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Particularly upsetting is the number of Chinese students in hard sciences & technology. This students do have trouble with english. One of my kid's dorm had Chinese students. They tend to stick together and not integrate into campus life. It was like they were in their own world.
Probably because they are enemy nationals. Why should they mix with us? They'll take our world-class knowledge home, rip off our IP in new and creative ways, but live under a totalitarian government that already thoroughly censors the Internet. The "Great Firewall" of China. No wonder Hong Kong is so popular, definitely a place I need to visit and explore their free-wheeling ways.
I wondered same when I was in college, and American schools were filled with Arabs some of whom took the knowledge home to find ways to put our soldiers and civilians in the ground, too. Not all, but some. Crappy attitudes, most of them, and a few got "the finger" from me at the time, too.
These are the cons of living in a free society, as we do. We live with it, but don't have to like it. I'm especially amused by the Chinese money that (was) buying up Vancouver BC property by those needing to park corrupt cash. Is, or was, happening in Seattle too: My next door neighbor's parents did so, and parked a 20-something couple there so at least it's occupied. They don't look smart enough to work at Starbucks, in a $1.1M home bought by mom and dad. Makes my taxes go up, but home values too.
I doubt we'll be sanctioning China any time soon. Get used to it. In contrast, I worked with some of the young, highly intelligent Chinese ex-pats at World's Largest Software Corporation, who actually did want to learn American ways. Liked most of them, they're plain-spoken and hard-charging (high performance). So there you go.
No, I don’t think a college that may receive more taxpayer funded money for minority scholarships, loans, grants, etc ... has to dumb down the curriculum.
Sorry but that was sort of the elephant in the room. Anyway;
I took remedial math in college. Literally started out with: “Whole Numbers: This is a Zero ... the number one ... number two ...”
Not only that but it was 100% taxpayer funded. A grant, not even a loan. And I passed with an A+.
Could I have skipped that? Probably. Would I have encountered difficulty down the road? Definitely; I hadn’t passed a math class since I was 12 years old! I got into college with a ninth grade education & a baby (who I didn’t bring to class) & ridiculously high GED scores ... except in Math.
I had to do aptitude testing. They said; “ Just don’t major in anything that involves math ...”
I was majoring in something that most definitely would require math. I wanted to be an RN.
So yes, I used taxpayer money on a class that started with; “2 + 2 = 4”. Do taxpayers want to fund the education of a nurse that can’t calculate her own injection dosages/per cc, IV drip rates & infusion equations, etc ... ?
“Oh, the pharmacy computers do all the calculations these days ...”
So what? Pharmacists, doctors & computers ... ALL make mistakes. When I had to take my “Math for Health Sciences” course; I passed that with an A+ too. Then; I passed my NCLEX (pre board exams) four days post-Partum (sat in the back with baby #4 under the table).
Finally, a month after that; I passed my state boards first try. I was the only RN in Colorado to take the state boards in 1992 without the use of a calculator. I don’t think I could have done any of this if I had not started with that first “fundamentals of math” class. It’s a great investment.
No, I don’t think a college that may receive more taxpayer funded money for minority scholarships, loans, grants, etc ... has to dumb down the curriculum.
Sorry but that was sort of the elephant in the room. Anyway;
I took remedial math in college. Literally started out with: “Whole Numbers: This is a Zero ... the number one ... number two ...”
Not only that but it was 100% taxpayer funded. A grant, not even a loan. And I passed with an A+.
Could I have skipped that? Probably. Would I have encountered difficulty down the road? Definitely; I hadn’t passed a math class since I was 12 years old! I got into college with a ninth grade education & a baby (who I didn’t bring to class) & ridiculously high GED scores ... except in Math.
I had to do aptitude testing. They said; “ Just don’t major in anything that involves math ...”
I was majoring in something that most definitely would require math. I wanted to be an RN.
So yes, I used taxpayer money on a class that started with; “2 + 2 = 4”. Do taxpayers want to fund the education of a nurse that can’t calculate her own injection dosages/per cc, IV drip rates & infusion equations, etc ... ?
“Oh, the pharmacy computers do all the calculations these days ...”
So what? Pharmacists, doctors & computers ... ALL make mistakes. When I had to take my “Math for Health Sciences” course; I passed that with an A+ too. Then; I passed my NCLEX (pre board exams) four days post-Partum (sat in the back with baby #4 under the table).
Finally, a month after that; I passed my state boards first try. I was the only RN in Colorado to take the state boards in 1992 without the use of a calculator. I don’t think I could have done any of this if I had not started with that first “fundamentals of math” class. It’s a great investment.
.
Good for You! It's nice to hear about someone doing well.
The point that I was trying to make is that people who need remedial coursework for high school level Math and English don't belong in college - they belong in a community college. Tuition at Morehouse is about 30K/yr, and it's 50K/yr including room and board. Sure, many people are getting all sorts of public and private scholarships to attend (and taking out loans to attend, too) - but if they need remedial instruction in Math and English, should they be receiving taxpayer scholarships and taxpayer backed loans to do this remedial work at a four year college at six to ten times the cost of a community college? Community college costs usually no more than 5-6K/yr for tuition and fees, often less, and people usually live at home. So where does it make sense to go, if you need to do high school level work, but are too old for high school? Obviously, if you yourself are paying the tuition bill, it makes financial sense to do this remedial work at a community college, and go to a four year college when you are ready to do college level work. Should taxpayers, and tax-exempt college endowments, be paying for people to do remedial coursework at six to ten times the cost that it would be at a community college?
I have one final comment on your claim that community college is cheaper for the taxpayer than a private college.
No.
It's.
Not.
