Shut Up About Harvard
March 30, 2016 4:53 PM Subscribe
"It’s college admissions season, which means it’s time once again for the annual flood of stories that badly misrepresent what higher education looks like for most American students — and skew the public debate over everything from student debt to the purpose of college in the process." FiveThirtyEight would like to remind us all that, despite what media and cultural representations of college would make you think, most American students are not 18-22-year-olds attending selective four-year institutions.
"That myopia has real consequences for education policy. Based on media accounts, it would be easy to think that the biggest issues on U.S. campuses today are the spread of “trigger warnings,” the rise of “hookup culture” and the spiraling cost of amenity-filled dorms and rec centers. Meanwhile, issues that matter to a far larger share of students get short shrift.
The media’s focus on elite schools draws attention away from state cuts to higher-education funding, for example. Private colleges, which feature disproportionately in media accounts, aren’t affected by state budget cuts; top-tier public universities, which have outside resources such as alumni donations, research grants and patent revenue, are much less dependent on public dollars than less selective schools."
....
"Yet the public debate over whether college is “worth it,” and the related conversation over how to make higher education more affordable, too often focuses on issues that are far removed from the lives of most students: administrative salaries, runaway construction costs, the value of the humanities. Lost in those discussions are the challenges that affect far more students: How to design college schedules to accommodate students who work, as more than half of students do; how to make sure students keep their credits when they transfer, as more than a third of students do at least once; and, of course, how to make college affordable not just for the few who attend Harvard but for the many who attend regional public universities and community colleges.
"That myopia has real consequences for education policy. Based on media accounts, it would be easy to think that the biggest issues on U.S. campuses today are the spread of “trigger warnings,” the rise of “hookup culture” and the spiraling cost of amenity-filled dorms and rec centers. Meanwhile, issues that matter to a far larger share of students get short shrift.
The media’s focus on elite schools draws attention away from state cuts to higher-education funding, for example. Private colleges, which feature disproportionately in media accounts, aren’t affected by state budget cuts; top-tier public universities, which have outside resources such as alumni donations, research grants and patent revenue, are much less dependent on public dollars than less selective schools."
....
"Yet the public debate over whether college is “worth it,” and the related conversation over how to make higher education more affordable, too often focuses on issues that are far removed from the lives of most students: administrative salaries, runaway construction costs, the value of the humanities. Lost in those discussions are the challenges that affect far more students: How to design college schedules to accommodate students who work, as more than half of students do; how to make sure students keep their credits when they transfer, as more than a third of students do at least once; and, of course, how to make college affordable not just for the few who attend Harvard but for the many who attend regional public universities and community colleges.
I'm not sure that I agree with all the specifics here: administrative bloat, I think, isn't just a factor at elite institutions. But since taking a job at a not-so-selective institution, I've really noticed the big theme that the article discusses: media representations of college life are pretty far removed from what I encounter on the ground.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:13 PM on March 30, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:13 PM on March 30, 2016 [10 favorites]
The media’s focus on elite schools draws attention away from state cuts to higher-education funding, for example.
Not in Wisconsin!
posted by escabeche at 5:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
Not in Wisconsin!
posted by escabeche at 5:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
I used to work at a magazine store near Yale in the mid -90's. When the fucking US News & World Report that ranked them #1 came out they drove me fucking nuts asking if the issue had come out, I guess to send home their parents. That and the insame parking situation and the huge division between Yale and the rest of the city, drove this (back then) Bridgeport resident off New haven forever. I do miss the Yankee Doodle and Cutler's though.
posted by jonmc at 5:36 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 5:36 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
But yes, the point of this is well-taken. Lost in the back-and-forth over Bernie Sanders' free college plan is that there's already a free 2-year college plan, the "America's College Promise Act," announced by the President in the 2015 State of the Union, currently and probably forever stuck in committee. I think the Obama administration gets the critical role 2-year colleges play in higher ed.
posted by escabeche at 5:38 PM on March 30, 2016 [35 favorites]
posted by escabeche at 5:38 PM on March 30, 2016 [35 favorites]
Media is a competitive prestige-driven cultural capital type profession, and so prestige schools are disproportionately represented. Community college grads don't work at places like The Atlantic or The New Yorker. Look at the younger editors at Slate, it's like 100% Ivy. It's a Pauline Kael "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him" type situation.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:48 PM on March 30, 2016 [37 favorites]
posted by leotrotsky at 5:48 PM on March 30, 2016 [37 favorites]
Right, the article mentions that. They also mention that the audience of things like the Atlantic is probably disproportionately comprised of people who went to elite schools and/or want their kids to go to elite schools. But that's the cause of the problem. It's still a problem.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:52 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:52 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
I always thought that the Out-of-Control College Admissions Frenzy genre of journalism was mainly intended to delegitimize top research institutions by presenting the admissions process as an arbitrary status game. "Ninety-five percent of the newsroom probably went to private institutions, they went to four-year institutions, and they went to elite institutions." "Probably" 95 percent? There's some serious data journalism from 538. And then when you consider that these schools are much more difficult to get into nowadays and that a lot of elite-educated journalists have high-school-age kids...
posted by Ralston McTodd at 5:53 PM on March 30, 2016
posted by Ralston McTodd at 5:53 PM on March 30, 2016
Good discussions are rarely instigated by "Shut up." I like 538 and read it most days but I am getting increasingly dissatisfied with them.
posted by Bistle at 5:57 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Bistle at 5:57 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
Ok, headline aside: what do you think of the premise that reporting about higher education tends to over-emphasize elite institutions, in ways that distort discussions of higher ed policy?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:58 PM on March 30, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:58 PM on March 30, 2016 [9 favorites]
If you're interested in this stuff, I love the blog Confessions of a Community College Dean. Really thoughtful explorations of the real world of higher ed. And he has a comment on this article too. His comment is "Yes."
posted by selfmedicating at 5:59 PM on March 30, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by selfmedicating at 5:59 PM on March 30, 2016 [11 favorites]
Ok, headline aside: what do you think of the premise that reporting about higher education tends to over-emphasize elite institutions, in ways that distort discussions of higher ed policy?
Well, I didn't comment on the headline, but I guess I would argue that reporting about higher education over-emphasizes negative aspects of elite institutions in ways that may cause lower-income and first-generation students to aim lower ("undermatching") while those from elite backgrounds have parents and counselors who don't believe any of this, no matter what they may be reading, or writing, in the NYT.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 6:09 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
Well, I didn't comment on the headline, but I guess I would argue that reporting about higher education over-emphasizes negative aspects of elite institutions in ways that may cause lower-income and first-generation students to aim lower ("undermatching") while those from elite backgrounds have parents and counselors who don't believe any of this, no matter what they may be reading, or writing, in the NYT.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 6:09 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
I attended a selective school that you've probably not heard of. I literally never bothered applying to any of the Ivies, because fuck that. It seemed like way too much of a crapshoot and not really worth applying.
The descriptions of what people go through to (not) get into Ivies is just so far from my experience that I can't relate to it at all, and I went to a selective 4-year liberal arts college!
posted by BungaDunga at 6:15 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
The descriptions of what people go through to (not) get into Ivies is just so far from my experience that I can't relate to it at all, and I went to a selective 4-year liberal arts college!
posted by BungaDunga at 6:15 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
I attended a selective school that you've probably not heard of.
