Should everyone learn to code?
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
high-school degrees mean nothing precisely because they've promoted everyone all th way along without actually educating them or holding them responsible.
That's a symptom of a completely different problem - public school is essentially useless except for the first few years. It's a lot more of a daycare than it is an educator.
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@benjamin-hall I still don't see how super expensive colleges exclude bad students, though. It might lower the number, but it doesn't discriminate between good and bad students, it discriminates on how much you can afford.
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@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
high-school degrees mean nothing precisely because they've promoted everyone all th way along without actually educating them or holding them responsible.
That's a symptom of a completely different problem - public school is essentially useless except for the first few years. It's a lot more of a daycare than it is an educator.
And if you apply the same incentives that reign over public school to universities (by making it free for everyone), you'll get similar results. Public schools started with "why should only the rich get to afford a high-school education" just as this movement is.
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@pie_flavor from your link:
My mother is a Spanish teacher. After twenty years teaching, with excellent reviews by her students, she pursued a Masters’ in Education because her school was going to pay her more money if she had it. She told me that her professors were incompetent, had never actually taught real students
Sorry, but I find the bold part hard to believe.
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@benjamin-hall I sense that it's no coincidence that you work in education and are well-versed on why it all sucks.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall I still don't see how super expensive colleges exclude bad students, though. It might lower the number, but it doesn't discriminate between good and bad students, it discriminates on how much you can afford.
...you're not getting it. High cost is a non-issue except at the very extremes of the distribution. Community college and trade schools do 90% of the job at less than 10% of the cost of the high-end schools in everything but social circle snobbishness.
And most of the damage is already done. Making it "free" just makes it worse, just like public schools.
Paying for things with other-people's money never improves quality or cost-efficiency. Since there are certain requirements for quality, you end up paying more total for less aggregate quality, unless you add rationing somewhere else.
And there's no way in hell I would accept the government or any other 3rd party at all as the gatekeeper of who gets to go to college.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@pie_flavor from your link:
My mother is a Spanish teacher. After twenty years teaching, with excellent reviews by her students, she pursued a Masters’ in Education because her school was going to pay her more money if she had it. She told me that her professors were incompetent, had never actually taught real students
Sorry, but I find the bold part hard to believe.
E_YES_REPRO.
Edit: In a metaphorical sense, anyway..
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall I still don't see how super expensive colleges exclude bad students, though. It might lower the number, but it doesn't discriminate between good and bad students, it discriminates on how much you can afford.
Bad students don't water down the diploma. All students do. Reducing total number of students benefits graduates regardless of how many bad students graduate. Until the school becomes known of having bad students graduate.
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@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@pie_flavor from your link:
My mother is a Spanish teacher. After twenty years teaching, with excellent reviews by her students, she pursued a Masters’ in Education because her school was going to pay her more money if she had it. She told me that her professors were incompetent, had never actually taught real students
Sorry, but I find the bold part hard to believe.
E_YES_REPRO.
Edit: In a metaphorical sense, anyway..
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@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall I sense that it's no coincidence that you work in education and are well-versed on why it all sucks.
I was planning to teach college. Now that I'm out of the system, I see exactly how screwed up it is. Not just screwed up, but downright malevolent. The higher education system is exactly what it claims "corporations" and "capitalists" are--greedy, abusive, unconcerned with actually helping people, willing to cut corners to pad their nests, etc. There are some good people in it, but I'm afraid the only way forward will be to burn it all down and start over, pretty much from scratch.
And the secondary education system (middle and high-schools) aren't that far behind.
Remember--credentialed != educated. I know lots of people with degrees from fancy schools who still can't think their way out of a paper bag if you left it open and gave them a map.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Bad students don't water down the diploma. All students do. Reducing total number of students benefits graduates regardless of how many bad students graduate. Until the school becomes known of having bad students graduate.
What? So you're saying if you only graduate 5 mediocre students that's a better outcome than if you graduate 10 world-class students?
