On education, a delayed rant
This is a response to silveradept's post on modern education, so read that first for a fuller picture.
In his piece, silveradept argues against the conclusions drawn by WSJ opinion columnist Charles Murray in his three part series on the state of modern education in the United States and changes that should be made to it. In particular, Murray concludes that too many Americans are going to college when they would fit better at vocational school or starting in industry directly out of high school. He argues that the lack of innate intelligence should preclude many people from a tertiary education and only the gifted elite should be pushed to educational heights, stratifying society along the lines of intellectual ability. This kind of conclusion is bound to ruffle some feathers across the board and it certainly did silveradept's.
I don't necessarily disagree with Murray's conclusions but I think he's approaching the problem from the wrong angle, in a way that puts undue pressure on the student. Thus his conclusions are predisposed to turn out negatively. Furthermore, his proposal of stratifying education leaves much to be desired and is most certainly not the best way to attack what, in my opinion is a fundamentally social problem.
The problem, according to Murray, and with which I agree in a limited fashion, is that too many people in the United States are going to college. There, a large number will struggle, learn little, and be discouraged -- a handy waste of four years. Add to it the stress and time spent in high school and the years leading up to college and the difficulty among college professors who have to teach remedial classes and it's easy to reach the first-pass conclusion that these academic underachievers are best shuffled off into industry.
This argument suffers two flaws. First, it presumes that the primary experience of college is academic. While this is true in a limited sense, much of the benefit of the college experience relies on broadening horizons, making new friends and developing socially. I may be biased, here, due to having attended a major university which draws top-notch students from all over the world, however, I think the same can be said of many college and university experiences. College is often, in the US, the first time children need to manage independent of their parents and this provides a chance for learning on many new levels. College is a structured environment where these interactions take place, where people of divergent backgrounds are brought together to form connections and develop. (I can't help but think of this as a pool of fresh neurons forming connections and maturing, but then again, I'm a biologist.) While academics are one way to stratify populations, others exist and split the group along different lines. Some students are athletically or musically talented. Some bring in a different social perspective. They all have different dreams and goals. Slicing these people out of the college experience due to less than perfect academics is condemning the remaining population to a deficient set of possibilities.
The second major flaw is that it puts the onus on the student for being not smart enough for college but attending anyway. The true burden should be on society. America today puts far too heavy weight on going to college as a marker of any sort of success. You need a college diploma for all sorts of job opportunities. Off the top of my head, I think a college diploma is worth $25,000 a year increase in salary (comparing high school+4 years out to fresh out of college). That's a hefty premium, without even considering that salaries and advancement positions for high school graduates often cap in many industries. This is also without discussing the social stigma that is sometimes attached to people who stop education after the GED. This gap drives parents to push their kids through high school and less-than-fully-qualified students to fight for the best colleges. Success is not the sum of letters after your name nor is it your net worth in inflation-adjusted dollars. Until the greater society realizes this, however, it would be an injustice to suggest that anyone be denied a college education for any reason as it is tantamount to denying any future success by current markers.
Murray aside, silveradept argues a few separate points. He notes that in his opinion, there shouldn't be a class that is deemed inadequate for any given profession or even for college -- that professions these days are relying less on what is traditionally considered intelligence and more heavily on training, computers and the "smart" people to do the mentally taxing tasks. I don't agree and think that the opposite is true. Industry, especially after the high-tech boom, is fighting harder and harder for that limited pool of innovative, talented, risk-taking and genuinely smart people and rewarding them with huge salaries. This has been in-part driving the use of the Bachelor's degree as an easy cut-off. However, for example, many hedge funds go out to seek gamers regardless of their grades, as gamers have a brand of intelligence and competitiveness that thrives in the industry. These hedge funds hope to tap into this unused pool of intelligence and get a leg up on their competitors. This also explains the recent finding that consulting firms are now the biggest industry for recent graduates: companies are forced to outsource a lot of their problems and can't afford to hire the talent in-house. Unfortunately, the problem which stands is that intelligence does not correlate absolutely with college education and that talent cannot make up the entirety of a company's workforce. What companies are neglecting is the need to fill the rest of the cubicles with other attributes: hard working, diligent, exacting, sociable, conservative. No one is "average" on every scale and by over-stressing "intelligence" and rewarding it heavily, industry has biased society against other important attributes essential for the success of any group as a whole.
silveradept also suggests that "average" people need to be exposed to "smart" people in college such that after college, we haven't divided society into groups that cannot function with each other. I disagree with his premise that there are "average" and "smart". This is taken from the Murray pieces and represents a very one-dimensional view of society. Everyone is better than everyone else at something. College teaches that there are many many facets and dimensions to life outside pure intelligence and especially those blessed with talents that are valued by society need to learn to value other talents in others. It's not that "smart" people need to learn to deal with "average" people, it's that "smart" people need to learn to deal with "athletic" people, with "adventurous" people, with "careful" people, with "gregarious" people and vice versa. The goal of this doesn't even have to stretch past graduation, it's about being the most open person you can be even in college, about picking up from all these new connections, about seeing others as your equals and marching forward together.
Perhaps if there were one criterion with which we need to decide who gets into college and who is left out, it should be openness to new experiences. Unfortunately, it's not a measurable parameter and can shift drastically even during those formative years. I have no solution to the problem of too many college students, but I know something for certain: it's not the person of average intelligence who does not belong in college. Furthermore, it's society and industry hiring strategies that are driving some people into colleges where they struggle, it's not that they're not smart enough to do well.
