An idea for free college educations for Americans

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Bluesma
Other than to say I don't think this applies just to America I could not agree more with your post.
Education has a value all of its own, not just its economic value.

It might not be only in America. I am familiar with my own American upbringing and the shocking contrast I became aware of when I became familiar with another country that has radically different values.

So it isn't a universal inherent quality of all humans (as I mistakenly believed when young) - it is cultural conditioning.

a reply to: ScepticScot

I do believe the 'higher education' process has different results in the UK and even much of Western Europe.

In the US, the situation is abyssmal. I would agree with you if we are talking about our system, circa 1975 or so.

Believe me, I have been a teacher and an advocate my whole life for "knowledge for knowledge's sake."

In the US, however, we face a dire circumstance with college graduates who aren't even qualified at what used to be a high-school level.

That is, of course, IMHO.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
I think we need to refocus away from what academe thinks that business needs, and let business tell the academy what it needs. By and large, in my opinion, we have taken exposure to the medieval seven liberal arts that was, once upon a time, supposed to bring individuals out of whatever the local belief structure had imposed on them ... into a wider world ... and have turned it into a torture process that so scorches the inquisitiveness of most young minds that they never want to ask questions again.

The problem is that what business wants and what society needs are different. Most businesses do not want to employ someone who can create a new system for doing things. Instead an owner, boss, etc wants someone who can perform a task the way they want it to be completed. Very often, the owner is not an expert in the field they're running the business in, instead they're attempting to fill an economic need. The owner will find a way that works and use that method.

Let me give a brief example. Just about every business has a webpage, how many of those business owners can sit down and create a database, write PHP, HTML, and Javascript, understand the colors they've chosen to use and the messages mixing different colors portray. How many of them think about their page being dynamic and loading different CSS sheets based on the device accessing it. How about features like steaming video and how that related to document weight, do those business owners know the download speed of a 3g device, and can create a page that loads at that speed in 7 seconds or less? Do they understand what a CMS is and how that can save them money?

The answer to just about all of these questions is no, yet the business owner will dictate what they want done. Wouldn't society be better off if the business owner actually understood that aspect of his business? That would allow the business owner to better integrate their store and website which leads to a competitive advantage and ultimately improves society by creating better businesses.

These types of things can only happen when people have broad knowledge pools. Learning to do your one specific task on an assembly line with no grasp of the bigger picture is the desire of the business owner. College does not teach that, and it shouldn't teach that.

I'm sorry education is so expensive in US and UK for you guys.

Sometimes more social policies are not always a bad thing