4 Comments to “5/25/12 SHOW: TWO CHALLENGES TO HIGHER EDUCATION: STUDENT DEBT AND A LACK OF RIGOR IN THE CLASSROOM; COMBATTING THE ILL EFFECTS OF SUPER-PAC POLITICAL ADS”

1. Maryann De Bruin says:

   05/27/2012 at 6:20 pm

   Re grade inflation -

   I graduated from high school in 1971 and remember it being anything but challenging. One way sympathetic teachers (and there were many in my town) could protect their male students from being drafted into the army (with a high likelihood of being sent to Viet Nam) was to award them grades which rendered them eligible for college. Once in college, the only way to hang on to that deferment was to maintain the GPA, and I believe many professors helped when they could. There is no more draft, but the grading system has never recovered.

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2. AARON BENEZRA says:

   05/30/2012 at 11:47 pm

   YES, BUT….

   I agree with Professor Rubin that in the overall scheme of things there is insufficient funding of education for those, who cannot afford to pay for it, and that student debt levels are an unnecessary burden on students that taxpayers may mitigate.

   But, there is a lot more at stake than money, even at deflated dollars and inflated prices.

   It ought to be a national shame that the ethos of education has so little to do with learning.

   Is it about getting a piece of paper that may (or more likely may not) lead to lucrative employment?

   Affirmative.

   Is it about semi-professional sports in the guise of amateurism?

   Affirmative.

   Is it about party, party, party (drugs, sex, etc. to be clear and not democrat or republican)?

   Affirmative.

   It is money on tap and inebriated standards that mock the very idea of higher education.

   Truck drivers have greater focus and endurance than students, and that is no insult to truck drivers; just try driving even a 26′ truck sometime (be sure to carry appropriate insurance, if you do).

   As long as standards are dumbed down and debt is high, things will continue as they are; and why not? All that money for all those schools! Why bother to fix the high schools, when remedial programming may be so lucrative? As long as the delusion of higher education value is sold in the marketplace, fools will overly burden themselves with debt, having been brainwashed that without a college education they may have either no future or an inferior future. The irony of course is that this is indeed what they may count on, if and when they may graduate, with or without a degree, as the system is set up that way from matriculation to commencement.

   Potato chips make a nice snack, but, not a healthy diet.

   When we decide to demand out a healthy higher education and not to systemically graduate the mental equivalent of potato chips, perhaps we may then also have a handle on the need to provide grants to worthy students sufficient that they may focus on their studies and not have to graduate burdened with killing debt.

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3. Paul Ketchum says:

   05/31/2012 at 8:02 am

   I have to disagree with Professor Rubin’s contention about society’s debt to its youth. If I understood him correctly, he advocated that society ought to provide education beyond the high school level to all children. I would agree that no child should be denied the opportunity to education, but my life experience has taught me that people have varied intelectual capacities just as they have varied levels of athletic ability. I do not understand the purpose of trying to “educate” people who do not have the aptitude or inclination. To encourage children to continue in school by telling them that education is the sole key to prosperity is, to say the very least, dishonest. And because not every student is capable of academic success, we lower the standards for all. In my day, a batchelor’s degree was a sign of accomplishment. Nowadays, it is a sign of little more than endurance (and debt).

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4. Judi Rozsa says:

   07/20/2012 at 12:57 pm

   My response to the student debt crisis is this. Students should be offered aid IF they achieve a certain level of academic standing in high school and are in need. I have been a therapist for 39 years and have seen worthy individuals obtaining the aid they need. I have also seen individuals receiving aid who are not going to do anything productive with their higher education. They obtain loans they never pay off or receive grants they never put to use after graduation, because they go on disability instead. If they got a loan, it is never paid back and if they received a grant, the money was wasted. My suggestion is this: if a worthy student gets aid and they do not get a job because they find one of the many unscrupulous “disability” attorneys to get them a free ride for life instead, they should be made to pay back the loan or grant they received. Why should responsible taxpayers foot the bill for them for college and then foot the bill to pay for them for the rest of their lives too?

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