^The class structure fails when the college educated are less apt to earn a higher income than those without a higher education. A lot of my buddies didn't go straight through school, instead becoming things like elevator techs, parts managers, cops, and car salesmen. They all make, on average, more (sometimes much more) than my college educated friends, except for the ones that went into the medical field or became military officers.

 

The occupations I'd list might be different, but I can say much the same.  I know a fair number of my undergrad friends who are unemployed or "underemployed"--I add the scare quotes because I don't know what the career track for a women's or ethnic studies major is these days, or a below-average history major, for that matter.  Also in that vein, my old roommate from undergrad majored in aviation management, didn't get a job with an airline, and is now making a pretty decent living as a handyman and contractor, which he wouldn't have needed a college degree to do.

Judging by my high school class, the wealthiest people I know didn't go to college. In fact, the only people I know making $75k don't have college degrees. Part of this is due to the big disruptions that happen from relocations since Toledo is so cut-throat for college grads. Even engineering, accounting, finance, education, and nursing grads struggle here. Most kids have to move away without a job, which always sucks. These days, you really have to move to where the jobs are since most employers are now only looking at local applicants. I'd say about 70% of my high school class is out of the Toledo area. It's incredible how far they have spread. It's everything from Florida to Australia. You don't just leave Toledo, you run from Toledo.

 

The ones who stuck around in Toledo are just high school grads who are making far more money than any of the college grads I know. A lot started small businesses and/or are skilled tradesmen. Toledo has low start-up costs and rock bottom wages, so it makes sense that starting a business is your best shot. It seems college wipes out all common sense from most people. What you don't get is that if you took that $50,000 (or more) and started a business, bought a bar, or bought a foreclosed property, you'd be far better off now than you will be four/five/six years from now with a piece of paper that says you have no experience and are likely to have an "entitlement attitude". I've seen college hurt employment chances just as much as it has helped. In the media, it's well-known that college grads tend to have the worst attitudes. The newer college grads don't last long. It's now getting rare to see them more than a year. Most of them leave the industry and move to higher-paying jobs unrelated to their degree. Good for them, but it raises a lot of questions about the value of going to college in the first place.

 

Unlike housing, we already have all the solutions to this problem. First, axe all the bad majors, though keep some of those classes for kids who can pay without going into debt. Journalism, dance, film, art, music, etc. should be minors, not majors. Majors should be marketable. Minors should be fun or "passionate". Lord knows why so many of us in Generation Y keep falling for the same crap over and over, but it wouldn't be possible if the schools didn't milk "passion" for all it's worth (there is a place for passion, and that place is not debtor's hell). Second, axe all the third and fourth tier public schools that are dropping the ball in terms of quality of instructors and quality of student body. Third, axe federally-backed student loans. We just almost watched the United States default. We can't afford this anymore. A private sector bank isn't going to give Suzy Q a $50,000 loan for her to major in dance in Ohio. Maybe she's really hot and has dancer's feet, but it's still too big of a gamble. Now major in marketing and minor in dance? That's a different story.

 

After all this happens, watch everything crash back to reality. The political solution is so simple, but it won't happen until it is too late. Right now, the student loan bubble is about right on par with the mortgage bubble (the Fed bought up about $1.4 trillion in toxic mortgage securities). This is going to get much bigger. I expect when it finally bursts, it could be twice as big as the mortgage bubble, and the damage to the economy will be twice as bad. Outstanding student loan debt could easily climb to $3 trillion in the next couple of years since record numbers of people are hiding out in school and are going to graduate very soon. The housing crisis triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression. The college crisis will trigger the Great Depression 2.0.

Judging by my high school class, the wealthiest people I know didn't go to college. In fact, the only people I know making $75k don't have college degrees.

 

I won't go that far with my own experience.  The high earners at my recent 10-year reunion were the attorneys, veterinarian, IT professionals, etc. that had college degrees.  The difference-maker in several cases is student loan debt (and the extra four years of earnings that those who went into the workforce straight out of high school had, though the stronger part of the college crowd is hopefully catching up on that score now).  That veterinarian has an absurd debt load that is going to wreak havoc on her take-home even if her gross pay is good.

