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According to Molly Worthen's article in The New York Times, The Misguided Drive to Measure 'Learning Outcomes':
"[...] In 2018, more and more university administrators want campuswide, quantifiable data that reveal what skills students are learning. Their desire has fed a bureaucratic behemoth known as learning outcomes assessment. This elaborate, expensive, supposedly data-driven analysis seeks to translate the subtleties of the classroom into PowerPoint slides packed with statistics — in the hope of deflecting the charge that students pay too much for degrees that mean too little. [...]"
But apparently, there is little to show for tons of money and effort expended to gather data on what students are really learning or adapting curricula to their actual needs.
Mr. Erik Gilbert, a professor of history at Arkansas State University, who has criticized the methods, said to the author: 'Maybe all your students have full-time jobs, but that's something you can't fix, even though that's really the core problem. Instead, you're expected to find some small problem, like students don't understand historical chronology, so you might add a reading to address that. You're supposed to make something up every semester, then write up a narrative.'
As Frank Furedi, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, told the author about the situation in Britain: 'It's a bit like the old Soviet Union. You speak two languages. You do a performance for the sake of the auditors, but in reality, you carry on.'
As the author puts it: 'If we describe college courses as mainly delivery mechanisms for skills to please a future employer [...] We end up using the language of the capitalist marketplace and speak to our students as customers rather than fellow thinkers. They deserve better. [...] Producing thoughtful, talented graduates is not a matter of focusing on market-ready skills. It's about giving students an opportunity that most of them will never have again in their lives: the chance for serious exploration of complicated intellectual problems, the gift of time in an institution where curiosity and discovery are the source of meaning.'
A lengthy read, but worthwhile. Are we preparing current students better than in the past or are we simply siphoning money out of them? Yesteryear, a degree was a sure bet to a better life, nowadays, it doesn't mean as much. Are the education methods lacking or is the surplus of graduates to blame for useless degrees?
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:44PM (6 children)
Well, I'll join in a chorus to complain about inflated college costs and college loans handed out like candy that put young people in a mountain of debt.
But "it doesn't mean as much" nowadays to have a degree, and "useless degrees"? I'd suggest the writer of the summary take some time and look up stats. Even in recent years, the median salary of someone with a bachelor's degree tends to be about 60% higher than people with only a high school diploma. The unemployment rate for those with bachelor's degrees tends to be about half that of those with high school diplomas. Even for those supposedly "useless" humanities degrees, salaries tend to be about 40% higher on average than those with high school diplomas, and unemployment again tends to be significantly lower than those without any college.
So, no, degrees aren't "useless" and they do mean something. Young people these days may have a bit of a harder time finding good entry-level positions, and if they chose poorly and took on massive student loan debt, that can be a serious problem. BUT, they do have a significantly better chance of getting hired than someone without a college degree, and on average they command significantly higher salaries.
(I say all this with the caveat that I think it's ridiculous that employers expect college degrees for lots of things that traditionally didn't require them. And it's ridiculous that we're pushing ever more and more students to go to college. But that doesn't mean college is worthless...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:12AM (1 child)
Return on investment is a thing too. You can get degrees of the same name from a state school and an ivy league school. The state degree will get paid off sooner because the debt is less. The Ivy league degree better come up with a good patent in their spare time to collect royalties on. It costs way more for a prestigious degree but the salary increase is not proportional to the increase in degree cost.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 02 2018, @03:50AM
Your math doesn't really add up.
A degree from an Ivy League school almost guarantees a six digit salary upon graduation. A degree from a state school carries no such guarantee. Not because the state school degree is worth less, but because the networking at an Ivy League is superior.
If you sat in class with twelve rednecks from backwater Georgia, and twelve inner city black kids, how do you compete with someone who sat in class with the sons and daughters of people with names spoken in half the homes in America?
Maybe the Ivy League schools are under-charging for their degrees, and state schools are over charging. Networking, man, networking.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday March 02 2018, @01:22AM (1 child)
Perhaps my comment was not properly worded because I meant exactly what you wrote: there are jobs that now require a college degree that used to be done by less educated people and yes, we should not be pushing people to college when they might not have the wherewithal (i.e. crippling student loans) or the talent to make the education really pay.
Now, compare the income of a competent plumber, electrician or welder and it is easy to realize that other sorts of education can be as rewarding as a college degree. Of course, mom and dad will be very proud darling was the first in the family to get a college education, but enjoying a better standard of living is best.
And no, I don’t think a college education is worthless. I hold two degrees (one in engineering and one in law) but my experience interviewing candidates tells me many of them wasted their time and money getting a degree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:14AM
The problem is that you can't assume that someone who did go to college is more educated than someone who didn't. Plenty of autodidacts exist, and it is easier than ever in the 21st century to self-educate. Additionally, there are countless colleges that offer an abysmal level of education, so a graduate might not have received a real education in the first place. This reminds me of how people without high school diplomas are often thought of as being necessarily uneducated, even though it's not an impressive accomplish to graduate from a high school because a trained monkey could do so. What this really demonstrates is that our society does not value education at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:06AM
They hand out degrees like candy to people who can't even write FizzBuzz programs and the schools rely massively on a rote memorization approach to learning. However, that just means the education is lacking, not that the degrees are useless. Indeed, the degrees are useful for getting around HR subhumans who demand that you have a degree even when one should not be required, proving that they don't care about the candidate's actual education at all. In other words, degrees are useful in a society that relies on credentialism so heavily. And, naturally, in a society plagued with credentialism, it isn't surprising that people with credentials automatically earn more money regardless of their actual skills; that, too, is part of the discrimination.
Of course, shoveling so many members of the hopelessly idiotic general public into colleges and universities will likely cause educational standards to drop even further, but since society doesn't care about education anyway, it doesn't matter.
Yes, this is what society primarily cares about: Money. I wonder why our 'education' system is such a disaster?
Well, you can't expect employers (or worse: HR drones) to actually evaluate candidates, now can you? Please. Schooling is the only way to attain an education.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday March 02 2018, @05:16PM
"We need more women in STEM fields," hissed the green-haired Gender Studies major as she poured my coffee.