Interesting article in today's NYT

[www.nytimes.com]

As I have written elsewhere, this is a major issue for NCAA hockey today. Cornell has lost three committed recruits to major-junior programs in recent years (Jordan Escott, Ben Thomson, and Mark Scheifele).

“All we can do is explain all options to a kid and tell him not to give up eligibility too soon. For some players, the C.H.L. is absolutely the way to go, but for many others, if you can get an education and play hockey, college is the better route.”

[College Hockey Inc. executive director Paul] Kelly’s best example might be the Chicago Blackhawks’ captain, Jonathan Toews, who is from Winnipeg, Manitoba, but who chose to play at North Dakota for two seasons before being selected third over all in the 2006 N.H.L. draft.

Going to UND for two years and then going pro qualifies as "get[ting] an education"? Suuuuuure.

cbuckser
As I have written elsewhere, this is a major issue for NCAA hockey today. Cornell has lost three committed recruits to major-junior programs in recent years (Jordan Escott, Ben Thomson, and Mark Scheifele).

Then again, in another era those guys might not even have considered college in the first place. There seems to be more mutual awareness of all the options, and though I don't like losing commits I have to think more choice is for the best.

Josh '99
Going to UND for two years and then going pro qualifies as "get[ting] an education"? Suuuuuure.

Going to university for four of your most productive years, spending most of it drinking, partying, playing video games, and generally goofing off, AND paying $200,000 for the privilege, qualifies as getting an education?

Just a warning: I am about to go on a serious tangent here.

It's amazing what 12 years of reflection does for one's opinion of Ivy League schools. E.g., noting what a scam the financial aid system is: that it is couched in altruistic terms, but in reality is just price discrimination engineered to extract as much as possible from every family.

Should I ever be in the position to make a personal judgment about this, I think I would be more likely to spend $200,000 in 2011 dollars on buying my hypothetical kid a business and telling him or her to figure out how to make it more profitable, while spending his or her free time reading, traveling, or tinkering. Frank Zappa said it best: "If you want to get laid, go to college; if you want to get an education, go the library."

College would be little more than a pretentious money pit without networking, which is why I feel especially sorry for parents who blow $40-50G/year on unknown private schools where the diploma doesn't even carry a name with weight. And even with that, eventually employers will realize that there are better ways to find smart people than looking at the name on the diploma: I already tell my HR department not to filter out diplomas without education sections because I know plenty of clever, motivated people who never went to college, and plenty of dumb, lazy people who did. As much as I loved my Cornell experience, I have come to the conclusion that it was little more than a luxurious way to extend adolescence by four years. I was one of the few who managed to extinguish my debt early: most are not so lucky.

So to get back on topic, I think this kid, even if he doesn't make it in the pros, will not be worse off solely by virtue of not getting a college degree: if he's smart and motivated, he'll be successful regardless, and won't have a pile of debt or have paid the four year opportunity cost. Just my 50¢ (accounting for inflation).

I think you are dead on with that quote from Frank Zappa. I am about to graduate and looking back I think I would have been better off going to some decent state school, would have saved a lot of money and probably wouldnt have learned any less. In most classes I took, the professor basically just followed the flow of the book and so by reading the textbook you usually got a better, clearer explanation than any teacher could ever tell you

Nothing to see here. Carry on. Delete at will....

Heh! The one time I got picked up was in the library. Once in four freaking years, but that's still better than never.

College is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Kyle Rose

Josh '99
Going to UND for two years and then going pro qualifies as "get[ting] an education"? Suuuuuure.

Going to university for four of your most productive years, spending most of it drinking, partying, playing video games, and generally goofing off, AND paying $200,000 for the privilege, qualifies as getting an education?

Just a warning: I am about to go on a serious tangent here.

It's amazing what 12 years of reflection does for one's opinion of Ivy League schools. E.g., noting what a scam the financial aid system is: that it is couched in altruistic terms, but in reality is just price discrimination engineered to extract as much as possible from every family.

Should I ever be in the position to make a personal judgment about this, I think I would be more likely to spend $200,000 in 2011 dollars on buying my hypothetical kid a business and telling him or her to figure out how to make it more profitable, while spending his or her free time reading, traveling, or tinkering. Frank Zappa said it best: "If you want to get laid, go to college; if you want to get an education, go the library."

College would be little more than a pretentious money pit without networking, which is why I feel especially sorry for parents who blow $40-50G/year on unknown private schools where the diploma doesn't even carry a name with weight. And even with that, eventually employers will realize that there are better ways to find smart people than looking at the name on the diploma: I already tell my HR department not to filter out diplomas without education sections because I know plenty of clever, motivated people who never went to college, and plenty of dumb, lazy people who did. As much as I loved my Cornell experience, I have come to the conclusion that it was little more than a luxurious way to extend adolescence by four years. I was one of the few who managed to extinguish my debt early: most are not so lucky.

So to get back on topic, I think this kid, even if he doesn't make it in the pros, will not be worse off solely by virtue of not getting a college degree: if he's smart and motivated, he'll be successful regardless, and won't have a pile of debt or have paid the four year opportunity cost. Just my 50¢ (accounting for inflation).

And what happens if he/she doesn't want to run a business? I don't know about today's college, admittedly having gone in the dark ages, but there is no way in hell that I would have thought about becoming a physician without college, and grad school. Maybe I'm a slow learner, but it took time for me to see it. I also know it was the best decision that I could have made.