"Not watering down the degree" doesn't mean you should make only a certain limited number of people pass. It means that you set strict quality criteria and if a lot of students manage to meet them, then good for you.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
It means that you set strict quality criteria and if a lot of students manage to meet them, then good for you.
And that's diametrically opposed to "free college for all."
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Bad students don't water down the diploma. All students do. Reducing total number of students benefits graduates regardless of how many bad students graduate. Until the school becomes known of having bad students graduate.
What? So you're saying if you only graduate 5 mediocre students that's a better outcome than if you graduate 10 world-class students?
No, but graduating 10 world-class, 500 average and 300 mediocre is better than 100 world-class, 5000 average and 300 mediocre - for all three groups.
"Not watering down the degree" doesn't mean you should make only a certain limited number of people pass. It means that you set strict quality criteria and if a lot of students manage to meet them, then good for you.
Value of diploma isn't in just quality - it's mostly in rarity. As long as there is belief among society at large that there is some value to college diploma, having college diploma provides clear advantage over those who don't have one. If minority of population has college education, all is fine - graduates get the tuition back in salaries, and non-graduates fill other fields of job market. But when majority gets college education, it becomes the norm, which is bad for graduates in that they often can't get a good job after college, and for non-graduates because employers who would otherwise require just high school education now require diploma, because they have no problem filling their ranks with those unemployed graduates. Everyone is worse off with widely available higher education, and making it more accessible will just make it all worse.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
It means that you set strict quality criteria and if a lot of students manage to meet them, then good for you.
And that's diametrically opposed to "free college for all."
No, not at all. You only admit students which have good enough grades. You can even fail the really bad students in school, before they even get a school degree that allows them to apply. And once you've admitted them to college, you can still fail them there.
A merit based system requires that you pass exams, not pay money.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
It means that you set strict quality criteria and if a lot of students manage to meet them, then good for you.
And that's diametrically opposed to "free college for all."
No, not at all. You only admit students which have good enough grades. You can even fail the really bad students in school, before they even get a school degree that allows them to apply. And once you've admitted them to college, you can still fail them there.
A merit based system requires that you pass exams, not pay money.You missed the for all part. By definition, you can't have free college for all and then reject 90%. Then it's not for all, is it?
You could get a merit system. But then you have to have an administration willing to set hard standards and be objective. That runs into the rocks of diversity and political pressure. By making something publicly funded, you've also made it directly a political football. And keeping hard standards under pressure is something that politicians are exceedingly bad at.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
You missed the for all part. By definition, you can't have free college for all and then reject 90%. Then it's not for all, is it?
Well yes, of course it is. You get the chance to go to school and study hard, then apply for college. If you suck, you don't get in. If you suck at college, you don't pass. That doesn't mean it's not free.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
You missed the for all part. By definition, you can't have free college for all and then reject 90%. Then it's not for all, is it?
Well yes, of course it is. You get the chance to go to school and study hard, then apply for college. If you suck, you don't get in. If you suck at college, you don't pass. That doesn't mean it's not free.
That's a mighty optimistic view you've got there. Because we have "free high-school for everyone" (public schools). And all the maladies I've been talking about? They're facts of life in that system.
And your meritocratic system fails when you ask who gets to decide what's taught? What does it mean to excel? These are non-trivial questions with severe consequences for different choices.
Not to mention that the proposed systems are basically "everyone goes to college, no one fails, no one pays" (ie exactly what we see in the public system already).
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
And your meritocratic system fails when you ask who gets to decide what's taught? What does it mean to excel? These are non-trivial questions with severe consequences for different choices.
That's non-trivial questions for sure, but questions that need to be answered anyway, orthogonal to whether you pay $100k for college.
Not to mention that the proposed systems are basically "everyone goes to college, no one fails, no one pays" (ie exactly what we see in the public system already).