$10 says not only have we heard of it, but we know somebody that went there. This is Metafilter.
posted by percor at 6:20 PM on March 30, 2016 [75 favorites]
$10 says not only have we heard of it, but we know somebody that went there. This is Metafilter.
posted by percor at 6:20 PM on March 30, 2016 [75 favorites]
I teach at one of the four-year SUNY colleges (and am the daughter of someone who spent his career at a CalState), and most reporting on higher education is of precisely zero relevance to a) my experiences as a professor or b) my students' experiences as students. (Most of it--both adjunctification and administrative overload are problems that do resonate. Even then, though, the issues don't quite overlap.)
posted by thomas j wise at 6:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by thomas j wise at 6:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
I've got relatives still pissed at me because my daughter chose to go to a Midwestern State U (selective) on an almost full ride instead of trying for an Ivy. She had the grades test scores, honors, awards, activities, etc. to have a shot at getting admitted to an Ivy caliber school, and a few were recruiting her hard, which is probably why a State U gave her their most generous scholarship. She is doing great, having a blast, and I can't imagine how her life would be better if she were at Cornell, which is I think is the only Ivy that offered her major.
So yay selective schools.
posted by COD at 6:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
So yay selective schools.
posted by COD at 6:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
what do you think of the premise that reporting about higher education tends to over-emphasize elite institutions, in ways that distort discussions of higher ed policy?
I dig it. I've attended a number of colleges and universities (long story)--two community colleges, two state schools, two "elite" schools, as well as classes at a mid-tier private school and another community college. The presentation of higher education that I see in the media only resembles the experience of the "elite" schools. The less "elite" the school, the older and less-privileged the student body, the more likely the students are to have other things going on in their lives and not have the time for all that admissions BS, the more likely the students are to be working on their degrees in fits and starts as they try to scrape together enough to pay for classes.
The credit transfer thing is a big deal. Because classes are often not offered every semester and must be taken in sequence, successful transfer doesn't just save you money but time as well. In the university I got my degree from, I managed to finagle myself into some higher-level classes that I shouldn't have been able to because of a loophole in the registration system. It saved me a full year. The next semester the loophole was closed. Finagling would not have been necessary if the institution had accepted some of the classes I had taken (they accepted many others, so I can't complain too much). Then there's also the money-saving tactic of taking pre-requisites at a community college and transferring them in. More universities have been getting wise to this and have started to tighten up their transfer policies because they'd rather the money for those classes be going to them. It's pretty fucked up.
posted by Anonymous at 6:28 PM on March 30, 2016
I dig it. I've attended a number of colleges and universities (long story)--two community colleges, two state schools, two "elite" schools, as well as classes at a mid-tier private school and another community college. The presentation of higher education that I see in the media only resembles the experience of the "elite" schools. The less "elite" the school, the older and less-privileged the student body, the more likely the students are to have other things going on in their lives and not have the time for all that admissions BS, the more likely the students are to be working on their degrees in fits and starts as they try to scrape together enough to pay for classes.
The credit transfer thing is a big deal. Because classes are often not offered every semester and must be taken in sequence, successful transfer doesn't just save you money but time as well. In the university I got my degree from, I managed to finagle myself into some higher-level classes that I shouldn't have been able to because of a loophole in the registration system. It saved me a full year. The next semester the loophole was closed. Finagling would not have been necessary if the institution had accepted some of the classes I had taken (they accepted many others, so I can't complain too much). Then there's also the money-saving tactic of taking pre-requisites at a community college and transferring them in. More universities have been getting wise to this and have started to tighten up their transfer policies because they'd rather the money for those classes be going to them. It's pretty fucked up.
posted by Anonymous at 6:28 PM on March 30, 2016
I guess I would argue that reporting about higher education over-emphasizes negative aspects of elite institutions in ways that may cause lower-income and first-generation students to aim lower ("undermatching") while those from elite backgrounds have parents and counselors who don't believe any of this, no matter what they may be reading, or writing, in the NYT.That's probably true, but most of my students, including the really good ones, were never going to get into Harvard, even if they did apply there and to other schools like it. Some of my students are probably undermatching, but a lot of them are at the most selective place to which they can get in, and some of the other ones have made a conscious choice to attend an institution that is inexpensive and/or close to home. And you can reshuffle who goes where, but the fact remains that there are only a limited number of spaces at elite institutions, and most American higher education takes place and is going to continue to take place at less-selective public schools.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:29 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
$10 says not only have we heard of it, but we know somebody that went there. This is Metafilter.
And being Metafilter, they certainly went there before it was popular.
Ok, headline aside: what do you think of the premise that reporting about higher education tends to over-emphasize elite institutions, in ways that distort discussions of higher ed policy?
I agree. All sorts of issues like affordability, retention, and admissions criteria are completely different at elite schools. One of the things I've come to enjoy in some of the higher education discussions here, especially responses to AskMe questions, is often being able to tell what kind of school a person went to by the way they answer the question and the advice they give.
I've had to learn that things I thought of as universally applicable to the college experience were in fact relevant only to the kinds of elite schools I went to, and just don't apply in a lot of other situations.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
And being Metafilter, they certainly went there before it was popular.
Ok, headline aside: what do you think of the premise that reporting about higher education tends to over-emphasize elite institutions, in ways that distort discussions of higher ed policy?
I agree. All sorts of issues like affordability, retention, and admissions criteria are completely different at elite schools. One of the things I've come to enjoy in some of the higher education discussions here, especially responses to AskMe questions, is often being able to tell what kind of school a person went to by the way they answer the question and the advice they give.
I've had to learn that things I thought of as universally applicable to the college experience were in fact relevant only to the kinds of elite schools I went to, and just don't apply in a lot of other situations.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
More universities have been getting wise to this and have started to tighten up their transfer policies because they'd rather the money for those classes be going to them. It's pretty fucked up.
Really? That is not the case in Virginia. If you graduate with an Associates Degree from a community college with a 3.0 you are guaranteed admission to any VA public college with everything transferring. A lot of the private schools honor it too as they have to to compete for the transfer students.
posted by COD at 6:32 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Really? That is not the case in Virginia. If you graduate with an Associates Degree from a community college with a 3.0 you are guaranteed admission to any VA public college with everything transferring. A lot of the private schools honor it too as they have to to compete for the transfer students.
posted by COD at 6:32 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Some lower income and first generation students are seeing the media coverage of exorbitant college debts and deciding they can't afford higher education at all. They're seeing average tuition and costs that are so far out of their reach that they're not even worth considering, not realizing that these usually include living expenses and wildly varying tuition and fees, and they're assuming that the range of costs is much, much narrower than it is.
It's absolutely 100% true that costs have increased way too much, but the media, I suppose partly out of blinkeredness as the article suggests, but partly out of plain old media alarmism, is making the numbers look much, much worse than they have to be.
The costs of education are getting out of control, to be sure. But by focusing on elite school issues, and even on averages that have been driven up by the higher end costs, the media coverage is making education look much more unattainable than it really is.
posted by ernielundquist at 7:12 PM on March 30, 2016 [12 favorites]
It's absolutely 100% true that costs have increased way too much, but the media, I suppose partly out of blinkeredness as the article suggests, but partly out of plain old media alarmism, is making the numbers look much, much worse than they have to be.
