Should everyone learn to code?
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@blakeyrat That answers the thread better than I ever could.
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@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
You'll see idiots argue about how horrible H1B visas are for days without ever admitting that they're either racist, greedy, or both.
LOL, greedy. Fuck off you commie.
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@boomzilla The dumb thing is it doesn't even work for "greedy" since the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
So it's just racism of the "they're taking our jerbs!" variety.
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@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@boomzilla The dumb thing is it doesn't even work for "greedy" since the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
The law says it so it must be true! But you've never shown any evidence of comprehension of supply and demand in the past so I don't know why I'm surprised.
So it's just racism of the "they're taking our jerbs!" variety.
Washington State race baiters. I hate Washington State race baiters.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
And the question is always: at what cost? As a teacher, I see kids in high school who can barely read anything moderately technical, can't do basic arithmetic, and know basically nothing about common things. Things they should have learned in elementary school.
So if we're now going to require coding classes, that's going to take time away from other important things. And probably be done just as poorly as their current schooling.
Unrelated to the topic but related to your post: maybe what we need is less artistic literature, and more technical writing? Instead of 3 Shakespeare's plays, make it 1 Shakespeare's play, 1 service manual, and 1 Act of Parliament?
The problem is that all of those need the same thing--content knowledge. Unless you have a wide range of facts you know, reading anything of more than moderate complexity is not going to happen. So we should be teaching (from an early age) lots more content. Along with letting kids (especially young ones) experience different things. Kids who don't know reading strategies and have never read that type of literature before but do know the subject matter read better (higher comprehension and speed) than those who have read that type of literature before and know the strategies but are unfamiliar with the subject matter.
My experience says otherwise. There's actually very little domain knowledge required to understand a legal contract, yet most people struggle very hard with them. Technical writings are a little different, but I mentioned service manuals for a reason - all you really need to know is what is screwdriver and what is volt - everything else is explained in-line or in glossary. It's the composition and flow of technical documents that people have the biggest difficulty with.
That's all you need. But I've seen many people struggle because they have no knowledge of what any of those things are. So they see a bunch of words they don't know and don't even know what domain to look at and get really confused. It's why lots of people like video walkthroughs, because text is opaque when it's full of technical terms and cryptic diagrams. There's something called nerdview, and it's a big problem. The ones writing the documentation already know what they're doing, and they write it for other people who know what they're doing. The ones reading it get horribly confused. And this is everywhere. Signs, warning labels, etc. It's why error messages are cryptic--they're written for/by programmers who already know the system.
Becoming a SME isn't required, but a working familiarity is.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
There's actually very little domain knowledge required to understand a legal contract,
Identify the situations where the usage of "Should" vs. "Shall" have a meaningful impact on a contract.
[Note this one element was key to a multi-million dollar outcome a few years go]
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@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
There's actually very little domain knowledge required to understand a legal contract,
Identify the situations where the usage of "Should" vs. "Shall" have a meaningful impact on a contract.
[Note this one element was key to a multi-million dollar outcome a few years go]
And terms of art are everywhere. Unless you know the exact meaning of those terms (which usually aren't the normal ones), you can be seriously screwed.
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@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
There's actually very little domain knowledge required to understand a legal contract,
Identify the situations where the usage of "Should" vs. "Shall" have a meaningful impact on a contract.
[Note this one element was key to a multi-million dollar outcome a few years go]
Everybody should just use RFC 2119.
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@magus said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska And the point of schooling, as far as I'm concerned, is to give you a base of knowledge such that whatever job you end up with, you aren't completely in the dark.
I mostly agree, except the point of schooling is to give you a base of knowledge. Period. You can use that in your job, or elsewhere in your life as you see fit, but if we are only ever teaching people things that they might need in a job we're doing them a terrible disservice.
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@mikehurley said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
There's actually very little domain knowledge required to understand a legal contract,
Identify the situations where the usage of "Should" vs. "Shall" have a meaningful impact on a contract.
[Note this one element was key to a multi-million dollar outcome a few years go]
Everybody should just use RFC 2119.
But that's a standards document. Not a contract. The two have different standards. Specifically, contracts are creations of (in the US) state law, often common law.