 

After all this happens, watch everything crash back to reality. The political solution is so simple, but it won't happen until it is too late. Right now, the student loan bubble is about right on par with the mortgage bubble (the Fed bought up about $1.4 trillion in toxic mortgage securities). This is going to get much bigger. I expect when it finally bursts, it could be twice as big as the mortgage bubble, and the damage to the economy will be twice as bad. Outstanding student loan debt could easily climb to $3 trillion in the next couple of years since record numbers of people are hiding out in school and are going to be out very soon. The housing crisis triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression. The college crisis will trigger the Great Depression 2.0.

 

I don't think a widespread wave of student loan defaults is going to have quite the massive economic impact you suggest, particularly if the federal government revises the Bankruptcy Code to make student loans easier to discharge in bankruptcy.  The nondischargeability provisions are a serious potential long-term drag on the economy because of the number of young lives that they potentially ruin by preventing the "fresh start" (a common term in the trade) that bankruptcy normally provides.  The loans themselves?  A fair number of those loan losses would fall on the government itself, since the government guarantees many of those loans.  They are unsecured debts, much like credit cards, so we're not looking at houses or any other tangible property sitting out there with no owner; you can't foreclose on someone's brain, and a brain with a major in African-American studies with a minor in queer theory probably wouldn't fetch that much on the open market, anyway.

The key here is that the student loan debt is not dischargable in bankruptcy. It won't be a fast bubble burst. It will drag out over years, but man, it does have real destructive potential. This could produce millions of kids who have their credit destroyed and are looking at very high interest rates for quite some time. It could be a long generational drag. That's why I think it would be more depressionary (structural) than the housing bust (cyclical). I highly doubt bankruptcy laws are changing anytime soon. Wouldn't the United States default on its debt if student loans were dischargeable through bankruptcy? We're not talking pocket change here. We're talking about unprecedented losses for the federal government. They have no interest in going soft on college kids. They need this money. They need it bad.

 

I think the bubble burst has already started. Looking at default trends for the most recent years, it's hard to deny things are getting out of hand:

 

What happens when the kids can’t pay? The federal government only uses data on students who default within the first two years of repayment, but its numbers have the default rate increasing every year since 2005. Analyst accounts have only 40 percent of the total outstanding debt in active repayment, the majority being either in deferment or default. Next year, the Department of Education will calculate default rates based on numbers three years after the beginning of repayment rather than two. The projected results are staggering: recorded defaults for the class of 2008 will nearly double, from 7 to 13.8 percent. With fewer and fewer students having the income necessary to pay back loans (except through the use of more consumer debt), a massive default looks closer to inevitable.

 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/are-student-loans-an-impending-bubble-is-higher-education-a-scam-2011-5#ixzz1TohxuRPx

 

The reason I'm saying this is a giant and dangerous bubble is because 60% of kids aren't paying off their student loans at all! A record number of people rushed back to school and/or are in deferment. The deferment stats are what have me worried. This ramping up of debt seems to be happening faster than it did with the housing bubble. The education bubble is the mother of all bubbles.

 

I won't go that far with my own experience.  The high earners at my recent 10-year reunion were the attorneys, veterinarian, IT professionals, etc. that had college degrees.  The difference-maker in several cases is student loan debt (and the extra four years of earnings that those who went into the workforce straight out of high school had, though the stronger part of the college crowd is hopefully catching up on that score now).  That veterinarian has an absurd debt load that is going to wreak havoc on her take-home even if her gross pay is good.

 

I think timing is the issue here. Most people who grauated in 2008, 2009, 2010, etc. are going to have vastly different experiences from those who graduated before the crash. With that said, I will readily admit that few in my high school class became lawyers or doctors (in fact, I don't think any did).

 

I remember that a student councilor told the class that taking on debt was ok because it will result in a higher pay rate, and the take-home pay will be greater even considering the loan payments, and that the government will turn a profit on its investment in the form of higher payroll taxes.

 

Well, I guess that promise was a bit rosy.

 

Borrowing money makes a good business better, but it makes a bad business worse.

There's also a partial circular argument built into that statement: A good business, by definition, is one that incurs a responsible amount of debt, and has at least a reasonable feel for what level of debt that is and isn't.

 

C-Dawg: I think you're overstating the government's dependence on student loan repayment revenues.  We're not talking about losses for the federal government any more "unprecedented" than what it experienced in normal tax revenue loss from the bubble peak to the recession trough; in fact, we're talking about numbers far smaller, and spread out over more years.  The entirety of student loan debt in this country is about $930 billion as of this writing: http://www.finaid.org/loans/studentloandebtclock.phtml.  (That's a "debt clock" akin to the popular national debt clock.)  That's a lot of money, but keep in mind that (a) that includes both public and private loans (mine, for example, are private); and (b) that includes all loans, not just those in default.

