shut down or radically change phD programes?

[woodsmoke]

What say you?

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1104...l/472261a.html

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: shut down or radically change phD programes?

While I was teaching science in a midwest college in the early 1970's I noticed that students who ranked in the top 25% of the ACT and SAT tests and entered my physics and calculus classes could, when push came to shove, barely understand what they read, and had difficultly extending principles beyond the practice problems. IOW, they were good at rote memory and feedback, but not in thinking.

My experience with graduate degrees is in the hard sciences. My thesis was only 52 pages long. I was asked by an English major why I could get by with such a short thesis, while her's was over 300 pages. I pointed to a single page. "That single page took over a year to write, and it describes a sequence which had never been done before."

An equally serious problem is corporate corruption of the academic process. Twenty years ago they were called "business schools". Then they changed their names to "xxx college", even though they wouldn't even quality as a Jr College, and all classes were held in a single building. They offered an extremely limited number of courses in just couple academic areas and did not offer humanities, art, music or English; a core curriculum which is essential in building well rounded, literate citizens who know HOW to think, not what to think. Now, they call themselves a "University", as if a peddle-powered go-cart could claim to be an automobile.

Even worse is the affect of government educational loans money and aid to education. The public high schools are putting out graduates who have knowledge and skills that wouldn't get a "C" in high schools a generation ago. Yet, they are being recruited by these pseudo-universities, AND, many Accreditation Association schools simply because they represent a reliable income stream from the government. After two years or less the hapless students drop out or are denied re-enrollment because they couldn't make the grades. The schools keep the money but the kid keeps the school bills, sometimes over $20K for two years of school which gave them NOTHING they could market. It has become criminal when those schools graduate the kid, give him/her a sheepskin but still no training adequate to find gainful employment. The bill, as much as $50K or more, has to be paid off with wages from two or three part-time jobs at Walmart, ShopCo, Target, or one of the fast food places. The hapless student cannot declare bankruptcy, like General Motors or several other giant corporations have done to get out from under the debt load, because gov education loans (euphemistically called "grants") cannot be voided by bankruptcy.

How long will it take a poorly trained college dropout (or even "graduate") to pay back $50K or more with the money made at McDonald's, anywhere from $14K to $20K/year? Probably their entire working life, if they don't change their name and go into the cash only underground. They certainly wouldn't make enough to feed anything into the social security system or save for their retirement years ... IOW, they won't be able to retire. They'll have to work to eat until the day they fall over dead at their job. Many will go into prostitution and/or drugs to make more than what minimum wage affords, which is exactly what you see happening today.

[woodsmoke]

Re: shut down or radically change phD programes?

GG well put....

awaiting other comments!

woodsmoke