So the same term in one contract may mean something completely different or be unenforceable in another state. This is one reason that contract lawyers who do interstate work have to have knowledge of both states' legal doctrines.
Because saying that "no technical knowledge is needed for a contract" is just pure hokum. It's a good way to be on the hook for lots of damages.
Source: My dad's a lawyer and I grew up working with him.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
There's something called nerdview, and it's a big problem. The ones writing the documentation already know what they're doing, and they write it for other people who know what they're doing.
The first step to addressing this problem is to acknowledge that it really exists and that solving it oneself is really difficult. The second step is getting someone else not experienced with the system you're talking about to check over what you've written and see whether it makes any kind of sense to them. It's a (vital) form of testing, very much like hallway testing of a GUI. Of course, sometimes you can assume a certain level of knowledge. I wouldn't want to explain what a blood vessel is when documenting something intended for sole use by qualified heart surgeons! This means you need to be at least a bit choosy about who you get to look things over; bear in mind who the users are going to be.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
So the same term in one contract may mean something completely different or be unenforceable in another state. This is one reason that contract lawyers who do interstate work have to have knowledge of both states' legal doctrines.
You wait until you see what lawyers who deal in international work charge!
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@dkf said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
There's something called nerdview, and it's a big problem. The ones writing the documentation already know what they're doing, and they write it for other people who know what they're doing.
The first step to addressing this problem is to acknowledge that it really exists and that solving it oneself is really difficult. The second step is getting someone else not experienced with the system you're talking about to check over what you've written and see whether it makes any kind of sense to them. It's a (vital) form of testing, very much like hallway testing of a GUI. Of course, sometimes you can assume a certain level of knowledge. I wouldn't want to explain what a blood vessel is when documenting something intended for sole use by qualified heart surgeons! This means you need to be at least a bit choosy about who you get to look things over; bear in mind who the users are going to be.
I agree with all of this. But too often we forget that things that are obvious to us (the experts) aren't so obvious to others. And so we don't even think to get it tested.
The link I posted has a lot of examples as well.
You wait until you see what lawyers who deal in international work charge!
Yeah. And often those numbers are only a tiny fraction of the total money involved in the transaction. Hence the need for absolute scrutiny.
I can't imagine the translations make things any easier.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
We also have stereotypes of truck drivers. But no one is calling for truck driving lessons for grade schoolers.
Of course not; they can't reach the pedals.
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@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
The law also says that H1B participants are only supposed to be used if qualified US nationals can't be found. I have worked at a company that (apparently, at least to this layman) violated that. They were in the process of obtaining H1B visas for 10 software engineers; meanwhile they laid off US nationals who could have done those jobs. However, this was 20+ years ago, so I don't have evidence, either.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
The law also says that H1B participants are only supposed to be used if qualified US nationals can't be found. I have worked at a company that (apparently, at least to this layman) violated that. They were in the process of obtaining H1B visas for 10 software engineers; meanwhile they laid off US nationals who could have done those jobs. However, this was 20+ years ago, so I don't have evidence, either.
Often (at least in my case) because providing that would violate NDA conditions. The only escape clause from that would be if someone from law enforcement provided the necessary documents to compel me to release it.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Although "0.7ball" sounds better, it would greatly confuse Polish people since over here, "0.7" has very specific meaning.
Boozeball? I could get behind that as a sport.
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@magus said in Should everyone learn to code?:
And the point of schooling, as far as I'm concerned, is to give you a base of knowledge such that whatever job you end up with, you aren't completely in the dark.
The point of schooling is to teach you how to learn. What I mean by that is, after you've finished, you can study with benefit whatever you need on your own.
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@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
The law also says that H1B participants are only supposed to be used if qualified US nationals can't be found. I have worked at a company that (apparently, at least to this layman) violated that. They were in the process of obtaining H1B visas for 10 software engineers; meanwhile they laid off US nationals who could have done those jobs. However, this was 20+ years ago, so I don't have evidence, either.
Often (at least in my case) because providing that would violate NDA conditions. The only escape clause from that would be if someone from law enforcement provided the necessary documents to compel me to release it.
Don't you have whistleblower laws to protect you in just such cases?
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@antiquarian said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@magus said in Should everyone learn to code?:
And the point of schooling, as far as I'm concerned, is to give you a base of knowledge such that whatever job you end up with, you aren't completely in the dark.
