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On May 20 2015 04:15 wei2coolman wrote:Why waste 4 years and a fuckton of money when they only needed maybe 2 years and a whole lot less money to be able to do the same shit.
Because an educated populace is a good thing in a democracy. Because there is more to life than job training and job performance. If the resources existed, I'd be all in favor of free college for everyone who wants it, subsidized by the government for the same reasons we subsidize public education.
There isn't enough money, and so the question is how we get the most people to school that we can, and aim to achieve equality of opportunity.
you don't need a bachelor's to be an informed citizen.
On May 20 2015 04:15 wei2coolman wrote:Why waste 4 years and a fuckton of money when they only needed maybe 2 years and a whole lot less money to be able to do the same shit.
Because an educated populace is a good thing in a democracy. Because there is more to life than job training and job performance. If the resources existed, I'd be all in favor of free college for everyone who wants it, subsidized by the government for the same reasons we subsidize public education.
There isn't enough money, and so the question is how we get the most people to school that we can, and aim to achieve equality of opportunity.
you don't need a bachelor's to be an informed citizen.
No but being in an educational environment increases the chances.
Generally speaking, more education for more people is never bad.
In my mind, the ideal system would allow everyone to attend university-level courses on anything they like whenever they want to. Sadly, this is obviously not possible, at least if you want to do more than just listen. For just listening, it would be enough to simply have videos of university lectures available for anyone (Which i honestly don't know why that isn't the case already, in my university they already take videos of some courses, but for some to me inexplicable reason they make very sure that only students can watch them) If your university is a for-profit organisation, that makes sense. But if you have a system like here in Germany where Universities are public institutions funded by state money, i see no reason to not have those lectures available online for anyone for free. Now, if you wish to actually acquire a formal degree, there is a lot more bureaucracy needed, but just acquiring the knowledge should be made as easy as possible for anyone interested.
However, a good education usually takes more than just listening to a professor talking, and the more people are needed to make your education good, the more rare it will necessarily need to be.
Also, there is a difference between making education available and requiring it for a job. There is no reason why being a plumber would require a university degree, but there is also no reason why a plumber shouldn't be able to acquire any knowledge they wish to, as long as they are mentally capable to do so.
There is some base education that should be required of any citizen, and that education should be taught in mandatory schools like high schools. If you don't manage to educate a child to an informed citizen (or at least a citizen capable of informing himself) within ~10 years, forcing him into 3 more years of education probably won't help.
On May 20 2015 06:00 Simberto wrote: Generally speaking, more education for more people is never bad.
In my mind, the ideal system would allow everyone to attend university-level courses on anything they like whenever they want to. Sadly, this is obviously not possible, at least if you want to do more than just listen. For just listening, it would be enough to simply have videos of university lectures available for anyone (Which i honestly don't know why that isn't the case already, in my university they already take videos of some courses, but for some to me inexplicable reason they make very sure that only students can watch them) If your university is a for-profit organisation, that makes sense. But if you have a system like here in Germany where Universities are public institutions funded by state money, i see no reason to not have those lectures available online for anyone for free. Now, if you wish to actually acquire a formal degree, there is a lot more bureaucracy needed, but just acquiring the knowledge should be made as easy as possible for anyone interested.
However, a good education usually takes more than just listening to a professor talking, and the more people are needed to make your education good, the more rare it will necessarily need to be.
Also, there is a difference between making education available and requiring it for a job. There is no reason why being a plumber would require a university degree, but there is also no reason why a plumber shouldn't be able to acquire any knowledge they wish to, as long as they are mentally capable to do so.
There is some base education that should be required of any citizen, and that education should be taught in mandatory schools like high schools. If you don't manage to educate a child to an informed citizen (or at least a citizen capable of informing himself) within ~10 years, forcing him into 3 more years of education probably won't help.
I hope you mean that financially, everyone should be allowed to attend a university. Applicants still needed be screened based on their qualifications and merits (GPA, achievements, extracurricular, standardized test scores).
On May 20 2015 06:00 Simberto wrote: Generally speaking, more education for more people is never bad.
