Comments on: How higher education lost its shine

By: Wial Howard

Wial Howard — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 22:39:13 +0000

Kleigh: Well said. I worked in Human Resources and Organizational Development for 20 years–primarily people development work. Often organizational leaders just didn’t understand why there was such strong employee discontent. My response: it’s hard for employees to smile each day when they are not paid enough to take care of their family and household. I recently relocated to a new city and was appalled at the low salaries offered to seasoned professionals like myself–the job requirements were totally unreasonable and asked for multiple degrees. I’m sure students are on the fence because of the low salaries. Yet, there are endless articles about how difficult it is to find employees. Young people need fair and decent salaries, just as anyone else who desires a decent quality of life. I suspect students would be far more inclined to readily head for college if there was evidence of decent salaries waiting for them on the other side of this major accomplishment.

By: Kleigh

Kleigh — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:45:15 +0000

I have read so many articles in the past weeks related to this topic and every single article misses the WHOLE point! At the end of each article I find myself more annoyed. Sitting in a room full of graduates discussing how they have a masters degree and that is why they are able to make 32,000 is the most discouraging thing I have had to hear this week, on top of this article. It would seem smart people such as the writers of these articles would be brave enough to address the real issue here, but article after article I am seeing blame being thrown at everything but the problem. Stop blaming students that dropout and start asking your employers why starting salary still leaves future employees at poverty level. Ask institutions why their job ads require everything but a kidney, with the pay range of 36,000- 50,000. When I finish my degree I will be lucky to make 40 grand yearly, heck I will be lucky to make 30 grand. Right now, without a college education or high school diploma, without skills or prior experience, anyone can walk off the street into any factory and make 19 an hour. That is what is going on in my community, in my town, and at my college. My spouse does not take my education seriously and how can I make him understand its value when he has and most likely will always make more money than me without a diploma, degree, or certification? He makes 37,000 a year and with a six year college education, graduates are settling for less than 30,000 with student debt on top of it. Not to mention the fact that his job wont leave him with crippling depression and exhaustion as he has said, “it is the most simple job he has ever had!” I feel like the research these articles use to make their arguments have to be outdated or in reference to the higher paying careers. There is no need to write an article addressing a problem, when the real issue is completely ignored. It’s like writing an article on malnurishment in areas labled, “food deserts” and never mentioning the lack of access to grocery stores! Placing blame on people choosing a debt free life to make more than they will after completing a masters degree is exactly why this problem will continue. If you want people to take college seriously again, then grow the gonads it takes to address the elephant in every college classroom. Address the fact that social service majors make such little income that they are still receiving benefits, continuing to live on poverty level. People without a college education are not stupid or burnt out by learning or lacking the common sense to take into account the long term financial consequences of our chouces. Until graduating with a degree in the majority of the fields means not being left stuck with a debt that will further cripple the pathetic 50,000 yearly, mostly less salary. Please help us fight the real disparities that many college students and former students, as well as graduates, are facing! We all want our education, but at what cost? I want to be able to fight for my education, my major, and my future without having someone tell me how much more they make than me without having graduated high school! I want to know that this is eventually going to pay off. Whenever a problem persists, follow the money, it’s always the money!

By: Paul james

Paul james — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 18:40:49 +0000

Anything non hard science degree is a waste of money. Schools used to boast about the size of their library to entice students. Now we all have a library at our fingertips. Its outdated, lost its charm, and has become fat on student loan pork. Taking on massive debt to support a bloated cushy admin staff just so you can sit a mind numbing office job. Its a scam.

By: Frank Stone

Frank Stone — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 06:26:15 +0000

If the colleges and universities believed their degrees had any verifiable value, they would loan money to students directly, just like the car dealerships have done for over a century on admittedly depreciating assets. Do you really want a degree that’s being given away without any verification of value, much less knowledge? Tell me again: Who are the anti-intellectuals, and who are the scammers?

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 14:04:31 +0000

Articles such as this discussing the higher wages earned by a college graduate almost always gloss over the fact that there is a huge difference in earning potential of the various college majors. Yes, doctors, engineers, accountants will, in fact, earn far more than someone who chooses not to attend college. But what about the vast majority of college majors such as Sociology, Art History, and just about anything ending with the word Studies? What does one learn in those fields of study that has any application to jobs?
These counselors are doing a great disservice to their students by telling them they have to go to college. Many of the students are smart enough to see that their career path lies elsewhere, despite what these misguided “professionals” tell them.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 19:45:29 +0000

It seems to me that this article is missing a fairly obvious explanation for why students are not pursuing 4-year college: completing it, even in 6 years, is extremely challenging and very much against the odds for many historically social and economic groups.

