Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion College choices

Some people see education as meaning things like:

• Learning about philosophies and other ideas that formed societies
• Thinking about how those ideas influence us today
• Learning about how the great minds of the past made their discoveries and the challenges they faced
• Learning how and when to question the status quo
• Acquiring knowledge and applying it in a job and/or hobby

Unfortunately, more people see education as meaning things like the following and little else:

• How can I get certified to get a job in [insert job type]?
• If I study [insert topic] at [insert relative eliteness of school], what will my salary be?
• I will only hire someone with a BA for this menial job because the BA proves that s/he can complete something.
• How can we maximize our revenues? A lazy river might help draw more FTEs*.

*Translation: full-time equivalents, aka full-time students in this case.

These days, IMO, the second set of ideas dominates (to the detriment of a lot of things). It's a shame that reading Plato is now more of an excerpty-type learning task to be followed by multiple choice questions than a serious foray into the big ideas of the past and present. And math class has become a way to pass a standardized test for the school's benefit (apart from in college, where ideas are splatted out in outline form in "text"books and homework is completed online, thereby sparing the stressed-out adjunct teaching the class from having to correct homework for free).

Oh well.

Do we know that for sure? Will a student who gets into Harvard but chooses to attend the state flagship learn less over 4 years? I'd be interested to see a regression of GRE subject exam scores (or GRE general or MCAT or LSAT scores) on student SAT/ACT scores and on the average SAT/ACT score of the school attended (a measure of prestige). I would not be surprised if the coefficient on the prestige measure was not statistically significant and that only incoming SAT/ACT scores were needed to predict graduate school entrance exam scores.

These videos are amusing:
Harvard Graduates Explain Seasons
Roving Reporter: Canada,
although of course one does not know how random the sampling of students was.

Agreed, Bostonian-- but the larger difference is that everyone around you at Harvard also possesses high SAT/ACT scores and a similarly illustrious academic resume. That won't be true at the state flagship.

(DD has noted this fact already, btw-- unprompted.)

In that respect, then, yes-- I would argue that this could represent a "premium" environment in which to obtain a fine education.

Faculty at such institutions will similarly represent the very best of the best, in theory at least. Of course, I'd also argue that at the post-secondary level a lot more than "being an expert in my field" goes into truly excellent education, and that such a concept is inherently rather idiosyncratic relative to the learner in any event. No one professor is "The Best Ever" for all students. Of course, Premium College Education does avoid having most coursework taught by adjuncts.

Honestly-- that is where I'd encourage parents and prospective students alike to look hardest when choosing colleges. Look past the lazy river and climbing wall-- to what percentage of undergraduate courses are taught by adjunct faculty.

Has it changed dramatically? Is it going to? Or are faculty at the institution actually doing scholarly work AND spending time with undergraduates? Who does advising?

All of that matters a great deal, and tells you far, far more about the pragmatic and up-to-date mission of the institution than any shiny slogan on a brochure ever will.

I have to agree with Val-- there has been a large scale shift in priorities in higher ed into seeing students as customers, and frankly, the students don't really KNOW enough going into post-secondary education to understand that a climbing wall isn't as crucial as, say, a professional, caring and full-time professor to serve as an advisor who understands the various ways of achieving a genuine education in {insert interest area here}.

It is very upside-down, this new world, and it starts with College Admissions Frenzy.

In a previous thread I mentioned research finding that adjuncts teach as well as professors:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....college_acceptance_rates.html#Post199871 . If job security were the key to good teaching, the quality of teaching in our public schools would be uniformly high, but it is not.

I would want to know how much adjuncts are being paid. If they can make a decent living teaching 2-3 courses per semester, they may do a better job than if they need to teach 6.

At this point I am just glad my kids and I live in NZ. Sometimes I envy your education options (gifted schools, charters, magnets even the private schools I couldn't afford) but reading this I think we are probably lucky that our choices are so limited.

Adjuncts are poorly paid and don't get benefits like health insurance.

Adjuncts get 2K-5K per course


Adjunct earns 24K teaching 8 courses/year

Low pay, no offices

same

Be very careful with parallels between secondary and primary teaching and post-secondary. Remember, theoretically anyone teaching in post-secondary has, at a minimum, a terminal degree in the discipline in which they are teaching. They are also people who (again, theoretically) could be making a far better living outside of academia/teaching.

Neither of those things is necessarily true in secondary settings, where often instructors lack even a regular undergraduate major in the discipline they are teaching. Take a look at the difference in the requirements to become a teacher of high school physics, for example, with being a regular physics major.


Also-- I also said nothing about the quality of the teaching from adjuncts. Some of them are quite good. But it tells me a lot about what an institution actually values when it decides to rely on temp workers rather than hiring those people on as members of a professional corps who are more or less permanently associated with the institution.

It also matters in that-- if a student is at an institution where adjuncts rotate in and out through the first 3 years of most major coursework-- and that student would like to apply for a prestigious internship during the summer-- how will they even FIND a professor to write a recommendation, hmm?

Maybe the local public assistance office, I suppose. Many adjuncts do seem to wind up there on a regular basis. I'm sure that while they fill out forms for food stamps or housing assistance, they won't mind writing up a nice letter of recommendation.

More about what modern adjunct teaching means


Opinions vary as to whether adjunct...ction, too. {pdf in link-- 2013 study}


A quick infographic about what "adjunct" means in functional and typical terms.

R. Schuman writes for Slate on the subject

There is a difference here between college and college education.

"College education" is an awesome thing that can round out a young person's mind - solidifying concepts and opening the student up to new ideas. It may also provide a certain level of training. "College," in the building on fire type of discussion is attainment of some level of prestige and access. Prestige probably equals more access.

At base, though, college in the US has devolved to being a pathway to being hired into a good job. The irony here is that being hired - even by a super high paying prestigious OMG you're going to have so much money company is still being HIRED.

Being a hired employee in a great-paying job - which I am - is actually the hallmark of the middle class. You can argue about what strata of the middle class you are in. Lower, Upper, Really Upper. I've-got-three-commas-because-I-was-employee-235-at-Google Upper. Whatever. You're still a hired hand, and you are middle class.

Which, I should repeat - I am.

I think people (other than Jon and a few others) miss the irony here. The middle class is vast and wide in the US, and not necessarily delimited by $$$. This is the essence of what has made life positive here in many ways. But I won't digress into that discussion.

I'll only add a summary of the single best response I ever saw about the ego associated with "elite schools." Kurt Vonnegut was giving a talk at Stanford and did a Q&A after. An oh-so-smug Stanford student got up and opened with a smarmy, wink-wink, aren't we special attitude. Vonnegut's response was short and stunning. Here - roughly - is the transcript:

Student: Mr. Vonnegut, thank you for being here tonight. You've given us all a lot to think about.

V: You're welcome.

Student (smirking): I'd like to think of myself as well above average, ...

V (cutting in): You're not.

Student stammered unintelligibly for a minute about the middle class and education. Then sat down.

I think about this exchange often. It's hard for me to explain why I found it so satisfying. I think because V's point was that, even if you put fancy dressing on your resume, even if you go to the right places and all that, you're not that different from your fellow humans. You're not that different from the laborer or waitress or whatever job you think of as below you (or your child).

I guess it goes back to the point above about wishing people would give up on more, MORE, MOST!!! as their goal in life. That's not what it's about.

I will never let DS weigh "prestige" in his choice of college. Never.

So you're saying that the building isn't on fire?