Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktThis may seem a parochial concern to non-Texans, but bear with me. See:
UT has become a powerhouse research institution. SAT averages are in the mid 80th percentiles [1240 on the old scoring we are all familiar with, but significantly higher in scitech and business and architecture, lower in the social sciences and education, predictably] plus very high GREs for its grad students and very high LSATS, GMATS and PCATS as applicable. The scitech grad schools are all top ten in America and among the most highly funded. The biz school and the music school and most of the arts and social sciences are highly regarded and ranked as well. Accounting is often #1 and pharmcy #2, 3, or 4.
Most of UT’s funding is NOT from the state legislature.
Perry had pushed a plan that has some populist appeal: make profs “work” harder. His plan cut into research time and demanded more teaching time and included student evaluations as part of the tenure map. There are two Tier One publics in TX: UT and A&M. Perry’s plan got traction with the non-UT system lower tier schools and with A&M, grudgingly. It was fought tooth and nail by UT, system wide. There are some up and coming lower tier UT system schools and some first class purely graduate and professional research institutes outside Austin, like the Health Science Center in Houston, and Southwest Medical School in Dallas. So Perry’s two year long war [see: http://www.texasmonthly.com/2011-04-01/btl.php] came to a head in July and Bill Powers won. During that foment, btw, a poll actually found that BHO would run even with Perry in TX. He really would not, of course, but the confluence of BinLaden’s death at the hands of SEALS and this war, perceived as an affront by UT alums, was momentarily heady for BHO fans.
My point for national consumption: Perry actually has some good ideas for higher ed –
but in Texas he wanted to punitively use them against the research tier one schools, or so it seemed. I think there is a place for tier one research universities as well as for community colleges and I am a huge fan of community colleges as the best and fastest way to retrain a work force and give the willing a second chance. I think Perry’s ideas are best applied to community colleges. What do you think?
This is likely my last appearance here until tonight. Look forward to the day’s reading when I get to it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: NEW POST |
All Things in Moderation 
I really like his idea for a $10K Bachelor degree. I'm not a fan of Perry's, but that idea really resonates with me. I also tend to think about the opportunity cost in regards to state higher Ed funding. There is amstrong desire by some for prestige over value.
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What's the deal with the $10k degree? Mostly e-learning / computer-based-training, or what?
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I'm a fan of community colleges, two year training programs in specific industries, and then a transfer to a 4 year college for that bachelor's degree. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be enough anymore. In order to really capture that ellusive job now, and possibly in the future, most young people will need an advanced degree.And then the money really adds up, in terms of student debt. I know that unemployment is much lower for college graduates than non-graduates but what kind of jobs are they capturing? From what I've been reading and the experience of my kids, all college graduates, and some of their friends, the well paying jobs aren't there.
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Not really, just a push to get the state systems to offer a affordable degree program. As far as e learning and computer based education, I got an advanced degree that way and felt it was outstanding. Anecdotal, I know.Here's an article on the concept.http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/A-four-year-degree-for-10-000-It-s-possible-1010202.php#ixzz1FGgUtN79
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Lms, I think the unemployment stats for college grads is less than 5%.
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McWing, I know they're getting jobs, I've seen that stat as well. My point was the quality of jobs seems to have fallen behind. At least that's been our experience, but we're in CA and everything is worse here right now.One thing I don't think enough colleges do is link degrees to jobs. Our oldest daughter got together with her masters class one year post graduation and she was the only one with a "real" job. It was a small group, only 19, but they were all struggling. And now, due to budget cuts she's lost that job. She's getting work but not as she imagined. Again, CA is really a tough market for jobs.
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Sorry to hear that. My point was that at least there were jobs for college grads (even if they were bad ones) because of the degree, or maybe the person who gets a degree is more likely to seek a job, regardless of the quality. Immnot trying to make a moral judgement on college grads, just looking for reasons for the lower unemoyment rate. I also wonder if there is a preference when hiring, to choose a degreed applicant over a non-degreed. I'm not sure that always make sense, but I still wonder. That could be a reason for the lower rate as well, a selection bias. If so, and it's hard to argue the value of a college degree regardless of the major, than a 10K degree makes even more sense from a consumer and taxpayer standpoint.
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I don't object to the $10,000 degree as long as it is accredited, although I do think there is a danger there for a two tier system that needs to be examined. I believe almost any degree is better than no degree. As someone who was of a small percentage of my HS graduating class that graduated from college though I think we need to realize that a Bachelor's Degree has become comparable to the High School degree from 40 or 50 years ago. And so students potentially go into even further debt chasing an education.
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I agree with the accreditation requirement. I'm curious though about the two-tier concern. I look at some of these "elite" public schools, using the California model, and think it exists already. UC Berekly vs., say, Fresno State.
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Also McWing, my youngest is doing quite well and will probably end up in TX for awhile at least. She turned down the Midland job already, even though it was a great company and an awesome offer. She's hoping for something in Houston at least. Lot's of job applications coming due in the next couple of weeks. I tell all my friends and family with young children to try to steer them into the sciences if at all possible. Art sucks as a career choice.
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It's true some of our state universities versus the UC system have discrepancies. But in actuality there's not much difference between say CSU Fullerton and UC Riverside except for the new medical school facility in the works at Riverside. The cost is different though.
