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I work for a community college and so I am intimately aware of the factors behind student success and failure. Yes, a family support system is HUGE. Working cars = HUGE. Having a quiet workspace = HUGE. You fail to realize what a privilege a stable home life and family support is. Not everyone has those things.
You fail to realize that having a stable home doesn't always mean it was easy. You have no idea what they went through to make those goals happen.
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Originally Posted by redguard57
Trade school, college, they are all post-secondary education. The costs of ALL post-secondary education services have increased well beyond the rate of inflation. This includes trade schools like truck driving schools, etc...
They have increased but they're still cheaper options than a university. And again, if NO schooling works, find a job that allows room for growth using training or certs. They're out there.
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Originally Posted by redguard57
We have data that shows remote learning is less effective and there are much higher attrition rates. Hard. Freaking. Data. Not. b.s. anecdotes. It works less well. Success rates are greater In-person>Zoom>asynchronous online. We had data to support this pre-pandemic and now we have plenty more. The more vulnerable students especially fail or drop out of online asynchronous classes at alarming rates. Easy for things to snowball and cause people to give up. In our surveys even the students themselves admit they learn more in-person than in remote or online formats. Analysis of learning outcomes shows it even clearer.
Something as simple as the instructor looking a student in the eye and remembering his or her name is a big factor in success. The connections are important.
Yeah, the pandemic did show that. But it was mainly elementary, middle school, and high school. Colleges were affected but colleges have also offered online courses for quite some time now. So in the college world I'm willing to bet those numbers were smaller compared to K - 12. That "hard. freaking. data." you're speaking of provides facts but you're glossing over this with a broad paint brush. Plenty of people graduated in 2020 and got through it.
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Originally Posted by redguard57
And where will you put that workstation? If you have the space in your house for a study room, bully for you! But if you don't, it's a problem. At my institution we had many students fail because they previously depended on our computer labs for access to a good computer. Again, 4-500 is a lot for some people (and then the costs of various software on top of that.
We gave out some iPads recently to some families with some stimulus money we got. The recipients cried with joy. $50-70 a month is a lot to some people. Yes, access to reliable computer tech and internet is HUGE. There are a lot of people who park in McDonald's lot to access internet and try to do the class with their phone. No, these people do not have $200 sneakers and whatnot, that is an egregious insulting projection on your part.
LOL God you're really trying here aren't you. Laptops don't take that much space. And if you don't have a desk or can't afford one, use what you have. Some of my co-workers are still rocking a dining room setup for work and school and they're managing. Again, lame excuses. Some people can't afford a laptop or a tablet yes, you're right. But there are assistance programs. There's payment plans for those who can't afford them. Some offer as a low $30/mo for payments. You're also cherry picking. I didn't say EVERY PERSON was buying $200 sneakers. However, in my experience, the ones who ***** and moan like you are right now, are the same ones having the latest phone, sneakers, clothes, etc.
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Originally Posted by redguard57
You probably had more help than you admit, or that you're overlooking. A supportive spouse, significant other, etc...
No, I didn't. I was 28 when I went back to school. Single guy living with my sister paying her my fair share of the rent. I got approved for financial aid and my loans are in my name. And I consolidated my student loan debt to make my payments easier. I even made some payments when Trump and Biden put a freeze on loan payments. I know this must drive you crazy because you're having a hard time accepting this. You also really seem to have a weird obsession with me needing to have support. Are you saying I could've never done this on my own due to how you view our nation's current situation with schools and student loans?
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Originally Posted by redguard57
Have you supported any tuition-reducing initiatives? Or have you supported politicians who support tax cuts above all else, which causes all the educational institutions in the jurisdiction to either have to raise tuition or cut services? I've been in the business 11 years, and I intimately know the reasons behind educational success and failure. For most of those 11 years the state cuts our budget on the altar of cutting taxes. The percentage of our budget that comes from the state goes down most years. Lately this has been one of the few years it's gone up because of stimulus money.
Yes some people have those bootstrap stories and bully for them. They usually have at least some support, a loving family backing them. But a lot try and don't make it for the kinds of reasons I described. Something as simple as lack of transportation reliability causes a lot of failures.
You seem to place high value on post-secondary education as being the ticket out of poverty. If you truly believe that than I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is.