There are many reasons for this. One of the most obvious is that new college students often lack sufficient money to pay for (and otherwise unencumbered time to complete) the necessary credits to graduate when that process ends up taking more than four years. Lenders and financial aid offices all too often can and do make the terms of educational loans and other forms of aid much more attractive in the earlier years of college than in later years, and 17 year-olds are not in a great position to judge the financial risks or the likelihood that they will not finish in four, five, or six years.

To quote Complete College America’s press release from earlier this year (https://completecollege.org/resource/new-multi-state-network-will-help-states-raise-the-bar-on-college-completion-break-down-barriers-to-equity/):

“Nationally, about 90% of students from under-resourced families do not graduate within six years–let alone four. According to NASPA’s Center for First-generation Student Success, 56% of first-generation college students had not attained a postsecondary credential after six years. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, 6-year graduation rates for Black and Latino students stand at 51.5%, lower than graduation rates for White students.”

The article emphasizes reasons people might or might not be right to think that the cost of college might not be worth it, even for those who complete it. However, it is impossible to have an accurate picture of what is taking place in higher education if you ignore the plight of those who start to pay for it, but do not complete it (and the staggeringly high likelihood that this will happen if you belong to certain groups who previously were excluded from college).

That also brings me to another important perspective missing from this article: a historical one. Before World War II and the G.I. Bill, none of these students whose loss from higher education is being lamented would have been able to go to college. As many books and articles have noted, the federal government’s investment in returning veterans’ going to college, together with the strength of labor unions and the (unfortunately highly uneven and slow-moving) racial integration of the same, propelled the creation of the American middle class. Over the past 30 years, most of those investments have been withdrawn, and the middle class is withering, which, without a change in direction, will quite logically lead back to the pre-G.I. Bill days. There was nothing inevitable about making those investments in assuring college funding for previously undereducated veterans, just as there is nothing inevitable about maintaining or expanding such investments today.

I strongly encourage the author to review the materials at Complete College America (https://completecollege.org/about-us/) and conduct some additional research regarding the withering financial stability of middle class (and below middle class) families who might be sending their children to college. I would then urge the author and the Hechinger Report to supplement this article with information about the very real financial challenges associated with completing college in six years, as well as the understandable and very real financial risk involved in committing to such college completion for families (particularly families with more than one child) who are losing their footing in the middle class.

By: Sandra Ericson

Sandra Ericson — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:24:25 +0000

Since 1980, American high schools have focused jobs and college — good goals but completely missing what every human being needs: how to live and grow in this time and this place — the instructions. Before then, most schools taught Home Economics — yes, I know, stir ‘n stitch’, but also banking, housing, sanitation, insurance, consumer protection, and — wait for it — Life Planning!!! That involved finding out how bigger consumer systems worked, professional self-presentation, planning for family, child development and foods and nutrition. Students were invited to envision their own future life — they got it. Dropping education then seemed like a poor choice when looking at the big picture. It is no accident that poor health, medical bankruptcy, obesity, diabetes, all happen to happen now, a generation after these courses were pulled. Only girls took Home Ec and therefore when it came time to plug in tech, the female-based programs were the first to go — they needed the labs and the funding. Shop for men was retained. Fast forward, today, the discipline is called Human Ecology and covers ALL the complicated environments that we now all must navigate to make anything happen for anyone, not just the family-oriented ones, but also social, professional, civic participation, and climate adaptation. You can count on one hand the number of schools, high schools or community colleges, that teach Human Ecology, but more and more of those nice, pricey private schools do teach it in one form or another.
Simple concept: start with people, teach what them about their own life and the social systems they must understand and navigate in the country they are living in. Give them what they need to be healthy, confident and empowered to grow their lives. Human Ecology should be mandatory to graduate, K-16.

By: George J Kamburoff

George J Kamburoff — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 15:43:22 +0000

I fear the anti-intellectualism now rife in conservative circles. The lack of sufficient education in science and the rise of politics have now put us in a condition which threatens the loss of a climate conducive to human habitat.

By: Chris Domres

Chris Domres — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 12:24:20 +0000

Even back in 1972 when I graduated from high school there was the idea that we all had to go to college. The kids that took shop classes were considered dumb losers. I just retired a year ago and moved to a small North Carolina town. We have the money to fix up a nice little house we bought but cannot find the tradesmen needed to do the work. There is a major shortage of people skilled in the building and maintenance trades. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters are all charging $150 per hour, are booked six weeks to a half year out. If you are lucky enough to get them to come buy to give you an estimate, you wait six weeks for them to find the free time to put together that estimate. So all those kids who took shop class are having the last laugh.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 18:04:46 +0000

Simple answer with an internet search:

8 top European countries with free or virtually free college tuition( including international students).

Germany. …
Norway. …
Iceland. …
Austria. …
France. …
Poland. …
Greece. …
Hungary.

So, 22 countries offer free education. When will the US decide to rejoin the first world? When will the US decide to pay teachers a starting salary that is competitive with what their fellow college grads make?