kelpdiver 2 #26 September 29, 2009 Quote At its top levels, the American system of higher education may be the best in the world. Yet in terms of its core mission — turning teenagers into educated college graduates — much of the system is simply failing. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/business/economy/09leonhardt.html This was a pretty disappointing editorial. It talks about the failure of the college system, but the complaint is really about the inability of students to graduate, nothing about the quality of the education provided. And then it bemoans that smart kids go to inferior colleges with lower graduation rates, but does 0 analysis to confirm that it was a bad choice. (going to an 'easier' college with better scholarship opportunities might improve odds of that individual graduating.) There are a lot of reasons for difficulty in completing college. Some are outside the students control: money issues (esp with gross inflation in tuition of late) and poor primary schooling. Some are - effort and interest. A high school friend of mine just did graduate - 19 years after we left high school. He had the mix of work, kids, more work. I'd say he was pretty successful, not sure that this degree will change anything, but he did work on it when he could. For the humanities majors, I wonder if we'd all be better off taking year 18 off to travel, and do some work, and then return for a 3 year program. The burnout factor hit me hard. This seems prevalent in Japan too - the students work like hell to get into the best colleges, and then are too tired to care anymore. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airdvr 210 #27 September 29, 2009 My recent experience with my son has shown me that UA is very concerned about getting the tuition. Making sure we've got the correct schedule of classes...not so much. From what I understand it's like that alot.Please don't dent the planet. Destinations by Roxanne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,156 #28 September 30, 2009 Quote Quote My wife the math professor is currently teaching "freshman math for business majors". You would be appalled at the stuff in the curriculum (like adding fractions, solving linear equations in one variable...) and that about 1/5 of the class is flunking it. Really? Well, OK, maybe YOU aren't appalled.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
