(08-07-2016 11:11 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  It all comes back to the notion of a college education being the means to a successful career, not education for its own sake.

Why can't/shouldn't it be both?

Depends on the degree, and it depends on the definition of success.

(08-07-2016 11:29 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 11:25 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 08:08 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

I should not have used the term frivolous, but when education puts a 21 year old $200K in debt, it's something the student should enter into with eyes wide open instead of being sold a fairy tale. That was my original point, that my concern is colleges have sold an entire generation on fairy tales to generate the $1.2 T in student debt, most of which happened within the last 20 years.

The fairy tale is that a diploma - any diploma - guarantees a good career. Believing that, students with a lack of will or aptitude choose majors that are truly frivolous, just to get the piece of paper, and too many universities happily take their money. There's nothing frivolous about a history degree from a university with a well-regarded history program, but it's easier to get an area studies degree cobbled together from survey-level history and social sciences courses. That, coupled with open disparagement of those who pursue a trade or craft as having settled for a menial profession, leads to kids working at Starbucks to pay off a huge debt because they're too proud - or ashamed - to make six figures as a plumber.

It all comes back to the notion of a college education being the means to a successful career, not education for its own sake.

There are many people who are plumbers, HVAC professionals, electricians etc... who end up having much more stable and satisfying 'careers' and make a lot more than many college grads these days--without all the debt. I understand good welders are very difficult to find these days.

I know a guy who dropped out of university to start a valet parking business and his parents went crazy--until he bought them a house in cash after he'd expanded his business and made several million. Or guys who start in construction in the summers and go on to be builders.

My point is, college is great and valuable experience but in no way the only means to success in this country. I agree that rationally evaluating whether that specific degree will actually lead to reasonable job and factoring inn the level of debt one incurs in order to get that degree is something many do not do. You don't hear about co-op students very much these days either.

One huge problem is that because of massive increases in the number and amounts of Government loans and grants available, many act as is college is free or near free. Now we have people running for high office promising to make this so. If the government stopped artificially inflating and subsidizing college costs, most colleges and universities would have to drop their prices back down to reasonably affordable levels without putting many students in massive debt to start their after-college work careers, if they can even get a job. A few of the traditionally elite colleges, Rice being one, might well have higher costs and keep them there, as there would always be competition for the best and the brightest, so supply and demand would allow them to continue to charge more, but even they would probably drop prices some if the artificial government interference was dropped.

The quote in the OP about wealthy alumni who are fed up with the level of SJW indoctrination and are reducing or eliminating giving to their schools points to this idea. When students who freely agree to take loans and incur massive debt to get degrees in subjects that in few ways allow them to pay those debts back, then on top of it when they outright demand those debts be just wiped away with no consequences for their decision, because "it should be free," well, Houston we have a problem.

This is the fundamental problem with the viewpoint that governement should just pay for everything instead of allowing individual responsibility and a merit-based system.

Watch Neil Cavuto embarrass this naive SJW who has zero idea of what reality is in a recent interview:

Exactly.

Don't hate this guy because he's of Indian descent. Don't ignore what he is saying because he might not look like you. Don't not watch through to the end of the video to examine his points and get perhaps a different perspective because this guy is exercising his right to freedom of speech, though you may disagree with him. This is at Amhurst. How much commonality would there be at Rice?

I was thinking maybe this would be better placed in the Quad. But once a D'Souza video gets linked, there's no question.

To the extent some Rice alumni might be reducing or withholding donations/financial support for the University due to some of the issues in the OP and this thread, it also may well relate to the extent of or lack of financial support for Rice's athletics programs, which also represent the University.

More importantly, to the extent that inflated and artificial government subsidies, support and/or loans may skew the college landscape against smaller schools like Rice instead of a more merit-based (and it might be said, athletic competition-like) model or system, it impacts Rice's ability to compete on the athletic fields of play at the highest level the same way it seeks to academically (i.e. greater govt subsidies and loan availability to our larger competitor institutions allows for more student fees to be charged giving them even more money available for their sports teams and facilities, stadiums, cost-of attendance, etc... which makes it that much harder for Rice's sports teams to compete on the fields of play.)

