End federal subsidies and loans. For every dollar a school accepts of federal funds they are required to maintain a certain percentage of private funding. Since a very big portion of this funding ends up coming from federal sources, the end result is they are constantly required to jack up tuition prices to meet the minimal private funding level. Once this is changed so many other issues will begin solving themselves.
Too many people who don't belong in college are burning vast resources to get degrees in underwater lesbian basket weaving and then doing nothing with the degree and ending up in massive debt. The current educational system is one big lesson in inflation.
Topic: [SERIOUS] How do we fix the College Admissions Process? A short list - page 2. (Read 288 times)
November 30, 2019, 04:22:24 PM
November 30, 2019, 04:07:26 PM
Really, what difference would there be in graduating from an "high ranking" college or a much more affordable, perhaps even state college? I think that academic knowledge and experience couldn't be all that different if we were to judge by that. Personal skills and employability in the end depend highly on personal efforts in my opinion other than just the piece of paper you're handed.
Graduating from a prestigious school definitely counts for something, but I think it's counting less and less in the recent years.
Of course it depends on your area of study, but Companies often partner with Universities with internship or mentor programs that often lead to pre-graduation job offers pending eventual Graduation and GPA. The highest paying companies partner only with the most prestigious school.
I think things are changing though, mostly because of the Student Loan issues and the ever growing access to online material, much of it free. The only thing that Harvard offers their undergrads that they can't get for free is the "college experience" and a handful of specialized courses depending on their major. All those huge lecture classes that only require you take a midterm and final are already on the internet.
In the 70s and 80s, going to college was a huge deal here, something your whole family would be proud of. Now everyone goes to college and any 18 year old can rack up 200k in debt while getting high and being an idiot for a couple years. Convincing 18yo idiots to rack up massive debt while not capable of actually learning anything is just cruel.
I'm all for higher education, but that's just not what Undergraduate programs are anymore. We've just added 4 more years to what one is expected to spend on their education, the private universities are the only real winners in the big picture.
November 30, 2019, 03:57:01 PM
I think Melissa Korn would agree with a lot of this 
The underlying root cause problem with college is the government is willing to subsidize the cost of college for all students, regardless of their ability to repay, or the value of the program they are taking, in nearly unlimited amounts. This leads to tuition becoming inelastic, and colleges rising tuition at much higher rates than what a free market would support. It also results in colleges hiring a bunch of 6 and 7 figure salary administrators who do nearly nothing, and facilitate the indoctrination of far left ideology within campus.
This also gives colleges little incentive to grow their capacity for a larger student body because they are already overwhelmed with money simply by rising tuitions.
A lot ofyours Melissa's suggestions would create regulations and give everyone less information when making a decisions as to which students to accept, and which schools to go to. I would rather both be better informed.
Another problem with colleges is the number of worthless degree programs they offer. If colleges were to offer only degree programs with actual value in the workplace, students who were not interested in 'real' degrees would not apply to college, and this would also eliminate the 'degree inflation' that results in employers requiring degrees when the work does not require any skills learned in college.
The underlying root cause problem with college is the government is willing to subsidize the cost of college for all students, regardless of their ability to repay, or the value of the program they are taking, in nearly unlimited amounts. This leads to tuition becoming inelastic, and colleges rising tuition at much higher rates than what a free market would support. It also results in colleges hiring a bunch of 6 and 7 figure salary administrators who do nearly nothing, and facilitate the indoctrination of far left ideology within campus.
This also gives colleges little incentive to grow their capacity for a larger student body because they are already overwhelmed with money simply by rising tuitions.
A lot of
Another problem with colleges is the number of worthless degree programs they offer. If colleges were to offer only degree programs with actual value in the workplace, students who were not interested in 'real' degrees would not apply to college, and this would also eliminate the 'degree inflation' that results in employers requiring degrees when the work does not require any skills learned in college.
Firstly: I was under the impression that I had posted this at the bottom. I'm not one to steal someone elses work and this was a legitimate mistake by myself to forget to put it at the bottom. If you are to look at my other posts that go into this much of detail, I do post the WSJ article at the bottom.
Thanks for the catch, and I have edited it to include it. I hope that you do trust the fact that this was a legitimate oversight.
But back onto the point here:
Oh yes, the biggest issue with college in general is that the government has the faucet open to give money to everyone and then people are going and getting random degrees like underwater basket-weaving and getting nothing out of it and then having the audacity to say that the colleges are the problem or that the government isn't doing enough.
November 30, 2019, 03:19:33 PM
Americans know better than all other peoples in the world, that if they don't like a system, they should be given the choice to not participate in it forcibly.
The people that are creating a market for top colleges, are also the people whose children drop out and fail to graduate. The U.S., for being a country with expensive and predominantly non-public academic institutions, has a relatively high dropout rate. If you don't like the admission process, then why even compete for some of the highest ranking universities if the fees are going to be sky high anyway? If more people thought like that the problem would go on solving itself.