Kyle Rose

Josh '99
Going to UND for two years and then going pro qualifies as "get[ting] an education"? Suuuuuure.

Going to university for four of your most productive years, spending most of it drinking, partying, playing video games, and generally goofing off, AND paying $200,000 for the privilege, qualifies as getting an education?

Just a warning: I am about to go on a serious tangent here.

It's amazing what 12 years of reflection does for one's opinion of Ivy League schools. E.g., noting what a scam the financial aid system is: that it is couched in altruistic terms, but in reality is just price discrimination engineered to extract as much as possible from every family.

Should I ever be in the position to make a personal judgment about this, I think I would be more likely to spend $200,000 in 2011 dollars on buying my hypothetical kid a business and telling him or her to figure out how to make it more profitable, while spending his or her free time reading, traveling, or tinkering. Frank Zappa said it best: "If you want to get laid, go to college; if you want to get an education, go the library."

College would be little more than a pretentious money pit without networking, which is why I feel especially sorry for parents who blow $40-50G/year on unknown private schools where the diploma doesn't even carry a name with weight. And even with that, eventually employers will realize that there are better ways to find smart people than looking at the name on the diploma: I already tell my HR department not to filter out diplomas without education sections because I know plenty of clever, motivated people who never went to college, and plenty of dumb, lazy people who did. As much as I loved my Cornell experience, I have come to the conclusion that it was little more than a luxurious way to extend adolescence by four years. I was one of the few who managed to extinguish my debt early: most are not so lucky.

So to get back on topic, I think this kid, even if he doesn't make it in the pros, will not be worse off solely by virtue of not getting a college degree: if he's smart and motivated, he'll be successful regardless, and won't have a pile of debt or have paid the four year opportunity cost. Just my 50¢ (accounting for inflation).

Kyle

Having just had the privilege of forking over nearly 200k to Cornell (I did not qualify for a discount) I have a slightly different perspective but share your cynicism. My daughter was a Bio major and did well in spite of the Bio Dept's best and sometimes incompetent instructional efforts. She worked very hard and acquired sufficient skills to get a good job and after a few years went to Grad School in Micro and Cellular Bio with the intent of returning to industry. I think my investment will pay off but my daughter gets the credit for putting in the sweat to extract the value. We all know the Big Red Tape will not offer up its treasures without effort.

I think a lot of people are reevaluating the value of a traditional education. Going to Cornell for 4 years and getting a degree with mediocre grades in English Lit, Sociology, Psychology etc is going to be very hard to justify from an economic perspective. A pretty bad financial investment. That is the reason why we are seeing new models of education popping up. My son is finishing his degree in math while serving in the Air Force. He has to view regular on line lectures do homework on a schedule and take proctored exams. The interesting thing about this model is that the lectures could be delivered by the best in the business in a "canned" format. Homework could be graded in India and only specialized local support required for students needing extra help. I think this is the future and the competition cant come too fast.

So I think the value is there to extract if you work hard but if you dont then you are just wasting your money.

Ok, time to get off the soap box.

Jim Hyla
And what happens if he/she doesn't want to run a business? I don't know about today's college, admittedly having gone in the dark ages, but there is no way in hell that I would have thought about becoming a physician without college, and grad school. Maybe I'm a slow learner, but it took time for me to see it. I also know it was the best decision that I could have made.

You're not alone. Without the people and professors I met at university I'd be immeasurably poorer in a hundred intellectual ways, and I wasted plenty of time there, too. The thing I loved about college was it was such a varied and liberating experience it even permeated my own adolescent density. That's not something I could have gotten alone in a library.

It was a bargain.

I'm with Jim. And although I'm not a physician, my Cornell education (such as it was for those other CU students from that era will attest) has stood the test of time pretty well and for me was "required" even though not necessarily for my career. A lot of us became critical thinkers without really knowing it. Most of us became surprisingly worldly. And there's nothing better for networking. Even though a lot of today's students and grads are far better connected, there is "something" about the four-year on-campus experience that is irreplaceable.

Very few of the 1200 or so Division I hockey players at any one time will ever play in the NHL. So, why not get a good or great education and hopefully have a fabulous experience? It's something that is never lost. And do really think that Joe Nieuwendyk's Cornell education didn't help him along the way in getting the GM job in Dallas? Or Gary Bettman's for that matter! My $.02!

Larry '72

Trotsky
College is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Exactly, thats my point whether you go to Cornell or anywhere else, it doesnt make a difference, its what you put into it, Ivy league schools are overrated

Trotsky & Larry

I don't want to sound too negative, I too got a great education at Cornell once I figured out how to extract the value by working hard and interacting with professors. I think that, along with learning to write, were the most important things I took away from my time on the hill. But the reality is that when I went to CU the cost was about 80% of my Dads annual salary, he had a good job. Now I think that number would be closer to 150% and students are being burdened with debt much heavier than I took on and the job market is much more daunting and demanding.

There is a growing body of commentary that questions the "education is the way to a better life for everyone" mantra that is constantly being sold to us. The cost of a college education is rising faster than health care and the administrations appear indifferent unable to exert control and improve academic labor productivity. Some significant fraction of those that are now going to college would be much better off with a technical/trade education at least from a financial perspective.

Finally, I have to say that the difference between my daughters experience and mine in terms of quality instruction was striking. I had the same experience that my Dad '51 had. He had great instructors in his introductory classes for the most part. I did to (except for Chem 107, I still bear the scars) My daughter found the intro classes in many of her major classes indifferent. Her words to me were "I had great instructors at Cornell the problem was that very few of them were in my major."

