10-03-2016, 01:12 PM
Before I go on to the next business failure, let me address college and trade schools in general.
1. The top end is OK. Yes, the elite private colleges are fiendishly expensive, but they get very good results. Of course they are selective, so they rarely take likely failures. I saw The Social Network, and I came to recognize that Harvard really is a climate for success. There's plenty of competition, and not only for grades. The competitions in rowing are never definitive for a season, and although any individual match is tightly contested on any given day, the one that comes up shortly makes the previous contest meaningless except in creating a climate of winning for particpants after graduating from Harvard.
Yes, someone can graduate from Yale, Stanford, or the University of Chicago and be a failure in life -- but that is rare.
2. The bottom end, vocational schools that make few promises but prepare one for a trade at little cost in a short time, do well enough. So it is with hairdressers, barbers, bartenders, mechanics, nurses' aides, etc. If the course is short and inexpensive and gets one a slightly-0skilled job, then the results are adequate.
3. State colleges and universities may not be as successful in turning out the Big Winners in life... but they churn out lots of schoolteachers, county agricultural agents, fish-and-wildlife officers, accountants, and scientific technicians. More costly than #2 and not as successful as #1, real success here requires grad school.
4. Near-top private colleges and universities, more expensive than #3, but perhaps better at regimenting students' lives to make successes. Low-end graduates might be seminarians (I saw Seton Hall rated as a bad buy -- until one sees that it turns out lots of Catholic priests who are among the worst-paid professionals in America). Many of these are religious in character.
5. Unselective private colleges include once-respected schools that have lost their credibility due to low performance of their students, flunk-out academies, and bad religious schools. An example of one that I would distrust is one that proclaims on billboards asserts that "XYZ University teaches traditional values". Big deal! A traditional household can teach those, too. A good college teaches one why some traditions need be protected and what traditions deserve challenge. A graduate of such a school is likely to take the sort of job that he had before going to college, but know a few more Bible verses to state. Also included are diploma mills. Default rates are high.
6. Community (commuter) colleges. Probably the ultimate bargain so long as one gets the courses that one needs. I am satisfied that so long as one gets the courses to be a machinist, one can become a machinist (really, a good job). I am satisfied that most who attend a four-year college would be better off financially by taking their lower-division coursework in these schools. They can teach the low-level college course that most professors don't relish teaching (English composition, calculus, and most survey courses required at four-year colleges. Nobody really cares where one spent one's first two years of college if one gets the degree). Low costs keep default rates low.
7. Overrated technical schools -- places that charge what the Federal student loan program will offer. Not to be confused with CalTech or MIT, these places have nothing to offer but a limited prospect for a job. The Obama Administration has been cutting off funds for such places -- like Corinthian Colleges. Junk schools deserve to go under.
1. The top end is OK. Yes, the elite private colleges are fiendishly expensive, but they get very good results. Of course they are selective, so they rarely take likely failures. I saw The Social Network, and I came to recognize that Harvard really is a climate for success. There's plenty of competition, and not only for grades. The competitions in rowing are never definitive for a season, and although any individual match is tightly contested on any given day, the one that comes up shortly makes the previous contest meaningless except in creating a climate of winning for particpants after graduating from Harvard.
Yes, someone can graduate from Yale, Stanford, or the University of Chicago and be a failure in life -- but that is rare.
2. The bottom end, vocational schools that make few promises but prepare one for a trade at little cost in a short time, do well enough. So it is with hairdressers, barbers, bartenders, mechanics, nurses' aides, etc. If the course is short and inexpensive and gets one a slightly-0skilled job, then the results are adequate.
3. State colleges and universities may not be as successful in turning out the Big Winners in life... but they churn out lots of schoolteachers, county agricultural agents, fish-and-wildlife officers, accountants, and scientific technicians. More costly than #2 and not as successful as #1, real success here requires grad school.
4. Near-top private colleges and universities, more expensive than #3, but perhaps better at regimenting students' lives to make successes. Low-end graduates might be seminarians (I saw Seton Hall rated as a bad buy -- until one sees that it turns out lots of Catholic priests who are among the worst-paid professionals in America). Many of these are religious in character.
5. Unselective private colleges include once-respected schools that have lost their credibility due to low performance of their students, flunk-out academies, and bad religious schools. An example of one that I would distrust is one that proclaims on billboards asserts that "XYZ University teaches traditional values". Big deal! A traditional household can teach those, too. A good college teaches one why some traditions need be protected and what traditions deserve challenge. A graduate of such a school is likely to take the sort of job that he had before going to college, but know a few more Bible verses to state. Also included are diploma mills. Default rates are high.
6. Community (commuter) colleges. Probably the ultimate bargain so long as one gets the courses that one needs. I am satisfied that so long as one gets the courses to be a machinist, one can become a machinist (really, a good job). I am satisfied that most who attend a four-year college would be better off financially by taking their lower-division coursework in these schools. They can teach the low-level college course that most professors don't relish teaching (English composition, calculus, and most survey courses required at four-year colleges. Nobody really cares where one spent one's first two years of college if one gets the degree). Low costs keep default rates low.
7. Overrated technical schools -- places that charge what the Federal student loan program will offer. Not to be confused with CalTech or MIT, these places have nothing to offer but a limited prospect for a job. The Obama Administration has been cutting off funds for such places -- like Corinthian Colleges. Junk schools deserve to go under.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.