Well, that's a shit proposal (if it's true), you got no argument from me there.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
And your meritocratic system fails when you ask who gets to decide what's taught? What does it mean to excel? These are non-trivial questions with severe consequences for different choices.
That's non-trivial questions for sure, but questions that need to be answered anyway, orthogonal to whether you pay $100k for college.
But the advantage of a non-free system is that there's the chance of a diversity of opinions. Public systems are notorious for not handling dissension or competition very well.
And $100k is way out of the norm. UF is at the high end for state schools (being a flagship): 4-year cost (including living expenses) is ~$80k. Sure, if you go to a small liberal-arts school and get a masters you're looking at 100k, but that's at the far right end of the distribution. The average for in-state tuition at a state school (where most people go) is ~10k/year tuition.
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@benjamin-hall Community colleges (good for the first 2 years of a 4-year degree) are closer to $1000/year. At least that's what my son paid last year. (That's only the tuition, not including assorted fees, textbooks, or other miscellaneous expenses; maybe double if you include those.)
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall Community colleges (good for the first 2 years of a 4-year degree) are closer to $1000/year. At least that's what my son paid last year. (That's only the tuition, not including assorted fees, textbooks, or other miscellaneous expenses; maybe double if you include those.)
Yeah. And those are a great place to get the "general education" credits out of the way. Heck, I paid about that much just in mandatory fees as a grad student at UF, despite having a full tuition waiver. I think it was ~$350 a semester, but since you do year round as a grad student, that's 3 semesters.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
It's horribly expensive
In the debate about the effect on the value of the degrees, this point seems to be getting largely overlooked. It has been mentioned, almost in passing, that "free" means more students; therefore, more teachers; therefore, more salaries for those teachers (not to mention more administrators and their salaries). But this discussion hasn't really touched on how to pay those salaries and other expenses (though I think that horse was thoroughly beaten in the Garage back around election time).
There are, of course, a few ways of funding any government spending: increasing taxes (which nearly all politicians love to do but pretend they don't), deficit spending, a.k.a. borrowing (raising our already monstrous national debt), user fees (but that's not really compatible with "free"), or simply printing more money (which is a bad idea even in the short term, much less the long term, because inflation). AIUI, the plans that have been proposed have proposed funding sources that, realistically, don't even come close to covering the costs. Apparently, the free college is to be paid for with money harvested from tall, thick-stemmed woody perennial plants.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Funny thing about the Ivy League--they don't really flunk people these days (with the exception of a couple tech schools). They get their selectivity by encouraging oodles of people to apply and then rejecting them. It's pure prestige, not earned any more (again, with a couple exceptions).
Harvard undergrad is only useful because it means you're the type of person who can get into Harvard. The value-add is minimal other than being able to rub shoulders with other rich and powerful types.It was that way back in the 80s when I was there.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
You missed the for all part. By definition, you can't have free college for all and then reject 90%. Then it's not for all, is it?
Well yes, of course it is. You get the chance to go to school and study hard, then apply for college. If you suck, you don't get in. If you suck at college, you don't pass. That doesn't mean it's not free.
There are a number of problems with this, some of which have already been mentioned and at least one that hasn't.
There is widespread perception that "universal" programs such as this should provide a universal outcome, not just a universal opportunity — universal free education, not universal free opportunity to attend college, if you can hack it. I guarantee you that any attempt to set merit-based qualifications for the"universal" free education will be met with screams of "elitism," and that doesn't sit well with the left. The reaction will be not to promulgate realistic expectations to the public, but to do away with the elitist barriers to education.
Since we cannot have merit-based exclusionary policies, we must teach subjects in which the least qualified students can grasp. So we will wind up with people getting college degrees in Office Administration, Auto Maintenance, Carpentry, and Sanitation Engineering — i.e., trade schools masquerading as universities. Slightly more capable students may pursue degrees in Underwater Basketweaving or, $deity help us, Gender Studies. These students will be even worse off than their less studious peers, since they will emerge from their university careers with no marketable job skills whatsoever (except, unfortunately, teaching the next generation of underwater basketweavers and Gender Studies students).