In my mind, the ideal system would allow everyone to attend university-level courses on anything they like whenever they want to. Sadly, this is obviously not possible, at least if you want to do more than just listen. For just listening, it would be enough to simply have videos of university lectures available for anyone (Which i honestly don't know why that isn't the case already, in my university they already take videos of some courses, but for some to me inexplicable reason they make very sure that only students can watch them) If your university is a for-profit organisation, that makes sense. But if you have a system like here in Germany where Universities are public institutions funded by state money, i see no reason to not have those lectures available online for anyone for free. Now, if you wish to actually acquire a formal degree, there is a lot more bureaucracy needed, but just acquiring the knowledge should be made as easy as possible for anyone interested.
However, a good education usually takes more than just listening to a professor talking, and the more people are needed to make your education good, the more rare it will necessarily need to be.
Also, there is a difference between making education available and requiring it for a job. There is no reason why being a plumber would require a university degree, but there is also no reason why a plumber shouldn't be able to acquire any knowledge they wish to, as long as they are mentally capable to do so.
There is some base education that should be required of any citizen, and that education should be taught in mandatory schools like high schools. If you don't manage to educate a child to an informed citizen (or at least a citizen capable of informing himself) within ~10 years, forcing him into 3 more years of education probably won't help.
I hope you mean that financially, everyone should be allowed to attend a university. Applicants still needed be screened based on their qualifications and merits (GPA, achievements, extracurricular, standardized test scores).
I think he's more talking about making education a lifelong process instead of a hoop to jump through for a piece of paper and then only remember it when telling stories about things you did when you were drunk.
If a kid comes out of high school uneducated it should be viewed as a failure of parents and the educational system. The amount of people who just can't be functional, reasonably educated, members of society are actually pretty limited.
Los Angeles on Tuesday became the biggest U.S. city to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Following a hot debate, the city council voted 14 to 1 to approve a plan to gradually increase the required wage to $15 an hour by July 2020. The current $9-an-hour minimum wage was already slated to increase to $10 in January.
The pay bump will affect about 567,000 workers in the city.
“You can see over the course of two years, there’s an evolution of position on what a reasonable minimum wage is,” John Schmitt, research director at the liberal-leaning nonprofit Washington Center for Equitable Growth, told The Huffington Post ahead of the vote. “There’s political activity taking place at city and state level, and it’s moved the national debate.”
The move comes less than a year after the city council voted to raise hourly pay to $15.37 for nearly 10,000 hotel workers.
The debate over the new minimum wage divided the city. Business groups, including the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, warned that the increase would hurt small companies and lead to layoffs.
On May 19 2015 21:06 farvacola wrote: So tell me, why isn't it a good idea?
Do you think it has a chance of getting passed or helping him gain voter support? I honestly don't think it will do either of those and would drive away some of the less leftist voters. I don't like Hillary much and I'd rather vote for Sanders in a heartbeat, but if Sanders makes it so that he has no shot of winning and just ends up stealing votes from Hillary as a third party candidate (I believe he has stated that if he doesn't win the primary he will run as an independent), it wouldn't really help anybody.
He has stated the opposite. He will not run as a third party candidate.
Tell me she isn't running for president; i'll believe it when our next president has won lol.
Los Angeles on Tuesday became the biggest U.S. city to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Following a hot debate, the city council voted 14 to 1 to approve a plan to gradually increase the required wage to $15 an hour by July 2020. The current $9-an-hour minimum wage was already slated to increase to $10 in January.
The pay bump will affect about 567,000 workers in the city.
“You can see over the course of two years, there’s an evolution of position on what a reasonable minimum wage is,” John Schmitt, research director at the liberal-leaning nonprofit Washington Center for Equitable Growth, told The Huffington Post ahead of the vote. “There’s political activity taking place at city and state level, and it’s moved the national debate.”
The move comes less than a year after the city council voted to raise hourly pay to $15.37 for nearly 10,000 hotel workers.
The debate over the new minimum wage divided the city. Business groups, including the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, warned that the increase would hurt small companies and lead to layoffs.
