majors and such.

 

 

My nephew had the voucher from mom and dad. Despite that, he's unemployed as a recent grad with a music degree. He chose just what he wanted to study. Now he's stuck with it.

 

If such free choice for young college students is as good an idea as you suggest, why do you suppose he's unemployed?

 

Incidentally, I had a high school friend who was a music major in college and has been a performing musician. I asked him about what his career had been like --- he said, "Forty years of struggle."

 

I encountered a guy who had a number of years under his belt as a musician. He wanted ideas on how he could get into a plumber's union apprentice program.

 

Unfortunately, a good many young college students may not be especially wise in imagining a career and profession for themselves.

 

(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[Beavah]

Unfortunately, a good many young college students may not be especially wise in imagining a career and profession for themselves.

 

Yah, so? Da government and da governor of da state of Florida should decide for them? Or should mandate what kind of car they drive or what kind of career they choose?

 

Yep, yeh really are one of them socialist liberal types.

 

Beavah

[Fehler]

That's my point. If banks had a stake in a student's education, those loans wouldn't be so easy to come by. As long as a student can't declare bankruptcy to get out of debt, the bank has no incentive not to loan them the money.

[SeattlePioneer]

The real estate bubble has already burst. Abuses fueled the bubble for years before it burst.

 

 

The student loan bubble is another bubble that is being abused, but just hasn't burst yet. But it will.

 

We are reducing college graduates to peonage with student loans, and schools are funding unrealistic spending by charging ever higher fees and tuition.

 

That's even more true for the large number of people who enter college and never complete a degree.

 

The burden of student loans is already a political issue, and anyone who cares to look will see massive defaults and public bailouts down the road a few years.(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[BadenP]

SP

 

This argument is becoming almost laughable, it is not the major that prevents someone getting a job, unless it is a very specific scientific research position.

Look there are almost as many unemployed science majors in this country who can not get a position because those jobs have shrunk as well, with much of the research and development being done overseas with less regulations. I have friends who are geologists, marine and wildlife biologists,who have been out of work for over a year since their positions were cut back.

 

The student loan program is indeed a problem, but again it is not the major but the schools who allow their students to get much more money than they should in the first place. A student going for a bachelors degree should not be allowed to accumulate a loan debt of over $100,000 yet that is what is happening all over the country. The system is broken and those administering it are mostly incompetent.