 

For comparison's sake, the total outstanding mortgage debt is estimated by the Federal Reserve at $13.7 trillion: http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/mortoutstand/current.htm.

 

Yes, $930 billion is a lot of money ... but nowhere near in the same league as >$13,700 billion.

^ I didn't realize that debt was a requirement of a "good" business. Some businesses don't take on any debt.

Heh.  Yes, on second thought, I shouldn't have worded that the way I did.  I should say that a good business will take on no more than a responsible amount of debt.  Or, perhaps, that sometimes that responsible amount of debt is zero.

When talking housing though, the Fed only took on $1.4 trillion of that debt through toxic mortgage-backed securities. The vast majority of that $13.7 trillion number is losses for banks and homeowners, not taxpayers. What is scary about student loans is that we could be looking at losses larger than $1.4 trillion in the near future. The percentage of student loan debt that the taxpayers are on the hook for is much, much larger than it is with housing debt (75% of all student loans).

 

Given the explosive growth in federally-backed student loan debt, there is little doubt that if this continues, it could exceed the $1.4 trillion the taxpayers ate due to the housing collapse. I'm predicting $3 trillion is the turning point where we see major cut-backs, but it of course could be earlier or later. Regardless, this is fiscally reckless. I think we'll be lucky if taxpayer losses equal the housing collapse. Nothing is being done to slow this train down. It's the exact opposite. "Go back to school kids! You'll be more marketable! Don't worry about that debt! Education is always a good investment!"

 

Everybody in America is drinking the education Kool-Aid. Any meaningful change is years off, and will probably only happen after economic disaster (seems to be a trend for us).

^ I didn't realize that debt was a requirement of a "good" business. Some businesses don't take on any debt.

 

That means they already had money starting out... it has to come from somewhere, and good luck selling stock in a company that has zero assets.  Starting out with money works pretty well in college too.

I will note that the point of going to college ought not be measured by income alone. Also liberal arts grads (history for sure) tend to have a longer curve to the earnings potential (check back at 45 or 50 instead of 25 or even 30). Many of the high school folks will run into issues of growth (handyman are only worth as much as they themselves can produce). Maybe a few will be able to expand beyond themselves but that is very rare.

I wrote a blog entry about OU once again being named #1 Party School, and how Cincinnati suffers because UC can't party:

 

http://cincinnatimonocle.blogspot.com/2011/08/what-does-university-of-cincinnati-know_01.html

 

Yes, I usually write in such a way as to look a little dumb and obscure my actual opinion. 

I will note that the point of going to college ought not be measured by income alone.

 

If we as a society want to preserve that older mentality about self-fulfillment and personal growth (whether or not such growth involves the growth of marketable skills), then we need to find a way to make college cost less again.  A lot less.

 

Also liberal arts grads (history for sure) tend to have a longer curve to the earnings potential (check back at 45 or 50 instead of 25 or even 30). Many of the high school folks will run into issues of growth (handyman are only worth as much as they themselves can produce). Maybe a few will be able to expand beyond themselves but that is very rare.

 

With respect to liberal arts grads, that used to be the case, but I'm unconvinced that that will remain so.  Those higher paydays at 50 generally require at least starting somewhere with advancement potential.  A long post-graduation period of unemployment can permanently alter one's career path, not just in the short term but in the long term as well.  Also, there's the time value of money to consider: the lost value of not being able to save much of anything during one's 20s is significant, since money saved in one's 20s tends to turn into a lot more by 60 than money saved in one's 30s, because of compound returns.

 

I agree about the ceiling for handymen (and other skilled tradespeople), but that ceiling is high enough to be able to provide for a family.  And, of course, there will be those few who go into business for themselves and expand.  The ones who expand into the next Bechtel might be rare, but the ones who end up with a small crew working under them in order to handle slightly larger projects are more common.

I wrote a blog entry about OU once again being named #1 Party School, and how Cincinnati suffers because UC can't party:

 

http://cincinnatimonocle.blogspot.com/2011/08/what-does-university-of-cincinnati-know_01.html

 

Yes, I usually write in such a way as to look a little dumb and obscure my actual opinion. 

 

When I was at UC I couldn't figure out what was missing. When I found out that there was a bar on campus and that you could drink at games (I cant think of another state school around here where you can do that) I figured that this place must know how to party! Nope. I wondered where the spirit was that I felt at Shawnee State and Marshall -- of course they're not OU, but students at those schools still made both partying and "opening their minds" with friends a priority.

