Future of Division III

Started by Ralph Turner, October 10, 2005, 07:27:51 PM

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Ralph Turner

Morris Brown, the HBC founded in 1881, declared bankruptcy last year.  I wonder if that is the one that they meant.

pumkinattack

Even if that were the case, does that support the idea of financial failure since he head of the school was found guilty of defrauding the federal government that caused them to lose accreditation in 2003?

Again, I worry that conflating specific cases which are very unique situations and not just a result of a broader macroeconomic decline in the valuation of college degrees doesn't advance what should be a real discussion about the value of just getting any college education vs. taking up a trade.  This seems really important right now as the government is discussing further subsidizing college education.  Some in congress, including Elizabeth Warren, are proposing dropping the DOE lending rate to 75bps after they've already taken third party lenders primarily out of the game.  There really needs to be a serious discussion about subsidizing this (like housing and agriculture) and I don't see either of these examples helping advance that conversation.

mattvsmith

It's really pretty simple. Any time there is easy money there will be gross malinvestment. The easier the money the worse the malinvestment will be. Hence, the GI Bill encourages schools to offer garbage degrees from joke schools like Univeristybof Phoenix, Walden, Cappella, etc. but in government service, whether military or GS a degree, any degree from any crap school is treated the same as a degree from Harvard. It's a tick box and points are credited.
Easy money also goes to schools in form of subsidies to let substandard students in. If you let in a quota of this target group, we'll dump money into your school.
Then there is the individual loan racket which gives the false statistic about students who go to university earn $1 million more over a life time than non-graduates. It's the same kind of unsophisticated blatent lie that department of labor uses when it says men are paid more than women. Anyway, easy money for school makes a student try a program he or she wouldn't have tried had money been tight. Worse yet, by passing out easy money to substandard students to attend substandard schools, they must create substandard majors so that these students can hide the fact that they are dumber than the wet paper bag they can't think their way out of. I'm thinking specifically of majors like Wymyn's Studies, American Studies, Film Studies, GLBTQIHIJKLMNOP Studies, and so on. A straight A in Afro-Chicano-AsianPacificIsander-Queer Studies? Great. I'll take the dude with a C in Mathematics because he is obviously not a navel gazing nitwit.
If the Rev were in charge, I'd blow up the whole education system. It is geared to turn middle and lower class students into a permanent under class of faux-educated debt slaves who think 30k in a cubicle is freedom and status.
I should have become a mechanic.

NCF

#2073
Quote from: Rt Rev J.H. Hobart on June 29, 2013, 11:29:48 PM
It's really pretty simple. Any time there is easy money there will be gross malinvestment. The easier the money the worse the malinvestment will be. Hence, the GI Bill encourages schools to offer garbage degrees from joke schools like Univeristybof Phoenix, Walden, Cappella, etc. but in government service, whether military or GS a degree, any degree from any crap school is treated the same as a degree from Harvard. It's a tick box and points are credited.
Easy money also goes to schools in form of subsidies to let substandard students in. If you let in a quota of this target group, we'll dump money into your school.
Then there is the individual loan racket which gives the false statistic about students who go to university earn $1 million more over a life time than non-graduates. It's the same kind of unsophisticated blatent lie that department of labor uses when it says men are paid more than women. Anyway, easy money for school makes a student try a program he or she wouldn't have tried had money been tight. Worse yet, by passing out easy money to substandard students to attend substandard schools, they must create substandard majors so that these students can hide the fact that they are dumber than the wet paper bag they can't think their way out of. I'm thinking specifically of majors like Wymyn's Studies, American Studies, Film Studies, GLBTQIHIJKLMNOP Studies, and so on. A straight A in Afro-Chicano-AsianPacificIsander-Queer Studies? Great. I'll take the dude with a C in Mathematics because he is obviously not a navel gazing nitwit.
If the Rev were in charge, I'd blow up the whole education system. It is geared to turn middle and lower class students into a permanent under class of faux-educated debt slaves who think 30k in a cubicle is freedom and status.
I should have become a mechanic.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this post. I happened to hear  Bill Bennett on Friday talking about this subject (he has a new book out called "Is College Worth It?") and he said pretty much everything you did. K+
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smedindy

#2074
Rev,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I was with you  on for profit schools, but then you lost me:

A. Your inclusion of a contentious political point threw me off because I happen to BELIEVE in those stats and figures and numbers regarding women's pay - since I have two daughters it's especially vital and important to me. To bat it down without stats and citations to pass it off is disingenuous and smacks of lazy cable news or talk radio punditry.