And if you do somehow manage to implement merit standards for admission to and/or passing the free college, the least qualified students will fail. Guess who the least qualified students will be. The rejectees will be (besides the lazy, of which there will be many), those with the poorest preparatory education. The economically disadvantaged. Those from the inner city. Who, disproportionately, is poorly educated, economically disadvantaged, from the inner city? Persons of color. And if they fail in disproportionate numbers (and maybe even if the numbers aren't disproportionate), there will be rioting in the streets. But this is the wrong category for further discussion of that topic; racism thread is
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
They get their selectivity by encouraging oodles of people to apply and then rejecting them.
So they don't waste people's time once they're actually at college?
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Bad students don't water down the diploma. All students do. Reducing total number of students benefits graduates regardless of how many bad students graduate. Until the school becomes known of having bad students graduate.
That's not wholly true. Once the demanded entry level gets high enough, the effect works the other way; the high requirements mark the place as being more desirous for academically-elite students to attend, and that reinforces the exclusivity while making it easier for the college to actually deliver on those things (because they can get more rapidly to advanced material).
Also, elite level universities are totally in a global market.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Since we cannot have merit-based exclusionary policies
The silly thing is that those are the only policy that really works. However, you've pretty much got to apply a band pass filter (except for the very top and bottom of the scale) so as to encourage people to go to the place that suits their ability. Otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time and money.
Also, measuring “merit” is hard, as the things that you can measure (e.g., examination success) are just gameable proxies for merit.
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@dkf said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time and money.
No argument there. At least not from the people on the right side of the discussion.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@dkf said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time and money.
No argument there. At least not from the people on the right side of the discussion.
Yup, since merit-based exclusionary principles is exactly what I've argued for.
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@topspin the problem with merit-based free college is that:
- you have to decide how to measure the merit - and the only solution is standarized testing, with all the associated problems;
- you'll still have a large group of people who can't get to college, and it will be mostly the same people who can't afford private college;
- it doesn't solve the problem of tuition costs spinning out of control.
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The UK is an interesting case study for this, since Scotland has free university and England doesn't. The Scottish system is not doing well.
I think the real problem with American universities is the structure of the loans though. In England, student loans
- don't have to be paid back until you're earning a certain amount
- come straight out of your pay like any other tax
- have their interest rate tied to inflation so in theory what you pay back is the same in real terms as what you borrowed
- are paid as a percentage of your earnings over the threshold rather than being related to what you owe
- are written off if not fully paid off after some amount of time, meaning you pay for that amount of time unless you're a super high earner
If that doesn't really sound like a loan, it's because it isn't really. It's a lot closer to a graduate tax, which is a system I think we should move more towards.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@dkf said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time and money.
No argument there. At least not from the people on the right side of the discussion.
Yup, since merit-based exclusionary principles is exactly what I've argued for.
I don't think anybody here is arguing that there shouldn't be merit-based qualifications. Some of us are saying that they are incompatible with the power politics of establishing "free" higher education. Those who are excluded from the education they're "entitled" to will whine "Unfair!", and the political faction pushing most strongly for "free" education is exactly the same faction that responds most favorably to that sort of whining. Therefore, they will be quickly abolished (if they're ever established in the first place)
whenif (see previous comments about measuring merit) they are shown to be effective at their intended purpose.WONTMUST_FIX_WORKS_AS_DESIGNED
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
I don't think anybody here is arguing that there shouldn't be merit-based qualifications.
I am!
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@gąska Like I said, nobody. :face_with_stuck-out_tongue_closed_eyes:
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@hardwaregeek nobody is perfect.
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@jaloopa Murrican student loans are the only kind of loan that doesn't go away with bankruptcy. They also get taken out of your paycheck if you don't pay them voluntarily, so you can't just say 'fuck my credit score', and if you're retired then they come out of your social security.