 

Top Cat's and Sudsy's were still open when I started attending UC and I met way better partiers in the metalheads that congregated there than I ever met around campus. I don't think any of them were in school. One guy was Skeletonwitch's roadie, so those guys would stay at his place when they played around Cincy -- they were fun to drink and BS with. Now I hear there's a bunch of Skeletonwitch clone bands that turned up in Athens since they got big.

 

Of course, since UC has so many students, there are parties around for sure. People still get kicked out of bars; you can find vomit and beer cans in the street. But it seems like the students are focused on their education more... could UC be turning into Ohio's Michigan? Another cause is that today's average kid is terrified of getting hurt or in trouble ("nerd" is rapidly becoming the dominant male culture) while Athens is known for miles around as the destination for those seeking misadventure.

The debt deal includes some changes to student loans.

 

Put your student loans on autopilot. The debt bill will eliminate the rebate that education borrowers get when they make a year's worth of loan payments on time. But they still may be able to get an interest-rate discount if they arrange to make their payments automatically through a bank account debit - that's worth doing.

 

Many graduate students will have to pay more for loans, as this deal eliminates the federal subsidies that paid interest costs on some of their loans while they were in school. Grad students may find it worthwhile to pay the interest themselves while they are in school, if they can, to avoid those costs compounding until after they graduate.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Analysis-After-the-debt-deal-rb-295449291.html?x=0

This is a pretty interesting discussion.  I think it's clear that the higher education model that we've had since pretty much the end of World War II is not working anymore.  That said, I do worry about those who will be stuck with worthless degrees and potentially hundreds of thousands in loans when the paradigm starts to shift more thoroughly.

 

Probably 30 years ago, it made sense financially to take a student loan which resulted in a higher salary. Since then, every thing has changed, both on the financing side and the job market side, and it just doesn't make sense anymore. However, today's parents and high school councilors still believe in it, since it worked for them, and kids are steered into college when it may not be in their best interest.

 

 

 

Probably 30 years ago, it made sense financially to take a student loan which resulted in a higher salary. Since then, every thing has changed, both on the financing side and the job market side, and it just doesn't make sense anymore. However, today's parents and high school councilors still believe in it, since it worked for them, and kids are steered into college when it may not be in their best interest.

 

 

 

Well, in fairness, it is almost impossible to get any professional/white collar type of job these days without having a four-year college degree.  The degree could be in basket-weaving in many cases, but it's still more valuable to many potential employers than not having a degree.  It acts as an easy and lazy way for them to weed out candidates.  It's important that we don't let these businesses off the hook for perpetuating the idea that everyone who wants to work in these otherwise unspecialized industries needs to have a degree.  The financials may not make sense, but there is often no other option.

At the company I work at, about half of the people went to college briefly or not at all.  The choice not to go to or finish college seems to correlate pretty directly with a lack of a curiosity about the world.  The non-college grads regularly get suckered into ridiculous car loan/leases, contribute much less to their retirement plans, and busy themselves with sending porn to each other on their phones. 

 

Oddly, more recent college graduates have a helluva time with the computer system, since they still use a circa-1986 system with a green and black screen and no mouse.  Consistently, the non-college graduates pick it up as or more quickly, and certainly complain about it much less, because they tend not to think about the underlying structure of things. 

 

Again, the question is would "college material" have ended up this way anyway, or did college actually point them in a more intellectual direction? 

 

Again, the question is would "college material" have ended up this way anyway, or did college actually point them in a more intellectual direction?

 

That is indeed the million-dollar question, and I don't have a final answer.  I'll take the cop-out answer and say that it's probably some of each.  However, my critique would trend in the other direction: it's that college quite often does not seem to point people in a particularly "intellectual direction," nor impart the critical thinking skills that would lead people not to do what your non-college-educated coworkers do and get suckered into ridiculous car loans/leases, or contribute too little to their retirement plans, etc.  That's part of why I see the value proposition of a four-year degree as waning; it isn't just because of the increase in tuition (and, thus, debt).

People have been bemoaning the lack of jobs for humanities majors for literally a hundred and fifty years. I don't see anything in our current economy that is any less likely to benefit the uneducated. Now it is a whole other question of the number of folks our economy can carry doing humanities related work as a full-time middle class situation.

