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[Doomblade187]

But taxing them sounds... Socialist. We can't have that commie shit, except for in the parts of the Bible we quietly flip past real quick.

*Lights Bible on fire* Burn the commies! /s

But yeah, we really need to figure out how to fix our education system.

[da_nang]

The question is, should people be able to support a good quality of life without an expensive, time-consuming, and possibly-bankrupting degree?

[Frumple]

I mean, I'd say someone should be able to live a decent life without having an economically desirable skillset, sure. Or that helping people get one they can enjoy is a good thing, for that matter.

Unfortunately, fuck welfare and fuck education (and fuck socialism, which is the direction you're going when you subsidize industries so they can employ that sort of person without getting run into the ground) are all right-wing red meat :V

[scriver]

Personally, I think the biggest problem with Trump's trade war (for america, that is, because as a Swede I obviously think that the absolute worst thing about it is the broad strokes instead of China-targeted) is that he doesn't, or perhaps the discussion doesn't, seem to understand just how broad fronts China is waging it on (and have been, for years). Tariffs to counter Chinese price dumping, sure, whatever, but they're also buying up harbours all over the world and putting countries in their direct influence, economically and societally, in both Africa and the rest of Asia - not to mention that trade lane grabbing they're attempting in the Pacific scene (that thing with the man-made islands near the Philippines).

[Trekkin]

The question is, should people be able to support a good quality of life without an expensive, time-consuming, and possibly-bankrupting degree?

That is not a question education can answer; although it is a favorite scapegoat of the left and right alike, particularly as regards STEM education, the fact of the matter is that we cannot educate pupils into jobs that do not exist and there are vastly more pupils than there are "good" jobs. We may expect automation to increase this gap faster than declining birth rates decrease it, although this may end up being a self-solving problem.

We are, at present, trapped in a cycle where every level of education is oversaturated with pupils whose parents saw it as a path to a well-paying job, at which point the resultant surfeit of qualified workers drives wages down and creates a surplus of redundant, unemployed graduates who look enviously at people who reached the next rung and decide that their children must attain a still higher degree. Meanwhile, of course, the high-performing pupils are accomplishing themselves beyond the remit of sanity and everyone else is bored silly and increasingly hopeless, which makes teaching absolutely hellish.

So perhaps the question should be "what are we to do with huge numbers of people for which there is no readily apparent need"?

[Kagus]

I have some views regarding education in general and what kind of role I feel it should take in society, but it's all rather utopian drivel and I honestly don't have much say in the matter as, y'know, I've really never had an education of any sort. I'm about as far outside the system as you can get.

Looking at it from the outside in though, shit seems to be of the fucked variety.

[sluissa]

I think the "expensive and possibly bankrupting" part is where we need to focus. We already more or less force people to deal with 12 years of normal schooling. Another 2-4 years is really not that time consuming in the long run if they didn't put themselves in debt in the process.

Spoiler: "Sorry I text wall'd" (click to show/hide)

Any job is going to require some amount of training as well. Even after an educational degree, there's specifics to any given job that are simply not going to be taught in a classroom. Was discussing education with a civil engineer recently and they basically said most reasonable companies won't expect an engineer to fully earn their salary until about 2 years in. Until then it's basically a very expensive (for the company) training program. Not all companies are willing or able to eat those sorts of costs. Granted, that's an extreme example and not all jobs have a 2 year learning curve to them.

But there is a trend I'm seeing where nobody wants to deal with training. And for the jobs that require little training, nobody wants to deal with the experienced people that require more pay. High turnover rate in unskilled jobs means they can keep hiring low wage newbies. And a lack of entry level positions in skilled labor means there's a constant "shortage" as companies scramble for the continually decreasing pool of experience.

I digress a little. But what I'd like to see, beyond free education, obviously, is also a formalized apprenticeship program. In the US it used to be handled by the unions in a lot of fields. With the decline of unions that's sort of disappeared. You're left with a piecemeal set of certifications and requirements that are somewhere between non-existant and overbearing red tape that make it impossible to wade into an industry without a guide.

