Millennials can’t buy homes because they’re wasting money on avocado toast

[MrsPete]

Don't forget the absolute disdain that has been ingrained into our society when it comes to teachers. Nothing like busting your ass for 4-5 years, maintaining a 3.0+  as a requirement for staying in the program, passing extremely difficult state certification boards, and student teaching for at least a semester *, before you get your low paying job.

Yeah, when I started teaching, society considered us "good guys" with hearts of gold, even if we weren't too smart.  Today that's morphed into exactly what you've described. 

Maintaining a 3.0 in a teacher program isn't all that hard; it's not a tough major as compared to, say, engineering.  The thing about teaching is that you have to BE the right person ... you have to be able to multi-task, you must have patience, you must be extraordinarily organized ... it's not a good or bad thing, but you must have a teacher personality, or you will never be successful. 

* Which is totally bizarre in of itself, you provide your own transportation to a job off campus, you work for free for at least a semester, you pay full tuition for the pleasure of working for free, and you provide free labor to a school, that school teams you up with a seasoned teacher who is coaching you for free, while the university is collecting thousands of dollars.

You're not wrong, but I learned more in that student teaching semester than I learned in all my other semesters put together.  Also, teachers aren't the only professions who do this.  College senior nurses spend 50% of their last year in Clinicals.  Nutritionists and Social Workers do similar internships in their senior year.  They all have to dress appropriately, drive to "work", provide their own lunch, and work with an experienced professional in their field for about the same time frame as a student teacher.  The one financial perk:  Student teachers don't have to buy college textbooks.

I live near a major university, so freshmen and sophomores often come to my classroom to gain observation hours (and this is a good thing -- the classroom looks quite different from this side of the desk).  If they ask for practical advice, I often tell them that they should buy one professional outfit each semester (so they'll have a small professional wardrobe by their senior year), and they should put away money for that expensive student teaching semester. 

[SisterX]

liberal arts and music majors, we have enough of them, they in aggregate add very little to society.

is so fucking derogatory that my hands are shaking. I cannot believe the mods didn't call you out for this. Apparently it's unacceptable to insult people but insult an entire group of people without a basis in facts and call them a drag on society? Perfectly fucking acceptable.

Fuck your shitty attitude.

Also, this? This is me being polite about all of this so I don't get kicked off the forums. Remember that and think about what I might have said instead. You deserve it.

Wow, nice personal attacks. As an English major I would have hoped that you would have understood the nuance in the term "liberal arts and music majors". The term can refer to both the individuals undertaking the coursework OR the major/coursework itself. The latter was what I was referring to in the comment you quoted. There are plenty of wonderful productive people WITH liberal arts majors/degrees, but the majority of the people that get them and end up with decent paying jobs are in fields unrelated or tangential to the degree itself, and there are PLENTY of people with these degrees either under or unemployed.

I understood perfectly what you were implying, particularly since you spelled it out plenty of times.

And if you understood nuance as well as you think you do, you'd realize that I didn't put in a personal attack. I attacked your attitude, not you. And, not an entire category of people, either!

Please keep your outrage culture out of these forums, its one of the few places people can have civil discussions without name calling. If you want to debate any points I laid out feel free. If you want to be overly emotional and indirectly say "F you" to me, take it somewhere else.

Once again, I wasn't attacking you. I was saying that your original argument is the equivalent of trucknuts: unnecessary, unoriginal, and just kind of silly in a stupid way. Once again, I'm not attacking you. I'm saying that your argument was pointless and wrong, in addition to being rude. If you think that's outrage culture because you don't actually want to defend your argument, go for it. But you're wrong on all counts.

[Sailor Sam]

Ah, SisterX! Don't let the farenhitic crucible of the internet forum get you down. These brave new STEM posts always pop up, like multi coloured clockwork. Driving us down the road, to be decanted straight into utopia. Insisting the telescreen is certainly fpr your own benifit.

But it's all just agony, with no ecstatic David to greet you at the end of the bottom of the snow covered hill. Better to let such posts slide off your back, untroubled as a porcine residing on a sustainably maintained farm.

In other words, fuckin' English majors unite, eh?