I am not one who does not believe that the University's academic and athletic worlds are mostly unrelated. I am of the opinion they are more closely tied than might at first be construed, and especially am open to the idea that issues like in this thread that relate to the University overall, affect the level of athletics support and athletics success in one way or another.

For those who wish to increase the support level and success of Rice's sports teams, we do better to examine all aspects of things that may encourage or preclude expanding our participation and funding levels levels, including areas like in the topics covered in this thread, and not banishing them off to relatively forgotten place patronized by even fewer.

Athletics is the major way many alumns of schools maintain contact and interest in their institutions. That is one reason I have always maintained that Div I athletics competition and success is in my opinion vital to Rice's standing as a University and adherence to its historical place in American educational history.

I understand some might disagree, as is their privilege, but let's at least be open to allowing a discussion related to it to continue where the most people may easily see it and choose whether or not to participate, no matter who is quoted.

By the way, do you have a response or opinion about the actual ideas expressed in the two videos, or did you merely pre-judge them by the labels that you saw?

In terms of securing a job after college (for those that did not want to go to graduate school righter after undergrad), the biggest barricade to students (at Rice at least) that are studying humanities-type degrees (and even STEM degrees as well) is themselves. As a student, I volunteered in the career center at Rice reviewing resumes and it was astonishing to see how many people, across a variety of majors, had reached their senior year and had no idea how to craft a solid resume and also had no relevant experience in the field in which they professed they wanted to work in after graduation. A few of my most brilliant friends (science majors) at Rice are the ones that have struggled the most to figure out how to support themselves financially after college, all because they did not seek out internships, do research, or whatever else to actually prepare for life after Rice. I have friends who were history majors in college, all of which are employed in fields that have nothing to do with history. But they studied history because they wanted to get an education in history, while also doing internships or research that relate to the fields in which they work today. They also had backup plans in case their plan after college did not work out. Rice is a great brand for getting your name in the door, but I'd rather hire a kid from a less renowned school who actually worked hard outside of the classroom to attain relevant experience to the job.

In recent years, Rice has done a better job of getting students smarter about preparing for life after Rice (increased career education, internship opportunities, etc.), but career preparedness should be ingrained in Rice students from O-week on. Rice would do well to require students to take classes on interview techniques (interview etiquette, conversational technique and practice interviews geared towards certain industries (such as consulting, which has a particular interview style)), attend seminars on different industries to gain a sense of what type of internship or research experience that certain jobs require, and ensure all students have solid resume writing skills and job search skills. Gone are the days where you could work a minimum wage job during college summers and expect to be okay when it comes to finding a job, so it's important that freshmen and sophomores are well prepared to enter the real world in a few short years.

My daughter graduates this week from Texas Tech. In Hospitality.
The first thing she was told when she started the program was...Get a job. In Hospitality. Obviously part time.
The degree required 1600 hours of work experience in the industry. Plus an internship.
Everybody in her class had multiple job offers.

Hospitality is not in the same universe as STEM degrees. But it illustrates the point that work experience and internships in your chosen field is crucial to getting a good job. In anything.

(08-07-2016 04:11 PM)greyowl72 Wrote:  My daughter graduates this week from Texas Tech. In Hospitality.
The first thing she was told when she started the program was...Get a job. In Hospitality. Obviously part time.
The degree required 1600 hours of work experience in the industry. Plus an internship.
Everybody in her class had multiple job offers.

Hospitality is not in the same universe as STEM degrees. But it illustrates the point that work experience and internships in your chosen field is crucial to getting a good job. In anything.

Yep, exactly. Rice should aim to do the same thing on a university level (and, where applicable, a major level). It reflects poorly on Rice (or any school) when you have people graduating that have no idea what they want to do in their immediate year(s) after college. No one is going to give you a job over a UT/A&M person just because you went to Rice, which is literally what one of my friends believed. Every major develops a certain set of skills that are useful in some real-world capacity, but it's up to the student and school to help accentuate those attributes to employers.

