Category Archives: Education

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

“Monopoly-Money Grades”

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How universities have devalued their currency.

I had always thought that this kind of grade inflation started in the sixties, when many professors didn’t want to cost students their draft deferments by flunking them out, but a lot more has been driving it in recent decades. Time to rein it in.

[Update a few minutes later]

It’s not just grade inflation — it’s also degree inflation:

Of all the metropolitan areas in the United States, Atlanta has had one of the largest inflows of college graduates in the last five years, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. In 2012, 39 percent of job postings for secretaries and administrative assistants in the Atlanta metro area requested a bachelor’s degree, up from 28 percent in 2007, according to Burning Glass.

“When I started recruiting in ’06, you didn’t need a college degree, but there weren’t that many candidates,” Ms. Manzagol said.

Even if they are not exactly applying the knowledge they gained in their political science, finance and fashion marketing classes, the young graduates employed by Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh say they are grateful for even the rotest of rote office work they have been given.

“It sure beats washing cars,” said Landon Crider, 24, the firm’s soft-spoken runner.

He would know: he spent several years, while at Georgia State and in the months after graduation, scrubbing sedans at Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Before joining the law firm, he was turned down for a promotion to rental agent at Enterprise — a position that also required a bachelor’s degree — because the company said he didn’t have enough sales experience.

His college-educated colleagues had similarly limited opportunities, working at Ruby Tuesday or behind a retail counter while waiting for a better job to open up.

“I am over $100,000 in student loan debt right now,” said Megan Parker, who earns $37,000 as the firm’s receptionist. She graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta in 2011 with a degree in fashion and retail management, and spent months waiting on “bridezillas” at a couture boutique, among other stores, while churning out office-job applications.

“I will probably never see the end of that bill, but I’m not really thinking about it right now,” she said. “You know, this is a really great place to work.”

A lot of young people have sure gotten a lot of terrible advice over the past couple decades. Any other industry that committed this kind of massive, multi-billion-dollar fraud would rightly have its leaders in jail.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Degree In Fine Arts

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Pro tip: Don’t borrow money to get one:

Among the 4,000 colleges and universities in the federal database, the Creative Center in Omaha, Neb., a for-profit school that offers a three-year bachelor’s in fine arts, had the highest average debt load, at $52,035. Median pay for graduates of the school with five or fewer years’ experience is $31,400, according to PayScale.com.

“Salaries can be pretty darn high or pretty low” for the school’s graduates, who typically get jobs in graphic arts or advertising, said Creative Center President Ray Dotzler.

You don’t say. Of course, if they could figure that out, they’d have probably majored in economics or business. Interestingly, the majors with the best prospects for paying off debt seem to borrow the least, and vice versa.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Teachers Gender Stereotypes

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…are holding boys back:

…boys are basically being graded on their behavior, not their merit. They have different styles of doing homework and don’t sit still in class. Teachers often hate this and reward girls for their conformity to their rules and penalize boys for their non-conformity and behavior. Teachers can no longer discipline in school, and the only punishment is often suspension. I wonder how the lack of discipline has played a role in teacher’s using grading, perhaps subconsciously to punish boys.

Sending kids to public schools is more and more becoming bad parenting.

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary

The Democrats’ Political Problem

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SOTU reflections from Yuval Levin:

Simply put, the foremost problem to which the country now wants a solution from Washington is the problem of slow economic growth, and the Democrats are in a very bad position to advance solutions to that problem.

As the president suggested, and Rubio said outright, slow growth is the key barrier to upward mobility and a key source of pressure on middle-class families, and only robust growth offers a plausible way out of our economic and fiscal problems. The core of Rubio’s speech was basically an outline of how he thinks growth could be achieved now. It suggested an implicit assumption that the reason the economy is not growing is the inefficiency or unproductivity of our economy today—and especially of the public sector and those portions of the public sector most dominated by the government—and it proposed entitlement reform (to induce greater efficiency in health care and to reduce federal spending), education reform (to improve the quality of our labor force and provide greater opportunities for mobility), tax reform (to reduce needless drag on the economy by raising revenue more efficiently), immigration reform (to improve the quality of our labor force), and energy exploration (to make the fossil fuels that power today’s economy much cheaper). I think that’s a pretty plausible list (though I would add real health-care reform beyond the entitlements to vastly improve productivity and reduce costs, and regulatory reform to ensure open competition rather than further advantage large established players throughout the economy). And when you look over that list, you realize the Democrats’ dilemma. They are prevented by the politics of their electoral coalition from seriously advancing most of these ideas.

Yes. they can’t do what’s right, because all of the rent seekers in their base won’t allow it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some useful advice for the president, that he will never take:

In a reductionist sense, if the president would just take his first draft of these speeches, and then pencil in the opposite of each talking point, the economy might take off.

There’s no “might” about it.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The State Of Our Union

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…as seen though a fractured bizarro lens:

Obama called for the federal government to “redesign high schools.” Does he not know that schools are creatures of local and state, not the federal, governments? Does he care? Does he see no limits at all on the things that should occupy a president’s time?

And again, on what basis does the president who cannot even submit a budget make the claim that he is qualified to redesign high schools?

It’s all absurd. Barack Obama is the absurd president. He makes no attempt to make any sense, yet the media will pretend that he is a visionary.

The reality is, Barack Obama is just a very powerful crank.

Far too powerful. Far more powerful than the Founders ever intended.

[Update a while later]

Turning MLK on his head:

Ordinarily a politician whose rhetoric diverges so far from the reality of his record would be run out of town, but with this president it is different. After four years of mediocre leadership, the majority of Americans continue to judge Barack Obama not on what he has done but on who he is. In an ironic reversal of the criteria of judgment set forth by Martin Luther King, they judge him not on the content of his character (or more precisely his actions and achievements) but on the color of his skin. The president is therefore exempt from the penalties other democratically elected leaders pay when they offend too egregiously against the truth; unlike them, he can stray into the realm of fantasy with impunity.

Not just with impunity, but he’s actually applauded for it.