The costs of education are getting out of control, to be sure. But by focusing on elite school issues, and even on averages that have been driven up by the higher end costs, the media coverage is making education look much more unattainable than it really is.
posted by ernielundquist at 7:12 PM on March 30, 2016 [12 favorites]
In related elite higher ed news: Stanford reaches inevitable ground-breaking admissions percentage. (slnytimes,
posted by vespabelle at 7:17 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by vespabelle at 7:17 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
With the state schools in Il, the are standardized classes in the area (including Indiana) which state specifically what the class is across all of those schools participating in the program.
Very upfront.
In my experience transfer policies in IL seem libral (I got master's credits transfered!).
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:20 PM on March 30, 2016
Very upfront.
In my experience transfer policies in IL seem libral (I got master's credits transfered!).
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:20 PM on March 30, 2016
But by focusing on elite school issues, and even on averages that have been driven up by the higher end costs
By higher-end sticker prices, really. Highly selective schools often have the most generous need-based financial aid packages. If journalists are living in a bubble, it's a bubble of people who didn't qualify for need-based aid and whose kids probably won't qualify for it either.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 7:34 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
By higher-end sticker prices, really. Highly selective schools often have the most generous need-based financial aid packages. If journalists are living in a bubble, it's a bubble of people who didn't qualify for need-based aid and whose kids probably won't qualify for it either.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 7:34 PM on March 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
Highly selective schools often have the most generous need-based financial aid packages.You're talking about a tiny number of schools, many of which are very small. If you can get into Harvard or Swarthmore, you should go for it, but there are not enough spots at those very, very elite schools for all students. I repeat: unless we radically reduce the number of students going to college, most students are not going to attend that kind of school. And some students can't, because they're not set up for, say, people who are attending college part time while working and raising a family.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:56 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
escabeche, even in Wisconsin the most prestigious institution-- i.e., UW-Madison-- gets the bulk of the media coverage. Multimillion-dollar retention payments at Madison made national news, for example, whereas on my campus some folks aren't sure whether recent ~$500 one-time merit payments have depleted the budget for counteroffers entirely.
posted by yarntheory at 7:59 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yarntheory at 7:59 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you're a journalist who isn't a household name, I'm guessing your kids qualify for all sorts of need-based aid at highly selective institutions. Having received such aid, and therefore not having taken on significant debt, does make it easier to pursue careers like journalism.
posted by yarntheory at 8:03 PM on March 30, 2016
posted by yarntheory at 8:03 PM on March 30, 2016
escabeche, even in Wisconsin the most prestigious institution-- i.e., UW-Madison-- gets the bulk of the media coverage.
Yep, definitely. And reading further into the piece, I see they make this point -- that even among state institutions, it's the flagship campus that gets attention as if it's the whole system. Madison is the biggest campus, but it makes up only about 20% of undergraduate enrollment at the University of Wisconsin.
posted by escabeche at 8:07 PM on March 30, 2016
Yep, definitely. And reading further into the piece, I see they make this point -- that even among state institutions, it's the flagship campus that gets attention as if it's the whole system. Madison is the biggest campus, but it makes up only about 20% of undergraduate enrollment at the University of Wisconsin.
posted by escabeche at 8:07 PM on March 30, 2016
This whole thing is so completely bizarre. My parents were totally caught up in the School As Status disease and pushed me to go to an elite (ish) school that I didn't really want to go to. Anyway, years later I'm hiring people from all kinds of different schools from community college through major research universities, and not noticing a whole lot of difference in the quality of the candidates. It seems like half my peers from the elite school are unemployed or underemployed. But they're still SO PROUD that they went to the elite school, as if it matters.
I don't have kids but I know if I did I'd be preparing them to do excellent work at the local research university, which has far more opportunities (just due to its size) than any small private college. (And I taught classes there for 5 years so I know what I'm talking about.)
posted by miyabo at 8:25 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
I don't have kids but I know if I did I'd be preparing them to do excellent work at the local research university, which has far more opportunities (just due to its size) than any small private college. (And I taught classes there for 5 years so I know what I'm talking about.)
posted by miyabo at 8:25 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
By higher-end sticker prices, really. Highly selective schools often have the most generous need-based financial aid packages.
I was admitted to Caltech, and they offered me a generous need-based financial aid package that amounted to 50% of the "sticker price." I still couldn't afford it, and I instead went to a public school in my state.
At the time, it was an incredibly hard decision, because who says no to Caltech? Almost fifteen years and a Ph.D. later, I can comfortably say I got as good an undergraduate education as any of the many people I've met who went to elite schools (almost all of my peers in grad school), and I came out of undergrad with no student loan debt. The main difference I have noticed is in the network that the school gives you. My friends who went to Ivies know people, people who are rising or risen stars in their fields, or who have ties to the rich and powerful.
In retrospect, I absolutely made the right choice. But at the time it was really hard to ignore all the messages about elite universities that we're saturated with in high school.
posted by biogeo at 8:41 PM on March 30, 2016 [20 favorites]
I was admitted to Caltech, and they offered me a generous need-based financial aid package that amounted to 50% of the "sticker price." I still couldn't afford it, and I instead went to a public school in my state.
At the time, it was an incredibly hard decision, because who says no to Caltech? Almost fifteen years and a Ph.D. later, I can comfortably say I got as good an undergraduate education as any of the many people I've met who went to elite schools (almost all of my peers in grad school), and I came out of undergrad with no student loan debt. The main difference I have noticed is in the network that the school gives you. My friends who went to Ivies know people, people who are rising or risen stars in their fields, or who have ties to the rich and powerful.
In retrospect, I absolutely made the right choice. But at the time it was really hard to ignore all the messages about elite universities that we're saturated with in high school.
posted by biogeo at 8:41 PM on March 30, 2016 [20 favorites]
. The main difference I have noticed is in the network that the school gives you. My friends who went to Ivies know people, people who are rising or risen stars in their fields, or who have ties to the rich and powerful.
This is very true. Though I haven't much personally benefited from it, it's surprising how often I see someone quoted in an article or even the subject of an fpp and realize that I know them, or met them, or at the least know people who know them.
But I see a lot of people I work with who attended regional state schools ("directional state U") and who are incredibly helped by those networks because they and so many alumni stayed local, so those things cut both ways.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 PM on March 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
This is very true. Though I haven't much personally benefited from it, it's surprising how often I see someone quoted in an article or even the subject of an fpp and realize that I know them, or met them, or at the least know people who know them.
But I see a lot of people I work with who attended regional state schools ("directional state U") and who are incredibly helped by those networks because they and so many alumni stayed local, so those things cut both ways.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 PM on March 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
It does seem like some people who attend ultra-elite schools really benefit from the network. I mean, if your startup gets $500K in funding because you're friends with a rich kid and his dad is interested, that's pretty direct (and I know several people who did that!). But most kids who attend elite schools aren't smart/sneaky enough to befriend and ingratiate their rich classmates.
posted by miyabo at 9:06 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 9:06 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
I attended a selective school that you've probably not heard of.