*Sigh*

(08-07-2016 11:44 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 08:08 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

I should not have used the term frivolous, but when education puts a 21 year old $200K in debt, it's something the student should enter into with eyes wide open instead of being sold a fairy tale. That was my original point, that my concern is colleges have sold an entire generation on fairy tales to generate the $1.2 T in student debt, most of which happened within the last 20 years.

The fairy tale is that a diploma - any diploma - guarantees a good career. Believing that, students with a lack of will or aptitude choose majors that are truly frivolous, just to get the piece of paper, and too many universities happily take their money. There's nothing frivolous about a history degree from a university with a well-regarded history program, but it's easier to get an area studies degree cobbled together from survey-level history and social sciences courses. That, coupled with open disparagement of those who pursue a trade or craft as having settled for a menial profession, leads to kids working at Starbucks to pay off a huge debt because they're too proud - or ashamed - to make six figures as a plumber.

I agree 100% with everything you said in this paragraph. Though in your last sentence, it may be partly ignorance and not pride, because unless you grew up in a working class family, there's probably no exposure to how to pursue a trade career. Of course, hiding the information about trade careers comes with the disparagement.

You're close to hitting on the one I think is missing in the analysis of this situation. That is the fact that, from a very young age, most people in college today were told, over and over again, that if they went to college they would get a career and a good job once they graduate, without mentioning the utility of their major. That idea was ingrained in my generation's conscious to such a degree that a lot of us listened. Oddly enough now, most of those people who did the ingraining are complaining about how everyone is going to college these days, some students are majoring in worthless fields once there, and student loan debt is just piling up. It's almost like everyone listened to the Boomers and the following generations that raised us, and took their advice about how obtaining a college degree guaranteed a successful career if you worked hard at school. Funny how that works.

If the narrative had been that the most important thing to do after high school was to learn a skill - be that through a university or a trade school - I truly believe that you would see more people going into trades and you would see more people choosing low priced state universities. However, that's not what happened. Instead, for a few decades the general narrative has been that you need to go to college to have a good life and live the American Dream and that attending a university is so important that you need to take out $100k+ in loans if necessary. It's not like these "useless" majors are new. What's new is that the world is no longer the same as it was in the '60s-'90s where high paying jobs were plentiful and you could actually put a dent in your tuition with a minimum wage job. Society has been slow to adjust to a rapidly changing world. But you will definitely see more people in my generation discussing the utility of education with their children and being mindful of what they can do with their degree, as well as discussing developing a trade as a potential path forward.

(08-07-2016 02:22 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  By the way, do you have a response or opinion about the actual ideas expressed in the two videos, or did you merely pre-judge them by the labels that you saw?

Actually, it appears a good conversation is going on without reference to that video, but I suppose I should respond.

I am not prejudging the validity of the content of the videos. Believe it or not, I share concerns of this sort. But D'Souza is an intensely political figure. Maybe a discussion of the implications for university giving, alumni relations, quality of education, and athletics could be carried out in his absence. But that's just my opinion, which counts for exactly nothing.

I remember comparing classes with friends who attended other schools... and the overwhelming realization I came to was that Rice taught me how to think, not what to think. Far fewer 'answers' and far more 'questions'.

I hope that hasn't changed

When I debate with some posters on other forums, I often find that they have some 'fact' they've learned and everything stems from that... and rarely do they question the facts that they've memorized. Of course, sometimes this is willful... by all of us... but far too often it simply seems that they were never taught to ask the follow-up question.

(08-07-2016 04:51 PM)S.A. Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 02:22 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  By the way, do you have a response or opinion about the actual ideas expressed in the two videos, or did you merely pre-judge them by the labels that you saw?

Actually, it appears a good conversation is going on without reference to that video, but I suppose I should respond.

I am not prejudging the validity of the content of the videos. Believe it or not, I share concerns of this sort. But D'Souza is an intensely political figure. Maybe a discussion of the implications for university giving, alumni relations, quality of education, and athletics could be carried out in his absence. But that's just my opinion, which counts for exactly nothing.