The real metrics to rank a university with should vary per individual and expertise and rather in my opinion, be the result of personal research for each applicant. I would like to know by somebody like OP or anyone in the U.S. that is at least a little critical of the higher education system: Really, what difference would there be in graduating from an "high ranking" college or a much more affordable, perhaps even state college? I think that academic knowledge and experience couldn't be all that different if we were to judge by that. Personal skills and employability in the end depend highly on personal efforts in my opinion other than just the piece of paper you're handed.
The people that are creating a market for top colleges, are also the people whose children drop out and fail to graduate. The U.S., for being a country with expensive and predominantly non-public academic institutions, has a relatively high dropout rate. If you don't like the admission process, then why even compete for some of the highest ranking universities if the fees are going to be sky high anyway? If more people thought like that the problem would go on solving itself.
The real metrics to rank a university with should vary per individual and expertise and rather in my opinion, be the result of personal research for each applicant. I would like to know by somebody like OP or anyone in the U.S. that is at least a little critical of the higher education system: Really, what difference would there be in graduating from an "high ranking" college or a much more affordable, perhaps even state college? I think that academic knowledge and experience couldn't be all that different if we were to judge by that. Personal skills and employability in the end depend highly on personal efforts in my opinion other than just the piece of paper you're handed.
November 30, 2019, 03:01:28 PM
I think Melissa Korn would agree with a lot of this
The underlying root cause problem with college is the government is willing to subsidize the cost of college for all students, regardless of their ability to repay, or the value of the program they are taking, in nearly unlimited amounts. This leads to tuition becoming inelastic, and colleges rising tuition at much higher rates than what a free market would support. It also results in colleges hiring a bunch of 6 and 7 figure salary administrators who do nearly nothing, and facilitate the indoctrination of far left ideology within campus.
This also gives colleges little incentive to grow their capacity for a larger student body because they are already overwhelmed with money simply by rising tuitions.
A lot ofyours Melissa's suggestions would create regulations and give everyone less information when making a decisions as to which students to accept, and which schools to go to. I would rather both be better informed.
Another problem with colleges is the number of worthless degree programs they offer. If colleges were to offer only degree programs with actual value in the workplace, students who were not interested in 'real' degrees would not apply to college, and this would also eliminate the 'degree inflation' that results in employers requiring degrees when the work does not require any skills learned in college.
The underlying root cause problem with college is the government is willing to subsidize the cost of college for all students, regardless of their ability to repay, or the value of the program they are taking, in nearly unlimited amounts. This leads to tuition becoming inelastic, and colleges rising tuition at much higher rates than what a free market would support. It also results in colleges hiring a bunch of 6 and 7 figure salary administrators who do nearly nothing, and facilitate the indoctrination of far left ideology within campus.
This also gives colleges little incentive to grow their capacity for a larger student body because they are already overwhelmed with money simply by rising tuitions.
A lot of
Another problem with colleges is the number of worthless degree programs they offer. If colleges were to offer only degree programs with actual value in the workplace, students who were not interested in 'real' degrees would not apply to college, and this would also eliminate the 'degree inflation' that results in employers requiring degrees when the work does not require any skills learned in college.
November 30, 2019, 01:03:54 PM
I know that we talk about this so much on here, so I'd love to talk about some concrete ways to fix the college admissions process. This is a process which leads to so many issues and is typically plagued by a lack of transparency and corruption. So here's my list:
1. Eliminate Rankings
Most colleges tout that they're the #1 in Forbes for this, or the #5 in US News Rankings for that and so on and so forth. But at the end of the day these rankings are just algorithms parsing through the hundreds of thousands of schools in the US. There's no reason that someone should rely on an atrbitrarily list like this to pick a college. There's also the issue that schools self report a good deal of information to these ranking sites, meaning that a new school is typically outed every year for inflating the reported numbers to the schools.
2. End Preferential Treatment for Legacy Applications
This isn't a problem in most schools, but in the IVY leagues -- you have a much better chance of being accepted to a school if your parent(s) were to have went their. Most schools say that they do this because it helps them with fundraising and alumni donations, but all this is a corrupt and nepotism filled way of not getting the most qualified person into the school. There's nothing that the government should do to end this, but people should be aware that schools are doing this.
3. End Recommendation Letters
Recommendation letters are stupid. I highly doubt that any college is going to pit you against another student and the last thing that they're going to try to see who has the leg up is a recommendation letter for a second. Think about how stupid that is: You've gotten someone that you know is willing to write a good letter about you write one, and that's the last mechanism as to see whos the better student?
That's simply not the case, these letters are without a doubt not even read and are useless in the process. Eliminate and let guidance counselors spend more time doing other things.
4. DRASTICALLY CHANGE THE ESSAY
In most schools, your college essay is going to be read by a good deal of people before it goes in front of the college admissions committee. You're going to send it to your English teacher, then a friend, then one of your parents friends, then back to your English teacher, and so on and so forth. Maybe if you're wealthy enough you're going to hire a tutor to write it or edit the essay for you as well.
The best way to change this process is to force students to have a set amount of time to write their essay. This isn't going to eliminate coaching and things along those lines, but it limits the amount of abuse and gets closer to hearing the students voice in an essay.