B. Those 'majors' teach people how to learn, if taught properly. There are too many nitwits thinking that business or pre-law is the way to go. I'd rather have someone with a non-conventional major than a cookie cutter in a clock punch major. Give me MORE liberal arts, not less. More navel gazing if it results in teaching people how to learn, think and explore for the rest of their life. It's not about $$$, it's about getting the most out of life and understanding what it important and how you can contribute to society.

C. Please don't denigrate or slam things like 'women's studies' - gender and culture and racial studies are important because we need to understand who we are, where we came from and what happened in the past to those groups so we know where we are going in the future. Those majors are NOT substandard - they can be misunderstood and misconstrued by knuckle draggers who want to keep minorities, women and those who are different in the shadows and those who REFUSE to learn about other cultures, traditions and ideologies.

D. Not every college has an ivory tower mission - in fact the most important colleges and universities are those who take the 'substandard' student and turns them into gems. My alma mater has a rich tradition of taking someone who may not look good on paper and turning them into stars. What's wrong with allowing those who haven't had the exposure to good teaching, haven't had the chance to excel for whatever reason TO excel AND shine by giving them a chance at a higher education. The goal is to allow those students a chance to escape drudgery and unlock their potential, by teaching them how to learn and think.

E. Is college worth it? Learning, however you call it, is always worth it, because life isn't measured in dollars and cents.

mattvsmith

Smed,

The Dept of Labor aggregates all men and all women with no consideration for part-time versus full-time, hours worked per week, age, location, etc.

In 147 out of 150 cities in the USA, single women earn about 120% of what men in their partner demographic earn.

So don't believe the Labor stats. They are false, as are the ads that claim college graduates out earn non college grads by $1 million over a life time. It fails to account for the cost of student loan payback, among other things. This is so rudimentary that the clown who invented the lie would have failed AP stats and a freshman accounting course. The person who approved that should have false advertising and fraud charges brought against him or her. It's a racket. It's a legal three-card Monty to suck in the unsuspecting.

Colleges, especially ones like my alba mater, make millions (non-profit, of course!) by delivering subjects that don't deserve three hours let alone a major.


Even now the "STEM" fields are being ruined by easy money. Uncle Sugey is dumping money into STEM because they say we need more engineers, etc. It's just not true and it will create a glut in the labor market, causing a drop in real salaries. So kids will go into it hearing that the starting salary for a civil engineer is $60K when the starting salary for an English major is whatever Starbucks pays. They will naturally be attracted to engineering for the money. They won't be able to hack the coursework. So they will either drop out, or be coddled so they can limp or be carried to graduation, then they will discover that the starting salary of $60k is actually an average from 2010, but it's now 2016 and in this area civil engineers start at $40K. If they actually tried to figure a return on invesent (which they didn't because they don't even know what an ROI is) they will realize that their reality simply cannot match the bill of goods they were sold by some "well-meaning" counsellor freshman year.

Forgive any typos. I'm on an iPhone and it's hard to type as to see on this tiny screen. I have to go anyway. I teach merchant marine cadets--a STEM major! Mercifully I teach in Korea where the insanity of US colleges hasn't infected us (yet).

I stand by every thing in this and my prior post, especially about victim-status Studies majors. I was surrounded by it at Hobart, a school in keen competition for the most expensive substandard education propped up by an historically significant name.

Mr. Ypsi

Rev, I generally heartily approve of your posts, but must take issue with (parts) of your latest diatribes.  I agree with smed that the #1 benefit of college is teaching how to learn and think (NOT the 'think' of parroting profs, but the thinking on one's own).  ANY major CAN do this; ANY prof can destroy this.

BLS stats are actually remarkably accurate - what one does with them is fraught with dangers.  As you yourself point out, they DO break down categories in ways that need not be misleading.  In most cases it is the users of BLS stats (especially TV and radio pundits) who are misleading.