Fair enough, thanks. Yes, he is to some, but the discussion itself has been politicized nationally. I still think he makes valid discussion points in that video, and exposes what I perceive to be some flawed logic that leads to increased demand for govt spending in these areas. And it is the increased govt spending in these ways that I feel further hurts Rice's competitiveness on the athletic fields vs our peers in things like the fees availability aspect. Removing these artificial infusions might help level the playing field for Rice vs the ESUs which we are by and large at a disadvantage competing with already.

The demand for "progressive" values on campus that the article speaks to, plays into the videos posted which I believe directly harms Rice's ability to compete on the field. It appears hard already to garner significant increased support among alumns for our sports programs (but I believe not impossible). Although we have many successful alumns, often the ones with the most wealth tend to skew more moderate-to-conservative, and often might not already be big sports fans to begin with at our school.

My experience on campus was that Rice was not nearly as centrist as I would have expected a university to be (perhaps naively at the time), especially one that touted success and was at the time cited as such a great value financially vs the Ivies. Although this might well have changed, when I read articles like the one in the OP, it brings those perceptions back, and I wonder if there is an effect on overall, and a related effect on athletic giving for the sports brand among our most wealthy alums as the article pointed to.

My feeling is we do well to be sure our wealthiest alumns, the ones who are most in a position to help transform our athletics program financially through their voluntary gifts and support of Rice athletics, are comfortable with the University's direction as a whole and do not have or perceive some of the issues in this thread to be additional obstacles to their increased giving and support.

Supporting athletics supports the Rice brand overall. While I would never require or mandate their support or giving, I would want to make sure they were as open to voluntarily doing so as possible and as their individual situations would allow. I don't feel more government intervention helps Rice, its students or alumns enough to offset the harm I perceive it does versus having less intervention and more freedom and individual responsibility and a more level playing field in college sports overall. After all, all the scholarship athletes trade their playing for their education. The same cannot be said to the same extent at a lot of the schools we compete with. No need to make it any easier for them and harder for us to succeed than it already is.

While I am far from a fan of Fox "News", this issue is one that drives me crazy. In 34 years, tuition/room/board where I went to college has increased by a factor of 10-nothing in our world has done this. There is something really really wrong with this. I suspect Rice has increased at a higher factor as it used to be considered to be a bargain compared to the Ivies, Stanford, et al.

College degrees in the softer majors in a different time and era were not pursued by working and middle class.

When I dropped off my son for his first year at college, a number of professors talked at an assembly and one introduced himself as a the worldwide expert on Bob Dylan and all I could think we are paying a ridiculous amount of money so this bozo can pursue his hobby.

I really struggle with the demands that the public at large pay for students pursuing worthless degrees and forgive all debts. Sadly, a lot of the for-profit "colleges" are more than happy to help students get loans, then drop out. But I think it is just as bad everywhere else. The real scandal in all of this is the universities themselves, who spend millions on "admissions", many of which are happy to take your application, but have no intention of admitting so that they can lower their acceptance rate and look more prestigious.

But speaking of millions, where is all this money being spent? If I was dictator of the world, I would require every school on the front page of their website to publish:

Revenues (yes Revenues) from Full Time Students, number of full time students
Revenues from part time students and number of hours taken by these
Donations
Funds received from Government Sources
Revenue from athletics
Other revenues

Expenditures:
Salaries for full time employees >100,000 and number of these (other than admissions)
Salaries for remaining employees and number (other than admissions)
Salaries to individual independent contractors
Expenses in various categories
-Admissions
-Athletics
-Fund Raising
-Utilities
-other categories

In this fashion, it will be clear to all on what they are spending all this money on as there is absolutely no transparency.

After spending large sums on tuition, etc., the most appalling thing is for the colleges call you to donate as a parent.

ok-rant is over-I feel better, just a bit.

I would argue that there is an inverse correlation between # of SJWs in the student body and athletic attendance, FWIW.

(08-07-2016 03:43 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  ...