Don't worry it's going to start killing jobs soon, republicans are sure of it. Pay no attention to the states that did it having better job growth than those that didn't.
On May 19 2015 21:06 farvacola wrote: So tell me, why isn't it a good idea?
Do you think it has a chance of getting passed or helping him gain voter support? I honestly don't think it will do either of those and would drive away some of the less leftist voters. I don't like Hillary much and I'd rather vote for Sanders in a heartbeat, but if Sanders makes it so that he has no shot of winning and just ends up stealing votes from Hillary as a third party candidate (I believe he has stated that if he doesn't win the primary he will run as an independent), it wouldn't really help anybody.
He has stated the opposite. He will not run as a third party candidate.
Tell me she isn't running for president; i'll believe it when our next president has won lol.
I think she is trying to inspire a grassroots movement, in the same vein as Sanders. The problem isn't that America doesn't disagree with Bush V Clinton, it's that we just don't fucking vote/participate. Much of the stuff Sanders and Warren are espousing are ~60-40 issues in their favor.
Minimum wage, Body cams, PTO, universal Pre-k, etc... The pressure from the 60 has to find itself being heard over the more vocal 40.
On May 20 2015 06:00 Simberto wrote: Generally speaking, more education for more people is never bad.
In my mind, the ideal system would allow everyone to attend university-level courses on anything they like whenever they want to. Sadly, this is obviously not possible, at least if you want to do more than just listen. For just listening, it would be enough to simply have videos of university lectures available for anyone (Which i honestly don't know why that isn't the case already, in my university they already take videos of some courses, but for some to me inexplicable reason they make very sure that only students can watch them) If your university is a for-profit organisation, that makes sense. But if you have a system like here in Germany where Universities are public institutions funded by state money, i see no reason to not have those lectures available online for anyone for free. Now, if you wish to actually acquire a formal degree, there is a lot more bureaucracy needed, but just acquiring the knowledge should be made as easy as possible for anyone interested.
However, a good education usually takes more than just listening to a professor talking, and the more people are needed to make your education good, the more rare it will necessarily need to be.
Also, there is a difference between making education available and requiring it for a job. There is no reason why being a plumber would require a university degree, but there is also no reason why a plumber shouldn't be able to acquire any knowledge they wish to, as long as they are mentally capable to do so.
There is some base education that should be required of any citizen, and that education should be taught in mandatory schools like high schools. If you don't manage to educate a child to an informed citizen (or at least a citizen capable of informing himself) within ~10 years, forcing him into 3 more years of education probably won't help.
I hope you mean that financially, everyone should be allowed to attend a university. Applicants still needed be screened based on their qualifications and merits (GPA, achievements, extracurricular, standardized test scores).
I think he's more talking about making education a lifelong process instead of a hoop to jump through for a piece of paper and then only remember it when telling stories about things you did when you were drunk.
If a kid comes out of high school uneducated it should be viewed as a failure of parents and the educational system. The amount of people who just can't be functional, reasonably educated, members of society are actually pretty limited.
In my profession (biochemistry/molecular biology) you can readily look up most protocols (original, modified, and optimized) on the internet for free. A lot of online scientific journals are also free, and the ones that required a subscription you can bring your laptop to a nearby university and use their wifi since they for sure will have a subscription to all major scientific publishers. Not to mention that you can find powerpoint presentations like this most of the time by simply adding "ppt" to the end of a specific process you want to know (in my example I am using single reaction monitoring): https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=single reaction monitoring ppt
You definitely don't need to go to university to be knowledgeable even in a very specific area.
But I am saying this with the hindsight of having a MS already so take it what you will.
On May 20 2015 04:15 wei2coolman wrote:Why waste 4 years and a fuckton of money when they only needed maybe 2 years and a whole lot less money to be able to do the same shit.
Because an educated populace is a good thing in a democracy. Because there is more to life than job training and job performance. If the resources existed, I'd be all in favor of free college for everyone who wants it, subsidized by the government for the same reasons we subsidize public education.
There isn't enough money, and so the question is how we get the most people to school that we can, and aim to achieve equality of opportunity.
you don't need a bachelor's to be an informed citizen.