The point of schooling is to teach you how to learn. What I mean by that is, after you've finished, you can study with benefit whatever you need on your own.
Ideally, it should also teach you that learning is fun, so that you want to study on your own.
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@antiquarian said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@magus said in Should everyone learn to code?:
And the point of schooling, as far as I'm concerned, is to give you a base of knowledge such that whatever job you end up with, you aren't completely in the dark.
The point of schooling is to teach you how to learn. What I mean by that is, after you've finished, you can study with benefit whatever you need on your own.
If that's the goal, it's terribly inefficient and ineffective. Modern school format promotes short-term learning more than long-term learning, and the techniques of each are very different - long-term, the most efficient strategy is repetition over long period of time, while the short-term strategy that worked best for me is a crunch session the night before the test, avoiding sleep at all cost (usually with help of energy drinks).
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@homobalkanus said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
The law also says that H1B participants are only supposed to be used if qualified US nationals can't be found. I have worked at a company that (apparently, at least to this layman) violated that. They were in the process of obtaining H1B visas for 10 software engineers; meanwhile they laid off US nationals who could have done those jobs. However, this was 20+ years ago, so I don't have evidence, either.
Often (at least in my case) because providing that would violate NDA conditions. The only escape clause from that would be if someone from law enforcement provided the necessary documents to compel me to release it.
Don't you have whistleblower laws to protect you in just such cases?
Only if you have massive amounts of money for legal fees.
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@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Identify the situations where the usage of "Should" vs. "Shall" have a meaningful impact on a contract.
Shall is normative, should means nothing at all?
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
If that's the goal, it's terribly inefficient and ineffective.
That's because there are really multiple goals. There's the goal I mentioned. There's also the goal of preparing kids for boring jobs where they have to follow nonsensical orders all day. There's also the goal of free day care. There's also the goal of being able to indoctrinate a captive audience.
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@antiquarian and schools suck at each and every one of these.
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@gąska They seen to do rather well with the "indoctrinate a captive audience" with Poegressive ideas goal.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@thecpuwizard said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Identify the situations where the usage of "Should" vs. "Shall" have a meaningful impact on a contract.
Shall is normative, should means nothing at all?
One might think.... but case law is actually much more complicated. hint: In one major case the meaning of one of the words in two different sets of documents was determined to be different simply because of the use of the other in one set, and the lack of use of the other in the second set
Insane? Sure.... but this gets back to what is really needed if one is to be legally safe, and it is much more than (nearly) every developer I have encountered.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska They seen to do rather well with the "indoctrinate a captive audience" with Poegressive ideas goal.
Have you seen Generation Z (current 10th graders)?
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska They seen to do rather well with the "indoctrinate a captive audience" with Poegressive ideas goal.
The "pledge of allegiance"?
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska They seen to do rather well with the "indoctrinate a captive audience" with Poegressive ideas goal.
Have you seen Generation Z (current 10th graders)?
No. My kids are college-age to recently graduated. They're part of the generation that thinks there are no problems with Bernie's "Free College for Everybody" plan. And no grandkids yet, so not really paying that much attention the younger set.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska They seen to do rather well with the "indoctrinate a captive audience" with Poegressive ideas goal.
Have you seen Generation Z (current 10th graders)?
No. My kids are college-age to recently graduated. They're part of the generation that thinks there are no problems with Bernie's "Free College for Everybody" plan. And no grandkids yet, so not really paying that much attention the younger set.
Just heard an ad on TV last night for one of the CA governor candidates (forget who) - they're pushing free community college and no increases in state college tuition.
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@dcon said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Just heard an ad on TV last night for one of the CA governor candidates (forget who) - they're pushing free community college and no increases in state college tuition.
That candidate must be assuming the generation to which he's appealing already doesn't understand basic mathematics.
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@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@boomzilla The dumb thing is it doesn't even work for "greedy" since the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
Because the plural of anecdote is data: one of my coworkers had an H1B. On the very day that he got his green card, he left his (tech) job for another job that paid considerably better. But since he didn't mention how much better, it's hard to say whether it was the usual "switch tech jobs to gain money" better or "they could have been paying me how much?" better.