As a student, I volunteered in the career center at Rice reviewing resumes and it was astonishing to see how many people, across a variety of majors, had reached their senior year and had no idea how to craft a solid resume and also had no relevant experience in the field in which they professed they wanted to work in after graduation. A few of my most brilliant friends (science majors) at Rice are the ones that have struggled the most to figure out how to support themselves financially after college, all because they did not seek out internships, do research, or whatever else to actually prepare for life after Rice. ...

In recent years, Rice has done a better job of getting students smarter about preparing for life after Rice (increased career education, internship opportunities, etc.), but career preparedness should be ingrained in Rice students from O-week on. Rice would do well to require students to take classes on interview techniques (interview etiquette, conversational technique and practice interviews geared towards certain industries (such as consulting, which has a particular interview style)), attend seminars on different industries to gain a sense of what type of internship or research experience that certain jobs require, and ensure all students have solid resume writing skills and job search skills. Gone are the days where you could work a minimum wage job during college summers and expect to be okay when it comes to finding a job, so it's important that freshmen and sophomores are well prepared to enter the real world in a few short years.

All entering freshmen at my son's college (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) are required to take in their first quarter the school's "College and Life Skills" class, which covers what you suggested (in bold). Each student must create a resume and LinkedIn page ... and they learn interview techniques etc.

The school has a very active Career Center and each year hosts three well-attended career fairs (one each quarter). Virtually every graduate has a job (or graduate school) lined up by the time they graduate.

Of course, it helps that Rose is a STEM school, but preparing and helping students to get internships and jobs is simply part of its culture.

Can someone move this thread where it belongs

Way too much encouragement of way too many people to attend college and incur too much debt to do so.

A college degree is not a free pass to a comfortable life, but it is often billed as the key to upward mobility.

When my eldest grandson decided to forego college to pursue plumbing, a skill he learned working summers with his other grandfather, I thought it a good decision. If only he had stuck with it. Six years later, he is a career burger-pusher, a Bernie supporter, and a fan of the $15 minimum wage. But he has no debt.

(08-08-2016 10:30 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Way too much encouragement of way too many people to attend college and incur too much debt to do so.

A college degree is not a free pass to a comfortable life, but it is often billed as the key to upward mobility.

When my eldest grandson decided to forego college to pursue plumbing, a skill he learned working summers with his other grandfather, I thought it a good decision. If only he had stuck with it. Six years later, he is a career burger-pusher, a Bernie supporter, and a fan of the $15 minimum wage. But he has no debt.

I mentioned this in my post. It has pretty much been billed, for the last 20 or 30 years as the key to a comfortable life and a good job. Pretty much everyone has said for years that you if you go to college and get a degree that you'll get a good job out of college, and that if you don't get a degree you won't.

There was no nuance in that mindset, which is why you see so many people ponying up so much for a degree and incurring so much debt. The world changed but the narrative of how to navigate the world has been slow to catch up.

The future for burger-pushers is get to be a manager and rise up the ranks. It is nice to have a plumber when the drain stops up.

College has been oversold. Only a minority of the population has the ability and desire to do anything involving a four year degree. Now there are too many junk majors such as (Fill-in-the Blank Studies). The liberal arts and social "sciences" now go too much for what is trendy instead of teaching the more important parts of their subject.

(08-08-2016 11:52 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(08-08-2016 10:30 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Way too much encouragement of way too many people to attend college and incur too much debt to do so.

A college degree is not a free pass to a comfortable life, but it is often billed as the key to upward mobility.

When my eldest grandson decided to forego college to pursue plumbing, a skill he learned working summers with his other grandfather, I thought it a good decision. If only he had stuck with it. Six years later, he is a career burger-pusher, a Bernie supporter, and a fan of the $15 minimum wage. But he has no debt.

I mentioned this in my post. It has pretty much been billed, for the last 20 or 30 years as the key to a comfortable life and a good job. Pretty much everyone has said for years that you if you go to college and get a degree that you'll get a good job out of college, and that if you don't get a degree you won't.

There was no nuance in that mindset, which is why you see so many people ponying up so much for a degree and incurring so much debt. The world changed but the narrative of how to navigate the world has been slow to catch up.