She learned how to manage the big red tape and extract value and is tougher and better off for it but I am not sure she or I would recommend that someone study Bio at Cornell.

Towerroad
Trotsky & Larry

I don't want to sound too negative, I too got a great education at Cornell once I figured out how to extract the value by working hard and interacting with professors. I think that, along with learning to write, were the most important things I took away from my time on the hill. But the reality is that when I went to CU the cost was about 80% of my Dads annual salary, he had a good job. Now I think that number would be closer to 150% and students are being burdened with debt much heavier than I took on and the job market is much more daunting and demanding.

There is a growing body of commentary that questions the "education is the way to a better life for everyone" mantra that is constantly being sold to us. The cost of a college education is rising faster than health care and the administrations appear indifferent unable to exert control and improve academic labor productivity. Some significant fraction of those that are now going to college would be much better off with a technical/trade education at least from a financial perspective.

Finally, I have to say that the difference between my daughters experience and mine in terms of quality instruction was striking. I had the same experience that my Dad '51 had. He had great instructors in his introductory classes for the most part. I did too. (except for Chem 107, I still bear the scars) My daughter found the intro classes in many of her major classes indifferent. Her words to me were "I had great instructors at Cornell the problem was that very few of them were in my major."

She learned how to manage the big red tape and extract value and is tougher and better off for it but I am not sure she or I would recommend that someone study Bio at Cornell.

You sort of contradict yourself here. Education is the way, it's just that not everyone needs an Ivy or even a college education. College is about much more than just an education, and you don't have to go Ivy to get it. However, my interaction with students outside of Engineering was a major part of my "education". I would not be the same person, in the same profession, if I didn't attend a broad based school such as Cornell. Many of my best hockey friends were Aggies, back when Ag was Ag and not a way to save money on a Biology education. I took classes in Ag, Hotel and Medieval History; not something I would likely have done at RPI or Clarkson. It's not for everyone, but for me it was perfect.

Oh, I also FY writing.

Jim Hyla

You sort of contradict yourself here. Education is the way, it's just that not everyone needs an Ivy or even a college education. College is about much more than just an education, and you don't have to go Ivy to get it. However, my interaction with students outside of Engineering was a major part of my "education". I would not be the same person, in the same profession, if I didn't attend a broad based school such as Cornell. Many of my best hockey friends were Aggies, back when Ag was Ag and not a way to save money on a Biology education. I took classes in Ag, Hotel and Medieval History; not something I would likely have done at RPI or Clarkson. It's not for everyone, but for me it was perfect.

Oh, I also FY writing.

Jim, you are right I should have said College Education. I think we should be encouraging technical and trade education far more than we do. I have worked with a number of people that got their technical educations in the military right out of high school they had good jobs. I have seen some become engineers, learning by doing.

At the risk of sounding elitist, which I am, (how is that for contradiction) Cornell and its peers are not typical universities. I think that all of my peers back in the stone age were in the top 25% of their class and often much higher (same as today), they belonged to a broad class of people that were capable of benefiting from a college education. I think the real tragedy is that there are far too many people that start college who are poorly prepared or not equipped to benefit from a college education. They often drop out after a few semesters and are then saddled with a mountain of debt which they carry like a millstone for a decade or more. A good case can be made that college was bad for them.

This tragedy is driven by mistaking cause for effect. We observe that college graduates make more money than non college graduates. We infer that the obvious solution to increasing social welfare is to create more college graduates. However, the underlying assumption that college is like a stamping machine, put raw material in and get a uniform product out is seriously flawed. If you increase the variance in the quality of the feedstock you should not be surprised that quality of the product will be less consistent and the scrap rate will increase significantly.

I don't want to sound too harsh and I treasure my Cornell experience and write a check every year to help others but I think some of these shibboleths need challenging.

Now, let me get back to my brandy and cigar and discuss the fate of the empire at the club.

For me, the sad thing is seeing first hand that the education I got is not going to be nearly as profitable to future generations as it was to me. My degree in chemical engineering has taken me to some amazing places that I know I wouldn't have been to as easily without it. And let's be honest - it's made me a lot of money, too.

The problem is globalization. American corporations are now pushing as many of the good engineering jobs off-shore as possible. There are plenty of solid engineers in China and India. I know, I work with some of them. My company now has a 200 person engineering office in Shanghai. Those are jobs that 20 years ago would have been here. So if a high school student comes to me and asks if they should study engineering, I answer, "Only if you want to work for 30,000 RMB/year."

So not only does it come down to education, but as others have noted, it comes down to studying the right thing. And more and more, that field better be something that can only be applied directly in the US. Otherwise, it'll be done for 1/10 the salary by someone in Asia.

phillysportsfan

Trotsky
College is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Exactly, thats my point whether you go to Cornell or anywhere else, it doesnt make a difference, its what you put into it, Ivy league schools are overrated

It makes a huge difference because there are significantly greater opportunities to stretch yourself at Cornell (I can't speak for the other Ivies but from my experience with HYP grads I'd say there as well).

Part of this is the difference between a "pragmatic" view of education as preparation for making money and a "romantic" view of education as joining the "Great Conversation" of educated, culturally-striving people in all ages. For the former Cornell may be overpriced (though I doubt it; at least it's empirically testable). For the latter, I can only judge from personal experience but I know it's not just possible but nearly unavoidable to connect up with that great liberal arts tradition at Cornell, and I just don't know whether it is elsewhere (my intuition is it's always possible but much, much more difficult without the resources). There's a reason brilliant people (and those of us who aren't but who enjoy their company) have tried to congregate in highly concentrated groups. There is nothing like walking into a room and knowing half the people there are better read than you, speak at least one language you don't, have been to several countries you haven't, play a musical instrument you don't. Rubbing shoulders (or whatever) with those people is what makes you grow as a person.