Yeah I went to state schools and got very little in the way of a classical education, nor did almost anyone else.  The classics are now electives.  Required in place of Latin, Rhetoric, etc. were classes like Women's Studies, which was okay, but not particularly rigorous.

 

Dave last year I read a history of St. Xavier High School published in 1981 or 1982.  The school's curriculum circa 1840 went a little something like this:

 

English

French

Greek

Latin

Rhetoric

Mathematics

Magnetism

 

Imagine if you spent four years studying three non-native languages, plus rhetoric.  You would have all the tools to both decode rhetoric and stomp the semi-educated.  And yes, "Magnetism" was a big deal back in those days.  There was a great description of Cincinnati written in 1841 (and revised in 1849) that dedicates an entire chapter to Cincinnati's magnetic characteristics.  It's in the main reading room of the Historical Society Library.

 

 

 

Oddly, more recent college graduates have a helluva time with the computer system, since they still use a circa-1986 system with a green and black screen and no mouse.  Consistently, the non-college graduates pick it up as or more quickly, and certainly complain about it much less, because they tend not to think about the underlying structure of things. 

 

Those old computer systems can wind up being a lot faster to use than today's systems once you're used to them. Those function keys can make you really tear ass.

 

But man, if you want to hear somebody whine, complain and swear up a storm, just make a technophile use any non-current technology like a cash register or a VCR. They think that they are so good at learning technology, yet they can't learn how to use something a few years old. Take away the ability to Google their query and they turn into Ozzy trying to service a mainframe on acid. You show them a safety video from 1991 and they'll make fun of the fact that it's not in HD and come unglued when they see a guy with a mustache and a mullet. They won't pay attention to the content. Of course, kids have always been like this. In middle school, when they'd bust out the film projector that had to be synched up with a tape deck we'd snicker a bit -- but we were in the 7th grade, not 25 years old.

25-yeard-olds today are equivalent to 7th graders.

It seems to me that old people are completely unable to understand that college is WAY more expensive than it ever was, and still expect kids to work their way through, even though that's basically impossible, AND it denies them the opportunity to participate in the clubs and internships that will make them employable. 

 

Meanwhile, many of the finger-wagging old people are running into serious money problems.  I don't mind saying that my grandparents are in declining health and cannot afford to move to a retirement home after blowing huge sums of money during a retirement that saw them travel overseas no fewer than 10 times amid countless lesser domestic trips (saw all 50 states, etc.).  I estimate that they spent at least $150,000 traveling since the mid-1980's, money that they would kill to have back. 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-what-happens-when-parents-go-broke-during-their-golden-years/2011/11/02/gIQAG1GGSN_story.html?tid=pm_pop

 

Every old people's home I see has catalogs for packaged trips.  They have convinced themselves that these trips aren't status symbols (like a Cadillac), when in fact they are.  I've seen that repeatedly, right after a $50,000 visit stay in the hospital, the old people need to go on a trip immediately to prove to themselves and everyone else that "they're back". 

 

^ All true, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that some degrees are definitely worth more than others ... and yet they are often priced very similarly.  This is particularly true of those who take five or six (or more) years to get liberal arts degrees.

All the more reason not to go to college for a general liberal arts degree unless you intend to go all the way with it.  You can still go to a state school and pay for it yourself.  You shouldn't expect to be able to go to a private school and manage it yourself.

 

Not sure what you are saying about old people.  Should they not spend their money while alive?  Must they leave it as an inheritance?

The problem is that if everyone gets "real" degrees, then the fluff internships and clubs matter even more than they do now.  I don't see how we get ahead if everyone is a business major, especially since so many business classes appeared to me to be junk.  The purpose of the university, more than anything, should be:

 

-professors should introduce students to items that they're unlikely to find or investigate on their own

-force students to do real research (not just "papers")

-abandon the myths of their upbringing and return to their families on their terms

-cultivate contempt for popular culture and the mass media

 

We're seeing right now the extent to which the university has been at odds with itself.  On one hand, it is expected to make people eligible for corporate jobs.  On the other hand, the university is pretty much the only place where that whole culture is critiqued. 

 

We watched this in a film history class I took 13 years ago, and it's now on youtube, meaning you don't have to pay thousands to sit in a classroom to watch it. But nobody is:

Inextinguishable Fire- Harun Farocki, 1969

 

 

 

 

Anyone (else) think that the availability of grants and loans simply caused the price of tuition to rise?