Should have gone to trade school like me and a couple of others around here did.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:19 PM on March 30, 2016 [8 favorites]
Should have gone to trade school like me and a couple of others around here did.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:19 PM on March 30, 2016 [8 favorites]
"Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods."
posted by ridgerunner at 9:48 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
By higher-end sticker prices, really. Highly selective schools often have the most generous need-based financial aid packages. If journalists are living in a bubble, it's a bubble of people who didn't qualify for need-based aid and whose kids probably won't qualify for it either.
That's completely beside the point. I'm talking about what the media reports, such as the well traveled estimate that it will cost an average of over $200K for a four year college education in 2030. Some people see a number like that, which is so far off anything they could afford, it never occurs to them that there are much more affordable options.
My point is that the media often ignores the fact that college costs vary significantly depending on the school and other factors, which would include financial aid as well as the cost of room and board on campus.
posted by ernielundquist at 10:22 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
That's completely beside the point. I'm talking about what the media reports, such as the well traveled estimate that it will cost an average of over $200K for a four year college education in 2030. Some people see a number like that, which is so far off anything they could afford, it never occurs to them that there are much more affordable options.
My point is that the media often ignores the fact that college costs vary significantly depending on the school and other factors, which would include financial aid as well as the cost of room and board on campus.
posted by ernielundquist at 10:22 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
By higher-end sticker prices, really. Highly selective schools often have the most generous need-based financial aid packages.
When I went to college, twenty some years ago, the "needs based" would have kicked in significantly only after my parents (who were hoping to send 5 kids to college) re-mortgaged our house and would still have included a lot of loans. I assume it's still the same thing--middle class unfriendly and prone to burden students with massive student debt.
Happily the UC system was available to me, excellent schools with a tuition at the time of only $600/quarter.
posted by mark k at 11:39 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
When I went to college, twenty some years ago, the "needs based" would have kicked in significantly only after my parents (who were hoping to send 5 kids to college) re-mortgaged our house and would still have included a lot of loans. I assume it's still the same thing--middle class unfriendly and prone to burden students with massive student debt.
Happily the UC system was available to me, excellent schools with a tuition at the time of only $600/quarter.
posted by mark k at 11:39 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Then there's also the money-saving tactic of taking pre-requisites at a community college and transferring them in. More universities have been getting wise to this and have started to tighten up their transfer policies because they'd rather the money for those classes be going to them. It's pretty fucked up.
If everyone tries to do their first two years at community colleges (which I agree is a good idea on the individual level), I'm not sure the universities could survive. Upper-division sources are subsidized by the lower-level ones. They're really expensive to teach because of the small class sizes, the need to be taught by a real professor and not an adjunct or grad student, the high demand they place on the professor's time, and the requirement for good equipment (if relevant).
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:56 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
If everyone tries to do their first two years at community colleges (which I agree is a good idea on the individual level), I'm not sure the universities could survive. Upper-division sources are subsidized by the lower-level ones. They're really expensive to teach because of the small class sizes, the need to be taught by a real professor and not an adjunct or grad student, the high demand they place on the professor's time, and the requirement for good equipment (if relevant).
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:56 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
> "Midwestern State U (selective)"
Oh, hey, I went there!
Go, fightin' Generics! Woo!
posted by kyrademon at 1:50 AM on March 31, 2016 [15 favorites]
Oh, hey, I went there!
Go, fightin' Generics! Woo!
posted by kyrademon at 1:50 AM on March 31, 2016 [15 favorites]
Ok, so it was probably too much to expect people to RTFA, so here's a little bit of context.
Here are some things that the article is not about:
1. It is not about whether people who went/ go to Harvard are obnoxious people who talk about Harvard too much. It is thoroughly, utterly not about what you think of people who went or go to elite schools.
2. It is not about whether the quality of education is better at elite schools than elsewhere.
What it argues is that when media outlets write about education, they disproportionately focus on elite institutions, which educate a tiny fraction of Americans who are involved in higher ed. And that tends to distort the reporting, causing them to focus disproportionately on some issues and not enough on others.
An example that the article doesn't discuss is this: one of the massive issues facing the American higher education system is what to do about students who can't do math. Many community colleges require students to pass an algebra class, and many students never get a degree because they can't pass that class, even after multiple tries. Remedial math is an abject failure: something like 30% of students who test into remedial math ever move beyond it, and those students leave without a degree before they ever even attempt the required algebra class. If we provide free community college and don't fix this, students will run out their free tuition taking and retaking classes that they never pass. There are various proposals to fix this problem: some people think we should stop requiring algebra, although that raises some questions about whether students should be able to get a degree without having very basic quantitative skills, and some people think we need to totally revamp how we work with struggling math students, providing a lot of intensive one-on-one support instead of remedial classes. But you probably aren't going to read very much about this in the New York Times or the Atlantic, because this is not a problem that Harvard or MIT or Berkeley are confronting. Students who are incapable of doing algebra don't generally go to those schools.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:41 AM on March 31, 2016 [19 favorites]
Here are some things that the article is not about:
1. It is not about whether people who went/ go to Harvard are obnoxious people who talk about Harvard too much. It is thoroughly, utterly not about what you think of people who went or go to elite schools.
2. It is not about whether the quality of education is better at elite schools than elsewhere.
What it argues is that when media outlets write about education, they disproportionately focus on elite institutions, which educate a tiny fraction of Americans who are involved in higher ed. And that tends to distort the reporting, causing them to focus disproportionately on some issues and not enough on others.
An example that the article doesn't discuss is this: one of the massive issues facing the American higher education system is what to do about students who can't do math. Many community colleges require students to pass an algebra class, and many students never get a degree because they can't pass that class, even after multiple tries. Remedial math is an abject failure: something like 30% of students who test into remedial math ever move beyond it, and those students leave without a degree before they ever even attempt the required algebra class. If we provide free community college and don't fix this, students will run out their free tuition taking and retaking classes that they never pass. There are various proposals to fix this problem: some people think we should stop requiring algebra, although that raises some questions about whether students should be able to get a degree without having very basic quantitative skills, and some people think we need to totally revamp how we work with struggling math students, providing a lot of intensive one-on-one support instead of remedial classes. But you probably aren't going to read very much about this in the New York Times or the Atlantic, because this is not a problem that Harvard or MIT or Berkeley are confronting. Students who are incapable of doing algebra don't generally go to those schools.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:41 AM on March 31, 2016 [19 favorites]
Um, I R'ed TFA, but thanks for the summary, I guess? I'm not sure what you're reacting to exactly. I literally don't see anything related to your point 1 in this thread. And since my comment may be one of those you're reacting to with point 2, part of my whole point was that the distorted emphasis and reporting on prestige-name universities makes it hard for students, particularly young students like the 75% of four-year college students who are under 25 according to the article, to make what really shouldn't be that difficult of a choice between name brand and value.
Honestly, I'm not sure what else to say on the point that the media focuses too much on the experience and concerns of the elite universities other than, "Yeah, obviously." Your "example the article doesn't discuss" is a lot more interesting to me than the failure of journalism on this topic, even though it is a Thing that the Article is Not About. I was just having a discussion with a colleague of mine yesterday afternoon about the idea that math education should focus more on giving most people some basic quantitative intuitions and reasoning skills, rather than the ability to plug-and-chug through arithmetic problems; the ability to correctly multiply two three digit numbers is a lot less important than the ability to look at the result and see that if you still have a three digit number, something went wrong.