Again.....you don't know me. For the love of God get out of your feelings. I have supported lower tuition. I have spoken out on how many colleges have become more of a business compared to a vessel providing students a solid education. I have attended rallies with friends, have showed up to speakings, and have advocated against overly expensive gyms and flashy features when that money could be redirected to education programs and more effective ways to help students get into the school they want to go to.
I said it before and I'll say it again: you're projecting your feelings into this and honestly it sounds like you're projecting your own personal problems onto this topic. And maybe you aren't but with all the assumptions you've made about me, I think it's fair I make one too. And I know this is really complicated and hard for you to digest, but not everyone that pulled themselves up by their bootstraps has a loving and supportive family backing them. My Dad initially had nothing but negative comments to say when I decided to go back to school. To telling me I'd crack under the pressure of having a full time job and full time schooling, right down to me probably never finding a job in my field and being stuck with student loan debt working at Walmart. And I proved him wrong. And I have repeatedly stated if schooling doesn't work, to find a job that allows room for growth with little to know education needed. I feel bad for the people who have to be around you and your negative attitude.
Put 100 people though any kind of "course," whether it's how to spit watermelon seeds or how to do differential equations, some number of them is going to fail. I say this as someone who was quite bad at the watermelon seed spitting contest I had to do in boy scouts. It was embarrassing. I didn't come from the kind of household that did much of that kind of thing, so had never done it before, and was at a disadvantage.
But the fact that not everyone will pass does not mean we should not TRY to facilitate as many people as possible to realize their maximum potential, and give them equal opportunity to fulfill it. In fact I would argue it is unethical NOT to try as hard as we can.
There are still many inequalities in things like education access that have not been resolved, some of which I mentioned... e.g.: if only for a working reliable car, I've had students that I KNOW would have gone on to get accepted at top transfer institutions. But their car broke down at inopportune time, they missed an exam, failed the class, became demoralized, dropped out. That kind of thing is an inequality we can compensate for with minimal expense.
So because their car broke down they just gave up? No one to ask for a ride? No bus, taxi, Uber, etc? That's so weird that when my car was in the shop for two days, I was able to find someone to give me a ride to work and to school. Just admit it, you love making excuses because it's easier than actually getting off your ass and doing something about it.
I actually can’t give you the numbers. Since you claim to be involved with education maybe you should just tell us since you seem to disagree.
How many people are good earners as art history majors? How about photography degrees?
Not as bad you assume, I'd bet.
There are about 800 undergrad majors offered at 3000 colleges and universities in the U.S.* Economically they perform according to a very classic bell curve. About 80% of all degree types perform in the 45-75k middle class range within the first 10-15 years post graduation for the people who put them to work. 10% overperform that, 10% underperform. The overperformers are mostly technical specialized degrees and engineering variants that not many people get. The underperformers tend to be vague generalized degrees (general studies etc.) vocational subjects that arguably should not be college degrees (e.g. recreation administration, hospitality), and traditionally low paying fields (early childhood ed, theology).
Art History is in the bell, along with most traditional humanities and social sciences that all impart similar skills. Photography is a slight underperformer in that bottom 10%, one of the lowest performing fine arts. Neither of those are very popular majors & not all schools have them, e.g.: mine has neither and only offers those as electives, although art history is quite popular among the students.
The degrees themselves also cannot account for the ambition and choices of the bearer. I majored in history and am only 1 of 6 out of my cohort of about 20 who even attempted an education career, and only 1 of 2 who is still in it 11 years later. Which is the stereotype for the major. Some went into business, e.g. one friend I graduated with is an airline administrator of some sort in which he's moved up extraordinarily fast; I have no idea how he got into that. He actually worked as a college professor teaching history for 3 years and then quit, at which point I lost contact for a while. He somehow got into the aviation business.
In the bell curve, most distinctions between the majors are relatively minor and the positions on the rankings are separated by mere hundreds of dollars per year. As an example of two on the opposite sides of the bell, Chemistry is ranked #232 median career earnings of 49.2k starting career, 93k by mid career. Anthropology is ranked #577 at 43.5k starting, 73k by mid career. So a chemistry major will, based on past performance, on average out earn an anthropology major by about 400k over a 30 year career, or about 13k per year. That is something to consider and I'd rather have 13k per year than not if I can stomach it, but fundamentally they are both securely in the middle class, and they both out-earn high school only graduates by over a million.
