New study shows college students lack common skills

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
The thing is, with a little people skills and hard work there are some people who are able to draw good salaries not too long out of high school. It's really only the lazy people who get left behind.

It looks like "some" is the operative word here. Certainly there are exceptions, but that does not appear to be a path to affluence for most.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Arts students This never happens with those who do science/numerate disciplies...

Let me take a shot at posting an obtuse, prejudiced remark:


All science students are arrogant bigots.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Patroklos

If we want to increase college results we need to abandon the concept that everyone deserves a college education.

No... we need to abandon the concept that paying money = getting a college education. Mommy and Daddy middle class pay an absolute fortune to send junior to school, and this gives them massive leverage over the colleges. Most parents don't give a hoot about academic standards: they just want their kids to graduate and get high paying jobs.

There are places for those kids: vocational schools. That's where they belong: there is nothing shameful about that because there is nothing shameful about the sort of work those places train folks for.

Universities are for intellectually curious people. That's who should get in. That's what they're there for. Students aren't customers: they are students.

I realize that this would lower the need for university lecturers, but I care about the subjects more than my own wallet, and I could always find something else to do.

The simple fact is that most colleges have dumbed down the course work to increase the people that are capable of passing.

Most tend to just be more lenient with the dross. To be fair, you get a lot less of that at U of T than at my old place. In fact that is what is weird about more exclusive colleges: it's not that you get more really clever people, you just seem to get less dopes.

I bet most of the nation’s valedictorians would not have survived Oxford or any German university of 1890.

I am absolutely sure they wouldn't have.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


It looks like "some" is the operative word here. Certainly there are exceptions, but that does not appear to be a path to affluence for most.

It's just that considering a lot of businesses are willing to pay for at least associates degrees for hard working employees that do want to move up, I don't think just because it's "some" means that people are really shut out. Yes, they may only have a middle class life style but that isn't bad at all.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Agathon


No... we need to abandon the concept that paying money = getting a college education. Mommy and Daddy middle class pay an absolute fortune to send junior to school, and this gives them massive leverage over the colleges. Most parents don't give a hoot about academic standards: they just want their kids to graduate and get high paying jobs.

There are places for those kids: vocational schools. That's where they belong: there is nothing shameful about that because there is nothing shameful about the sort of work those places train folks for.

Universities are for intellectually curious people. That's who should get in. That's what they're there for. Students aren't customers: they are students.

I realize Aggie won't read this, but I suppose it's worth saying anyway:

I live in a country were university education is "free" (ie. tax-funded), so your parents' ability to hand out a fortune is essentially irrelevant to your opportunity to get a university education; it's down to your grades and test scores. Nonetheless, the trends Aggie bemoans - increasing intake of middle-class youths who just want to get a degree and a good job, with attendant lowering of academic standards - are in full force.


Considering GePap's concern re: the liberal education model, I'd assert that i) it's considerably deader on the tech/science side of my university, and that ii) it's not the tech/sci students who have trouble making a checkbook. Don't get me wrong, I rather like the ideal of liberal education, but I see no evidence that it helps maintain basic numeracy skills.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Robert Frost attended Dartmouth College for all of a few weeks. He left because he didn't believe that caneing - of himself by other students - was part of a quality education. What a Killjoy!

My father's uncle taught English at Dartmouth, I wonder if he had anything to do with the caning of the future poet laureate?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Ad firms, accounting firms, coporate front offices are not going to hire high school grads, no matter how good the school is. The issue is not the school system, suck though it does. The issue is the shift in the economy away from the kinds of skilled and semi-skilled manufacturing that used to provide Good Union Jobs. Such jobs, which were abundant after WWII, provided a way for high school grads to earn a good living, own a house, buy a couple of cars every few years, and send their kids off to college. But those jobs are going, going, gone, and now the stark economic choice is either go to college or flip burgers (insert obligatory Philosophy major joke here). Our current, service-oriented, knowledge based economy increasingly only has room for college grads and the working poor. You can't blame someone for choosing college under those circumstances.

One of the problems with this is that a four year liberal education is wasted on a lot of these people. They don't appreciate its value for itself, and it prepares them for no job outside of academia (if that). Given someone with 4 years of college vs someone with a year experience applying for the same job I'll take the person with experience. In very many cases an education is simply a device used by lazy personnel managers the world over to make their lives easier. It's relevence to the work at hand is often tangential at best.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Apocalypse

It's just that considering a lot of businesses are willing to pay for at least associates degrees for hard working employees that do want to move up, I don't think just because it's "some" means that people are really shut out. Yes, they may only have a middle class life style but that isn't bad at all.

