36% of Americans have confidence in higher education

Take loans out on non paying degrees and want loan forgiveness. The circular grift. Like the arts, everyone likes them, but no one wants to pay to see them…. ymmv. If there weren’t all the LA prerequisites for every student, those colleges would have collapsed long ago.

And I do have a PhD relative who is presently a barista

 

I'm sure the degree is still run through the business school. Bachelor of Arts is just a degree designator and it exists in most disciplines. As I mentioned, there are BA degrees in music.

 

College isn’t for everyone, nor should it be. And there are lots of solid careers that don’t require it. But you highlighted the problem with many of them, coming out of trade school the starting salaries can be better (in some cases much better) than college grads, but the long term earning potential for college grads is usually much higher (if they have a decent degree). Less marketable degrees are another story though, some trade folks may win there.

 

Can't ymmv yourself out of that comment.
AEP5: National Findings

 

Probably the only thing I'm "angry" about is that folks who defend higher education have an inability to read and comprehend; or, they are volitionally misrepresenting what was written.

 

Awesome. Glad to have helped you in your journey.

 

Pretty sure economics was always through the liberal arts and sciences. But the business school used to also have an undergrad economics track. Guess they did away with that? Obviously there’s overlap, and the micro and macro econ are still part of the core requirements for basically any business major.

Not sure why business dropped that track, a hardcore phd seeker (a person wanting to be “an economist”) was probably already going though CLAS, not the business school. So in a way it makes sense to drop it as a “major” if it was actually the CLAS running all the Econ courses anyway. UF’s MBA program also does not have an economics track (can’t recall if it used to), so if those students now wanted to continue in pure economics study/reaearch it would be literally impossible to do it at UF’s business school.

I recall some other weirdness at UF with the agriculture school offering some of the same science degrees as the CLAS. I think the classes were mostly the same, but those that did it through school of ag avoided the 2 years foreign language requirements?

 

It takes more than a degree and if that same want to is there trades can go just as high or higher. One of my best friends in high school became an election, built a company, and makes 5+ x what I do. A&P can run shops or assembly lines and make mid 6 figures with 20 - 30 years experience.

 

I don't recall them ever offering an MBA in econ. When I got my undergrad in international economics it was all from the business school.

 

Anyone who starts their own business can do well, but he would be the exception.
This is what I was speaking of however, electricians are a good example. They stay at around. 48k, and a high end makes in the high 70’s so little differentiation comparatively. In the corporate world, there are lots of promotions available - senior associate, manager, director, VP, SVP, EVP etc. Gives many additional paths to success.
Average electrician salary by state and experience in 2024 - Workiz

 

You're right. Econ is indeed through CLAS. That seems strange to me, but it's not my specialty. Maybe @docspor can shed some light on this.

 

Found an article and apparantly the business school switched it over to CLAS in 2014.

UF economics department makes the switch to liberal arts on July 1

 

Who claimed that? Who?

 

UNION Pipe fitters and plumbers make good wages, especially in Blue states. 150 - 200K is not out of the question for a journeyman working O.T. (depending on ones area). I'm not talking San Fransico or New York here either.

 

The gist of several on this thread is that they think the issue is “liberal arts degrees”, and that is a pathway to Starbucks. I’m guessing these people triggered by the word “liberal” without understanding the college of liberal arts and sciences houses degrees in economics and physics and chemistry (among many others). But truly even for degrees that seem more “frivolous” to you or me, maybe African American Studies or Philosophy or… whatever… at those top schools the avg salary and employment prospect is still likely to be petty damned solid. Or… the degree is a stepping stone into grad school study (at worst, teaching, which I think should carry its own loan forgiveness if a person goes on into teaching for 10+ years).

I think a lot of people conflate “liberal arts” degrees with performance arts. Like theater or music. But really, the same standards apply no matter the topic of study. Schools that have a good track record should be allowed leeway, those with high default rates should be cut off.

Truly the issue is the quality and expense of the school. If the issue is people unable to pay back their student loans, then it makes sense to start looking at institutions that have a record of students not paying back their loans. I think of course a number of those will be “liberal arts colleges”, ostensibly legitimate colleges that are both bottom tier AND expensive. I.e they offer a very poor value. Then you have the diploma mill colleges that would be generous to even call them “legit”. Those are the places to start.

 

When I was at UF, you could get an Econ degree in either LA or through the biz school. They had diff cores, but the same Econ courses.

I taught at a school that had 2 Econ depts - 1 I LAs with a Nobel prize winner & 1 in the bidness school which included a guy who just won the NP a few years ago. The B school wanted their own so that they could make sure they coddled the MBA students

 

I'm all for transparency. Although, there can be practical challenges in that. I'm distrustful of "performance parameters" unless it's a floor merely to weed out predatory institutions.

 

Ehh.. no. You take lots of liberty with other's posts. There's a huge difference in getting a degree from Harvard, something 99.9% of students will never get a chance to do or could afford versus getting one from just about any other institution you can think of. Also, guarantee it costs way more than $80,000 to get a degree from Harvard without some kind of subsidy or scholarship. That was a dishonest leap to take up for higher learning. Nobody was claiming a Harvard degree is a quick way to a career as a barista at Starbucks. That's ridiculous.

 

Well, sometimes you just need an arbitrary cutoff.

I’d hope everyone would agree that a school with 50% of its students defaulting on loans (or loan payments) would be problematic. I’d venture very few in that category. But such terrible performers really just shouldn’t have access to any the of loans or federal gaurantee. *NO* student should be on the hook for that crap either, it’s basically just fraud.

But what should the arbitrary threshold be? Certainly less than 50%. 20%? I have no idea.

The other issue is I’m sure even at the elite schools, they have their exceptions. Maybe an “arts” school with very high standards has 90% get solid paying full time jobs, but despite the auditions and quality training, maybe there’s a music grad that can’t get consistent gigs for whatever reason. So they are “stuck” at a lower paying music job or having to work two jobs. Seems a lot of people want to punish those people for life or have strong resentment towards them for wanting an out. I don’t get that resentment. Really, it shouldn’t be any different than a personal or business bankruptcy. If it comes to it, there should always be an “out” at some point if the math is never going to work for that individual.

 

Touché on the Madison quote!

As for todays higher education, I agree that it’s benefits are easy to later take for granted. Of course, I also imagine the existence of an opposite tendency, wherein we erroneously credit higher education for outcomes. I do think I possess some valuable critical thinking skills, but I can’t say for sure that I would t have developed these regardless. I certainly think college helped me to become a biologist, but this is hardly of societal benefit, as I could have helped society as a lawyer, psychologist, or grocery store clerk.

I am also worried about the over representation of liberal viewpoints in academia. I don’t think there is anything wrong with liberal viewpoints, but we need alternative viewpoints to counter the biases particular to the left. We now have some good evidence that this is a real problem in social psychology, and I’m sure it must exist in other fields with extremely low conservative participation rates.