To be pithy or trite, depending on your view:

"Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows." Sydney J. Harris

The paradox is that the higher status, which in and of itself is just an empty label, supports the accumulation of resources and the critical mass of young minds that then makes good on the promise. There's no reason in principle why it couldn't all be a cheat the way some have suggested, but, by happy accident, it turns out to be legitimate and highly fulfilling.

And happily, no one puts a gun to your head, so, if it aint for you, don't go.

Trotsky
It makes a huge difference because there are significantly greater opportunities to stretch yourself at Cornell (I can't speak for the other Ivies but from my experience with HYP grads I'd say there as well).

Part of this is the difference between a "pragmatic" view of education as preparation for making money and a "romantic" view of education as joining the "Great Conversation" of educated, culturally-striving people in all ages. For the former Cornell may be overpriced (though I doubt it; at least it's empirically testable). For the latter, I can only judge from personal experience but I know it's not just possible but nearly unavoidable to connect up with that great liberal arts tradition at Cornell, and I just don't know whether it is elsewhere (my intuition is it's always possible but much, much more difficult without the resources).

Well said, Greg. It boggles that a Cornell alum can be unable to ascertain the difference between being "trained" and being "educated." Sadly, in this country we are moving more and more toward the former at the expense of the latter.

Al DeFlorio
Well said, Greg. It boggles that a Cornell alum can be unable to ascertain the difference between being "trained" and being "educated."

And my point is that you, like many Ivy League graduates, don't seem to understand that education and college are largely orthogonal experiences. You can become educated at a place like Cornell, but you can also become educated without going to college. I know plenty of people who emerge from elite colleges knowing lots of useless facts but who are largely ignorant of how the world works or how they are to fit into it, and who end up frustrated and depressed when things don't go as planned.

To me, being educated has little to do with learning any particular skill (this is "training", as you say) or being able to impress others with lots of credentials and acronyms. The people I consider educated are those who understand the context of their place in the world and apply that knowledge to bettering themselves, rather than just passing through life blindly or succeeding by virtue of luck or accident of birth. It's roughly equivalent to having low time preference: a prerequisite to planning for one's future is understanding that context, and understanding that context leads one to know that some level of planning is necessary.

Al DeFlorio

Trotsky
It makes a huge difference because there are significantly greater opportunities to stretch yourself at Cornell (I can't speak for the other Ivies but from my experience with HYP grads I'd say there as well).

Part of this is the difference between a "pragmatic" view of education as preparation for making money and a "romantic" view of education as joining the "Great Conversation" of educated, culturally-striving people in all ages. For the former Cornell may be overpriced (though I doubt it; at least it's empirically testable). For the latter, I can only judge from personal experience but I know it's not just possible but nearly unavoidable to connect up with that great liberal arts tradition at Cornell, and I just don't know whether it is elsewhere (my intuition is it's always possible but much, much more difficult without the resources).

Well said, Greg. It boggles that a Cornell alum can be unable to ascertain the difference between being "trained" and being "educated." Sadly, in this country we are moving more and more toward the former at the expense of the latter.

Sorry to be the skunk at the picnic but the world has changed since I graduated. A freshmen, or his/her parents, entering in the Fall of 2011 can expect to lay out just shy of $250,000 for an endowed education without discounts.

The reality is that college has always been about conferring economic benefits to those that attend. For the first half of the 20th century it was sufficient to attend, get the gentlemens C and join the club. I the second half it was a gateway to the professional and managerial class. Familiarity with the arts, language, history and literature were marks of refinement that provided distinction and social currency in the worlds economic superpower.

Now in the 21st century new graduates are being cast on the waters of globalization, the relative values of technical skills and knowledge compared to the arts and social graces is being redefined. From my perspective the challenge that colleges and universities have is how to adapt to the economic reality that is globalization so as to continue to confer real economic benefit to those that attend. This means training for the 21st century not the 20th. Colleges and Universities rely on conferring economic benefits to their customers as alumni donations are a very significant part of the business model and without economic benefit the model fails.

My youngest daughter just graduated from a 4 year college with a reputation comparable to Cornell. She was the "beneficiary" of a very liberal education but was trained for nothing. She had good grades and was a Captain of a sports team. She loved college. When she graduated she very quickly learned, to her chagrin, that the skill of textual analysis was not in high demand in the market place and found a job in retail. She has recently joined the military so she can get the training and skills that will further her career and life. I love and am incredibly proud of my daughter but I believe that she made a very poor investment in her future in choosing her course of study given the world she is inheriting.

I am sorry but I think that what it means to be educated in the 21 century is different that what it meant in the 20th and we can no more go back than we can resurrect lower alumni field or rebuild Boardman Hall.

I'm going to chime in here, too. I loved my time on the Hill and don't think my college experience could have been any better than what it was. As well, I've made many friends and connections of all ages through our connections as Cornellians - my god father is '87, I go to trivia with Kyle regularly '98, I tailgate with Mark '89, and so forth. That's something that I love about Cornell and its alums, age doesn't matter much when forming bonds since we're all similar in being well-read, knowledgable, above average individuals. I would never trade my years in Ithaca for anything, the friends I made there, and the friends I've made since for anything.