Depends on how informed you want to be.
To be clear, I think there are lots of educated people who never went to college or who didn't finish. But it's a good thing for society for people to, on the cusp of real adulthood, take a few years to get to know a variety of disciplines.
Just FYI, it's free to take tons of university courses so long as you don't care about the " piece of paper " at the end. You look up the schedule and sit down.
People don't do that because they aren't worth the time if you aren't getting the future increases in earnings as a result of graduating.
On May 20 2015 07:14 cLutZ wrote: Just FYI, it's free to take tons of university courses so long as you don't care about the " piece of paper " at the end. You look up the schedule and sit down.
People don't do that because they aren't worth the time if you aren't getting the future increases in earnings as a result of graduating.
Would it theoretically be that hard to assess peoples ability to have acquired and properly learned the coursework as if they had attended an accredited university?
Would it be so bad to offer people a lower cost version than even online coursework which just made the coursework information available and people could go through it as fast or slow as they want and then assess whether they got it or not?
Assessments don't have to be limited to multiple choice type tests either. You could basically only be paying for the part of someone reviewing your work and assessing it.
People who hate bureaucracy and people who want more access to education should be able to find common ground there?
On May 20 2015 07:14 cLutZ wrote: Just FYI, it's free to take tons of university courses so long as you don't care about the " piece of paper " at the end. You look up the schedule and sit down.
People don't do that because they aren't worth the time if you aren't getting the future increases in earnings as a result of graduating.
Would it theoretically be that hard to assess peoples ability to have acquired and properly learned the coursework as if they had attended an accredited university?
Would it be so bad to offer people a lower cost version than even online coursework which just made the coursework information available and people could go through it as fast or slow as they want and then assess whether they got it or not?
Assessments don't have to be limited to multiple choice type tests either. You could basically only be paying for the part of someone reviewing your work and assessing it.
People who hate bureaucracy and people who want more access to education should be able to find common ground there?
Well, in the United States, it would be. A big part of the higher education boom over the last 30-40 years is due to the fact that employers aren't really allowed to give tests to applicants in the way you are describing due to the way the civil rights employment law has shaken out. So college degrees are essentially signalling mechanisms for employers.
I forget the cases that really elaborate on this (Duke Energy is an old case that lays the groundwork). But if you give an employment test and its results don't reflect the population (sex and race) you can be sued, and have to provide really good documentation and justifications for the exam. In many ways, the college boon can partially be seen as students paying for this liability risk.
But all those things you propose could work, AP testing for high schoolers already does this (although more and more colleges aren't accepting those because it loses them money). The most likely way this could happen is if there was a university that basically did this, but faculty would obviously revolt, and administrators wouldn't propose it because it loses them money. So it would have to be some sort of edict by the state government (Like say, Cuomo sets it up for a NY University). There is a ton of money in the way stopping this sort of thing though, just because they are non-profits, doesn't mean they aren't greedy.
On May 20 2015 07:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently, Ted Cruz is against the idea of gay marriage because he thinks that passing laws that allow homosexuals to get married means that every single person MUST get married to a member of the opposite sex. He keeps saying "mandatory gay marriage" lol: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-warns-mandatory-same-sex-marriage?CID=sm_fb_maddow
On a bright note I imagine most people would agree that a law that made abortion mandatory was probably overdoing it too.
On May 20 2015 07:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently, Ted Cruz is against the idea of gay marriage because he thinks that passing laws that allow homosexuals to get married means that every single person MUST get married to a member of the opposite sex. He keeps saying "mandatory gay marriage" lol: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-warns-mandatory-same-sex-marriage?CID=sm_fb_maddow
On a bright note I imagine most people would agree that a law that made abortion mandatory was probably overdoing it too.
On May 20 2015 07:14 cLutZ wrote: Just FYI, it's free to take tons of university courses so long as you don't care about the " piece of paper " at the end. You look up the schedule and sit down.
People don't do that because they aren't worth the time if you aren't getting the future increases in earnings as a result of graduating.