People like to compare the skilled trades but they are the rock stars of the working class, the top 5-10% of the non college population. Odds are, if you don't go to college you will NOT become one of them. Training for those skilled trades is often harder than college, in different ways. Generally, a below average college graduate will considerably out earn a top 20% high school only grad.
So because their car broke down they just gave up? No one to ask for a ride? No bus, taxi, Uber, etc? That's so weird that when my car was in the shop for two days, I was able to find someone to give me a ride to work and to school. Just admit it, you love making excuses because it's easier than actually getting off your ass and doing something about it.
What if there is no bus system, and you don't have a network willing to drive you?
The particular scenario I'm thinking of was a student from the nearby Native American reservation which is 45 minutes from the nearest branch campus which has no bus service. None of his friends could spare an hour and a half round trip plus two hours to wait on him. The county voted against working with the Res to provide bus service. Didn't want the taxes.
Uber would have been 200 at least for that trip.
Last edited by redguard57; 06-24-2021 at 12:44 PM..
You fail to realize that having a stable home doesn't always mean it was easy. You have no idea what they went through to make those goals happen.
They have increased but they're still cheaper options than a university. And again, if NO schooling works, find a job that allows room for growth using training or certs. They're out there.
Yeah, the pandemic did show that. But it was mainly elementary, middle school, and high school. Colleges were affected but colleges have also offered online courses for quite some time now. So in the college world I'm willing to bet those numbers were smaller compared to K - 12. That "hard. freaking. data." you're speaking of provides facts but you're glossing over this with a broad paint brush. Plenty of people graduated in 2020 and got through it.
LOL God you're really trying here aren't you. Laptops don't take that much space. And if you don't have a desk or can't afford one, use what you have. Some of my co-workers are still rocking a dining room setup for work and school and they're managing. Again, lame excuses. Some people can't afford a laptop or a tablet yes, you're right. But there are assistance programs. There's payment plans for those who can't afford them. Some offer as a low $30/mo for payments. You're also cherry picking. I didn't say EVERY PERSON was buying $200 sneakers. However, in my experience, the ones who ***** and moan like you are right now, are the same ones having the latest phone, sneakers, clothes, etc.
No, I didn't. I was 28 when I went back to school. Single guy living with my sister paying her my fair share of the rent. I got approved for financial aid and my loans are in my name. And I consolidated my student loan debt to make my payments easier. I even made some payments when Trump and Biden put a freeze on loan payments. I know this must drive you crazy because you're having a hard time accepting this. You also really seem to have a weird obsession with me needing to have support. Are you saying I could've never done this on my own due to how you view our nation's current situation with schools and student loans?
Again.....you don't know me. For the love of God get out of your feelings. I have supported lower tuition. I have spoken out on how many colleges have become more of a business compared to a vessel providing students a solid education. I have attended rallies with friends, have showed up to speakings, and have advocated against overly expensive gyms and flashy features when that money could be redirected to education programs and more effective ways to help students get into the school they want to go to.
I said it before and I'll say it again: you're projecting your feelings into this and honestly it sounds like you're projecting your own personal problems onto this topic. And maybe you aren't but with all the assumptions you've made about me, I think it's fair I make one too. And I know this is really complicated and hard for you to digest, but not everyone that pulled themselves up by their bootstraps has a loving and supportive family backing them. My Dad initially had nothing but negative comments to say when I decided to go back to school. To telling me I'd crack under the pressure of having a full time job and full time schooling, right down to me probably never finding a job in my field and being stuck with student loan debt working at Walmart. And I proved him wrong. And I have repeatedly stated if schooling doesn't work, to find a job that allows room for growth with little to know education needed. I feel bad for the people who have to be around you and your negative attitude.
As I said, bully for you, buddy. Glad you overcame all that. What you're doing is looking at it through your individual experience and personalizing it as an outcome of character. Also it's interesting that you mention a sister that shared rent and financial aid. Those are both supports.