The flip side, however, is that I'm not using my Cornell degree at all. I'm getting a second bachelor's in a field that Cornell doesn't even offer, nursing. My background in government, economics, and math from Cornell is great and certainly helps me understand the world around me (especially the recent events in Egypt since my senior seminar was Everyday Life in the Authoritarian Middle East), but it didn't truly give me training other than in higher order thinking. While that is an important skill to have, there are many people out there that have higher order thinking skills that gained them outside the ivory tower of the Ivy League.

Kyle Rose

Al DeFlorio
Well said, Greg. It boggles that a Cornell alum can be unable to ascertain the difference between being "trained" and being "educated."

And my point is that you, like many Ivy League graduates, don't seem to understand that education and college are largely orthogonal experiences. You can become educated at a place like Cornell, but you can also become educated without going to college. I know plenty of people who emerge from elite colleges knowing lots of useless facts but who are largely ignorant of how the world works or how they are to fit into it, and who end up frustrated and depressed when things don't go as planned.

To me, being educated has little to do with learning any particular skill (this is "training", as you say) or being able to impress others with lots of credentials and acronyms. The people I consider educated are those who understand the context of their place in the world and apply that knowledge to bettering themselves, rather than just passing through life blindly or succeeding by virtue of luck or accident of birth. It's roughly equivalent to having low time preference: a prerequisite to planning for one's future is understanding that context, and understanding that context leads one to know that some level of planning is necessary.

Sorry, Kyle, but I do understand, and you have no basis for your assertion that I don't. I suspect my view of being "educated" is much broader than the one you've stated above.

It is very depressing to me that many here seem to associate education with "conferring economic benefits."

Trotsky
Part of this is the difference between a "pragmatic" view of education as preparation for making money and a "romantic" view of education as joining the "Great Conversation" of educated, culturally-striving people in all ages.

The romantic view of education that you are espousing has value. There certainly is value in that side of things, both to the individual and to society. There is an economic cost to this though and it's worth asking whether the value equals or exceeds the cost given the incredible cost of higher education in the 21st century. The answer is subjective (how much do you think these things are worth?) and depends on what a student is actually paying (obviously different if you have a full ride somewhere or your parents are Bill Gates rich).

I agree to some degree with Kyle that a lot of students do not get fair value for their money. To become "educated" (in the sense we're talking about here) you have to put effort into it (it takes more than just doing your assignments and getting by). While plenty of kids at Cornell do, there are also plenty who don't, for instance using the four years as a time primarily to party. That's not really worth %50k per, IMO.

Kyle is also right that one can "educate" himself outside of a school environment. It just takes drive and effort. However, being in the learning environment can make this process a heck of a lot easier. A good university can help to amplify the effort put forth.

Kyle Rose
And my point is that you, like many Ivy League graduates, don't seem to understand that education and college are largely orthogonal experiences.

I respect that you've thought about this and arrived at this view. In my opinion you could not be more wrong insofar as you declare "largely." Certainly an autodidact can become well-rounded (after all, all of us continue to develop after school is long past), and I suppose many people blow the chance they have in college by partying too much or by cramping their experience narrowly as just another aspect of commercial culture. But the opportunity is there, unlike any other institution I've been exposed to (I'm not theologically inclined -- that would be the other great exception to our wasteland).

Trotsky
I respect that you've thought about this and arrived at this view. In my opinion you could not be more wrong insofar as you declare "largely."

"Orthogonal" does not mean "mutually exclusive": it means "along different dimensions". By saying they are "largely orthogonal" I mean that they are mostly unrelated: I agree with you and Keith that college can grease the wheels, but one can easily get through college without becoming educated, and one can spend the effort to get educated whether in college or not.

From my observations, the biggest problem facing the ability of college to produce educated people is that most kids are too young and too intellectually immature to really appreciate it. I firmly believe that real life experience is a prerequisite for developing a notion of the context I was referring to before: it's impossible to ask the important questions when you don't even know the language they're to be written in.

I certainly know that I would have gotten a lot more out of college had I known then what I know now, but I was young and ignorant and didn't have a sense of perspective or any reason to reconsider my ill-founded long-term goals, so I spent a lot of time studying and learning stuff that has no relation to my life now. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, but only because my life up until then had been very one-dimensional: getting good grades was what I knew as "success", so I guess I figured I'd continue doing that. There was a lot of squandered opportunity treating college as an extension of high school, and from my observations this experience is incredibly common. Had I done something entirely unrelated to school for a few years in between high school and college, I probably would have made better use of the resources that were available to me at Cornell, and I would have demanded greater value from the time and effort expended rather than treating it as some combination of high school, country club, and summer camp.

A few of you have articulated this argument much better than I could ever have done but I would just add: As cliche and as sad as it is, everything comes down to money. While it is nice to talk about the difference between getting educated and trained, there is a real financial cost. Is upwards of 50k a year and ever increasing tuition costs really worth getting educated when you can get trained for much less? At the end of the day I think most people go to college to get a good job and so if you are only trying to get a good job why not just get trained?

And Harvard still sucks.

CowbellGuy
And Harvard still sucks.

There are some things we can all agree on.

Al DeFlorio

Kyle Rose

Al DeFlorio
Well said, Greg. It boggles that a Cornell alum can be unable to ascertain the difference between being "trained" and being "educated."