5. Maybe get rid of the ACT/SAT -- CONTROVERSIAL
This is a tough one, and I truly cant wait to see what the people think about this. But I do think that the ACT/SAT isn't a true measure of a persons intelligence, but it might be the best way to measure it and to standardize the process. So I'm unaware of what to fully do with this one.
I think that the people that do best on these tests are going to be people from upper class families who have the resources to get tutors and really prepare for the tests. Maybe these students are smarter, yes, but I don't think its fair to pit someone against someone else due to the $$$$ invested in tutors when that knowledge is just going to fly away once the test is done.
6. For Certain Schools Use a Lottery System -- CONTROVERSIAL
So in a good deal of very good schools, there's an issue where theres so many 'perfect' applicants applying that there simply isn't enough spots in the university to fill them. I'm going to go back to Harvard here.
They've stated that they have double the amount of applicants with 'perfect' scores then the amount of spots that they need to fill. I think a way to save time and money on this process is to have admission counselors go through their first or second round of looking at applicants past their scores and then using a lottery to pick the rest.
7. Alter the Tuition System
No one is paying the 'sticker price' for schools these days. So why do schools still advertise this price and then scare away potential students from even applying? We don't know.
Schools should post the price that most people are going to be paying and then go from their.
---------------------------
Obviously a good deal of these may be controversial, though I do want to see what people think on the matter.
Self mod because, yeah. I typically don't delete things, but we'll see how this goes.
EDIT: I THOUGHT I PUT THIS IN INITIALLY, BUT THESE POINTS ARE FROM - https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-fix-college-admissions-11575042980?mod=hp_featst_pos1 - Thanks for the catch.
1. Eliminate Rankings
Most colleges tout that they're the #1 in Forbes for this, or the #5 in US News Rankings for that and so on and so forth. But at the end of the day these rankings are just algorithms parsing through the hundreds of thousands of schools in the US. There's no reason that someone should rely on an atrbitrarily list like this to pick a college. There's also the issue that schools self report a good deal of information to these ranking sites, meaning that a new school is typically outed every year for inflating the reported numbers to the schools.
2. End Preferential Treatment for Legacy Applications
This isn't a problem in most schools, but in the IVY leagues -- you have a much better chance of being accepted to a school if your parent(s) were to have went their. Most schools say that they do this because it helps them with fundraising and alumni donations, but all this is a corrupt and nepotism filled way of not getting the most qualified person into the school. There's nothing that the government should do to end this, but people should be aware that schools are doing this.
3. End Recommendation Letters
Recommendation letters are stupid. I highly doubt that any college is going to pit you against another student and the last thing that they're going to try to see who has the leg up is a recommendation letter for a second. Think about how stupid that is: You've gotten someone that you know is willing to write a good letter about you write one, and that's the last mechanism as to see whos the better student?
That's simply not the case, these letters are without a doubt not even read and are useless in the process. Eliminate and let guidance counselors spend more time doing other things.
4. DRASTICALLY CHANGE THE ESSAY
In most schools, your college essay is going to be read by a good deal of people before it goes in front of the college admissions committee. You're going to send it to your English teacher, then a friend, then one of your parents friends, then back to your English teacher, and so on and so forth. Maybe if you're wealthy enough you're going to hire a tutor to write it or edit the essay for you as well.
The best way to change this process is to force students to have a set amount of time to write their essay. This isn't going to eliminate coaching and things along those lines, but it limits the amount of abuse and gets closer to hearing the students voice in an essay.
5. Maybe get rid of the ACT/SAT -- CONTROVERSIAL
This is a tough one, and I truly cant wait to see what the people think about this. But I do think that the ACT/SAT isn't a true measure of a persons intelligence, but it might be the best way to measure it and to standardize the process. So I'm unaware of what to fully do with this one.
I think that the people that do best on these tests are going to be people from upper class families who have the resources to get tutors and really prepare for the tests. Maybe these students are smarter, yes, but I don't think its fair to pit someone against someone else due to the $$$$ invested in tutors when that knowledge is just going to fly away once the test is done.
6. For Certain Schools Use a Lottery System -- CONTROVERSIAL
So in a good deal of very good schools, there's an issue where theres so many 'perfect' applicants applying that there simply isn't enough spots in the university to fill them. I'm going to go back to Harvard here.
They've stated that they have double the amount of applicants with 'perfect' scores then the amount of spots that they need to fill. I think a way to save time and money on this process is to have admission counselors go through their first or second round of looking at applicants past their scores and then using a lottery to pick the rest.
7. Alter the Tuition System
No one is paying the 'sticker price' for schools these days. So why do schools still advertise this price and then scare away potential students from even applying? We don't know.
Schools should post the price that most people are going to be paying and then go from their.
---------------------------
Obviously a good deal of these may be controversial, though I do want to see what people think on the matter.
Self mod because, yeah. I typically don't delete things, but we'll see how this goes.
EDIT: I THOUGHT I PUT THIS IN INITIALLY, BUT THESE POINTS ARE FROM - https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-fix-college-admissions-11575042980?mod=hp_featst_pos1 - Thanks for the catch.
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