California's college system in decline, study finds (Sacramento, Pittsburg: 2015, how much)

[FlipMC]

"Most alarming, it finds a trend of each working-age generation becoming less educated than the preceding, with potentially devastating consequences."

Higher education: California's college system in decline, study finds - latimes.com

Really sad. The idiots in Sacramento need to get their act together.

[CAVA1990]

Doesn't sound like the college system is in decline. Sounds more like the problem is with the high schools, the quality and preparedness of the in-state applicant pool, and reduced funding for those who want to go. The colleges themselves are doing just fine, with a growing number of students from out of state. My alma mater, Cal, is still ranked as one of the top universities and the top public university in the country. Perhaps the school is too good for the state.

[hsw]

Formal education everywhere is in decline (though not sure it was ever particularly relevant to real world of profitable business or even innovative, profit-seeking engineering) and increasingly less relevant to either workers or employers in achieving basic business English/math/analytic/self-learning skills useful to earn profits

Consider how Bos has been unable to create any valuable tech cos. despite MIT (and that Luddite college Harvard). Despite Caltech, what tech wealth has LA created? Where are Chicago's valuable tech cos. despite IL's great CS dept? How about Pittsburgh's nonexistent tech industry despite legendary CMU? And where are the Apples/Googles of Germany, Japan or Chindia? Talent migrates to wherever best economic opportunities exist...and won't be held hostage to wherever talent may be born or "educated".....most innovative kids from all over globe seem to flee to PaloAlto....been going on for past 30+yrs, unlikely to change in foreseeable future

SiliconValley's continual innovations of Net, google, youtube, iPad, kindle, etc are rapidly disintermediating costly, unionized, bricks and mortar-based Luddite "education" (arguably miseducation) for anyone who truly seeks job skills, high pay and chance to build significant own net worth at a young age...and are making costs of acquiring any such skills plummet, much like costs of computing/communication

Fancy diplomas alone (no matter what silly, self-serving "rankings" and unionized miseducators may claim) rarely correlate well with many metrics of economic productivity or wealth creation, for either a specific urban region or state or nation or an individual's own career

[yeahthatguy]

Originally Posted by hsw

Formal education everywhere is in decline (though not sure it was ever particularly relevant to real world of profitable business or even innovative, profit-seeking engineering) and increasingly less relevant to either workers or employers in achieving basic business English/math/analytic/self-learning skills useful to earn profits

Consider how Bos has been unable to create any valuable tech cos. despite MIT (and that Luddite college Harvard). Despite Caltech, what tech wealth has LA created? Where are Chicago's valuable tech cos. despite IL's great CS dept? How about Pittsburgh's nonexistent tech industry despite legendary CMU? And where are the Apples/Googles of Germany, Japan or Chindia? Talent migrates to wherever best economic opportunities exist...and won't be held hostage to wherever talent may be born or "educated".....most innovative kids from all over globe seem to flee to PaloAlto....been going on for past 30+yrs, unlikely to change in foreseeable future

SiliconValley's continual innovations of Net, google, youtube, iPad, kindle, etc are rapidly disintermediating costly, unionized, bricks and mortar-based Luddite "education" (arguably miseducation) for anyone who truly seeks job skills, high pay and chance to build significant own net worth at a young age...and are making costs of acquiring any such skills plummet, much like costs of computing/communication

Fancy diplomas alone (no matter what silly, self-serving "rankings" and unionized miseducators may claim) rarely correlate well with many metrics of economic productivity or wealth creation, for either a specific urban region or state or nation or an individual's own career

A lot of the places you mention don't retain people because of weather... I mean, i just thought you should know that.

There are lots of tech centers growing across the world ....
Most of the tech companies in the valley have big offices in india/china.. and all over the world.. Tech's continual innovations ensure Luddite fixed geographical hubs don't exist .. Just like education materials are freely accessible no matter one's geography, so is tech/talent. The internet has decentralized the valley's roll in tech .. It does not reinforce it. Lots of tech jobs are leaving the valley because there is only so much you can pack into it w/o making things uncomfortable. Talent will continue to find work all over the world... As far as why x,y,z doesn't have hubs.. RTP in North Carolina wasn't always a hub.. Look at it now.. Austin Texas wasn't always a hub.. look at it now..

That being said, there will always be demand for the valley .. The idea that the world of tech revolves around it is a joke though... A big joke and doesn't get at the global nature of technology in this day and age... Or Engineering for that matter... Just because a couple of software startups went big that everyone can name and are based from the valley, doesn't speak to the 'bigger' picture...

How much valley tech is used in modern manufacturing plants? How many of the valley's robots are used to produce the myriad of products you consume on a daily basis? How many of the top manuf. of cars are based in the valley? It's a big world out there.. Engineering talent is global...

Good educational institutions form the foundation from which innovation occurs. They are most definitely not in decline.. General education for the masses is. Namely because the masses are becoming great in number of stupid consumers and lessor in number of people who want to obtain knowledge beyond an enabler to buy more junk Because some hot shots got lucky and succeeded taking huge risks doesn't speak to the large %'age who do the same thing and fail.... It's not scalable and it is not stable to encourage such unstructured ad-hoc pursuits.... Yes, sometimes 1/100,000 get lucky and hit gold.. for the others you want to ensure a more structured approach....


You keep using the word 'innovation'.. What's innovative about selling fart apps and toys to people? The reason a small minority of these companies are profitable is because a big majority of people are stupid consumers.. I don't call selling silly products to encourage mindless consumption innovative or helpful to society.. I don't call a huge sea of 'hackers' huddling together trying to hack out the app of the month innovative or software engineering....

and you're right.. a formal education is not needed for this.. It is pretty much needed for a lot of the more serious engineering that ensures a bridge doesn't collapse on your head when you cross it .. or that the electrical signals zooming across your circuit board result in something being displayed on your screen...

Try playing w/ apple jack tutorials on youtube and see how far you get in being able to design a processor ... or a bridge... It works for software hacking and it works for refreshing one on something new.. but formal education still has its place and value.. especially the 'good univerisites'. I am not talking about universities for the masses ..

California opens its flood gates to illegal immigrants .. Pisses away a large %'age of its revenue .. The 'highly skilled/productive' populous is too busy working to afford the insane taxes/cost of living to get involved in their communities and govt...Is it a surprise that when no one is looking after something that it declines? Just because you managed to attract a small # of egg heads into the region known as the 'valley' doesn't mean that you're going to be o.k . especially if they are the large minority of the populous.