The Value of Education by the numbers

[BillyV]

Unless you get the most talented people and get them study, the trillion in loans is wasted. Your chart can't say whether the Diploma Dumboes who made that money actually deserved their jobs. I don't see how they could under this childish, depressing, and insulting requirement. The only students whose talent the university cares about are the athletes. What kind of football team would they be able to recruit if the players had to live like the rest of the students? Preppies and wannabes.
Your denial of this shows the typical lack of logic of these generic college graduates. Sacrifice has no merit; it is merely brown-nosing. A diploma under these talent-insulting conditions performs the same function in America as a Communist Party membership card did in the defunct Soviet Union. That's why we are going downhill, because no one questions whether this slave education puts inferior people in superior positions.

“Deserved their jobs?” I don’t know how to respond to that, other than to say that the free market tends to separate the wheat from the chaff; the diploma only earns you entry, not success. And by the way, they do get the most talented people by requiring a certain level of SAT scores and grades from high school, with the limited exceptions of star atheletes (again, very small minority) and affirmative action programs. Yes, the universities love star athletes and big time sports programs – not because they love the athletes, but because the notoriety attracts thousands of students, their main concern.
As for “sacrifice has no merit” that sounds like something right out of the OWS playbook. Employers look at a college graduate as someone who was able to set aside instant gratification and spend four years preparing for a better future as well as someone who has the intelligence to fit the position offered. That person is more likely to be steady and a better problem solver. Given that the company will be investing thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in a new employee before they are able to contribute, they want those most likely to succeed. A diploma is an indication of that.
Your comparison of a college diploma that you have to work very hard for and pay for often on your own to a Communist Party membership is insulting. You know, life may not be fair, but there are certain paths you can choose that make it more likely you will succeed; whining and complaining about fairness while doing nothing isn’t one of them.

What does someone's ability to work without pay (in college) have to do with his ability to work when he is being paid to do so? This sacrifice is just a power play by the employers to get the most slavish employees. As for the free market weeding out the incompetent, what if the group as a whole is inferior to what we would get if talent were rewarded up-front. Again, you could say the same thing about college football players if all the draft picks had to work their way through college. Even the ones who starred in the NFl would prove nothing if done against pros who were inferior as a whole. Something like this actually happened when the NFL didn't pay very much. It is really hypocritical to call college indentured servitude "delayed gratification." Besides, these brown-noses are very bitter about their sacrifice and become crooks or workoholic zombies to make up for lost time.

If we replaced this institution with paid professional training, only the smartest would get into college. Those who support the system know they wouldn't make the cut if it were biased in favor of our best human resources. Also, this slur about whining reveals someone who knows he's got the whole ruling class in his favor and wants to get brownie points by calling anyone with the independence to defy their imposed systems a weakling.

Oh, I see. So you not only want college provided to you, but you feel that some employer should pay you while you're there - paid professional training - I get it now. Well, not a problem. There are several large companies that provide this kind of training (McDonald's and WalMart come immediately to mind) and you could find yourself well on your way to a rewarding career in the food service or retail industries.

Some of the "brown noses" don't consider their college education a sacrifice, so much as an investment that pays off well over time.

 

[PrometheusBound]

“Deserved their jobs?” I don’t know how to respond to that, other than to say that the free market tends to separate the wheat from the chaff; the diploma only earns you entry, not success. And by the way, they do get the most talented people by requiring a certain level of SAT scores and grades from high school, with the limited exceptions of star atheletes (again, very small minority) and affirmative action programs. Yes, the universities love star athletes and big time sports programs – not because they love the athletes, but because the notoriety attracts thousands of students, their main concern.
As for “sacrifice has no merit” that sounds like something right out of the OWS playbook. Employers look at a college graduate as someone who was able to set aside instant gratification and spend four years preparing for a better future as well as someone who has the intelligence to fit the position offered. That person is more likely to be steady and a better problem solver. Given that the company will be investing thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in a new employee before they are able to contribute, they want those most likely to succeed. A diploma is an indication of that.
Your comparison of a college diploma that you have to work very hard for and pay for often on your own to a Communist Party membership is insulting. You know, life may not be fair, but there are certain paths you can choose that make it more likely you will succeed; whining and complaining about fairness while doing nothing isn’t one of them.

What does someone's ability to work without pay (in college) have to do with his ability to work when he is being paid to do so? This sacrifice is just a power play by the employers to get the most slavish employees. As for the free market weeding out the incompetent, what if the group as a whole is inferior to what we would get if talent were rewarded up-front. Again, you could say the same thing about college football players if all the draft picks had to work their way through college. Even the ones who starred in the NFl would prove nothing if done against pros who were inferior as a whole. Something like this actually happened when the NFL didn't pay very much. It is really hypocritical to call college indentured servitude "delayed gratification." Besides, these brown-noses are very bitter about their sacrifice and become crooks or workoholic zombies to make up for lost time.

