Higher education is about more than job training: Open

[cawacko]

I'm not sure what you mean by "limit" liberal arts colleges. More schools are popping up everywhere. Some of the private schools are basically to get government funding and make sure it is fairly easy. That tends to appeal to students with lower academic motivation--anybody can pass a history class or American literature attitude. These schools often require little reading which is also true of state schools. I have heard many professors say "students won't read so I'm not going to assign anything." If you want to keep your job you have to attract students. I have seen many different departments lobby to have one (or more) of its courses required so it has a ready source of students (including home eco); otherwise they have to compete with other departments an an elective resulting in courses like "Taylor Swift and Witches."

Based on the data there has been an increase in STEM graduates attracted by higher pay. The cost of liberal arts schools is often partially based on the number of students seeking admission. Or, small liberal arts schools considered more prestigious. In my area many of the male teachers/coaches only teach about 5 years before they quit and go to work at one of the refineries/plants for $100,000+.

Neither here nor there but I think I had more kids in my high school class go to HBCUs liberal art colleges than PWI liberal arts schools. In my area I know a few who went to Hamilton which I believe ranks pretty highly. For the PWIs it was definitely seen as more a rich kid thing. You experience that?

 

[Walt]

I never said Harvard was a liberal arts college. I do consider Harvard, however, to be a pretty useless university.
If someone applies at my business and claims a Harvard degree, they won't get hired. I won't put up with the arrogance Harvard graduates have or the woke culture this university encourages.

Oh no, if a Harvard graduate applied to your make believe business, you would not hire them. I am sure all the Harvard graduates are sobbing at their loss.

 

[RB 60]

Oh no, if a Harvard graduate applied to your make believe business, you would not hire them. I am sure all the Harvard graduates are sobbing at their loss.

There is a simple logic to hiring. Can the candidate efficiently and safely make me money.

 

[Into the Night]

Oh no, if a Harvard graduate applied to your make believe business, you would not hire them. I am sure all the Harvard graduates are sobbing at their loss.

Not a make believe business, Sock. Your avarice is showing.

 

[Into the Night]

There is a simple logic to hiring. Can the candidate efficiently and safely make me money.

Exactly. I also conduct internal tests of any prospective hire to make sure they can do the job.

Too many programmers with degrees can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. These morons waste and leak memory and other resources, don't know how to handle build scripting properly, are afraid of using a pointer, and construct convoluted headers and overuse templates and namespaces. They don't know how to boilerplate code. Many can't even maneuver around in a shell.

Too many hardware engineers with degrees don't know which end of a soldering iron to hold or even remember the resistor color code. They can't even drill and tap a hole properly. They don't know how to design a reliable oscillator, handle noise reduction in an industrial environment (where someone is often nearby welding on something!), or handle temperature extremes often encountered in industrial equipment.

If I can find a programmer that is a good programmer, I could give a dead rat about whether he has a degree.
If I can find an engineer that can drill and tap a hole and design a reliable oscillator that works in harsh environments, I could give a dead rat about whether he has a degree.

Arrogance in a hire I don't need. It does not make me money and disturbs the working staff who do.

We don't get a lot of people from Harvard applying out west, but when I do, I have found them all to be exceedingly arrogant.
I get the same shit from Berkeley as well.

None of them so far have been able to pass my internal competency tests.

The sensors and equipment I manufacture goes into industrial and aerospace environments. People's lives depend on them operating properly, or at least failing in a safe manner.