(My older son had a social statistics prof at EMU who was SO bad, I nearly came out of retirement just to spare the world from him.  I could not have passed his tests, and I wrote the text he was using!  The key variable is not the university, the course, or non-profit/profit; it is the instructor.  ANY course in ANY subject can be a life changing experience or a total waste of money.)

I had other points to make, but I am old and it is late - I forget what they were.

If you were as bad as this diatribe sometimes makes you sound, I'd agree you should have been a mechanic.  But I suspect you are actually a very good teacher.

Pat Coleman

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on July 02, 2013, 11:32:49 PM
I had other points to make, but I am old and it is late - I forget what they were.

+1 -- sorry, this made me laugh. Thanks for fighting the good fight, Professor. :)
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Knightstalker

I kind of agree with the Rev, I should have stayed in a Machine Shop or put my 20 in in the Navy, but I would probably still be looking for real full time work at this point of my life even if I had done that.  I just would have had a better nest egg to fall back on because I would have made a lot more working as a machinist than as an IT worker and the years I wasted in college would have been years I was earning money instead of going into debt.  College was basically a waste of time and money to me, the only good thing that came from my college years is meeting my wife and some good friends.

A Bachelors Degree is now what a HS diploma was in 1980 when I graduated HS.  I know people do not agree with me on this but I feel that it is true and from my own experience it is true.  Back when I graduated HS if I had not joined the Navy I would have been competing with everyone else with HS diplomas for those bank teller, supermarket or store clerks, construction and landscaping jobs etc.  I am now competing with college graduates for those same jobs.

I know too many people I grew up with who have advanced degrees in fields like engineering, computer science, education etc who are now working in places like Wal-Mart, Target, Shop Rite and other stores because they are over 50 and over qualified to work in their fields.  (too old and want too much money)  This problem also goes across the spectrum and is hitting people who are highly experienced tradesmen.  One is a tool maker with over 40 years experience, 20 of them teaching in tech schools.  He is now working for about 35K per year as a machine tool operator in a production line.  He can't find a teaching job, which he loves to do and is great at, (I know because he was my teacher when I was learning how to be a machinist.) because tech schools teaching shop have closed or eliminated the programs and HS and VoTech HS have cut programs.  It appears that Vo-Tech high schools have been pushing nursing programs and IT and scaling back on building trades, Machine Shop, Plumbing and Electrical Trades.  This is a problem.  We need to keep educating our youth in these trades or we will lose them.  If you think mechanics, plumbers and electricians charge a lot now, wait until the current generation retires and we have a lot less of these workers around.

We have people in higher education telling us where the next big hiring surge in going to be.  The Rev pointed out civil engineers as a example.  The one I can think of is starting in the 80's and continuing to now is teaching.  They have been pushing people to go into teaching for years now and we are still not getting the best teachers for our kids.  I am not putting down teachers and teaching, it is an honorable profession but too many go into it for the wrong reasons and we do a horrible job in this country overall in identifying the best and brightest teachers, by this I mean the natural born teachers who teach every-time they open their mouth whether they mean to or not.  My fathers uncle and my brother come to mind with this.  My fathers uncle was a professor at Farmingdale State in NY for decades.  My brother should have been a teacher but no one from HS on ever really pointed him in that direction.  Our other brother did become a teacher which he quickly realized was not for him although everyone told him he should be a teacher, he could not teach because he just did not know how to get his point across.  He became an accountant which fit his mind and personality.  I think both of my brothers were failed early on by the people who were supposed to be qualified to help them.  They and I, like every other teenager did not listen to our parents because parents are stupid when you are 17 and others are not. 

As far as college teaching me critical thinking and just how to think, I was taught this in Elementary school and Jr. High School and it was reinforced by the teachers in High School.  Kids should know how to critically think by the time they graduate HS, not learning after like they do now.  I know I am one of the last of the Dinosaurs, (as my daughter and wife have pointed out to me), but I feel that we need to do away with all the so called experts out there with their PhD' and their EdD' and their new age thinking and approach to education and go back to the basics of the 3 R's Readin, Ritin and Rithmatic.  Lets stop making the school day shorter and classes shorter and stop with the everybody participates and gets a trophy approach to life and start rewarding hard work and excellence and realize that children are not made with cookie cutters and not everyone learns the same way.  When you see a kid coming to school with grease under their fingers he or she may not be cut out for college but would probably flourish in a shop environment, oh yeah, that program got cut because everyone needs to go to college and not learn how to fix things for themselves.