And my point is that you, like many Ivy League graduates, don't seem to understand that education and college are largely orthogonal experiences. You can become educated at a place like Cornell, but you can also become educated without going to college. I know plenty of people who emerge from elite colleges knowing lots of useless facts but who are largely ignorant of how the world works or how they are to fit into it, and who end up frustrated and depressed when things don't go as planned.

To me, being educated has little to do with learning any particular skill (this is "training", as you say) or being able to impress others with lots of credentials and acronyms. The people I consider educated are those who understand the context of their place in the world and apply that knowledge to bettering themselves, rather than just passing through life blindly or succeeding by virtue of luck or accident of birth. It's roughly equivalent to having low time preference: a prerequisite to planning for one's future is understanding that context, and understanding that context leads one to know that some level of planning is necessary.

Sorry, Kyle, but I do understand, and you have no basis for your assertion that I don't. I suspect my view of being "educated" is much broader than the one you've stated above.

It is very depressing to me that many here seem to associate education with "conferring economic benefits."

Higher education must be about conferring economic benefits, or at least the perception thereof, or an institution like Cornell will fail. If you believe the mantra that tuition and fees only cover a fraction of the cost of an education (this is a separate but debatable contention) then, in the simple model, the balance of the funding must come from the endowment. The endowment in turn is principally funded by the alumni who make donations. The more economically prosperous the alumni, and the more that the alumni attribute their prosperity to their higher education the bigger the contribution. This lifetime revenue model is an absolute necessity for the very survival of an institution like Cornell. It is really a very simple, elegant, successful business model. First and foremost Cornell and any other higher education institution is a business.

As for the differentiation between training and education I think this is a false distinction. I think they are mutually dependent. If education is the ability to acquire and synthesize information and training the systematic disciplined acquisition of a field of knowledge then they are 2 sides of the same coin. The inference that eduction is superior to training is sometimes offered by those who believe they live on the ethereal plain, to condescend to those rude mechanicals who labor only for filthy lucher. Of course your Alumni rep will be calling on those rude mechanicals with multiple opportunities to invest in the future.

I am not for a second arguing that a higher education should not have a robust distribution requirement and that exposure and training in a variety of subjects is not the hallmark of a quality education. But, I ignoring the necessity of conferring economic benefits as a central component of a higher education is naive at best and we do the next generation of Cornellians no favors by not having a frank discussion about their need to go out and do well in the world.

Towerroad

Al DeFlorio

Kyle Rose

Al DeFlorio
Well said, Greg. It boggles that a Cornell alum can be unable to ascertain the difference between being "trained" and being "educated."

And my point is that you, like many Ivy League graduates, don't seem to understand that education and college are largely orthogonal experiences. You can become educated at a place like Cornell, but you can also become educated without going to college. I know plenty of people who emerge from elite colleges knowing lots of useless facts but who are largely ignorant of how the world works or how they are to fit into it, and who end up frustrated and depressed when things don't go as planned.

To me, being educated has little to do with learning any particular skill (this is "training", as you say) or being able to impress others with lots of credentials and acronyms. The people I consider educated are those who understand the context of their place in the world and apply that knowledge to bettering themselves, rather than just passing through life blindly or succeeding by virtue of luck or accident of birth. It's roughly equivalent to having low time preference: a prerequisite to planning for one's future is understanding that context, and understanding that context leads one to know that some level of planning is necessary.

Sorry, Kyle, but I do understand, and you have no basis for your assertion that I don't. I suspect my view of being "educated" is much broader than the one you've stated above.

It is very depressing to me that many here seem to associate education with "conferring economic benefits."

Higher education must be about conferring economic benefits, or at least the perception thereof, or an institution like Cornell will fail. If you believe the mantra that tuition and fees only cover a fraction of the cost of an education (this is a separate but debatable contention) then, in the simple model, the balance of the funding must come from the endowment. The endowment in turn is principally funded by the alumni who make donations. The more economically prosperous the alumni, and the more that the alumni attribute their prosperity to their higher education the bigger the contribution. This lifetime revenue model is an absolute necessity for the very survival of an institution like Cornell. It is really a very simple, elegant, successful business model. First and foremost Cornell and any other higher education institution is a business.

As for the differentiation between training and education I think this is a false distinction. I think they are mutually dependent. If education is the ability to acquire and synthesize information and training the systematic disciplined acquisition of a field of knowledge then they are 2 sides of the same coin. The inference that eduction is superior to training is sometimes offered by those who believe they live on the ethereal plain, to condescend to those rude mechanicals who labor only for filthy lucher. Of course your Alumni rep will be calling on those rude mechanicals with multiple opportunities to invest in the future.

I am not for a second arguing that a higher education should not have a robust distribution requirement and that exposure and training in a variety of subjects is not the hallmark of a quality education. But, I ignoring the necessity of conferring economic benefits as a central component of a higher education is naive at best and we do the next generation of Cornellians no favors by not having a frank discussion about their need to go out and do well in the world.

I won't speak for Al, anyone who knows him knows he can speak for himself.

However, I would like to agree with him that the focus seems to be more on money than what I would consider education. I didn't go to Cornell so I could make more money. My father, a first generation college grad, worked and formed his own successful business. I could easily have gone into the family business and made as much or more than I do now. However my parents felt "an education" was important to my development. They didn't dictate it to me, but it has become clear to me as I got older that they wanted me to experience more of the world and life and decide what I wanted from life.

Cornell, and a year of graduate school did that, and I couldn't imagine being happier in what I do. That development was much more important than any economic benefit I could get, hell, I probably lost money, as my parents did, by going to school. But how do you put a value on happiness.