^I think there's near consensus that the availability of funding has helped push up the sticker price, but it's much less clear how much the actual amount paid by students has been rising after you factor in all those grants and loans.  And the availability of all those grants and loans effectively allows colleges to charge wealthy families more than poorer ones, which is probably a good thing.  There was a nice write up of some of the latest research on the issue on the Times economix blog a couple weeks ago: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/college-is-cheaper-than-you-think/

I wrote a blog entry about OU once again being named #1 Party School, and how Cincinnati suffers because UC can't party:

 

http://cincinnatimonocle.blogspot.com/2011/08/what-does-university-of-cincinnati-know_01.html

 

Yes, I usually write in such a way as to look a little dumb and obscure my actual opinion. 

 

Coming into this a little late, but as an OU alum, I enjoyed this post.  I will also say however that after spending summers on Put-in-Bay throughout college, I often looked forward to returning to OU for a bit of a break from partying...

 

Anyway, as for the rest of this, I don't see a society where not having a college degree is beneficial.  Most of the people I know who didn't go to college or dropped out after a few years aren't doing much more than living paycheck to paycheck.  If nothing else, college teaches you how to think for yourself, manage time effectively, and interact with others.  I can't tell you much of what I actually learned in a classroom in undergrad...and I am sure I'd have to study pretty hard again to pass some of my graduate school courses.  But I was tought how to learn and apply knowledge, as well as how to build relationships with people - all types of people, not just ones who would normally be a part of my social circle.

 

I'm already socking away money to help pay for my kids college education.  I only wish Ohio had some of the college programs like other states do with pre-paid tuition.  My wife's parents locked in her tuition rate in Florida when she was born and paid it off over 18 years, rather than paying whatever the cost would be 18 years later - whether it be in loans, savings, or some combination of both.  Much better than a 529 plan (although limits you to state schools).

^I think there's near consensus that the availability of funding has helped push up the sticker price, but it's much less clear how much the actual amount paid by students has been rising after you factor in all those grants and loans.  And the availability of all those grants and loans effectively allows colleges to charge wealthy families more than poorer ones, which is probably a good thing.  There was a nice write up of some of the latest research on the issue on the Times economix blog a couple weeks ago: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/college-is-cheaper-than-you-think/

 

I don't think easing the availability of loans really does kids many favors. 

 

The whole funding scheme (and costs) is a big mess.

Easing the availability of loans does no favors to anyone, except for the people who actually "sell" loans.

 

Getting back to a somewhat related aspect of this thread:

Are kids getting dumber?  I don't think so.  What is happening to them, is that they are more and more inundated with distractions which divert their attention from some of the things which we as adults deem important.

 

My night job is in a pizza place in one of the ritzier 'burbs in North East Hamilton county.  There are always a bunch of high school kids employed there, and I have watched them become less and less competent over the past few years, each wave (of kids) more worthless than the last.

I blame cell phones.  I have a friend who is approaching 60 Y.O.A., and he blames computers.  I'm going with cell phones, because nearly everyone everywhere is distracted by these things, causing them to disrupt everything from the flow of vehicular traffic to the flow of pedestrian traffic to - oh wait, I just got a text message... :roll:

Cell phones, video games, computers, etc.  Kids these days are too "plugged-in."

Read The Dumbest Generation - Or, Dont Trust Anyone Under 30, by Mark Bauerlein. The author brings together information from studies and test results that show that immersion in technology in schools only builds proficiency in the use of technology, and that students' ability to assimilate fundamental knowledge and an understanding of how past and current events shape the future actually has declined with the implementation of digital technology and media in classrooms. Developing the ability to find quick answers to simple questions on the internet is not the same as learning how to acquire knowledge and understanding from life's experiences.

 

Social media have encouraged a self-involved culture that sequesters itself and focuses instant gratification in the form of reinforcement and approval among peers, and rejects exposure to civilizing influences like interaction with people of previous generations.

If you ask me, they shouldn't even teach kids about the internet at school since they're almost all going to learn how to use it on their own. Sure, teach 'em work skills such as Word, Excel, web design, CADD and Photoshop as electives and cover netiquette somewhere, but imagine if schools wasted actual class time (not recess) on bike riding, hoop rolling, roller skating or watching cartoons in the old days. That's what surfing the net, online gaming and such are today. Kids get home from school and hang out on the internet until bed. Then they go to school the next day and the schools saying "we gotta get kids really good at the internet" and have them spend 3 hours of the school day reteaching them stuff they've known how to do for five years. The computer teachers know this, but the curriculum people don't.

