PSA - things I should have done....

[ea6bflyr]

Who uses a computer anymore? I think most folks primary computer is their mobile device.

Also, I tend to think the college problem will be solved by market forces. Elite expensive colleges will continue to be so because , frankly, it will always be worth it to folks who want it. Small schools that charge a lot for a basket weaving degree will fail because of lack of ROI. No one is making people go to expensive schools other than the pathological desire to have expensive things and to keep up with the Joneses.

 

[Pags]

K-12 public schools should be teaching those three things (civics, life skills, health).

They do, or they try to.

I don't have the solutions to make them do it better because I don't know enough about it to put my finger on the problem. Maybe curriculum is too centralized or maybe it's not centralized enough. The Department of Education, NCLB, standardized testing all get a lot of flak. A lot of schools cut back gym class and recess- those decisions were plainly stupid, but now how much are the parents and taxpayers to blame for allowing it to happen? It's also pretty amazing how many kids spend how many hours every year sitting on a school bus, having walked thirty seconds from the front door to the bus stop, while their little asses grow fatter and fatter- the blame for that is on municipal taxpayers and their local governments (and school boards) for building mega schools instead of neighborhood elementary schools. Academia has done a really great job selling itself for a few generations- a little too well, and at the expense of skilled trades (as every Mike Rowe fan knows...).

Those horses left the barn a lot time ago and it's gonna be hard to bring them back.

The other thing here is it doesn't matter if you have the courses, there's nothing you can do to make me learn it. As a HS student I categorically refused to take gym, health, or home ec seriously. Yeah, I passed but I sure didn't learn or retain anything.

All of us in this thread are obviously products of our military environment and we all go back to the "mandatory training with routine knowledge checks" model. That's ok for some stuff but I think for large scale educational goals you need to think broader and softer; basically find a way to "casually incept" the notion of responsibility and initiative in people. But good luck with that...it's hard enough with 2 kids let alone millions.

 

[Pags]

View attachment 27156

Mrs Pags went to an Ivy for part of her education and she's had interviews that went almost exactly like that.

I also have a degree that comes with decent name recognition in the field and it's been a positive point in interviews, etc.

I don't say this to actively be a douche just to say that there is certainly still some reason to go to a high rep.program at a big name school.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Probably not bad ideas for a spectrum...but some of this will be too early in most people's lives for them to remember it. Learning about real estate when you're 16 and then having 10-13yrs of time to forget that content or for it become irrelevant doesn't help either.

For HS kids I figure life skills should be:
-health stuff. Junk food is bad, routine exercise is good, etc. We don't need everyone to be a CrossFit monster but if everyone drank one less coke, ate a cup of food less a day, and walked 30min that would be huge.
-notion of citizenship. Register to vote. Does your vote really count (electoral vs popular)
-you and the law
-finances. Save $. How to "balance a checkbook". Taxes for your first job. Investment basics.
-sex makes babies but doesn't have to
-basic food prep for survival and health

Stuff that should come in later:
-advanced finances. Adult investing...how to balance a portfolio...how much...should I invest in Iraqi dinar or precious metals?
-owning a home. How to get there. Mortgage.
-car finance
-adult taxes
-how to pick an accountant

Problem is that past HS you're largely depending on the individual to figure it out. Plenty of community colleges do classes like the above or larger employers can have decent courses. I can imagine a realistic way to get adults to do this at a relevant point in their lives if they don't want to.

Funny thing is that a friend from HS now runs a business doing the later stage stuff I just described. She had to figure it all out herself but then in her prior day job at a college she realized that people lack these skills. So she started teaching night classes on the basics and now runs her own business as a "financial coach for average people.". She's not promising riches, just helping people make a budget, set goals, etc.

Roger. I mostly agree.

My counterpoint would be - Why not plant the seed in an 18 year old's brain that....?

• homeownership is possible - and it's a huge milestone for financial self-sufficiency
• investing in stocks is one way to grow your money
• car loans vs. invested money - compare over time putting $35k into a $30k new speeder + $5 investment, or a $30k investment + $5k beater
• payday loans... this is important for poorer communities
• taxes affect your paycheck - especially if you don't account for them and they aren't deducted automatically on your pay stub

To me, these are 18 year old problems that require 18 year old training. Especially for kids who never go to college after HS (enlisted military, hourly workers, pro athletes, entertainers, etc.)