Superficially, it may appear so. The sticker price is lower, right? But Morehouse College is a private institution. It operates itself. Community colleges don't. They're operated by the government.
Who pays the hundreds of members of the faculty, administration, and staff of Morehouse College? Not the government.
Who pays tens of millions of dollars every time a new science building or residence hall is built at Morehouse College? Not the government.
Who pays to maintain Morehouse College, to heat all the buildings and provide security and maintain the grounds? Not the government.
Now, who pays for all of those things at community colleges, which are owned by the state? The government. Georgia's 2020 budget has already been passed. It includes $3.1 billion in spending on state-owned colleges and universities. State-owned schools only have lower price tags because of the massive amount of state funding pumped into them from the beginning, funding that does not flow to private schools.
The idea that the taxpayer would be on the hook for less money if the man in this article took remedial math at a community college instead of at Morehouse is just plain wrong.
Who pays tens of millions of dollars every time a new science building or residence hall is built at Morehouse College? Not the government.
Who pays to maintain Morehouse College, to heat all the buildings and provide security and maintain the grounds? Not the government.
Now, who pays for all of those things at community colleges, which are owned by the state? The government. Georgia's 2020 budget has already been passed. It includes $3.1 billion in spending on state-owned colleges and universities. State-owned schools only have lower price tags because of the massive amount of state funding pumped into them from the beginning, funding that does not flow to private schools.
The idea that the taxpayer would be on the hook for less money if the man in this article took remedial math at a community college instead of at Morehouse is just plain wrong.
There Are Really Almost No Truly Private Universities
About 30% of American college students attend so-called private colleges and universities, most of which are non-profit institutions. In reality, however, with very few exceptions, all of them are heavily dependent directly or indirectly on governments for support. Federal student loans allow them to raise fees much higher than they otherwise would be able to charge, as do tuition tax credits and Pell Grants. The tax-deductible treatment of private donations helps fund new buildings.Universities rarely appropriately provide for the depreciation or construction of facilities in their accounting of revenues and expenses, implicitly assuming they are gifts from God. State and local government exemption of facilities from property and sometimes sales taxes provide further assistance. The federal government hands out research grants, with generous (probably overly generous) provision for overhead expenses. Endowments are also advantaged enormously by tax privileges, even for the few dozen schools that will now have to pay an endowment tax. Public school guidance counselors and teachers tell students that to be successful in life they need to go to college and that the extremely successful go to elite private schools.
I once estimated all the various government benefits received by so-called private Princeton University were vastly greater (at least 10 times as much per student) than those conferred on a so-called public or state university, the College of New Jersey, located a mere 10 miles away. Is the public/private distinction meaningful in any real sense?
Particularly upsetting is the number of Chinese students in hard sciences & technology. This students do have trouble with english. One of my kid's dorm had Chinese students. They tend to stick together and not integrate into campus life. It was like they were in their own world.
I have noticed this with the Chinese. The Chinese are often strong quantitatively but are unable to write English well. Spoken English can be an issue as well. I have had Chinese national co-workers who were awful at written communication and wondered how they graduated college given that their emails and other forms of written communication often had grammatical and syntactical errors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person
Those "good jobs right out of high school" until the mid - 1970s were primarily in factories or mines, and were more competitive to get than common knowledge would have you believe. How many of those jobs exist today?
We were told for decades, and had to teach to it, that the US was transitioning to a service economy. That was happening pre - NAFTA and ramped up afterward. So people paying attention 30 years ago, I was one, could foresee that jobs for the average high school graduate were going to be some of the ones you mentioned when you get to today.
Our politicians and business leaders did not put the United States first. Factories, other manufacturing, and mining should have never been allowed to leave the United States. I believe the United States should be a manufacturing and mining economy first. This idea is part of how Trump/MAGA resonated in 2016.
We would put the right number of students through higher education with this model. We now have too many college graduates and too many useless liberal arts major. The college educated Starbucks barista became a cliche during the Great Recession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
What North Beach Person said. Why, in this information society, should we not encourage kids to get as much education as they can? Although I do think you two should form a committee to decide just who gets to go to college. What age will you start with? 10, like in Germany?
And let me touch on the women. These "trade school" jobs that some of you are waxing rhapsodic about are pretty much non-existent for women. Oh, sure, it's 2019, a woman can go to auto mechanic school, or join the plumbers' apprenticeship, but how many do? As far as trade school, the main options for women are beauty school and/or the health paraprofessions, e.g. LPN, MA, CNA, phlebotomist, etc. Go look up the salary scales for these jobs. The only one that makes any kind of livable wage is LPN, at about $20/hr. https://work.chron.com/hourly-rate-lpn-make-1546.html MA-listed here by annual $35,000, or $17.50/hr. CNA-https://www1.salary.com/Medical-Assistant-Salary.html CNA-average $32,500, or about $16.00/hr. (Op cit) These jobs have no opportunity for advancement. You do not become Director of Nursing with a CNA, MA, or LPN. Phlebotomist, about $31,000/yr, or $15.50/hr. Hairdresser, ~$25,000, or $12.50/hr. Yeah, you can own a shop, but you have to save up the money to do that, and then you work your tail off for not that much money. https://money.usnews.com/careers/bes...dresser/salary
Last edited by toobusytoday; 03-09-2019 at 04:40 PM..
Reason: Removed sexist remarks
In contrast, I worked with some of the young, highly intelligent Chinese ex-pats at World's Largest Software Corporation, who actually did want to learn American ways. Liked most of them, they're plain-spoken and hard-charging (high performance). So there you go.
Like most instances of international friction or conflict, the rank-and-file citizens get along with each other just fine. It's when you get government officials involved that things get dicey.
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