College is the New High School

[workathome]

You already knew that, but now it's official. Things have become so dumbed-down, employers need a new standardized test (like Colleges require ACT / SAT after High School).

Are You Ready for the Post-College SAT?

Employers Say They Don't Trust Grade-Point Averages
By DOUGLAS BELKIN

Next spring, seniors at about 200 U.S. colleges will take a new test that could prove more important to their future than final exams: an SAT-like assessment that aims to cut through grade-point averages and judge students' real value to employers.

The test, called the Collegiate Learning Assessment, "provides an objective, benchmarked report card for critical thinking skills," said David Pate, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at St. John Fisher College, a small liberal-arts school near Rochester, N.Y. "The students will be able to use it to go out and market themselves."

The test is part of a movement to find new ways to assess the skills of graduates. Employers say grades can be misleading and that they have grown skeptical of college credentials.

"For too long, colleges and universities have said to the American public, to students and their parents, 'Trust us, we're professional. If we say that you're learning and we give you a diploma it means you're prepared,' " said Michael Poliakoff, vice president of policy for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. "But that's not true."

The new voluntary test, which the nonprofit behind it calls CLA +, represents the latest threat to the fraying monopoly that traditional four-year colleges have enjoyed in defining what it means to be well educated.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 43818.html

[dot_com_vet]

This doesn't seem new. We had college exit tests 13 years ago. The college used it for their own metrics.

Tech interviews commonly included a 90 minute SAT style test with a tech spin back then too. All the tests were same, so it was easy to hit those out of the park after suffering through one. There's the whiteboard interview and "magic question" interviews when the hiring manager wants to cut to the chase.

[workathome]

Tech interviews commonly included a 90 minute SAT style test with a tech spin back then too. All the tests were same, so it was easy to hit those out of the park after suffering through one. There's the whiteboard interview and "magic question" interviews when the hiring manager wants to cut to the chase.

All the good companies that clued in already do it (e.g. Google), but it appears to be expanding in scope. Look at the forest! It seems the obvious outcome of making sure everyone goes to College.

[dot_com_vet]

I will say, nothing was more brutal than enduring few hours of travel, trying not to get lost, then realize there's a nice SAT style test waiting. THEN, there's an interview from hell.

I did get an offer, but turned it down due to the whole experience.

[secretwealth]

College is absolutely dumbing things down. Grade inflation has been a hot topic in academia for years.

There are, IMO, two sides to this:

1. There's pressure to pass students because they're paying huge sums of money. This pressure is enforced from the top down, and is often very subtle but very much there. Faculty who give too bad grades are warned to improve their grades.

2. Academics are massively insecure people. They often see students as an opportunity to inflate their own ego--i.e., they feel smarter because they see their students as idiots. As a result, they dumb down the content and talk down to students. This makes the content of the classes easier, resulting in higher grades.

[champ0608]

Is there an option to take it before college? Jk lol.

Kidding and laughing aside, in my opinion, this cuts to the hear of the matter. A lot of people have opened their eyes to the fact that the standard college education is a really expensive farce. Can a 17 year old forgo the expense and take the test to prove that they're already intellectually superior to most college graduates?

The heat needs to be put on high schools. High school graduates should have the skills necessary to be valuable to society in some roll. If they had those skills, college would then have to step up their game to interest anyone in attending.

Sadly is a big money game. Keep 'em dumb through high school and they'll have to go to college where we'll make a ton of money off them. Teach them that college is more about an "experience" than it is about an "education" and they will remain dumb so we won't have to worry about them seeing through our system.

[theanimal]

As a final year junior studying business at a top 25 business school, I can say that I have not learned much more than what I learned by starting and operating my own small business two summer's ago. Half of me is happy that I'm not challenged resulting in a minimal work load and the other half is pissed that I've wasted three years learning relatively the same material I did in one summer. In my opinion, I find college to be both a waste of time and money..when I graduate this spring, I for one, will not be taking this test.

[jacob]

Things simply need to be dumbed down proportionally if the goal is to increase the number of graduates. Education doesn't increase intelligence and to a large extent, the information cramming and focus on closed-form problems (the answer can always be found somewhere in the textbook) serves to test intelligence.

A college education serves as an indirect IQ proxy since IQ tests are illegal. It also serves to keep unemployment numbers down since it keeps people off the job market for longer and longer. In addition, student loans keep people in the workforce once they're in. Aside from that, the college business has its own agenda, as mentioned above.

Of course having the institutions measure their own success by doing their own tests is a principal agent problem. Unofficially this problem has been solved with professional certifications. It only remains to make this transition complete.