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@pie_flavor sounds like you're being screwed by banksters more than usual in this regard.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@pie_flavor sounds like you're being screwed by banksters more than usual in this regard.
Since the ultra vast majority of loans are provided by the federal government...
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall How does paying for it not water it down? If it's free, you can fail all the bad students. If you have to pay for it, there'll be really good students who simply can't even afford to attend and rich bad students who you should fail, but then their parents demand you let them through because they paid so much and they think you owe them a passing grade.
If anything, that seems more likely to water down the degrees.Colleges want that sweet, sweet tuition money. Why would they fail the bad students when Uncle Sugar will write another check next semester if they keep the losers afloat academically?
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@pie_flavor from your link:
My mother is a Spanish teacher. After twenty years teaching, with excellent reviews by her students, she pursued a Masters’ in Education because her school was going to pay her more money if she had it. She told me that her professors were incompetent, had never actually taught real students
Sorry, but I find the bold part hard to believe.
Well, his mom was there, not being taught by them, so...
I assume he meant that they were teaching people how to teach in high school but had never actually taught at the high school level.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
A merit based system requires that you pass exams, not pay money.
But if they fail you they don't get any money. Why would they ever want to do that?
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@boomzilla said in Should everyone learn to code?:
I assume he meant that they were teaching people how to teach in high school but had never actually taught at the high school level.
Which is distressingly common. After all, you get a professorship by getting a PhD and doing research and post-docs, not by teaching, especially not in the real world.
No, I'm not jaded. Not at all. Why would you think that?
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall How does paying for it not water it down? If it's free, you can fail all the bad students. If you have to pay for it, there'll be really good students who simply can't even afford to attend and rich bad students who you should fail, but then their parents demand you let them through because they paid so much and they think you owe them a passing grade.
If anything, that seems more likely to water down the degrees.People don't value what they don't pay for. This is just human nature.
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@boomzilla said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
A merit based system requires that you pass exams, not pay money.
But if they fail you they don't get any money. Why would they ever want to do that?
Get the money first, dummy.
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@dkf Well, obviously, but I meant next semester's money!
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall I still don't see how super expensive colleges exclude bad students, though. It might lower the number, but it doesn't discriminate between good and bad students, it discriminates on how much you can afford.
...you're not getting it. High cost is a non-issue except at the very extremes of the distribution. Community college and trade schools do 90% of the job at less than 10% of the cost of the high-end schools in everything but social circle snobbishness.
And most of the damage is already done. Making it "free" just makes it worse, just like public schools.
Paying for things with other-people's money never improves quality or cost-efficiency. Since there are certain requirements for quality, you end up paying more total for less aggregate quality, unless you add rationing somewhere else.
And there's no way in hell I would accept the government or any other 3rd party at all as the gatekeeper of who gets to go to college.
While I went to an Ivy...I will only offer to help pay for a public college education for my kid. The ROI isn't worth with for private (without significant scholarships).
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@boomzilla said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@dkf Well, obviously, but I meant next semester's money!
Think of it like this; they'll be busy resitting their exam unless, and so will incur extra fees.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Those who are excluded from the education they're "entitled" to will whine "Unfair!",
They're not "excluded", they just failed.
Also, that applies much more if they paid for it, because then they feel entitled to getting a degree. "I paid this much money, it was obviously your job to make me pass this!"
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@karla said in Should everyone learn to code?:
People don't value what they don't pay for. This is just human nature.
[Citation needed]
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Those who are excluded from the education they're "entitled" to will whine "Unfair!",
They're not "excluded", they just failed.
Also, that applies much more if they paid for it, because then they feel entitled to getting a degree. "I paid this much money, it was obviously your job to make me pass this!"Oddly enough, that doesn't really happen very much. I teach at a private school (where the parents are paying buku bucks) and there's not really much of that sentiment. Instead, many feel the weight of the financial burden and actually try. Others are just teenagers who can't think of anyone besides themselves and are clueless, but...