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@heterodox said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@dcon said in Should everyone learn to code?:
Just heard an ad on TV last night for one of the CA governor candidates (forget who) - they're pushing free community college and no increases in state college tuition.
That candidate must be assuming the generation to which he's appealing already doesn't understand basic mathematics.
It's California. Need I say more...
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@potatoengineer said in Should everyone learn to code?:
On the very day that he got his green card, he left his (tech) job for another job that paid considerably better.
In the company I mentioned previously, it was rumored that you could tell when someone got a green card, because they immediately quit. Whether it was because they were underpaid, or just because it was a hellhole, I can't say with certainty (but I suspect a certain well-known meme is appropriate).
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@potatoengineer said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@blakeyrat said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@boomzilla The dumb thing is it doesn't even work for "greedy" since the law says that H1B Visa precipitants must be paid the exact same as US citizen employees in the same role. Sure a lot of people argue that that law isn't followed, but rarely do they provide evidence.
Because the plural of anecdote is data: one of my coworkers had an H1B. On the very day that he got his green card, he left his (tech) job for another job that paid considerably better. But since he didn't mention how much better, it's hard to say whether it was the usual "switch tech jobs to gain money" better or "they could have been paying me how much?" better.
H1B ties you to the employer, so I'd be very surprised if it didn't drive salaries down a lot. Our industry is so diverse with such huge salary differences that I can easily see how they could underpay them and pass all inspections.
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@hardwaregeek said in Should everyone learn to code?:
They're part of the generation that thinks there are no problems with Bernie's "Free College for Everybody" plan.
As someone who enjoys a well-paying job (relative to cost of living, apparently in California I'd be living under the bridge) thanks to a free college education, I have to ask what these problems are that make them irredeemable?
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- It's horribly expensive - the money could be well spent elsewhere.
- It promotes getting degrees for fun or for no reason - wasting even more money.
- It contributes to inflating tuition prices - colleges don't have to worry about the stupidly high price turning away potential students. Same applies to student loans.
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@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
- It's horribly expensive - the money could be well spent elsewhere.
- It promotes getting degrees for fun or for no reason - wasting even more money.
- It contributes to inflating tuition prices - colleges don't have to worry about the stupidly high price turning away potential students. Same applies to student loans.
- It reinforces the idea that you should go to college because that's Where It's At™ despite trade jobs at record low fulfillment rates.
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@gąska paying upwards of $100,000 or whatever it is people get in student loans would've been
horriblyprohibitively expensive. And there's probably a negligible amount of people getting degrees for fun, since you still have to 1) pass and 2) spend your time.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska paying upwards of $100,000 or whatever it is people get in student loans would've been
horriblyprohibitively expensive.Which would make people not enroll. Which would force schools to drop prices.
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@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
- It's horribly expensive - the money could be well spent elsewhere.
- It promotes getting degrees for fun or for no reason - wasting even more money.
- It contributes to inflating tuition prices - colleges don't have to worry about the stupidly high price turning away potential students. Same applies to student loans.
- It reinforces the idea that you should go to college because that's Where It's At™ despite trade jobs at record low fulfillment rates.
- It waters down the value of a college degree for everyone else and harms the learning for those kids who really can get value out of it.
I know a (public) school that pushes kids into AP classes because they get bonuses for it and there are no caps on AP class sizes but are on regular classes. This makes it nearly impossible for the kids who really qualify and want to learn to get a good education. Same thing if you push unqualified people to college. Either you flunk them out (which causes political problems) or you push them through and dumb everything down for them.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska paying upwards of $100,000 or whatever it is people get in student loans would've been
horriblyprohibitively expensive.Against Tulip Subsidies
I. Imagine a little kingdom with a quaint custom: when a man likes a woman, he offers her a tulip; if she accepts, they are married shortly thereafter. A couple who marries sans tulip is considered…
And there's probably a negligible amount of people getting degrees for fun, since you still have to 1) pass and 2) spend your time.
People get high school educations for fun all the time. Some go because they want to learn, some don't go because they don't care, and some go because their parents make them but still don't care. Especially in America, college is essentially another four years of avoiding adulthood.
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@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
- It's horribly expensive - the money could be well spent elsewhere.