 

[Spekkio]

Probably not bad ideas for a spectrum...but some of this will be too early in most people's lives for them to remember it. Learning about real estate when you're 16 and then having 10-13yrs of time to forget that content or for it become irrelevant doesn't help either.

For HS kids I figure life skills should be:
-health stuff. Junk food is bad, routine exercise is good, etc. We don't need everyone to be a CrossFit monster but if everyone drank one less coke, ate a cup of food less a day, and walked 30min that would be huge.
-notion of citizenship. Register to vote. Does your vote really count (electoral vs popular)
-you and the law
-finances. Save $. How to "balance a checkbook". Taxes for your first job. Investment basics.
-sex makes babies but doesn't have to
-basic food prep for survival and health

Where did you all go to school? All of the above were taught at formal classes where I grew up with the exception of 'balancing the check book.' I think that this thread illustrates how writing a standard curriculum to that would be challenging.

 

[DanMa1156]

I predict that - unless we get a socialist change in federal law relating to student loan debt/ "free college" - colleges will become more competitive on price, as students opt for gap years or cheaper online education in the wake of coronavirus restrictions. I mean, if I were a college kid today, I wouldn't pay full on-campus tuition prices for online class results.

Also, and people might look at this opinion negatively, but maybe we genuinely have too many colleges in this country* - some may close naturally due to market forces, if fewer students are enrolling. As education becomes more available online, there are obvious benefits to centralization of curricula to achieve overhead reductions. Teaching a 150-student class online is not very different than teaching a 50-student class online, but obviously on campus you run into floor space/ seating issues/ dorms/ commuting, that naturally limit the size of the student body.

*Note for naysayers: "too many colleges" =/= "too many college students" in logical argument. We basically have 3 computer operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) and 99% of America has access to at least one of them.

What you're saying is already happening. Small, mostly older, mostly liberal arts schools are closing throughout New England and New York, or consolidating with other ones.

 

[Pags]

Where did you all go to school? All of the above were taught at formal classes where I grew up with the exception of 'balancing the check book.' I think that this thread illustrates how writing a standard curriculum to that would be challenging.

I went to school outside of Philly. I feel like a lot of these points WERE addressed either by a formal Health or Gym class or via an AP American History course for the civics type stuff. I did one HomeEc class in 7th or 8th grade that taught us how to see. Never had formal school instruction on "personal accounting." No formal legal instruction but in discussing Bill of Rights thats where I learned about no searches without warrants, etc.

 

[Spekkio]

I went to school outside of Philly. I feel like a lot of these points WERE addressed either by a formal Health or Gym class or via an AP American History course for the civics type stuff. I did one HomeEc class in 7th or 8th grade that taught us how to see. Never had formal school instruction on "personal accounting." No formal legal instruction but in discussing Bill of Rights thats where I learned about no searches without warrants, etc.

We had (NY state standards)
- mandatory sex Ed in 4th grade (girls) / 5th grade (boys)

-mandatory drug education in 3rd-5th grade

-health 7-10th grade. Sex ed was also covered in these classes among development topics, healthy eating / living, and also drug addictions / diseases.

-Home ec 7-8 grade. Covered cooking, including prep of health foods, and sewing.

-Shop 7-8 grade. I mostly remember this being 90% manually sanding your work.

-Mandatory civics in 12th grade that covered the nuts and bolts of how Congress works, committees, the bill - > law process, including the teacher helping everyone register to vote who was 18 by the end of the year.

-Mandatory introduction to economics in 12th grade.

It's hard to fathom that these don't get taught in most states. Then there were the optional things: stock investment club and a criminal justice class. I'd argue that our schools spend too much time on this stuff considering I usually can't get an Ensign who can spell or write complete sentences.

The only thing that remains is how to balance a check book, and I'm not sure that warrants an entire class. I learned that from my great grandmother (lived through the great depression) showing me how she budgeted the household finances into envelopes in 20 minutes one day and warning me to stay away from credit cards. She also helped me open my first savings account at around 10 years old.