So, I think the idea of "conferring economic benefits" exists, but it's not the prime goal. I regularly donate time and money to Cornell, and the four other institutions that I attended, not because they showed me how to earn more, no, they showed me how to be happier. For that I will be eternally grateful.

Here's what Cornell lacrosse coach Ben DeLuca, a biochemistry major, says about his Cornell education in this interview in the Syracuse newspaper which is featured in the lacrosse thread on eLynah:

PS: I see you majored in biochemistry at Cornell. Do I need to ask what went wrong on your way to becoming a lacrosse coach instead of a doctor?

BD: (More laughs) That’s pretty funny. That’s the same question my parents had. It was pretty interesting for them to hear when I graduated that I was I as joining Coach (Dave) Pietramala and Coach Tambroni (on the Cornell staff). They kind of looked at me sideways like, why had they paid for this education and I was trying to go off-track. Things worked out in a strange way. More than anything, while I’m not specifically applying my degree to what I’m doing, I think my education here and just the ability to learn, ho to think critically and solve problems and handle a high volume of work – and a pretty stressful work load – help prepare me for the stresses of coaching.

PS: Any chance you’d go back to that field?

BD: I haven’t thought about it. I’m excited that I have a Cornell diploma. It’s something that’ll serve me the rest of my life. It’s a phenomenal opportunity to be in class here and receive this type of education and can open a lot of doors. I haven’t thought that in some point in time, I’d pursue medicine or something in that field. I wouldn’t close any doors at this point.

Interesting conversation. To open up a different can of worms:

1. As long as the market is reasonably free (no monopoly, collusion or forced transactions) I don't feel that a seller using price discrimination to maximize their economic outcome is a bad thing, even if it is "simply" to maximize profits. As long as the buyer is free to choose to purchase or not to purchase, why should the seller be limited in adjusting price? If the buyer doesn't like it, they can walk away.
2. In this case, I believe that the administration would make the case that even "sticker price" tuition does not cover the cost of a Cornell education. A lot of this depends on how much of the research mission of the university should be paid for by students, but it is clear that there's an enormous gap between the university's expenses and tuition revenue - even if you look at gross tuition revenue before discounts are applied. Kyle appears to be implying that the price discriminiation in effect here is a gouge on those who pay full price - instead, I would argue that there are probably a lot of very wealthy parents who could and perhaps should pick up an even larger proportion of the costs of running a world-class research university.

I think there are a lot of interesting important philosophical questions raised here, such as what is the value of a traditional "liberal" education, particularly in fields like Classics or English; what is the correct response of the University in balancing its research focus with its responsibility to provide an excellent education to its students (ie cramming 100-level classes full of students to be taught by an indifferent professor whose mind is much more focused on their next research paper); and what is the long-run economic value of a Cornell experience.

The good news is that there is tremendous transparency and access to information, so any purchaser of these education services (aka "student" who makes an ill informed decision really has only themselves to blame.

I am not seeing a lot of acknowledgment that, at a major research university (public or private) a lot of funding comes form outside sources, most significantly the Gov't (NSF, NIH, DoD etc.). Cornell is not free to act like a private business and still receive such funding.

1) I met my wife at Cornell.
2) I didn't learn how to be an investment banker at Cornell, but I cared enough at school to learn how to think about problems and solutions. If you put some effort into college, I think you can learn a lot. I think you can learn a lot, or not very much, at state schools and Ivy League schools.
3) Most of my best friends are from Cornell - I'm 41, these are lifelong friendships.
4) I had incredible drinking tolerance when I graduated - but with age and less dedication, my tolerance is merely substantially above average.

I think the decision to invest $200k at Cornell for your own kids is uniquely personal - based on your net worth/income, your views on education, your kids' goals and ambitions (or lack thereof), other options (is there a good state school alternative), etc. For me, it was worth it and I'll gladly pay to give my kids the same privilege so long as they have some ambition. So far, so good.

My kids are all exceptional hockey players, so they'll no doubt qualify for the Cornell athletic scholarship............ha ha. I don't fork over all that money for the Cornell hockey camp for nothing.

RatushnyFan
1) I met my wife at Cornell.
2) I didn't learn how to be an investment banker at Cornell, but I cared enough at school to learn how to think about problems and solutions. If you put some effort into college, I think you can learn a lot. I think you can learn a lot, or not very much, at state schools and Ivy League schools.
3) Most of my best friends are from Cornell - I'm 41, these are lifelong friendships.
4) I had incredible drinking tolerance when I graduated - but with age and less dedication, my tolerance is merely substantially above average.

I think the decision to invest $200k at Cornell for your own kids is uniquely personal - based on your net worth/income, your views on education, your kids' goals and ambitions (or lack thereof), other options (is there a good state school alternative), etc. For me, it was worth it and I'll gladly pay to give my kids the same privilege so long as they have some ambition. So far, so good.

My kids are all exceptional hockey players, so they'll no doubt qualify for the Cornell athletic scholarship............ha ha. I don't fork over all that money for the Cornell hockey camp for nothing.

I think you have made my point rather well. You appear to attribute a significant part of your economic success to Cornell (I do too). A quality education whether delivered at a Tier 1 or Tier 4 school has as at least one of its attributes preparation to go out in the world and do well. That is my definition of economic success whether that is being a great teacher or a captain of industry.