So what do you think about how we provide basic quantitative skills to adults who did not get them earlier in their education, and are struggling with getting a higher degree from a non-elite institution as a result? Dropping the requirement for algebra seems like obviously the wrong idea to me, but letting algebra be the barrier to a college degree isn't great either.
posted by biogeo at 5:35 AM on March 31, 2016
Honestly, I'm not sure what else to say on the point that the media focuses too much on the experience and concerns of the elite universities other than, "Yeah, obviously." Your "example the article doesn't discuss" is a lot more interesting to me than the failure of journalism on this topic, even though it is a Thing that the Article is Not About. I was just having a discussion with a colleague of mine yesterday afternoon about the idea that math education should focus more on giving most people some basic quantitative intuitions and reasoning skills, rather than the ability to plug-and-chug through arithmetic problems; the ability to correctly multiply two three digit numbers is a lot less important than the ability to look at the result and see that if you still have a three digit number, something went wrong.
So what do you think about how we provide basic quantitative skills to adults who did not get them earlier in their education, and are struggling with getting a higher degree from a non-elite institution as a result? Dropping the requirement for algebra seems like obviously the wrong idea to me, but letting algebra be the barrier to a college degree isn't great either.
posted by biogeo at 5:35 AM on March 31, 2016
Honestly, I'm not sure what else to say on the point that the media focuses too much on the experience and concerns of the elite universities other than, "Yeah, obviously."I don't know. My pretty strong hunch is that I'm not the only person here who sees this playing out in my own life. I frequently read stuff about higher ed and think "this is describing a world that does not have a lot in common with my current situation." I guess I would be curious to hear about how other people experience this: are there particular issues you see that you feel are under-represented because of the focus on elite institutions? Are there things that play out differently in your experience than the media would make you think? (I've encountered discussions of trigger warnings specifically in the context of student veterans: please give some warning if you're going to be using audiovisual materials with loud noises or sudden flashes, because that may be an issue for people with combat-related PTSD. That's not a perspective on trigger warnings that I've ever seen in the New York Times.)
So yeah, I do think there are things directly related to the article that we could discuss.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:04 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
Higher Education Is Morally and Financially Bankrupt
March 31, 2016
posted by bukvich at 6:52 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
March 31, 2016
posted by bukvich at 6:52 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
Even when the media tries to talk about non-elite education, they miss. Like the rise of the for-profit colleges--there are things I almost never see mentioned about why people choose them, like location and scheduling. If you can't get a degree by going to school at night or on weekends only, public education may as well not exist to a lot of people.
As for the community college credit transfer issue--it depends. In Minnesota, there's a transfer curriculum that all the state university system follows and will accept, but that's only for general education requirements. Anything more technical or career-focused is up in the air, especially if you want to transfer credits to the University of Minnesota. There's only one 4-year interior design program in the state at a public university, and they don't accept the program credits from the community colleges that offer a 2-year degree. However, UW-Stout accepts most of the credits--so you get a bunch of students who, if they want to continue their education at public university prices, have to go out of state. (The only other accredited interior design program in Minnesota is at a private nonprofit)
posted by Electric Elf at 7:18 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
As for the community college credit transfer issue--it depends. In Minnesota, there's a transfer curriculum that all the state university system follows and will accept, but that's only for general education requirements. Anything more technical or career-focused is up in the air, especially if you want to transfer credits to the University of Minnesota. There's only one 4-year interior design program in the state at a public university, and they don't accept the program credits from the community colleges that offer a 2-year degree. However, UW-Stout accepts most of the credits--so you get a bunch of students who, if they want to continue their education at public university prices, have to go out of state. (The only other accredited interior design program in Minnesota is at a private nonprofit)
posted by Electric Elf at 7:18 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
“How college admissions has turned into something akin to ‘The Hunger Games,’” screamed a Washington Post headline Monday.
This is lazy rhetoric—characterizing the opponent’s argument rather than refuting it. And can you even really disprove a thesis like “This stuff the mainstream media are talking about is not as important as they think it is?”
Meanwhile I'm absolutely prepared to believe that "college" is a problem in the US, on a much different level from the April did-I-get-into-Princeton madness. If basic television cable advertising is to be believed, it’s not even about community colleges and trying to work while you cobble together a degree from such. It’s about for-profit diploma mills scaring and exploiting people.
An illustration: HuffPo on new University of Phoenix ads.
posted by BibiRose at 7:20 AM on March 31, 2016
This is lazy rhetoric—characterizing the opponent’s argument rather than refuting it. And can you even really disprove a thesis like “This stuff the mainstream media are talking about is not as important as they think it is?”
Meanwhile I'm absolutely prepared to believe that "college" is a problem in the US, on a much different level from the April did-I-get-into-Princeton madness. If basic television cable advertising is to be believed, it’s not even about community colleges and trying to work while you cobble together a degree from such. It’s about for-profit diploma mills scaring and exploiting people.
An illustration: HuffPo on new University of Phoenix ads.
posted by BibiRose at 7:20 AM on March 31, 2016
As for the community college credit transfer issue--it depends. In Minnesota, there's a transfer curriculum that all the state university system follows and will accept, but that's only for general education requirements.Yup, that's how it is in my system, too. And it's actually kind of a problem, because students "get their general education courses out of the way" (oh, how I loathe that phrase) and then switch to a four-year school to do major courses, which means that they jump right in to a full courseload of tough, upper-level courses while they're also trying to make the transition to a new educational system. It would actually sometimes be better if they had some Gen Eds to balance out their schedules.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:28 AM on March 31, 2016
So what do you think about how we provide basic quantitative skills to adults who did not get them earlier in their education, and are struggling with getting a higher degree from a non-elite institution as a result? Dropping the requirement for algebra seems like obviously the wrong idea to me, but letting algebra be the barrier to a college degree isn't great either.
A lot of the things that are wrong with higher education, are wrong with unequal high school (and elementary school) education to begin with. You can take non-credit, "remedial" courses at some community colleges, although these have been trashed by budget cuts. And by the time you are in this position, you are likely to be needing an income, and low-level, hourly work is famously hard to combine with a class schedule.
posted by BibiRose at 7:51 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
A lot of the things that are wrong with higher education, are wrong with unequal high school (and elementary school) education to begin with. You can take non-credit, "remedial" courses at some community colleges, although these have been trashed by budget cuts. And by the time you are in this position, you are likely to be needing an income, and low-level, hourly work is famously hard to combine with a class schedule.
posted by BibiRose at 7:51 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
One of the programs carried by my local public radio station has been running a series on community colleges that is pretty good and might be of interest.
posted by biogeo at 8:15 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by biogeo at 8:15 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
Why the Budget Stalement in Illinois is Hitting One University Especially Hard
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:27 AM on March 31, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:27 AM on March 31, 2016
I went to one of those "shut up about" schools as a scholarship kid back when there was such a thing as a "full ride" (i.e., one with nominal student loans that took only a few years as opposed to two lifetimes to pay off). I believe I'd have gotten a better education and had a better experience in general -- for any number of reasons -- if I'd gone to one of the institutions that was presented to me as "Why would you throw your chances at a better life away to attend X when you have a full-ride offer from Y?" Mainly, I would not have had the overbearing pressure to succeed and compete against the elite -- a competition that I'd never have won no matter how good I was (and I was a mediocre student at best).