I think that it really comes down to my economics teacher motto: 'you're going to forget 85% of what I taught you by the end of the summer.'

 

[Spekkio]

I predict that - unless we get a socialist change in federal law relating to student loan debt/ "free college" - colleges will become more competitive on price, as students opt for gap years or cheaper online education in the wake of coronavirus restrictions. I mean, if I were a college kid today, I wouldn't pay full on-campus tuition prices for online class results.

Also, and people might look at this opinion negatively, but maybe we genuinely have too many colleges in this country* - some may close naturally due to market forces, if fewer students are enrolling. As education becomes more available online, there are obvious benefits to centralization of curricula to achieve overhead reductions. Teaching a 150-student class online is not very different than teaching a 50-student class online, but obviously on campus you run into floor space/ seating issues/ dorms/ commuting, that naturally limit the size of the student body.

*Note for naysayers: "too many colleges" =/= "too many college students" in logical argument. We basically have 3 computer operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) and 99% of America has access to at least one of them.

I think that some of the biggest critics of college are ironically people who are making lots of money due to their college education.

I absolutely think that college is valuable, and I think that the broader earnings numbers show that this is true. If I could go back in time, I'd force my 17 year old self to do some assessment and soul searching for what career to pursue and how college would support that goal. This would include how much money I could make in a given field. No one in my family had a 4 year degree, and scores of 20-something 'advisors' said 'it's okay, you'll figure it out.' That's a load of horseshit; the career fairy doesn't visit you after your 20th birthday to give you some kind of epiphany while you are knee deep in exams and papers. Not only that, you really need to make sure you are taking all your pre-reqs years 1 and 2 to ensure you do not need a 5 year plan, especially when those classes can fill up quickly.

I also have an axe to grind that all of the required gen ed classes were liberal arts bullshit. Nothing like having to write a paper on how Edward Scissorhands is a metaphor for some bullshit when there's an organic chemistry test the next day. Would've gotten an easy A on the latter if I had the presence of mind to read the professors most recent study on garlic's ability to cure cancer... Half the questions were copied figures from the study.

 

[drgndrvr]

Shack. Ideas include:

1. Civics/Govt - how to vote, how to serve on a jury, how govt works, how to look up and read the law, how to interact with LE, about the Selective Service System, how to run for public office, how real estate gets recorded in municipalities, all about taxes at the state, local, federal levels, how to look up and see where your tax money goes
   
   
2. Personal Finance - how to open bank accounts of different types and how to check those balances, the time value of money, how loans work (car loan, payday loan, mortgages), how insurance works, how the economy works (e.g. supply/demand, why commodity prices go up/down), how to invest in stocks/mutual funds (and the risks), how wages work, how businesses earn profit and use revenue to employ people and create jobs
   
   
3. Fitness/Nutrition - this is showing my bias (in favor of a clean diet) but I genuinely think our country needs to have an honest conversation about sugar, grains, and processed foods. A roommate told me long ago that he had a coworker who was wondering aloud why he was afflicted with Type II diabetes as he was pulling a full size snickers bar from his desk drawer, and sipping on a supersized southern sweet tea. I look at it two-fold: youth fitness is a national security issue, and all-age fitness levels have a real government cost on the back end in terms of Medicaid, Medicare, fire/EMT services costs, hospital costs, insurance premiums that everyone pays, etc. Call me out for trying to brainwash kids to eat their veggies/meats and put down the junk food, but I can die on that hill.

I don't think #3 shows any bias. We spend more on healthcare per capita than any other developed country and have worse outcomes. I read somewhere that 2/3 of our medical spending is to address mostly lifestyle-related conditions like Type II diabetes and heart disease. The incentives are truly perverse when companies will spend billions to create drugs for some condition that affects 10,000 people a year (not minimizing anyone's condition or suffering, just speaking from a macro perspective) while we do next to nothing to promote diet, exercise and mental health.

 

[Hair Warrior]

I don't think #3 shows any bias. We spend more on healthcare per capita than any other developed country and have worse outcomes. I read somewhere that 2/3 of our medical spending is to address mostly lifestyle-related conditions like Type II diabetes and heart disease. The incentives are truly perverse when companies will spend billions to create drugs for some condition that affects 10,000 people a year (not minimizing anyone's condition or suffering, just speaking from a macro perspective) while we do next to nothing to promote diet, exercise and mental health.