What I'm doing is looking at it through a less personal statistical lens. If you ran your scenario through 100 people, how many would statistically fail? 20? 30? 50? The thing is, we run these stats and we know what the failure rates are based on what obstacles, and what they are when those obstacles are not present. They are much less. We know that support systems like family are important and that presence of such is evident in higher success rates.
We don't know precisely how much your personal brand of moxie might make a difference since we don't have way to measure that. But I would not assume that someone failed because of a lack of some kind of personal conviction, or attrribute success to it.
You're accusing me of personally injecting "feelings" and what I'm telling are the statistical facts. When we survey why students don't complete the kinds of things I mentioned are what they respond with. I'm telling you the success rates with online are worse than in person, that is just fact. When they tell us that reliable transportation was a barrier, and we do things like increase bus service we saw better success rates, that is just fact. When they tell is they don't have a place to study and those people failed more, we don't assume they didn't have the personal wherewithal to work around that problem, we just accept that was a problem. The kind of students that fail tend to be poorer, etc.., when they get more financial support they pass at higher rates, that is just fact.
None of it is a commentary on your moxie or lack thereof, which is something that we can't measure that well, but you seem highly invested in it. Which is fine. Generally speaking motivation is important, but EVERY student shows up on day 1 motivated.
Last edited by redguard57; 06-24-2021 at 01:12 PM..
You entirely missed the point - CPI is what the government uses to measure inflation. It is not up to you whether it is the correct way or not.
"What the government uses to measure inflation" is not the question here. We were discussing how the minimum wage keeps up with the reality of the cost of necessities.
In the example you cite, government created a private sector monopoly, and monopolies tend to behave sort of like, well, monopolies. Personally, I've been dealing with Comcast/Xfinity (our cable provider in Park City) for the past week, and it is like pulling teeth without Novocain. It is at least 20 hours of my life wasted. They are a monopoly, and dealing with them sux.
You raise an excellent point about monopolies and I couldn't agree more.
But our various prison systems are run by multiple corporations, not one.
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So you are against bus systems? Or you deny that transportation is an obstacle? I'm describing a real world scenario of why a student failed. If you want to call me a liar do it to my face.
The car one gets me. I had a post earlier that I deleted. I bought my first car by working an entire summer doing landscaping and plunging toilets working at a section 8 housing complex in the summer before college. This was in 2008, when gas prices were over $4 a gallon and minimum wage was $6. On the way to school, my car rolled into a ditch from an ice patch and it ruined all of my school books from the expanding water. It ruined my cell phone and my graphing calculator. 3 different emergency agencies responded to the crash, and each separately charged me for it. Since I avoided hitting the other cars, my insurance company didn’t even pay out my $500 plpd. This was during the Great Recession, in one of the most violent and economically depressed part of the country in a town dependent on the auto industry. At 16 years old, my family was homeless. You also mentioned something about access. On my college entrance exams, I got top 10% in the nation, but I didn’t have anyone to help me with school or what to do. I wasn’t confident or developed enough at the time to do anything different myself. Yet, I went to the local school because it was “close”. Yet, there’s countless examples of people who had their school funded and they waste it by partying and not actually paying attention.
Oh, and encouragement? That section 8 housing complex I worked at, was ran by my two former members of my “family”. They hired an accounting student out of my same program and gave her a job helping out in the office. “The single greatest lie that you can tell someone is that they are not good enough or worthy of their own dreams and aspirations. If you get then when they’re young, it’s particularly easy to create depression, anxiety, and lifelong destructive habits”. They went to prison for embezzlement. I went on to work for the biggest CPA firms and private and blue chip Fortune 500 companies.
“How does one person turn adversity into the very reason they succeed and another person turns that same adversity into a ball and chain? How can one person turn a loss now into a win later, and another person sees that same defeat as the end? Well the answer is simple really, did you seek out the opportunity or did you not? When you strip life down of its complexities, the patterns become apparent. The people who win never ask IF. IF it’s possible. IF it can happen. They start with the premise “it sure can”. The question is HOW. How can I take the situations happening around me whether challenging, reassuring, strenuous, or any thing in between and use it to lift me UP? THAT is the opportunity, and without that realization there never will be your pot of gold. It begins in your head. if you fail to put a dream or a plan into existence, it simply fails to exist”
Last edited by Thatsright19; 06-24-2021 at 02:49 PM..
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