The evidence shows that students who come from poverty almost always have more pressure to succeed in primo elite institutions. It also shows that no matter how hard you strive or how excellent a student you are, and no matter how much of a push the institution makes to bring in "disadvantaged" students, if you are not already acculturated to being a member of the elite before matriculating, the odds that you have against students who are already elite are stacked against you from the beginning, and the support that you get from the institution is almost nil after they have gone to the effort to recruit you and to put you in a spot that an elite could have otherwise filled.
posted by blucevalo at 8:53 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]
The evidence shows that students who come from poverty almost always have more pressure to succeed in primo elite institutions. It also shows that no matter how hard you strive or how excellent a student you are, and no matter how much of a push the institution makes to bring in "disadvantaged" students, if you are not already acculturated to being a member of the elite before matriculating, the odds that you have against students who are already elite are stacked against you from the beginning, and the support that you get from the institution is almost nil after they have gone to the effort to recruit you and to put you in a spot that an elite could have otherwise filled.
posted by blucevalo at 8:53 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]
Related: "Many of the nation’s top colleges draw more than 40 percent of their incoming freshmen through an early-application system that favors the wealthy, luring students to commit to enroll if they get in and shutting out those who want the chance to compare offers of grants and scholarships." [source]
posted by blucevalo at 9:05 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 9:05 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]
I had first hand experience with 3 schools, one private religious, one state college and one top-tier public university. I suppose my role was different at each (undergrad, teaching, grad school) but the experience was different in some ways that the media doesn't seem to highlight.
The private religious school was much more similar to the top public university in many ways than either was to the state college. That similarity was despite them being on opposite ends of the political spectrum when comparing general attitudes. Both had mostly full time students. Both had majority of students who were living there for the sole purpose of going to school and had more traditional "campus experiences" (aside from less drinking/drug use at the religious school). The people admitted to both schools generally met a baseline with preparation to succeed in learning about college-level topics and mostly had the time to focus on school exclusively if they choose to, or to the extent needed for success.
At the state college, many more students commuted to campus, lived at home and worked significant amounts off campus. Completing assignments, taking tests and similar activities were not such a primary focus (understandably because of other things in their lives). There were many more part time students. It also seemed to me that I needed to give many more accommodations as a teacher than I'd ever seen teachers at the other two schools give (things such as extra time on tests because of documented learning disabilities and similar). Maybe my impressions were off because of the different roles, yet things start from a very different baseline at different schools and I can see how many big-name press people would have no idea that they live in their own echo chamber of people who have come from mostly similar backgrounds as themselves. If you're a fish you don't notice the water because you're swimming in it all the time.
The top public school was most notably different because it had some big "rock star" well-known faculty, the kids admitted to our grad school were sometimes already quite notable and many had Ivy League or similar undergrad experiences under their belts. A few were what I'd consider brilliant prodigy types, but many were smart--but more than that, knew how to play the school game. I see some people I went to school with appearing as talking heads for the national media or who get called for quotes sometimes. The social network of a top school can make a big difference to the rest of your life if you continue to use that "in" network to your advantage.
These are often really decent people and I think mostly succumb to human nature in thinking everyone else's experience really mirrors their own. They represent their own narrow experiences and write about what they know. It's a problem that many people have such narrow experience and also that they don't know very much outside their social class which is mostly the class that makes up influential institutions. It's a problem that some social classes are so poorly represented in so many venues. I wish we could go further in moving forward.
posted by clickingmongrel at 9:37 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
The private religious school was much more similar to the top public university in many ways than either was to the state college. That similarity was despite them being on opposite ends of the political spectrum when comparing general attitudes. Both had mostly full time students. Both had majority of students who were living there for the sole purpose of going to school and had more traditional "campus experiences" (aside from less drinking/drug use at the religious school). The people admitted to both schools generally met a baseline with preparation to succeed in learning about college-level topics and mostly had the time to focus on school exclusively if they choose to, or to the extent needed for success.
At the state college, many more students commuted to campus, lived at home and worked significant amounts off campus. Completing assignments, taking tests and similar activities were not such a primary focus (understandably because of other things in their lives). There were many more part time students. It also seemed to me that I needed to give many more accommodations as a teacher than I'd ever seen teachers at the other two schools give (things such as extra time on tests because of documented learning disabilities and similar). Maybe my impressions were off because of the different roles, yet things start from a very different baseline at different schools and I can see how many big-name press people would have no idea that they live in their own echo chamber of people who have come from mostly similar backgrounds as themselves. If you're a fish you don't notice the water because you're swimming in it all the time.
The top public school was most notably different because it had some big "rock star" well-known faculty, the kids admitted to our grad school were sometimes already quite notable and many had Ivy League or similar undergrad experiences under their belts. A few were what I'd consider brilliant prodigy types, but many were smart--but more than that, knew how to play the school game. I see some people I went to school with appearing as talking heads for the national media or who get called for quotes sometimes. The social network of a top school can make a big difference to the rest of your life if you continue to use that "in" network to your advantage.
These are often really decent people and I think mostly succumb to human nature in thinking everyone else's experience really mirrors their own. They represent their own narrow experiences and write about what they know. It's a problem that many people have such narrow experience and also that they don't know very much outside their social class which is mostly the class that makes up influential institutions. It's a problem that some social classes are so poorly represented in so many venues. I wish we could go further in moving forward.
posted by clickingmongrel at 9:37 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
A member of my extended family is a senior in high school and a pretty good candidate for a couple of the Ivy schools. His parents acknowledge that they don't think the education would be necessarily be better but the connections and the networks those schools provide is unparalleled. It's all about who you know.
posted by Ber at 10:18 AM on March 31, 2016
posted by Ber at 10:18 AM on March 31, 2016
Okay, I'll bite. I got a BA in a social science from an elite small liberal arts school, decided I wanted to do nursing instead, took science prerequisites at an urban community college, and am now wrapping up my BSN at a regionally known private school that's less competitive than my first alma mater but not completely open admission. I recognize my first school in all those New York Times/Atlantic pieces, but I sure as hell don't recognize either of the places I've been since. Here are some of the things I've noticed that aren't reflected in the thinkpieces I love to hate read.
-For the community college students who do pass through required algebra but want to go on in sciences or health professions, statistics is a huge bottleneck/weeder course. At my CC it was required for nursing, diagnostic imaging programs (X-Ray, ultrasound, etc), computer science, and a whole lot of the other sorts of "practical" programs that everyone wants to funnel students into. It's not intuitive for everyone though; I knew more than one student in my stats class taking the course for a second time, and I heard a lot of "but I need this class to go on, please don't fail me" pleading after tests. (I also think that stats is undervalued and taught poorly at all levels for a whole bunch of reasons, but that is a separate rant.)