Would it theoretically be that hard to assess peoples ability to have acquired and properly learned the coursework as if they had attended an accredited university?
Would it be so bad to offer people a lower cost version than even online coursework which just made the coursework information available and people could go through it as fast or slow as they want and then assess whether they got it or not?
Assessments don't have to be limited to multiple choice type tests either. You could basically only be paying for the part of someone reviewing your work and assessing it.
People who hate bureaucracy and people who want more access to education should be able to find common ground there?
Well, in the United States, it would be. A big part of the higher education boom over the last 30-40 years is due to the fact that employers aren't really allowed to give tests to applicants in the way you are describing due to the way the civil rights employment law has shaken out. So college degrees are essentially signalling mechanisms for employers.
I forget the cases that really elaborate on this (Duke Energy is an old case that lays the groundwork). But if you give an employment test and its results don't reflect the population (sex and race) you can be sued, and have to provide really good documentation and justifications for the exam. In many ways, the college boon can partially be seen as students paying for this liability risk.
But all those things you propose could work, AP testing for high schoolers already does this (although more and more colleges aren't accepting those because it loses them money). The most likely way this could happen is if there was a university that basically did this, but faculty would obviously revolt, and administrators wouldn't propose it because it loses them money. So it would have to be some sort of edict by the state government (Like say, Cuomo sets it up for a NY University). There is a ton of money in the way stopping this sort of thing though, just because they are non-profits, doesn't mean they aren't greedy.
I'm talking about the testing happening within the educational setting not the professional world.
If we want to make money off of education by squeezing margins out of people who try and fail, it will be a hard, but if we just accept educating our population is a social responsibility that we all have to pay for, progress should be easy.
Some teachers (mostly the ones who have been doing it for a while) have a pretty sweet deal in the current system and will be hesitant towards change. But most new teachers have a pretty raw deal and would happily embrace ideas that could make their profession more efficient.
Really our educational system needs a foundation up remodel, funding, pay, curriculum, what constitutes a 'classroom', and soo much more.
The people the new system hoses the most are the colleges where the real value isn't in the education, it's in the access and networking made available (which is part of the secret behind the problem with degrees), and the associated prestige.
It would expose them as the private clubs they really are as opposed to the idea of primarily an institute of higher education.
This becomes more obvious when you see a lecture given in an Ivy League shcool, some of them are brilliant by comparison, others you might find a better one from a community college instructor, especially for 101 courses.
On May 20 2015 07:14 cLutZ wrote: Just FYI, it's free to take tons of university courses so long as you don't care about the " piece of paper " at the end. You look up the schedule and sit down.
People don't do that because they aren't worth the time if you aren't getting the future increases in earnings as a result of graduating.
Would it theoretically be that hard to assess peoples ability to have acquired and properly learned the coursework as if they had attended an accredited university?
Would it be so bad to offer people a lower cost version than even online coursework which just made the coursework information available and people could go through it as fast or slow as they want and then assess whether they got it or not?
Assessments don't have to be limited to multiple choice type tests either. You could basically only be paying for the part of someone reviewing your work and assessing it.
People who hate bureaucracy and people who want more access to education should be able to find common ground there?
That all ready exists. You can CLEP a ton of different courses (there are other tests as well). I am all for the expansion of innovation in the education industry. Perhaps we can stop stifling the competition there by onerous licensing and competitive advantages via State-grants, monopolies, and subsidies. Peter Thiel has an interesting post-ed educational plan in the works + there are a million and one better ways to do things than the traditional stasis of the education establishment. I mean, having 100+ people sit it on classes taught by TA's is atrocious and that passes for 'higher education' at State-universities. Yay for people wanting more of that. blegh.
On May 20 2015 07:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently, Ted Cruz is against the idea of gay marriage because he thinks that passing laws that allow homosexuals to get married means that every single person MUST get married to a member of the opposite sex. He keeps saying "mandatory gay marriage" lol: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-warns-mandatory-same-sex-marriage?CID=sm_fb_maddow
On a bright note I imagine most people would agree that a law that made abortion mandatory was probably overdoing it too.
EPT