It's definitely the case that not everybody (at the college level) get this yet. Talking to "applicants" they still talk about what classes they've taken. I ask "what specific problem have you solved"... and they go back to talking about their classes. It's a tragedy.

As far as I'm concerned, a degree proves nothing anymore.

[vivacious]

What is does show is commitment. You can commit to something for 4 years or whatever.

The world is just so much different now than it was a generation or 2 ago. People aren't really getting a degree or going into a training program and then working at the same place for 30 years and drawing a pension. The average person works at a job for something like 2-3 years and then gets a new one now. So people are working like 10% of the time they used to at a place.

As far as college, yes it's flooded with people who really don't need to be there. There's also basically an open scam to ensnare people into the system with loans and then you have to spend your life paying them back on the treadmill etc.

I think a college degree can be useful. But you have to approach it right and be smart about it.

So is a Master's the new college? That is more respected and focused. I meet people all the time though that have a Master's in a subject and yet it seems that I'm smarter than them in that subject. The difference? I didn't bother spending $60,000 on it or whatever.

[George the original one]

What is does show is commitment. You can commit to something for 4 years or whatever.

Or stretch a 4 yr thing out to 6 yrs <ahem>.

[Dragline]

Here is an interesting new talk on the subject of the diminishing returns of college degrees and where the whole system could be going (with Charles Hughes Smith):

http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/8 ... sperity%29

[dot_com_vet]

To play devil's advocate, I wouldn't be where I am today with college. A lot classes that were a "waste of time" then have proven very beneficial.

I have found a lot of people care where you went to college. The elitism is troubling. The party culture seems at an all time high too. Maybe things have changed in the last 20 years, or maybe I'm just an old dude now.

[jacob]

http://www.amazon.com/Someone-Has-Fail- ... 674063864/

... makes a point that US colleges are no longer considered a place where the point is to actually learn something. Learning things is reserved for the last point of education which is now grad school (college used to serve this function). Instead college (used to be high school) is an exercise in managing a hefty schedule of social activities and responsibilities. It's a way of preparing for life which is believed to be more helpful than learning how to ace test scores.

In that regard, "where you went to college" is still important because it shows a shared life experience---it's where many build their major networks. Ironically, as it stands now, those who come to college and hunker down in the library to study without interacting with the party-varsity-club med crowd might actually be no/little further ahead that the "public library card and 50 cents in late fees".

---

Another very interesting sociological point is that the education system tries to serve two groups simultaneous. First, unlike e.g. European and Asian institutions it sets itself up so that you don't have to be particularly smart and pass a humongous exam to be admitted, even to to grad school. You can more easily enter all the way up. This serves two demographics. The lower (really working(*)) class perceive and use education, currently a college degree, as a way to move up. The middle class use education as a way to preserve their position of having one degree more and thus the length of education slowly increases. This is all facilitated by admitting everybody. At the same time this indentures people via student loans and serves to regulate the unemployment numbers. Pretty clever, huh?

(*) Here ignoring the present state of things with blue collar workers often outearning white collar form pushers.

[jennypenny]

Here is an interesting new talk on the subject of the diminishing returns of college degrees and where the whole system could be going (with Charles Hughes Smith):

http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/8 ... sperity%29

I almost posted a link to this yesterday.

We are completing DD's last college application today. Luckily, she's been accepted to her first choice already so we're stopping at 4 applications instead of the recommended 10. She read ERE sophomore year, and she grokked to the concept immediately. She's very focused on the big picture with regard to college and I think she's chosen wisely. She decided if she had to go to collge, she would find a unique program and experience to make it worthwhile instead of just grinding it out to 120 credits.

I feel bad for kids around her age. I think they are playing by two sets of rules--the old ones that don't really work anymore and the new ones that are ill-defined at best. It's been very hard to advise her about what to do. I wish college was optional for her field since it's not really needed, but unfortunately it's not (yet).

[TheWanderingScholar]

Here is an interesting new talk on the subject of the diminishing returns of college degrees and where the whole system could be going (with Charles Hughes Smith):

http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/8 ... sperity%29

I almost posted a link to this yesterday.

We are completing DD's last college application today. Luckily, she's been accepted to her first choice already so we're stopping at 4 applications instead of the recommended 10. She read ERE sophomore year, and she grokked to the concept immediately. She's very focused on the big picture with regard to college and I think she's chosen wisely. She decided if she had to go to collge, she would find a unique program and experience to make it worthwhile instead of just grinding it out to 120 credits.

I feel bad for kids around her age. I think they are playing by two sets of rules--the old ones that don't really work anymore and the new ones that are ill-defined at best. It's been very hard to advise her about what to do. I wish college was optional for her field since it's not really needed, but unfortunately it's not (yet).

Perfect time to learn ERE if I say so myself.