Well, the incentives are triple-perverse if you look at food subsidies (grain subsidies) - these government interventions are relics of the Dust Bowl and have no place in a modern agricultural system. We can and should incentivize food products that are local, grassfed, free range, pastured alternatives to corn fed livestock and corn fed humans. Sugar tariffs are also part of the problem, and are a form of corn subsidy. At the very least, allow them to compete on a level playing field on grocery store shelves against poultry, dairy, and meat products that aren't benefited by corn subsidies.

 

[Hair Warrior]

I think that some of the biggest critics of college are ironically people who are making lots of money due to their college education.

I absolutely think that college is valuable, and I think that the broader earnings numbers show that this is true. If I could go back in time, I'd force my 17 year old self to do some assessment and soul searching for what career to pursue and how college would support that goal. This would include how much money I could make in a given field. No one in my family had a 4 year degree, and scores of 20-something 'advisors' said 'it's okay, you'll figure it out.' That's a load of horseshit; the career fairy doesn't visit you after your 20th birthday to give you some kind of epiphany while you are knee deep in exams and papers. Not only that, you really need to make sure you are taking all your pre-reqs years 1 and 2 to ensure you do not need a 5 year plan, especially when those classes can fill up quickly.

I also have an axe to grind that all of the required gen ed classes were liberal arts bullshit. Nothing like having to write a paper on how Edward Scissorhands is a metaphor for some bullshit when there's an organic chemistry test the next day. Would've gotten an easy A on the latter if I had the presence of mind to read the professors most recent study on garlic's ability to cure cancer... Half the questions were copied figures from the study.

I believe college is valuable. I don't think $40k/year tuition for online Zoom classes at a virus-shuttered college is worth the same as $12k/year for the online classes at an online college. I did my bachelor's on campus and my master's online. I would not pay the on-campus price tag for online classes.

College is valuable, but you get out of college what you put into it. A new car is valuable until you drive it into a lake or drive it long past its oil change. If you insist on majoring in theater, poetry, music, or gender studies - that's cool, but don't expect the taxpayers to bail you out in 5 years if you default on your student loans. The world needs poets, musicians, artists, and others, but you can't reasonably expect those careers to pay as much as accounting, finance, business, comp sci, or engineering. Students should know and accept going into that field that they're doing it for passion and not money, and that they later will have to find a career on their own merits, without a free bailout.

And, as a nation competing in a pretty brutal world against peer competitors China-Russia who want to eat our lunch and rewrite the world order in their favor, well, subsidizing poetry and music on the backs of taxpaying engineers and business people will only get us so far. So, you know, if you major in that stuff it's cool... but as for the Dem plans for widespread student loan forgiveness, well that doesn't incentivize colleges to keep costs down, nor does it incentivize students to pursue fields where America has plenty of vacant jobs and a big need for talent (STEM).

 

[Spekkio]

I read somewhere that 2/3 of our medical spending is to address mostly lifestyle-related conditions like Type II diabetes and heart disease.

The majority of health care spending is during the last 6 months of life, usually for people over 70.

 

[DanMa1156]

The majority of health care spending is during the last 6 months of life, usually for people over 70.

Probably one and the same with what @drgndrvr was saying.

 

[IKE]

Well, the incentives are triple-perverse if you look at food subsidies (grain subsidies) - these government interventions are relics of the Dust Bowl and have no place in a modern agricultural system. We can and should incentivize food products that are local, grassfed, free range, pastured alternatives to corn fed livestock and corn fed humans. Sugar tariffs are also part of the problem, and are a form of corn subsidy. At the very least, allow them to compete on a level playing field on grocery store shelves against poultry, dairy, and meat products that aren't benefited by corn subsidies.

By incentivize, do you mean: steal from one group citizens (via taxation) to pay another group of citizens based on current political whims or the misguided notion that you know how to spend my money better than I do?

I agree, do away with corn subsidies -- not because it's corn, but because it's a subsidy.

So, so tired of hearing other people's "good ideas" of how to redistribute property.