In his piece, silveradept argues against the conclusions drawn by WSJ opinion columnist Charles Murray in his three part series on the state of modern education in the United States and changes that should be made to it. In particular, Murray concludes that too many Americans are going to college when they would fit better at vocational school or starting in industry directly out of high school. He argues that the lack of innate intelligence should preclude many people from a tertiary education and only the gifted elite should be pushed to educational heights, stratifying society along the lines of intellectual ability. This kind of conclusion is bound to ruffle some feathers across the board and it certainly did silveradept's.
I don't necessarily disagree with Murray's conclusions but I think he's approaching the problem from the wrong angle, in a way that puts undue pressure on the student. Thus his conclusions are predisposed to turn out negatively. Furthermore, his proposal of stratifying education leaves much to be desired and is most certainly not the best way to attack what, in my opinion is a fundamentally social problem.
The problem, according to Murray, and with which I agree in a limited fashion, is that too many people in the United States are going to college. There, a large number will struggle, learn little, and be discouraged -- a handy waste of four years. Add to it the stress and time spent in high school and the years leading up to college and the difficulty among college professors who have to teach remedial classes and it's easy to reach the first-pass conclusion that these academic underachievers are best shuffled off into industry.
This argument suffers two flaws. First, it presumes that the primary experience of college is academic. While this is true in a limited sense, much of the benefit of the college experience relies on broadening horizons, making new friends and developing socially. I may be biased, here, due to having attended a major university which draws top-notch students from all over the world, however, I think the same can be said of many college and university experiences. College is often, in the US, the first time children need to manage independent of their parents and this provides a chance for learning on many new levels. College is a structured environment where these interactions take place, where people of divergent backgrounds are brought together to form connections and develop. (I can't help but think of this as a pool of fresh neurons forming connections and maturing, but then again, I'm a biologist.) While academics are one way to stratify populations, others exist and split the group along different lines. Some students are athletically or musically talented. Some bring in a different social perspective. They all have different dreams and goals. Slicing these people out of the college experience due to less than perfect academics is condemning the remaining population to a deficient set of possibilities.
The second major flaw is that it puts the onus on the student for being not smart enough for college but attending anyway. The true burden should be on society. America today puts far too heavy weight on going to college as a marker of any sort of success. You need a college diploma for all sorts of job opportunities. Off the top of my head, I think a college diploma is worth $25,000 a year increase in salary (comparing high school+4 years out to fresh out of college). That's a hefty premium, without even considering that salaries and advancement positions for high school graduates often cap in many industries. This is also without discussing the social stigma that is sometimes attached to people who stop education after the GED. This gap drives parents to push their kids through high school and less-than-fully-qualified students to fight for the best colleges. Success is not the sum of letters after your name nor is it your net worth in inflation-adjusted dollars. Until the greater society realizes this, however, it would be an injustice to suggest that anyone be denied a college education for any reason as it is tantamount to denying any future success by current markers.
Murray aside, silveradept argues a few separate points. He notes that in his opinion, there shouldn't be a class that is deemed inadequate for any given profession or even for college -- that professions these days are relying less on what is traditionally considered intelligence and more heavily on training, computers and the "smart" people to do the mentally taxing tasks. I don't agree and think that the opposite is true. Industry, especially after the high-tech boom, is fighting harder and harder for that limited pool of innovative, talented, risk-taking and genuinely smart people and rewarding them with huge salaries. This has been in-part driving the use of the Bachelor's degree as an easy cut-off. However, for example, many hedge funds go out to seek gamers regardless of their grades, as gamers have a brand of intelligence and competitiveness that thrives in the industry. These hedge funds hope to tap into this unused pool of intelligence and get a leg up on their competitors. This also explains the recent finding that consulting firms are now the biggest industry for recent graduates: companies are forced to outsource a lot of their problems and can't afford to hire the talent in-house. Unfortunately, the problem which stands is that intelligence does not correlate absolutely with college education and that talent cannot make up the entirety of a company's workforce. What companies are neglecting is the need to fill the rest of the cubicles with other attributes: hard working, diligent, exacting, sociable, conservative. No one is "average" on every scale and by over-stressing "intelligence" and rewarding it heavily, industry has biased society against other important attributes essential for the success of any group as a whole.
silveradept also suggests that "average" people need to be exposed to "smart" people in college such that after college, we haven't divided society into groups that cannot function with each other. I disagree with his premise that there are "average" and "smart". This is taken from the Murray pieces and represents a very one-dimensional view of society. Everyone is better than everyone else at something. College teaches that there are many many facets and dimensions to life outside pure intelligence and especially those blessed with talents that are valued by society need to learn to value other talents in others. It's not that "smart" people need to learn to deal with "average" people, it's that "smart" people need to learn to deal with "athletic" people, with "adventurous" people, with "careful" people, with "gregarious" people and vice versa. The goal of this doesn't even have to stretch past graduation, it's about being the most open person you can be even in college, about picking up from all these new connections, about seeing others as your equals and marching forward together.
Perhaps if there were one criterion with which we need to decide who gets into college and who is left out, it should be openness to new experiences. Unfortunately, it's not a measurable parameter and can shift drastically even during those formative years. I have no solution to the problem of too many college students, but I know something for certain: it's not the person of average intelligence who does not belong in college. Furthermore, it's society and industry hiring strategies that are driving some people into colleges where they struggle, it's not that they're not smart enough to do well.