If we replaced this institution with paid professional training, only the smartest would get into college. Those who support the system know they wouldn't make the cut if it were biased in favor of our best human resources. Also, this slur about whining reveals someone who knows he's got the whole ruling class in his favor and wants to get brownie points by calling anyone with the independence to defy their imposed systems a weakling.

Oh, I see. So you not only want college provided to you, but you feel that some employer should pay you while you're there - paid professional training - I get it now. Well, not a problem. There are several large companies that provide this kind of training (McDonald's and WalMart come immediately to mind) and you could find yourself well on your way to a rewarding career in the food service or retail industries.

Some of the "brown noses" don't consider their college education a sacrifice, so much as an investment that pays off well over time.

You hit on the main difference in our perspectives. I think the talented potential employee should make the demands, you think that the business owner who puts up the money should get everything he wants. This is the key thing wrong with the slogan "To get a good job, get a good education"--that they have no rights to their command over employment. So from the perspective of someone with talent, who is the one who should be recruited for the job, my slogan would be directed at the employers, that it is their responsibility to get the best by paying them to study what the employers need. The employers create the value of the investment.

 

[BillyV]

You hit on the main difference in our perspectives. I think the talented potential employee should make the demands, you think that the business owner who puts up the money should get everything he wants. This is the key thing wrong with the slogan "To get a good job, get a good education"--that they have no rights to their command over employment. So from the perspective of someone with talent, who is the one who should be recruited for the job, my slogan would be directed at the employers, that it is their responsibility to get the best by paying them to study what the employers need. The employers create the value of the investment.

You started by claiming that college was an “obsolete aristocratic institution” that amounted to “Daddy buying you a job” and how it puts “inferior people in superior positions,” all of which I disagree with and was entirely unsupported. You went on to say that the “Diploma Dumboes” didn’t deserve their jobs, and that the diploma is no more valuable than a Communist Party membership card. None of these would change whether an employer was paying you to be in college or not; the same people would be learning the same things at the same institutions.

Obviously, we are not going to require employers to pay people to go to college in a free country. However, as I noted, there are employers who provide “paid professional training” already, of their own accord. Many will pay for post-graduate work and have education assistance policies for current employees. And frankly, I have no problem with the employee making the demands; if someone can demonstrate their superior talent to an employer and get them to pay for four years of education, my hat is off to them. I don’t think there would be a significant number of high school graduates who could make that case to an employer (on what history would it be based?), but there’s no reason that someone who could demonstrate superior talent shouldn’t be able to convince an employer to pay their way and pay them a salary as well. Of course, if an employer were to do that, they would expect a number of years of service after the education was obtained in order to realize the value of their investment. You wouldn’t consider such a post-graduate contract “indentured servitude”? Nothing in life is free; if you pay for your own education, you sell it to the highest bidder and go where you will; if someone else pays, they will expect services commensurate with that investment.

 

[PrometheusBound]

You hit on the main difference in our perspectives. I think the talented potential employee should make the demands, you think that the business owner who puts up the money should get everything he wants. This is the key thing wrong with the slogan "To get a good job, get a good education"--that they have no rights to their command over employment. So from the perspective of someone with talent, who is the one who should be recruited for the job, my slogan would be directed at the employers, that it is their responsibility to get the best by paying them to study what the employers need. The employers create the value of the investment.

You started by claiming that college was an “obsolete aristocratic institution” that amounted to “Daddy buying you a job” and how it puts “inferior people in superior positions,” all of which I disagree with and was entirely unsupported. You went on to say that the “Diploma Dumboes” didn’t deserve their jobs, and that the diploma is no more valuable than a Communist Party membership card. None of these would change whether an employer was paying you to be in college or not; the same people would be learning the same things at the same institutions.

Obviously, we are not going to require employers to pay people to go to college in a free country. However, as I noted, there are employers who provide “paid professional training” already, of their own accord. Many will pay for post-graduate work and have education assistance policies for current employees. And frankly, I have no problem with the employee making the demands; if someone can demonstrate their superior talent to an employer and get them to pay for four years of education, my hat is off to them. I don’t think there would be a significant number of high school graduates who could make that case to an employer (on what history would it be based?), but there’s no reason that someone who could demonstrate superior talent shouldn’t be able to convince an employer to pay their way and pay them a salary as well. Of course, if an employer were to do that, they would expect a number of years of service after the education was obtained in order to realize the value of their investment. You wouldn’t consider such a post-graduate contract “indentured servitude”? Nothing in life is free; if you pay for your own education, you sell it to the highest bidder and go where you will; if someone else pays, they will expect services commensurate with that investment.

Obviously, you disagree because you believe "What is, is right." I believe that we should apply Right Wing ideas about incentive to the students; such ideas are not the monopoly of the rich and powerful. If we paid people to go to college, everybody would look forward to it and automatically we'd get the most talented, so 50% of today's graduates wouldn't even get accepted to start college.
Also, I don't believe this Utopian idea that the employers know what is best for the economy, and if treating scholars the way we treat athletes would create the most productive economy, then they would be doing that already. The corpies are the ones who should be told that "nothing in life is free." If we don't pay people to go to college, we get what we pay for.