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lms,Grandson #2 just started college in Microbiology with emphasis in genetics. Since he has never shown the least interest in the arts, except for a brief foray into playing the bass, he's probably safely directed toward the sciences. I started in business and gradually have become far more interested in the arts. We all come home in the end.
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lmsinca: "Art sucks as a career choice."As an art school graduate, at a point where technology guaranteed me a job for several years right out of college, I gotta say . . . truer words were never spoken. It was a terrible choice, and it was only a coincidence of timing (unanticipated) that led me into actually making money doing graphic design work, for a time. Neither of our kids are going to art college. At least, not until they've completed a real degree (even in a technical school) and gotten a real marketable skill, and any necessary accreditation. Although art school was arguably the best 4 years of my life, it was not a career strategy. And I would have probably have a pretty good time taking computer courses and learning practical computer engineering stuff, too. The arts are a hobby. I do not mean that in a deprecating sense, I just mean it in the sense that it's tends to be part of the things that edify and satisfy our souls. The sort of thing(s) that need to, as a practical matter, come after we've put a roof over our head and bread on the table. As much as I enjoyed art school (immeasurably), I think my life, overall, would have benefited from a more technical education.
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I have an artistic bent myself (if that's the correct term) but my dad was having none of it. My art is strictly hobby although I have profited from it on occasion. Now that our oldest lost her teaching job she's selling herself as a "photoshop expert" and finding enough work to support herself. I'm afraid unless it turns into a full time job somewhere though, she'll always struggle with income.
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As a fellow Photoshop expert, I can tell you, that was a great skill to have in 1995. It was a guaranteed full time job. In 2011, not so much, but there's always somebody who needs somebody who can do what you do . . . so there is always hope. What got me my current gig was my FileMaker expertise, which I thought was virtually worthless in the job hunt, since so few people widely deploy Filemaker. However, the county school system did, and it turns out one of my less-valuable skill sets got me the best job I've had. So you never do know.
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BTW, I've updated my technical admin post:http://conservaliberals.blogspot.com/2011/09/revolution-will-be-televised.htmlBasically, except for trying to get a custom URL working, I'm reasonably well satisfied and busy at work . . . as I see it, the main thing now is to get a few more contributors, so the conversation can stay strong even when some of us are otherwise occupied. And a custom URL so hopefully suekzoo can join us during the day.
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I agree Kevin, now we need commenters and authors. Several of us are working on that end of it. I expect Scott will play around a little more tonight. And we're thinking of doing and end of day open thread, how does that sound?
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Lunch! Good reading here. Bad at PL. That guy could be STR/37th.Brian, there were two links to the $10K degree – one in my post and one in TMW's comment.TMW and lms and all – we need many more educated and/or trained adults but we also really do need research institutions in my view. Our system of using grad students as minimally paid researchers has worked to our advantage. So to me two tier and three tier systems make sense."Flagships" like UC Berkeley, UCLA,WI-Madison, Michigan, UT-Austin, and UNC serve a dual purpose,research first, but all the "directional state" universities serve mainly a single function. Those that go dual still serve teaching first. It is why you actually can get a great UG education at a none-prestige school. What you cannot get is the chance to do research for a noted scientist or engineer in your field, but that is more typically a graduate function. Many of us have experienced great teachers who were second rate researchers and great researchers who simply could not teach. I think QB will agree that law school is an exception in that great law profs usually have reps outside the classroom and are stellar within. Charles Alan Wright wrote the book on Federal Procedure, literally, and he was an unbelievably good teacher of both Con Law and FP. I only had him for the much drier FP, unfortunately. I had so many great law profs as teachers that it stunned me in retrospect what horrible math professors I had as an undergrad. Now I did have Edward Teller as a guest lecturer in third semester engineering physics, and he was quite animated, but his accent took six weeks to penetrate.Many of us have these stories. Point being that I bet if I had gone to Northern Arizona I would have had UG profs who were better at teaching multivariate calculus, than Dr. McLane, who had worked on the A-Bomb in Chicago and Los Alamos. But Rice had a big nuke program in the early 60s, staffed with world class mathematicians and physicists, and after I was gone they had a world class aerospace program, probably also staffed with folks who couldn't teach.We need more second tier stuff and we have more second tier stuff. But we need the research Universities, too, I think, and the best we can do is try to get the researchers some basic training in teaching if we force them to lecture undergrads part time.
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FileMaker? People still use that?I would think that if you can make your own stuff, EBay would be a good place to start. Not to mention a good website and some SEO knowledge, which can easily be picked up on the side.And digital publishing on-demand is becoming quite popular too. Haven't checked the profitability, mainly because I can't make anything but afghans, and that takes a month. They MIGHT sell at $200, which isn't nearly enough for an income.I think that the arts do need to be emphasized more in HS, though. There have been technological advances come from 'art', namely, ceramics.
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Mark, dead on!
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Don't know about beach. I like him, AND I can't stand him.
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I'm a Liberal Arts Major (English… Quit laughing!) and am in sales and make (I think) a good living, so it isn't necessarily the degree but what you do with it.That being said, I'm not sure that "Follow your dreams" is good or even moral advice.
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One of the discrepancies I've become aware of is the challenge so to speak between public and private research funding. My daughter fell through the crack of slashed public funding which is how she ended up in oil instead of water. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
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