Here is The Economist take on it. Higher education: Is college worth it? | The Economist. Compare this with The Atlantic Magazine’s Gung-Ho-All-The-Stats-Show-Everyone-Should-Go approach. If you search this blog for “Atlantic” you will see how undiscerning they are. That is very unfortunate for such a highly regarded magazine.
Content Deflation III – Does Wash. U. Physics Prof. Adopt It With Zeal? And Does the University Boast About It? Read This
April 3, 2014 by
This is from my story ATaleOutofSchool but it is self-contained. I think it is helpful in understanding how much “content deflation” has entered the academy as a marketing tool that caters to student “wants”, while leaving students on their own to acquire their “needs”. Of course, it is even worse that just leaving them on […]
Krugman on “No Skills Gap” Part II
March 31, 2014 by
There was a reply to my comment on Paul Krugman’s Op-Ed. (See Krugman Relying on Flawed Data on “Skills Gap”) It asked an excellent question. Here is the comment and my reply. Comment: “Then, of course, we would see employers preferring those who received a degree when it still was an education. But we don’t […]
Do Princeton’s Administrators Pass Their Letters Through the “Office of Communications” Before Publication?
March 27, 2014 by
It seems like it from this, http://dailyprincetonian.com/opinion/2014/03/letter-from-the-editor-increasing-transparency-in-guest-submissions/. If so, why? and what changes happen to the letters? Does the Office just help adminstrators? Are the administrators encouraged to seek help from “public relations”? Is the “Office of Communications” just a marketing department? I don’t know but it seems worrisome. Here is my comment. ” This letter does a good […]
Underwriting Standards for Universities? Why Not?
March 25, 2014 by
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a good article on graduate student debt http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303949704579459803223202602 It gave me an idea that I posted as a comment. I haven’t carefully thought it through but here it is. (If you regularly read this blog, you can skip the third paragraph.) “…”…if we had some sort of underwriting standards…” …[the author […]
“Common Core” or “Missing Core”?
March 23, 2014 by
I posted this comment on today’s New York Times’ Op-Ed http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/a-common-core-for-all-of-us.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 “The discussion about the Common Core is interesting, both politically and intellectually. But without the “missing core”, all of these discussions and disagreements about the nature and goal of education, won’t matter. What is this “missing core”? Call it integrity, scrupples, whatever. But, until we, as […]
The SAT Essay Test is This Bad????
March 7, 2014 by
I started reading http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/the-story-behind-the-sat-overhaul.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=1 in the New York Times Magazine and I was stopped dead in my tracks with amazement, even for me. You will see why when you read my comment. Here it is: “This tale from the article (that I have copied and pasted below) is outrageous. Unfortunately, from my observations as a former professor, […]
Excellent Op-Ed But, Again, The Author Seems Not Aware of the Fundamental Problem.
March 3, 2014 by
In her New York Times Op-Ed, SUZANNE METTLER, points out how college now increases inequality. This is no surprise to readers of this blog. Here are the relevant posts. American 15-Year-Olds Fall Further Back in Math No Jobs for Ph.D’s? Depends on what you mean by Ph.D. Professor Alfred Doesn’t Know What is Wrong with […]
Why Does Grade Inflation Work?
Don A. Moore, Samuel A. Swift, Zachariah S. Sharek and Francesca Gino, whose paper I cited in Grade Inflation Pays But So Does Rolling Back the Odometer – Or Overrating a Bond have a more recent paper, PLOS ONE: Inflated Applicants: Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation by Professionals. There is a lot for to think about […]