- It promotes getting degrees for fun or for no reason - wasting even more money.
- It contributes to inflating tuition prices - colleges don't have to worry about the stupidly high price turning away potential students. Same applies to student loans.
- It reinforces the idea that you should go to college because that's Where It's At™ despite trade jobs at record low fulfillment rates.
- It waters down the value of a college degree for everyone else and harms the learning for those kids who really can get value out of it.
I know a (public) school that pushes kids into AP classes because they get bonuses for it and there are no caps on AP class sizes but are on regular classes. This makes it nearly impossible for the kids who really qualify and want to learn to get a good education. Same thing if you push unqualified people to college. Either you flunk them out (which causes political problems) or you push them through and dumb everything down for them.
I really, really, really hate that behavior. If you have a standard, fucking uphold it. If the kids don't pass, flunk them out. Same with college. The political problems might happen now, but there is no way they would have happened when this practice started. The only reason there would be problems is because they started dumbing it down for them in the first place.
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@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@gąska said in Should everyone learn to code?:
- It's horribly expensive - the money could be well spent elsewhere.
- It promotes getting degrees for fun or for no reason - wasting even more money.
- It contributes to inflating tuition prices - colleges don't have to worry about the stupidly high price turning away potential students. Same applies to student loans.
- It reinforces the idea that you should go to college because that's Where It's At™ despite trade jobs at record low fulfillment rates.
- It waters down the value of a college degree for everyone else and harms the learning for those kids who really can get value out of it.
I know a (public) school that pushes kids into AP classes because they get bonuses for it and there are no caps on AP class sizes but are on regular classes. This makes it nearly impossible for the kids who really qualify and want to learn to get a good education. Same thing if you push unqualified people to college. Either you flunk them out (which causes political problems) or you push them through and dumb everything down for them.
I really, really, really hate that behavior. If you have a standard, fucking uphold it. If the kids don't pass, flunk them out. Same with college. The political problems might happen now, but there is no way they would have happened when this practice started. The only reason there would be problems is because they started dumbing it down for them in the first place.
Yeah, but if you've got "free college for everybody" and then you start failing out half the freshman class...
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@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.
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@benjamin-hall Then you start to get people to realize that there's more to it than just 'free college'. This might be too optimistic but I'm sticking to it. If there's consequences, then people can go ahead and accept them. We still have a concept of prestige, don't we? Nobody complains when Ivy League schools flunk too many people.
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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.That's not how it happens. Because culture matters. Look at private schools. Parents pay ~$20k/year/child in tuition (plus another few grand in fees, class trips, materials, etc) for the school I teach at. Yet we're way more demanding than the local public schools. Our introductory classes are at their honors level. And we're not even a true prep school.
Those who are really good get scholarships. I paid room and board for 10 years of secondary education. I never paid tuition--undergrad was on a full-tuition scholarship, grad was on a stipend. That's good because my parents couldn't pay crap.
Currently we have about too many people going to college and treating it as a 4-year vacation. Currently, there are jobs that really don't require a college degree at all but require one because a) everyone worth having has one since only the weakest can't get loans somewhere and b) high-school degrees mean nothing precisely because they've promoted everyone all th way along without actually educating them or holding them responsible.
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@pie_flavor said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall Then you start to get people to realize that there's more to it than just 'free college'. This might be too optimistic but I'm sticking to it. If there's consequences, then people can go ahead and accept them. We still have a concept of prestige, don't we? Nobody complains when Ivy League schools flunk too many people.
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.
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@topspin said in Should everyone learn to code?:
@benjamin-hall How does paying for it not water it down?
People aren't keen on spending shitloads of money on useless things. State funding makes this non-issue. Loans are in between - they scare away sensible people, but they don't feel as bad for the stupid ones. And majority of people is stupid.
If it's free, you can fail all the bad students.
Fun fact: in all countries with free college, colleges get money per student. So the same problem applies.
If you have to pay for it, there'll be really good students who simply can't even afford to attend
Scholarships are a thing, you know.
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.
Depends on your business model - specifically how much you value your brand. There are universities that everyone wants to study at BECAUSE they're hard.
If anything, that seems more likely to water down the degrees.
To some extent. Though less extent than free college.
