The End of College Life - Wash U Prof's article in the Atlantic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am paying careful attention and am very happy with the changes. These are much needed.

The people who are unhappy are those who are content to receive funds without needing to demonstrate any results.

Now the fun part - the supposed liberals who are "open" to new ideas and alternative viewpoints, think none of the above is an "acceptable" viewpoint. Because the above must have been written by a MAGA advocate and therefore not a valid view.

-A moderate democrat who voted for Kamala

Researchers have to demonstrate results. Often they are contractually obligated to publish their results no matter what. They don’t have to demonstrate success. That is an important concept in science and engineering. You can’t guarantee success, nor should you, when trialing new concepts in basic and applied research.

An epic cope!

This is ridiculous. Do you think all experiments work out the way a scientist expects/wants them to?

+1 and scientists learn even when experiments don’t support the hypothesis.

Of course in a lot of fields they won’t be able to publish unless their results fit the prevailing orthodoxy.

Uh, results of "failed" experiments get published too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am paying careful attention and am very happy with the changes. These are much needed.

The people who are unhappy are those who are content to receive funds without needing to demonstrate any results.

Now the fun part - the supposed liberals who are "open" to new ideas and alternative viewpoints, think none of the above is an "acceptable" viewpoint. Because the above must have been written by a MAGA advocate and therefore not a valid view.

-A moderate democrat who voted for Kamala

Researchers have to demonstrate results. Often they are contractually obligated to publish their results no matter what. They don’t have to demonstrate success. That is an important concept in science and engineering. You can’t guarantee success, nor should you, when trialing new concepts in basic and applied research.

An epic cope!

This is ridiculous. Do you think all experiments work out the way a scientist expects/wants them to?

+1 and scientists learn even when experiments don’t support the hypothesis.

Of course in a lot of fields they won’t be able to publish unless their results fit the.

Uh, results of "failed" experiments get published too.

Not very often.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.15787 - “Survey finds that ‘null results’ rarely see the light of the day.”

It’s even worse for positive findings that go against prevailing orthodoxy as I mentioned in the PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The cluelessness and stupidity on display in this thread makes it quite clear how we ended up with a low-IQ troll for a president.

Nah! Smugness exactly like you exhibited is what got us Trump. So, thank you for your contribution!

Funny, I thought it was the price of eggs, which were going to come down in day one. Good thing that happe—

Wait.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/steep-fall-in-price-of-eggs-prompts-questions-for-us-producers/ar-AA1BTGHC

“Wholesale egg prices have fallen 54 per cent in the past four weeks to $3.91 per dozen on Friday, according to commodity price information service Expana.”

[Anonymous]

I thought it was a bit exaggerated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The college model is truly broken. Departmental faculty and 'chair' positions are often privately funded, often by foreign entities. Leading to ideological bias in scholarship and curriculum. This is more frequent in humanities and social sciences. It is pretty transparent when you begin to click on departments, faculty, examine their a academic areas of research and then see the funder...

This just is not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

Sounds a lot like the progressive plan to “defund the police” actually.

And maybe a wake-up call that ideaological extremes of anything that involves the idea of “burning it all down”are not good for a free society.

[Anonymous]

Maybe this will those of us able to full pay a leg up! Jkjk

[Anonymous]

I think the undergrad education part of elite universities is a net negative for American society because they have created an arms race among upper middle class parents and have exacerbated inequality. I voted for Kamala but if these institutions are now forced to make changes I hope they also look at their contributions to what is currently wrong with our society.


https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-hate-the-ivy-league/id1692947270

[Anonymous]

While there are a small handful of low bandwidth programs that could be reduced or eliminated, the cuts go much deeper. My son’s university alone has an order of cutting $40M in the coming year’s budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And DEI is simply the idea that everyone should have a fair shot. Is it not a surprise that a lot of people from rural areas go to state flagships and interact and are exposed to people from all over the world and then decide they don't want to return to the parochial rural white bread lives? Why are you opposed to people being exposed to others with different nationalities, background, races and perspectives?

You are being rather coy. Everyone knows that DEI morphed far beyond "a fair shot" into grift, discrimination and racism. As an example Michigan spent $250 million over a decade on DEI with 247 staff. Such programs have had no demonstrable outcomes and have only propped up a self serving industry. The universities already had diversity in backgrounds even without the DEI scam.Taxpayers are tired of paying for these grifters and are done with tolerating their fake sanctimony.

[Anonymous]

Wow. You don't get that racism is baked into every system, which was built on the backs of slavery. FYI, even before Trump arrived, people of color and women STILL didn't earn as much as white men, weren't represented on Boards or in the C-Suite as they should have been based on population.