"In the end we will survive rather than perish not because we accumulate comfort and luxury but because we accumulate wisdom"  Colonel Jack Jacobs US Army (Ret).

mattvsmith

KS, if you had stayed a machinist, you would have more work than you could handle.

Yspi, DoL stats, like other gov stats, are as credible as dog poop. I used to supply airline ticket price data for the PPI. The numbers I fed them were real, but meaningless. Worse yet, they didn't even try to collect matching numbers from other airlines. At least then it would have been meaningless apples compared to meaningless apples. This was meaningless apples compared to meaningless holes in socks. Gar. Bage. I'll recommend a website that you will likely hate: Shadow Government Stats.
In DoL's defense, the guy I dealt with was a super nice guy. He just belong in a Sartre play because his job was meaningless.

A lot of these ideas about college are just romanticism. Back when I could use my day's money, I thought it was great to discover myself or whatever. Now it's my money, and I don't have the time or money for romantic idea like having a college experience. I've got bills to pay. Here's the irony: the schools and governments are lassoing in poor and middle class kids with this upperclass idea of "having a college experience". And whereas my dad could afford to just drop cash on Hobart every semester and make it back the next hour, these poor and borderline people are borrowing that money. Then they have to pay it back with interest. It is just another form of "keeping up with the Joneses, which is a game designed to impoverish all non-Joneses. For some kids the gamble works. They borrow money, use it responsibly, and improve their family's status. I say that story is so rare as to be fantasy. Easy money makes people irresponsible. And it gives scam artists (in this case colleges and universities) an opportunity to make cash.

I'm sorry, but criminal justice doesn't need a bachelors degree. A police academy can teach a guy everything he needs to know to be a cop. Even my department, maritime transportation, doesn't really deserve a bachelors degree. It's a vocational program dragged out four years. I could teach my cadets what they need to know about search and rescue in five days. This is not bachelor's degree stuff. It's vocational. Sonoma not just against the politically charged professional victim-status majors. I'm also against vocational majors. But at least vocational majors are useful. We have 100% job placement rate with starting salary being about $40K for a third officer. Women will make the same salary as the men.

D3 schools should consider two paths. Either become vocational schools with job-oriented majors, or become true liberal arts schools like Thomas Aquinas in California or St John's in Annapolis. No majors. Great books. Real thinking, not naval gazing fake liberal arts like at Hobart and other schools in that category. A new greater Great Depression is coming. D3 schools will be on the chopping block. Only those with proven graduation and hiring rates will survive. And even some of those wont be able to survive.

NCF

AMEN!! As an educator (and parent involved in the "college experience" for the last 11 years) I agree with both KS and The Rev. If I weren't posting from my phone, I'd throw my two cents into the mix.:)
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smedindy

#2081
There are many paths to an education - many paths. It's elitist and narrow to think there should be only two.

Calling it "Victim's Studies" is a tragic choice of words and my respect for you has plummeted. If we don't know who we are and where we came from, how are we going to know where we are?

Great books aren't the only thing we should study - we need to study language, culture, traditions, OTHER cultures, even if they scare us and expose our hatred and prejudices. "Victim's Studies" is a horrid choice of words that reflect poorly on you - because who are YOU to stay that the study of minority cultures or traditions isn't worthy AT ALL of any insight or exploration. How dare you! Put yourself in THEIR shoes, not yours and then see why it's important to study those topics. Understanding races, religions, genders, sexualities, everything that makes everyone different is vital, important and crucial. Denigrating them as VICTIM STUDIES smacks of a thought and an agenda that makes me shudder with rage and sadness.

BTW - This is VERY personal for me. You're putting forward that my mixed-race daughters shouldn't have a chance to study in a rigorous, academic setting their race, the culture of their ancestors, the culture of the church they go to (1/4 Liberian immigrants), and the culture and traditions of their best friends (Somalian girls, both of them...). I take offense at that, GREAT offense. Those items have as much merit and academic rigor as traditional western civilization and cultures.