This would do a X things:

1: Provide a centralized location workers could go looking for work and career focused education.
2: Provide the companies with a guaranteed set of skills and a labor pool that's likely to be better than trying to scrape around on a dozen different job web sites and local papers to hope the right employee just happens to find them.
3: Take the pressure off public schools and college/universities to provide a level of education they were never really meant to provide. (Honestly, career education is already in middle schools and there's rumors they want to push it into elementary level classes as well. Lay off. Give them the opportunity to lay down the foundations.)
4: Provide a centralized place for the government and private sector to work together. Private sector can say, "These are the skills I need to ensure someone can do the job." Government can make sure that's in the curriculum no matter where the training is taking place.

Ideally it'd go something like this:

Graduate high school, or maybe simply decide or forced into the situation where you need to find a new career. You go to an apprenticeship counselor. Talk it over, figure out your current skills and interests, what the current job market looks like, have the option to go spend a week or two shadowing a number of likely careers. Decide on one and spend several months, up to maybe a year learning a basic skill set in a controlled classroom setting. From there you go into the labor pool from which companies can pick. If you get a job, great, you keep learning skills on the job and you're set. If you don't get a job, you continue attending classes, gaining more advanced skills.

I know there are potential downsides to this.
1. The expense of providing a nationwide training program for every industry conceivable. Convincing companies to pay into it would be required but that can be a hard sell if you're basically saying "We're taxing you more and taking employee training out of your hands."
2. Having a constantly available labor pool of new employee might convince other industries to do what unskilled labor currently does by firing the expensive experienced workers in exchange for inexperienced cheap kids.
3. There's no guarantee that a "one size fits all" training policy would even fit a reasonable enough number of industries to attempt it.

Given that list of cons though, I think(and I doubt I"m alone here.) that what we currently have is not working. So it's not unreasonable to come up with ideas to attempt to fix it. And while it might be a bit heavy handed to just say "Have the government step in and handle it all." Navigating the current tangle and trying to fix what's already in place is probably not viable.

[Doomblade187]

Looking at it from the outside in though, shit seems to be of the fucked variety.

That seems to be the general consensus.

Relevant:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/564545/

@sluisaa, yeah, greater state investment in s skilled workforce seems to be a good way about it. I personally like your idea after skimming it.

[Teneb]

I think the "expensive and possibly bankrupting" part is where we need to focus. We already more or less force people to deal with 12 years of normal schooling. Another 2-4 years is really not that time consuming in the long run if they didn't put themselves in debt in the process.

It seems that way at first, but, in hindsight, it isn't really that time consuming. And I can personally attest that it does feel much, much better when you're not dooming yourself to life-long debt (and beyond, I think? I forget if the US has debt inheritance or not, because it's not a thing here).

Given I am study History and not one of high and mighty STEM fields (and boy do I have grievances with the people that study/work those fields, but I won't derail with that unless people want me to), I am not really in a position to fear being unemployed: it's exceptionally hard, at least here, to not find work as a teacher unless you are being incredibly picky. Also helps that the university forces anyone going for a licence in addition to a bachelor's to spend two years being a teacher's assistant as part of the curriculum. The reason I mention it is that this could be extended to other areas without being intrinsically locked to those who seek to teach.

[Doomblade187]

Meanwhile, USCIS is trying to get rid of H-1Bs and foreign students, sounds like: Forbes Link

Hm, regarding that required TA time, my University has a lot of work-study type things with various companies, and the model is certainly a helpful one. (Filthy STEM major here) The model definitely should be more widespread, and helps defray the costs of college a little bit.

[Trekkin]

Meanwhile, USCIS is trying to get rid of H-1Bs and foreign students, sounds like: Forbes Link

Hm, regarding that required TA time, my University has a lot of work-study type things with various companies, and the model is certainly a helpful one. (Filthy STEM major here) The model definitely should be more widespread, and helps defray the costs of college a little bit.

Or we could go the STEM grad school route and make it free provided you work as an RA/TA, albeit at the cost of significantly shrinking the applicant pool.

[Baffler]

(and beyond, I think? I forget if the US has debt inheritance or not, because it's not a thing here).

The answer basically amounts to sometimes.

[MrRoboto75]

You don't inherit debt but collectors are totally allowed to pretend you do and can get away with making you pay them.

[PTTG??]

I'm not sure why Mathematics gets lumped in with STEM. Sure you need to do math to be an engineer, but a mathematician is not meaningfully more "useful to society" (according to those who say liberal arts is a waste of time) then a literature major is.

[Dunamisdeos]

I always thought of mathematics as a base for further learning.

People who brag about the knowledge of mathematics and never use it to further develop other skills/knowledge are basically stagnant, but with fractions.