And now the GOP wants women in their fertile years home raising babies, not attending college.

For those of us with kids who had been hoping to head to grad school/PhD programs this Fall, it's a nightmare One niece has been told by every program that they are all on hold (after being flown all over the country for people who wanted her to attend their schools), and another nephew who had been accepted, and awarded money, has been told it's also on hold.

We are a white family, and, I supported all the DEI initiatives

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see both sides. Universities have been on a wild spending spree- lazy rivers in dorms, every kid gets their own room and bathroom, cleaning ladies for dorms, massive gyms for regular students to work out in.

My best memories in college were spent in a triple (to the horror of current college students). It was so much fun that we all requested triples the next year too. College can be fun even if colleges spent less money on luxe facilities.

That being said- I love how Americans go off to college. My European friends all either lived at home or they lived in a big city and rented an appt near their university. It sounded totally different than my experience.

My maga in-laws biggest gripe is the massive endowments of these universities who are still accepting federal funds. I really can’t speak to that, but it gets brought up again and again.

Oh and to the person up thread AC is not a luxury.

Which colleges have this? We've toured a bunch and all are triple/doubles with shared bathrooms, have to clean bathrooms themselves for most part, and zero lazy rivers. Also, many dorms in southern CA at prestigious colleges with zero AC.

Yes pls do tell. My daughter would love to visit the school with a lazy river!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see both sides. Universities have been on a wild spending spree- lazy rivers in dorms, every kid gets their own room and bathroom, cleaning ladies for dorms, massive gyms for regular students to work out in.

My best memories in college were spent in a triple (to the horror of current college students). It was so much fun that we all requested triples the next year too. College can be fun even if colleges spent less money on luxe facilities.

That being said- I love how Americans go off to college. My European friends all either lived at home or they lived in a big city and rented an appt near their university. It sounded totally different than my experience.

My maga in-laws biggest gripe is the massive endowments of these universities who are still accepting federal funds. I really can’t speak to that, but it gets brought up again and again.

Oh and to the person up thread AC is not a luxury.

Which colleges have this? We've toured a bunch and all are triple/doubles with shared bathrooms, have to clean bathrooms themselves for most part, and zero lazy rivers. Also, many dorms in southern CA at prestigious colleges with zero AC.

Yes pls do tell. My daughter would love to visit the school with a lazy river!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2019/11/14/why-lazy-rivers-have-their-place-on-college-campusesand-yet-still-might-just-be-lazy/

https://martinaquatic.com/projects/ucf-recovery-cove/

https://www.thecollegefix.com/lsu-takes-better-care-of-its-lazy-river-than-its-library-report-finds/

https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/tricked-college-campuses-water-parks-luxury-dorms/story?id=26164491

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a foreign research scientist living in the US, who went to undergrad in Europe.

To be entirely frank, ever since I've lived in the US, I've been astonished at the amount of money that just gets thrown away on frivolities in every aspect of American life. It's a country of consumerist excess to a degree that is unfathomable in most other countries. US college campuses are no exception: yes, there are classes and professors and research. But there are also luxury facilities, for performances, sports and recreation, etc. I am all for investing in the serious things, that down the road will cure cancer, find sustainable and affordable energy sources, or other huge benefits of research. But massive sports facilities? Subsidizing all kinds of clubs and activities and trips? Enormous manicured campuses and tons of wasted space in buildings that translate to enormous A/C bills? That kind of luxury doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. Are we sure this is where we want to spend money?

My son attends a private university in the US, and will continue some his grad work in Europe. He's headed towards a European institute that world-renowned in its specialty. But the lecture halls will be 19th century (no A/C). The living situation will be bare-bones compared to his fancy dorm here. No sports or clubs. No sprawling lawns. The education, however, is top-notch, at a reasonable price for grad school.

I think Americans can rethink some of their expenses without reducing the pace of academic progress or impeding research in any way.

+1000000
American who went to an expensive private college and I remember thinking that my school was essentially a country club for kids. Sure, there were some small classes and research, but really it was the facilities, manicured lawns, tons of staff, and just overall luxury of the place that surprised me. I’ll admit that there is no way I’d send my dc to my Alma Mater that is now 90k a year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is so much waste on the college campuses of today particularly those that do research. I live in a Division 1 college town and have friends that work for the university and rarely have to step foot on campus. A lot of my friends frequently travel around the world going to conferences.

How is that a waste?

Zoom in to a conference.
Read a published paper?

I work in corporate America in an industry going through change. Business travel has been severely restricted for several years now bc of costs.