I think there's actually something of a digital divide on that point still, unfortunately.  Certainly, most of the kids in our best schools--wealthy suburban schools and private schools--are probably just as you described.  There are others who still don't have it at home and don't have a data package for their cell phone, either (though most do have cell phones now, which wasn't the case 10-15 years ago).

When I go to the main library in Cincinnati, the 50+ computers are hogged by homeless people on facebook and watching videos on youtube.  This stuff is obviously not that hard to figure out.  This past week a teenager was walking around the library playing gunshot sound effects on his cell phone. 

 

My point is you can lead the people to water but they won't drink.  The libraries have been free for 100 years but hardly anyone there is doing serious research.  Similarly, computers are upheld as learning tools (left over from the days when computer companies, especially Apple, pushed school districts to buy their products for computer labs), but they have primarily become entertainment centers.

 

I taught at a community college 2007-2009.  Teaching in rooms with computers was nearly impossible since it was impossible to compete with Facebook.  Also, the boys often watched sports reruns or bum fights during class. 

 

 

>Social media have encouraged a self-involved culture that sequesters itself and focuses instant gratification in the form of reinforcement and approval among peers, and rejects exposure to civilizing influences like interaction with people of previous generations.

 

Yeah, I see that al the time.  I think each age group is using the internet in very different ways, and there is disapproval amongst generations in how the other generations are using it, older and younger. 

 

We got the internet when I was 16. It took maybe a year for me to learn how to use it properly i.e. avoid viruses, cite things properly, not be an ass on USENET, figure out which websites are dodgy. That was with little help from the outside since the it wasn't mainstream yet. Of course, my folks still can't figure it out because they hadn't grown up around other electronic things besides radios and TVs.

I'm reaching my limit on some electronics at the age of 58!  The one VCR I have isn't flashing 12:00, but the sound system to the big screen isn't hooked up yet!  I'm not having computer problems, probably only because I don't do anything "new", no games etc.  I grew up industry wise with computers so I'm proficient with word and excel etc.

 

But, I can still make change and do all kinds of math without a calculator, and I even own a slide rule!  I still remember not being allowed to use calculators during tests in college.  One analytical chem professor actually searched our personal belongings before the final.

 

What do they do these days with cell phones?  Sure would be easy to text somebody the questions!

^ they actively encourage cheating. It helps their test scores and make them look better. LOL

 

I bet kids today can't even memorize 20 multiple choice answers off an old test like we used to have to in the old days. They probably would have to text the answers to themselves. It's not that cheating is new. I went to a small engineering school for a year in the mid-90's, that happened to be mostly Greek, and the crib system that they had at the house I rushed was top notch. Old tests for basically anything that they would want. And if they didn't have it you could probably get it from somebody else's crib system.

 

But seriously, there is a certain art for the instructor in crafting test question that makes sure that the students understand the concepts. I know that I was burned multiple  times by  test questions that had just a little nuance that changed the answer from the homework or example questions, that were impossible to solve if you didn't understand the whole concept.

 

Easing the availability of loans does no favors to anyone, except for the people who actually "sell" loans.

 

Getting back to a somewhat related aspect of this thread:

Are kids getting dumber?  I don't think so.  What is happening to them, is that they are more and more inundated with distractions which divert their attention from some of the things which we as adults deem important.

 

My night job is in a pizza place in one of the ritzier 'burbs in North East Hamilton county.  There are always a bunch of high school kids employed there, and I have watched them become less and less competent over the past few years, each wave (of kids) more worthless than the last.

I blame cell phones.  I have a friend who is approaching 60 Y.O.A., and he blames computers.  I'm going with cell phones, because nearly everyone everywhere is distracted by these things, causing them to disrupt everything from the flow of vehicular traffic to the flow of pedestrian traffic to - oh wait, I just got a text message... :roll:

 

It was happening long before cell phones and the internet became so commonplace.  I saw a big difference between 1995 and 2002, as well as 2002 and today.

 

I'd blame "self esteem" teaching, and a decrease in critical thinking taught in schools, particularly public schools.  There's more "what to think" being taught than how to think....and question.  There's also a tremendous drop in basic work ethic stuff like timeliness.

 

Has anyone else noticed that the trends mentioned above seem to be more prevalent with public than private school kids?  The latter are just as plugged in as the former....maybe moreso.