There's some truth to this. The adults who came of age during and after WWII, having been raised during the Depression, had a stronger sense of sacrifice, delayed gratification, and the idea that there were limits to what one could have or achieve. From the baby boom onward, though, its been one long cry of "I Want The World and I Want It Now," aided and abetted by the relentlessness reinforcement of that ideal in advertising (I defy you to even try to count the number of ads you encounter in an average day) and the brave new world of easy credit. It's way to late in the US's day to sell the notion that honest work is enough.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I heard that plumbers make loads more than college grads. Is that true?

depend on what the "grad" graduated with . .

But generally trades can bring a good living-- Here in Alberta there is a shortage of most trades so tradesmen have a wide choice of which town/city to live in . The pay is pretty good as with a few years experience most trades seem to get up to 100K

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


But those jobs are going, going, gone, and now the stark economic choice is either go to college or flip burgers (insert obligatory Philosophy major joke here). Our current, service-oriented, knowledge based economy increasingly only has room for college grads and the working poor. You can't blame someone for choosing college under those circumstances.

I disagree since I am in an area with a crying need for skilled trades -- These people are skilled but they do not go to a university or college.

They are definitely not the working poor either. IIRC a master capenter in Fort Mcmurray is offered well in excess of 100K with an option for food and lodgings while on site plus paid flights home to anywhere in Canada every couple of months. This would be working building oilsands facilities. These projects need every skilled tradesmen available and more besides so bonuses are the norm.

For the people that don't want to go to northern Alberta there is still PLENTY of work . The big money in the north incerases wages here in Calgary. Heck the biggest constraint on new home construction here is the "shortage of skilled tradespeople"


So I reject you university or burgers divide. I see another category of skilled trades where people can have lucrative abnd pretty secure careers. I'm not saying its for everyone but it is out there.

Oh and being American should be no barrier. Canada is apparently already looking at recruiting trades people from other countries sinxce we simply will not have enough people to meet the labour demand

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Great post . The economy has changed greatly and the physical labor jobs that used to earn good pay aren't there anymore. They've mostly been robot-ized. For decent jobs now, employers want workers who are more skilled.

See my post above-- I agree on the requirement for skills although its not necessarily ACADEMIC skills

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


There's some truth to this. The adults who came of age during and after WWII, having been raised during the Depression, had a stronger sense of sacrifice, delayed gratification, and the idea that there were limits to what one could have or achieve. From the baby boom onward, though, its been one long cry of "I Want The World and I Want It Now," aided and abetted by the relentlessness reinforcement of that ideal in advertising (I defy you to even try to count the number of ads you encounter in an average day) and the brave new world of easy credit. It's way to late in the US's day to sell the notion that honest work is enough.

Yes....as a personal example that helps support my belief in this, a girl I dated went to a seriously "ghetto" high school (as in it was poor and mostly minority, she being a minority herself) and she didn't even do that much work there. She ended up working at Best Buy and since she showed responsibility there, worked hard, took the difficult jobs, treated customers nicely, etc...Best Buy is paying for her bachelors degree and she can get a really good job in the company later if she chooses to stay. She's actually making fairly good money now though.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Flubber
But generally trades can bring a good living-- Here in Alberta there is a shortage of most trades so tradesmen have a wide choice of which town/city to live in . The pay is pretty good as with a few years experience most trades seem to get up to 100K

Wow, 100K. That's more than graduates of any of the degrees listed previously.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Sikander


One of the problems with this is that a four year liberal education is wasted on a lot of these people. They don't appreciate its value for itself, and it prepares them for no job outside of academia (if that). Given someone with 4 years of college vs someone with a year experience applying for the same job I'll take the person with experience. In very many cases an education is simply a device used by lazy personnel managers the world over to make their lives easier. It's relevence to the work at hand is often tangential at best.

You are missing the point.

A great deal of what goes on in our society requires a simple set of skills. The ability to express oneself clearly and concisely in written language and in oral discussion. That's an extremely useful skill and one that graduates of science programs aren't taught (I should know: I get to mark their papers. Some of them are functional illiterates).

Have you ever sat down and looked at some of the business letters people write? Repetition, redundancies... ambiguities... the list goes on.

That's what liberal arts educations are for if you aren't going in to academia.

It's what high school is supposed to teach, but no longer does. So people like me have to pick up the slack while simultaneously trying to do right by the 10% of students who have some real interest and ability in the subject.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Agathon
Have you ever sat down and looked at some of the business letters people write? Repetition, redundancies... ambiguities... the list goes on.

On the other hand, there's some real gems. Here's a couple of attorney-to-attorney letters that were so great I memorized them:

Dear [Opposing Counsel]
This is to confirm our phone call of this afternoon, which ended with you throwing a temper tantrum and screaming, "FU a-hole! If you don't like it, bring a g**d*** motion!"

...and...

Dear [Opposing Counsel]
In regards to your demand that we provide you with the requested discovery:
F.U.

Warm personal regards,
Tom