Interesting article in today's NYT

[Jim Hyla]

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. :-D

[TimV]

::woot::::woot::::rock::

[Towerroad]

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. :-D

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.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

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.

[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.

[Al DeFlorio]

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.

[Rosey]

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.

[Towerroad]

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.

[munchkin]

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.

[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."

[KeithK]

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.

[Trotsky]

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).

[Rosey]

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.

[phillysportsfan]

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?

[CowbellGuy]

And Harvard still sucks.