I met my wife or 34 years (so far) at Cornell and paid list price for my oldest daughter go to Cornell. I believe that all 3 of us have benefited economically from our educations.

Roy82,

The agencies that buy research from Cornell put a lot of stipulations on those funds, but (generally) education is not one of them. Many of these contracts are won by competitors of Cornell that have no educational programs at all, or ones that only educate graduate students. NSF, for example, requires a small portion of their awards to be used for outreach - and that's why Ithaca has a Sciencenter. Those funds are not used for undergraduate education. So, I think your statement is a bit of a non sequitur.

brealy_myers
Roy82,

The agencies that buy research from Cornell put a lot of stipulations on those funds, but (generally) education is not one of them. Many of these contracts are won by competitors of Cornell that have no educational programs at all, or ones that only educate graduate students. NSF, for example, requires a small portion of their awards to be used for outreach - and that's why Ithaca has a Sciencenter. Those funds are not used for undergraduate education. So, I think your statement is a bit of a non sequitur.

I still think that there is an effect. I work at one of those entities that competes and collaborates with universities. The government has to approve the billing rates of a university which ultimately goes back to the university's sources of income (which presumably would include undergraduate tuition). But I wasn't necessarily restricting my comment to undergraduate education.

Roy 82

brealy_myers
Roy82,

The agencies that buy research from Cornell put a lot of stipulations on those funds, but (generally) education is not one of them. Many of these contracts are won by competitors of Cornell that have no educational programs at all, or ones that only educate graduate students. NSF, for example, requires a small portion of their awards to be used for outreach - and that's why Ithaca has a Sciencenter. Those funds are not used for undergraduate education. So, I think your statement is a bit of a non sequitur.

I still think that there is an effect. I work at one of those entities that competes and collaborates with universities. The government has to approve the billing rates of a university which ultimately goes back to the university's sources of income (which presumably would include undergraduate tuition). But I wasn't necessarily restricting my comment to undergraduate education.

I don't think very much, if any, of the "indirect" costs (also called F&A) that universities receive on grants and contracts goes back into undergraduate education. As someone who has been supported on and managed research grants, how the university spends the indirect funds is not very transparent.

Universities and government agencies (USDA, NIH, NSF) negotiate an "indirect cost" percentage. The amount varies, but at one university I worked at, the university took 52% of an NSF grant award for "indirect costs", quite a chunk of change from a million dollar grant. I think 52% is on the high end, but rates in the 40's are common. Some private foundations will stipulate the indirect rate on research grants, and it is usually much lower (15-20% range).

Unlike the researchers who have to itemize exactly how they will spend the "direct funds" (the other 48% of the money in this example), universities are extremely vague about how the indirect funds are allocated.

The admins say that it goes for things like janatorial services (but yet trash in the lab is only collected 3X/week), building upkeep, and support staff (like departmental secretaries). I have also recently learned that at some institutions, some of the indirects also go towards the university's "sponsored program/grant management" division; the people who help the research submit the grants and manage them. Despite asking many times, no one has provided me with a detailed accounting how the indirects from our grant were spent.

As Brealy mentioned above, NSF grants do have a community outreach component and how that defined is very broad. I know Cornell has an excellent summer high school and undergrad student research program in plant sciences which is in part funded by NSF grant "outreach money". This (competitive) program attracts undergraduates from universities throughout the country.

In addition, some of that outreach money is used to have a training program for elementary and secondary school science teachers so that they can come to campus, learn new thing and then take that knowledge back to their classrooms and the equipment needed to do that is part of a "lending library" for the teachers that participate in the program. So in this case, NSF grant monies do go to supporting undergrads, but it is a select few, and most of them are not from Cornell.

So if a class is held in a building with research labs, then the electricity and heat in the lecture hall (and other infrastructure costs) may be paid for by the indirect monies. But I seriously doubt any of that money is going into more tangible things for undergrads (like scholarship funds).

OTOH, a strong research program that attracts lots of NSF (and other) grants will also be attractive to potential undergraduates who are interested in studying at a top-flight research university, so there is plenty of intangible benefit for undergrads when professors are winning grants. If professors think that they have a better chance of winning a research grant by being at Cornell instead of State U, then that also increases the quality of the pool of applicants who want to become Cornell professors, which is an extremely important intangible benefit for undergrads.

Robb
OTOH, a strong research program that attracts lots of NSF (and other) grants will also be attractive to potential undergraduates who are interested in studying at a top-flight research university, so there is plenty of intangible benefit for undergrads when professors are winning grants. If professors think that they have a better chance of winning a research grant by being at Cornell instead of State U, then that also increases the quality of the pool of applicants who want to become Cornell professors, which is an extremely important intangible benefit for undergrads.

And this gets us back to the argument that what you get out of Cornell (or any other school) is what you put into it. If you are an ambitious undergrad interested in science and willing to devote many hours a week in the lab, then yes, you can benefit from being at a school with well-funded researchers. In my grad lab at Cornell we had several talented undergrads who did so much work that they were co-authors on a few papers.

I went to college at a small liberal arts school (Trinity College in Hartford, CT) and even though the science there was not at the level of a research university, I was motivated enough to get involved in a professor's research project and also served as a teaching assistant for several lab and lecture classes. This set me up to earn several summer research fellowships and eventually, grad school at Cornell.

RatushnyFan
4) I had incredible drinking tolerance when I graduated - but with age and less dedication, my tolerance is merely substantially above average.

I believe you mean:

Is here. It's an 18 page pdf file.

More concise version is here: Just 1-2 pages in html.