-On that note, the student-as-consumer model of education the NYT loves to decry is everywhere. I hear a fair amount of "I paid good money for this class, I deserve to pass" at community college. The difference is, the stakes for those students passing are higher in some ways since so many students could never afford to retake those courses. The impetus for the demand is different; students ask to pass more because this is their only chance than because they've coasted through school up to that point and assume they deserve success.
-Graduates of my first college seem to have no clue how less prestigious colleges function. Someone posted one of those trigger warnings are for coddled students thinkpieces to a Facebook group for my first school, and I wrote a response saying that I can't take those thinkpieces seriously because they're always about women and sexual assault and never about veterans needing trigger warnings for loud noises or war footage. Another poster responded that of course none of those pieces are about veterans, because there aren't that many veterans in college courses anyway. WTF? It's not like there's a whole GI bill that exists solely for supporting veterans in college or anything...
-The whole paradigm of going to college, getting a very general liberal arts/sciences degree, and then looking for a general entry level job that just wants any BA is pretty upper class in and of itself. My first degree is in anthropology. When I tell the nurses at my clinical sites this, many of them ask me "what did you think you were going to do with that?" That question really threw me for a loop at first; didn't everyone just look for generic entry-level office jobs? I honestly didn't realize that for many people, college is a place where you go to learn a specific skill set that slots you into a specific job. I knew trade schools existed for that purpose, but I figured even four year BSN students got some liberal arts in. I strongly believe that my anthropology background is a huge help in nursing, but I don't want to be the teacher who's paid to explain that to nursing students who just want to get out into the work force ASAP.
-It's easier to get whipped up into a lather about trigger warnings or changes to major school traditions or whatever when you live on campus and surround yourself entirely with campus life. My first school made some major changes to one of its big school wide traditions this year, and I was amazed by how worked up even alums got talking about it on Facebook. My guess is that they get so invested because they remember what it was like to live on that campus and have it be the center of your life. When I think back to that time though, I remember how every little drama in your friend group got magnified tenfold from living in close quarters, how impossible it was to avoid people, how the stress around exam season permeated everywhere. Although both my CC and my current school are bureaucratic nightmares, I love them precisely because I can make that clean separation between school and home. Once class is over, I can spend my nights interacting with non-school people, cuddling my cat, and not getting sucked into unavoidable webs of petty drama. Writers for the NYtimes et al seem to forget that a lot of people don't live surrounded by college like this. Sometimes you'd swear they miss being immersed in drama all the time and have decided to live vicariously through current students' disputes. (To which I say hell no, not me, give me adulthood any day.)
-There is a definite connection between the thinkpieces about college described here and the proliferation of thinkpieces about "Millennials." Just like many college students don't go to elite institutions, many young adults born in the late 80s-early 90s can't take unpaid internships, aren't immersed in techbro startup worlds (or even aware of them) don't take part in "hookup culture," were always lower income rather than becoming downwardly mobile. In other words, the same people who don't show up in hysterical thinkpieces about college admissions also don't show up in panic pieces about how awful Millennials are. Sure would be good to hear more about what happens to these students from college all the way down to the job market.
There are tons of other differences, but these are the things that come to mind right away.
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:13 PM on March 31, 2016 [13 favorites]
-For the community college students who do pass through required algebra but want to go on in sciences or health professions, statistics is a huge bottleneck/weeder course. At my CC it was required for nursing, diagnostic imaging programs (X-Ray, ultrasound, etc), computer science, and a whole lot of the other sorts of "practical" programs that everyone wants to funnel students into. It's not intuitive for everyone though; I knew more than one student in my stats class taking the course for a second time, and I heard a lot of "but I need this class to go on, please don't fail me" pleading after tests. (I also think that stats is undervalued and taught poorly at all levels for a whole bunch of reasons, but that is a separate rant.)
-On that note, the student-as-consumer model of education the NYT loves to decry is everywhere. I hear a fair amount of "I paid good money for this class, I deserve to pass" at community college. The difference is, the stakes for those students passing are higher in some ways since so many students could never afford to retake those courses. The impetus for the demand is different; students ask to pass more because this is their only chance than because they've coasted through school up to that point and assume they deserve success.
-Graduates of my first college seem to have no clue how less prestigious colleges function. Someone posted one of those trigger warnings are for coddled students thinkpieces to a Facebook group for my first school, and I wrote a response saying that I can't take those thinkpieces seriously because they're always about women and sexual assault and never about veterans needing trigger warnings for loud noises or war footage. Another poster responded that of course none of those pieces are about veterans, because there aren't that many veterans in college courses anyway. WTF? It's not like there's a whole GI bill that exists solely for supporting veterans in college or anything...
-The whole paradigm of going to college, getting a very general liberal arts/sciences degree, and then looking for a general entry level job that just wants any BA is pretty upper class in and of itself. My first degree is in anthropology. When I tell the nurses at my clinical sites this, many of them ask me "what did you think you were going to do with that?" That question really threw me for a loop at first; didn't everyone just look for generic entry-level office jobs? I honestly didn't realize that for many people, college is a place where you go to learn a specific skill set that slots you into a specific job. I knew trade schools existed for that purpose, but I figured even four year BSN students got some liberal arts in. I strongly believe that my anthropology background is a huge help in nursing, but I don't want to be the teacher who's paid to explain that to nursing students who just want to get out into the work force ASAP.
-It's easier to get whipped up into a lather about trigger warnings or changes to major school traditions or whatever when you live on campus and surround yourself entirely with campus life. My first school made some major changes to one of its big school wide traditions this year, and I was amazed by how worked up even alums got talking about it on Facebook. My guess is that they get so invested because they remember what it was like to live on that campus and have it be the center of your life. When I think back to that time though, I remember how every little drama in your friend group got magnified tenfold from living in close quarters, how impossible it was to avoid people, how the stress around exam season permeated everywhere. Although both my CC and my current school are bureaucratic nightmares, I love them precisely because I can make that clean separation between school and home. Once class is over, I can spend my nights interacting with non-school people, cuddling my cat, and not getting sucked into unavoidable webs of petty drama. Writers for the NYtimes et al seem to forget that a lot of people don't live surrounded by college like this. Sometimes you'd swear they miss being immersed in drama all the time and have decided to live vicariously through current students' disputes. (To which I say hell no, not me, give me adulthood any day.)
-There is a definite connection between the thinkpieces about college described here and the proliferation of thinkpieces about "Millennials." Just like many college students don't go to elite institutions, many young adults born in the late 80s-early 90s can't take unpaid internships, aren't immersed in techbro startup worlds (or even aware of them) don't take part in "hookup culture," were always lower income rather than becoming downwardly mobile. In other words, the same people who don't show up in hysterical thinkpieces about college admissions also don't show up in panic pieces about how awful Millennials are. Sure would be good to hear more about what happens to these students from college all the way down to the job market.
There are tons of other differences, but these are the things that come to mind right away.
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:13 PM on March 31, 2016 [13 favorites]
It's all about who you know.
But the prestige-press journalists' kids already know the right people and they themselves got where they are on pure merit, so what's the point? At least that's the subtext I pick up from a lot of these articles.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 4:01 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
But the prestige-press journalists' kids already know the right people and they themselves got where they are on pure merit, so what's the point? At least that's the subtext I pick up from a lot of these articles.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 4:01 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
...never about veterans needing trigger warnings for loud noises or war footage.