^It's because Public schools are forced to be teaching to the proficiency tests. Especially since NCLB. Private schools have more leeway. They are introducing and tracking test concepts in my 6 YO's kindergarten class. I about fell out of my chair at Open House when I heard that. It's not that they are being taught "what to think" as much as they are spending too much time on making sure that everybody has an understanding of the bare minimums required by the tests and  barely anytime on "how to think".

 

 

 

 

^It's because Public schools are forced to be teaching to the proficiency tests. Especially since NCLB. Private schools have more leeway. They are introducing and tracking test concepts in my 6 YO's kindergarten class. I about fell out of my chair at Open House when I heard that. It's not that they are being taught "what to think" as much as they are spending too much time on making sure that everybody has an understanding of the bare minimums required by the tests and  barely anytime on "how to think".

 

Speaking of "tracking", that's something that was commonplace when I was in school and from what I've understood, has been phased out due to "self esteem" issues.  There were "track one", "track two", and "track three" classes, and IMO they did a better job of keeping up with the level of the students in the class.  No boring the you-know-what out of the smart ones, or leaving the slower ones completely lost.

 

During my generation (I graduated in 1980), basic discipline was laxer than before or since, yet one was still held responsible for one's one accomplishments and spent time, at least in math and the sciences, in classes with kids who had similar abilities.  This is why I think things like regimentation, "school uniforms", and even classroom prayer are strongly overrated.  We had none of those things, and we didn't do too badly.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/

 

This guy nails it with this blog on how the younger generation are screwed. It's very tongue in cheek but he has a ton of good points. 

 

5 Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation    By:  John Cheese November 10, 2011      289  At this moment, a whole lot of people, most of them 15 to 20 years younger than me, are protesting in every major city. What are they angry about? A lot of things, some of which are partially my fault.

See, I'm a part of Generation X, the post-Baby Boom era kids who grew up on a mental diet of Beavis and Butthead and Alice in Chains. We wrote poems about how angry we were at our fathers, wore goatees like weapons and made panties burst into flames by playing Pearl Jam's Black on our acoustic guitars. We were a bridge from the Baby Boomers to all you guys who are in high school and college now. And I'm pretty sure we fucked up that handoff pretty badly.

This is not a sarcastic apology, I'm not a big enough dick to write all of this as a backhanded insult about how lazy and entitled you are. Because you're not.

I'm honestly apologizing for ...

Read more:  5 Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/#ixzz1fDido3Qq

 

I don't get his first point re: fast food jobs. He's saying we (I'm an 'X') glorified the jobs, and now made it so nobody wants them anymore? I'm missing the connection.

 

Also, I sort of feel like the Napster thing passed me. Maybe I'm an 'Old X' or something, because at the time I could have used that the most, the internet was in its infancy. They were just handing out email accounts my sophomore year in college, and it was a mainframe based monstrosity that you could only access via a dummy terminal in certain computer clusters (don't get me started on the non-threaded Usenet boards). The other computers weren't connected to anything. Enjoy your Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3.

^He's saying that the Baby Boomers spent decades telling younger people that McJobs suck, portrayed those with ones as losers and told their own children to never settle for one, but now all of a sudden they're saying that people should take anything they can get and not complain. I read that article a couple weeks ago. John Cheese nailed it.

 

 

 

I remember that OU was still using TELNET for e-mail when I went back to OU-Lancaster for a summer class in 2001. You couldn't mistype your arcane assigned e-mail address or password on login because backspace was considered a character. If you screwed it up you'd just have to start over again. I amazed my friends by using a TELNET client that I found online to access school e-mail from home; none of them thought it was possible.

Wow, Cracked did hit the nail on the head.

We still have TELNET at my company. 

 

As for the manual labor jobs -- again -- it's those people whose parents support them totally and completely in college who have the big advantage now.  If you spend your college summers loading trucks and sweeping warehouse aisles like I did then you're f*cked. 

 

 

I like the part about the working class parents telling the kids to get a degree who really had no idea why. They just saw that the people who had gone to school had good jobs. Similarly, my parents (both worked their way through school and have degrees from YSU) pushed me towards higher level schools but I don't think they really knew why. After working with executives and their high priced corporate lawyers I have a much better understanding of the networking and school connections that help your career. It doesn't just happen because you went to such and such a school. A good school can open a ton of doors if you do it right, but you can also end up with a $150k Bachelors degree teaching elementary school (not knocking on teachers by anymean, but teaching has a definate income ceiling), if you aren't careful.