I tend to agree that the Government stats are pretty well accurate - just because they don't conform to YOUR mindset or notions of what is allegedly the right answer doesn't mean they're not accurate. It's an aggregate - done by professionals who are trying hard (no matter what some of the nutballs, henchmen and knuckle-draggers say). You weasel around a bit but fail to recognize that women, for the most part, aren't always on a career trajectory as men because some mouth-breathers in society still don't recognize women's place in society as equals.

I found this about the Shadow Government Statistics web site: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shadow_Government_Statistics

Having gone back into Higher Education fundraising - I don't think it's a scam at all. It costs a LOT of money to offer even the most modest of cirriculums. Maybe you need to get outside of your one college bubble. In my work, I've worked at and with colleges and universities of all stripes, all endowments, all missions and all funding - at all divisions. One size, one path does NOT fit all - QUIT trying base everything on your example.

I changed my thinking when I stepped away from my alma mater and went into consulting and now am back in fundraising.  My current university is not flush with cash at all - there are very few that are 'rolling in it'. If you're tuition based and not endowment based and there hasn't been a spirit of philanthropy and giving back it's a constant struggle to keep programs afloat - much less athletics and co-cirricular activities. There are pretty strict rules on how a college can spend its endowment and what it does with the current use funds.  Have you looked at some of the balance sheets of colleges throughout the spectrum?

KS - You were lucky! Most kids aren't taught TRUE Critical thinking and some, who are sheltered, aren't taught to grapple with things that are outside of their comfort zone or pre-conceived notions and values. I said nothing about losing the trade and vocational education - but not cutting back on other academic focuses for them. Enhance ALL education!

I would rather hire someone who challenged themselves, took initiative. and learned something they wanted to learn instead of someone who cookie-cuttered themselves into a major. A thoughtful, organized Philosophy and Religion major can definitely succeed in almost every field no matter what. I know - I've seen them with my own eyes.

smedindy

#2082
On another note:

I'm definitely going to be noticing a difference between D-2 and D-3 this season. I truly believe in the D-3 model, yet I know that some schools feel they must offer scholarships to field teams or attract male students. It's truly a different world from what I've seen already.

I'm just glad my alma mater and most of the D-3 schools I follow are in EST so i can have breakfast and follow the games before heading to mine.

I'm also in a place where because of conference size, the winner of the conference doesn't get an automatic bid into the D-2 playoffs. Now I'll know what the UAA felt like!

Mr. Ypsi

Smed, AMEN to your first post!  I get so frustrated (and angry) at those pulling the academics card on schools whose mission is to take 'lesser' students and bring them as high as they can go (which sometimes turns out to be med school or PhD).  Yeah, many will not make it, but SOME (who would have been rejected by 'elite' schools) will blossom.

I also agree with a point by KS - I had MANY students at EMU who had been convinced they HAD to go to college, but had no aptitude and, even more important, no interest.  (If they had the interest, I could usually overcome the aptitude/preparation.)  There are oodles of 'students' wasting their time in colleges/universities who have the potential to be good plumbers, electricians, machinists, etc.

(Also, smed, thanks for the 'heads-up' on the tin-foil hat blog Shadow Government Stats.)

One of the points I meant to make 2 days ago but couldn't remember: I shouldn't have included non-profit/for-profit schools in my list of things that don't matter.  There MAY be for-profit schools that are worthy (though I can't think of any).  But the model is fundamentally wrong: a for-profit school has a financial incentive for you to DROP OUT once you have paid tuition (no costs).   


Knightstalker

I don't know about most but I do know several people who have gotten both Bachelors and Masters from University of Phoenix and have gone on and done very well.  I also know from a couple of friends who work HR that the University of Phoenix is not laughed at.  They seem to have found a niche and done very well with it.  They cut out the majority of core classes and just require the classes pertinent to the desired major.  Most technical schools are for profit schools and they also have their niche.  Are they all legitimate, no but you need to do a little research before giving anyone your money for anything.

"In the end we will survive rather than perish not because we accumulate comfort and luxury but because we accumulate wisdom"  Colonel Jack Jacobs US Army (Ret).