Its hard to imagine very many Vets with PTSD wanting anyone Harrison Bergeroned for their benefit. Maybe its they just see college as mildly hostile terrain to be quickly crossed to get to where they want to be. Maybe their right.
Inside Higher Ed reported back in 2014:
"Williams, undergraduate veterans enrolled? Zero.
Princeton: One.
Yale: Three.
Harvard: Four.
Duke: one.
Cornell, one undergraduate veteran last year, would only reply that no one was available to answer our questions.
Swarthmore, a college with Quaker, anti-war, peace-seeking roots, and zero undergraduate veterans last year, didn’t reply at all to requests this year.
Barnard: Zero.
Columbia College: Zero.
Bryn Mawr: Zero.
Carleton: Zero.
MIT: Zero.
Rice: Zero.
Smith: Zero."
posted by ridgerunner at 1:28 AM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Its hard to imagine very many Vets with PTSD wanting anyone Harrison Bergeroned for their benefit. Maybe its they just see college as mildly hostile terrain to be quickly crossed to get to where they want to be. Maybe their right.
Inside Higher Ed reported back in 2014:
"Williams, undergraduate veterans enrolled? Zero.
Princeton: One.
Yale: Three.
Harvard: Four.
Duke: one.
Cornell, one undergraduate veteran last year, would only reply that no one was available to answer our questions.
Swarthmore, a college with Quaker, anti-war, peace-seeking roots, and zero undergraduate veterans last year, didn’t reply at all to requests this year.
Barnard: Zero.
Columbia College: Zero.
Bryn Mawr: Zero.
Carleton: Zero.
MIT: Zero.
Rice: Zero.
Smith: Zero."
posted by ridgerunner at 1:28 AM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Related: "Many of the nation’s top colleges draw more than 40 percent of their incoming freshmen through an early-application system that favors the wealthy, luring students to commit to enroll if they get in and shutting out those who want the chance to compare offers of grants and scholarships." [source]
This is a perfect example of how knowing how the system works allows you to game it, leaving the people who either don't know the game or who are in a position of not having the choice (like needing to compare offers) to fight over the remaining scraps in the general admission season.
I did the early admission thing for undergrad, and because elite places have lots of money and usually promise to meet your full demonstrated financial need (often including modest loans), there wasn't any risk to it -- admission meant getting financial aid, and rejection would have just meant applying to other places later in the year. But you had to know all of that in order to take advantage of the process, and understand what was meant by "meeting need" and so on.
For grad school I did the regular admission process so as to be able to directly compare offers, and I can see why someone might want to do that for undergrad also. But knowing how many of the admissions slots elite places will have already given up and how much of their aid is already committed makes this a less great option than it might seem, depending on how you rank as an applicant and so on.
But, to return to the point of the article, this is entirely irrelevant if you are applying to regional non-elite schools. The admissions processes are different, the finances are different, and the paths to success are different. Yet most articles, and a lot of the commentary in discussions like this, are from people whose experience is fully on the elite side of the spectrum, and that is a disservice to the majority of students and families out there who are trying to figure out their best options. At elite schools you can mostly ignore the sticker price because they have generous aid, while at my local state school the sticker price is pretty much what you are going to pay -- but how is someone who didn't grow up embedded in this system going to know that?
posted by Dip Flash at 4:46 AM on April 1, 2016
This is a perfect example of how knowing how the system works allows you to game it, leaving the people who either don't know the game or who are in a position of not having the choice (like needing to compare offers) to fight over the remaining scraps in the general admission season.
I did the early admission thing for undergrad, and because elite places have lots of money and usually promise to meet your full demonstrated financial need (often including modest loans), there wasn't any risk to it -- admission meant getting financial aid, and rejection would have just meant applying to other places later in the year. But you had to know all of that in order to take advantage of the process, and understand what was meant by "meeting need" and so on.
For grad school I did the regular admission process so as to be able to directly compare offers, and I can see why someone might want to do that for undergrad also. But knowing how many of the admissions slots elite places will have already given up and how much of their aid is already committed makes this a less great option than it might seem, depending on how you rank as an applicant and so on.
But, to return to the point of the article, this is entirely irrelevant if you are applying to regional non-elite schools. The admissions processes are different, the finances are different, and the paths to success are different. Yet most articles, and a lot of the commentary in discussions like this, are from people whose experience is fully on the elite side of the spectrum, and that is a disservice to the majority of students and families out there who are trying to figure out their best options. At elite schools you can mostly ignore the sticker price because they have generous aid, while at my local state school the sticker price is pretty much what you are going to pay -- but how is someone who didn't grow up embedded in this system going to know that?
posted by Dip Flash at 4:46 AM on April 1, 2016
I am not entirely sure I'm following you, ridgerunner, but my point in bringing up veterans and trigger warnings was that the only explicit call for trigger warnings that I have ever heard at my institution was during a presentation by the Veterans Services office, and that's clearly not a perspective that you're going to get if your focus is on elite schools, because as you point out, they don't have very many students who are veterans.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:34 AM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yet most articles, and a lot of the commentary in discussions like this, are from people whose experience is fully on the elite side of the spectrum, and that is a disservice to the majority of students and families out there who are trying to figure out their best options. At elite schools you can mostly ignore the sticker price because they have generous aid, while at my local state school the sticker price is pretty much what you are going to pay -- but how is someone who didn't grow up embedded in this system going to know that?That sad thing at my institution is that they do have funds for financial aid, but they run out before everyone's need is met, and it's super, super important to get your FAFSA in early in order to get the best award you can. It doesn't matter at all when you apply: we're selective, but students are admitted according to a formula, and you're going to get in or not get in regardless of whether you apply in October or April. It matters when you apply for housing; it matters which orientation session you come to (and for some reason the most disadvantaged students routinely seem to come to the later ones); and it matters a whole lot when you apply for financial aid. But boy are those not things you ever read about in media discussions of applying to college.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:34 AM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
ArbitraryAndCapricious
Sorry, I've been really cynical this week and thought the Vonnegut reference would indicate the rest of the post was sarcastic too. The two thirds of us in the U. S. without a bachelor's degree find the Ivys even more irrelevant than y'all with degrees. Except their alumni tend to set policies for the U. S. that benefits them and their buddies more so than the rest of us.
So I guess we should feel some solidarity with degreed people when it comes to the Ivys sucking the oxygen out of the room.
posted by ridgerunner at 9:45 AM on April 1, 2016
Sorry, I've been really cynical this week and thought the Vonnegut reference would indicate the rest of the post was sarcastic too. The two thirds of us in the U. S. without a bachelor's degree find the Ivys even more irrelevant than y'all with degrees. Except their alumni tend to set policies for the U. S. that benefits them and their buddies more so than the rest of us.
So I guess we should feel some solidarity with degreed people when it comes to the Ivys sucking the oxygen out of the room.
posted by ridgerunner at 9:45 AM on April 1, 2016
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(which seriously needs some color; c'mon 538, don't sacrifice readability for "style"-- Tufte himself should take away your copy of ggplot)
posted by supercres at 5:10 PM on March 30, 2016 [4 favorites]