[TheGrimSqueaker]

2.  The "fluff" is there to make the student a more well-rounded individual and be exposed to ideas that they may not have given their socioeconomic background or location they grew up in.  I am all for having more critical thinkers in society who can handle thinking about multiple subject matter areas simultaneously.  People that know only what they were raised with and with a narrow focus on their profession are probably not going to be the best citizens in a national / global sense.  That being said, I am all for a mandatory counseling session required for anyone taking out a federal loan to understand what their future income might be according to the BLS and showing them how long it will take to pay the loans back.  Hopefully that would keep folks from pinning all of their financial hopes and dreams on that creative writing degree.

That's a nice theory but it isn't what colleges and universities are actually doing. Independent thought and disagreement is actively squelched especially in the humanities courses where the only way to get a good grade is to agree with the instructor's political agenda. The result is that the student's perspective is not broadened, but narrowed. If there was any reasonable kind of "science" in the social sciences (as in, quantitative experimentation and an actual effort to structure experiments and research in a way that reduces or eliminates the effect of bias bias) or if it was organizationally acceptable to apply critical thinking to ALL theories and not simply to bash whoever or whatever is unpopular at the moment, then "fluff" courses might have a purpose.

That is not accurate, at all. I often disagreed with my instructors in college and found the social science professors to have no issue with it.  The key was actually understanding the material and having citations to back up your case.  It was not opinions but data that mattered. 
Someone walk in and said for example "US is a christian nation" and therefore "we should follow biblical laws", well no.  Your premise was inaccurate and yes the student got her grade lowered because her supporting documents did not exist.

That might be the case in economics, but not as much in history or English. I've seen too many cases where students were publicly excoriated for using the wrong word in a classroom discussion. One young man in particular used the word "clear" to describe understanding and got his grade lowered because the word had patriarchal associations. Until he publicly admitted that every word that came out of his mouth was an artifact of the patriarchal narrative, he could do no right in the class. Now I'm a big fan of understanding when privilege exists and taking it into account, but I see no merit in publicly browbeating a student who's actually trying to understand the material and who's operating in good faith. I've seen other instructors go after adult students for disagreeing about economic or historical events they lived through or were present at; history instructors can be bad for this. There's blatant favoritism, with marks taken off for a specific kind of error in one student's paper but another more favored student is not punished. It's as though the instructor truly didn't believe students ever talked to one another. Yet another made mandatory extracurricular volunteer work in a set of her favored charities a condition of participation in the course (which had nothing to do with charity admin., it was a speech course).

Not all professors are this way but it's sadly quite common. I've never noticed the same level of viciousness or vindictiveness in the maths or hard sciences.

[Step37]

I have not read much of this thread, but this FB post really made me laugh when it came across my feed.

[Just Joe]

Wages have been stagnant for much of the middle and lower class for the past 30 years while tuition and many more things have gone up. For many jobs that used to require a high school education now require a bachelors or master's without any corresponding pay increases. I think it is insane how much schooling a teacher has to go through for their relatively low level of pay.

Don't forget the absolute disdain that has been ingrained into our society when it comes to teachers. Nothing like busting your ass for 4-5 years, maintaining a 3.0+  as a requirement for staying in the program, passing extremely difficult state certification boards, and student teaching for at least a semester *, before you get your low paying job.

 Once you get a job and become part of the community,  you get to attend community functions and hear others (who think you are just another mom at soccer practice) as they bitch about what a lazy POS you are, how you're grossly overpaid, how it's YOUR pension that is killing the state budget, and you only work a few months a year. The fact that most of these chucklenuts would wash out in the first year of an education degree doesn't seem to be mentioned as the bitch to each other, LOL.

The schooling never ends in some jurisdictions. About two decades ago we had a radical right wing governor who wasn't able to fuck over the public school teachers as hard as he wanted, so he settled for extreme levels of mandated continuing education. What he didn't take in to account is that this continuing ed. is easily acquired at many universities, who then designed masters degree including the requirements. He also failed to think about the fact that most districts pay for the cost of these courses, and have graduated pay scales that richly reward additional degrees  My wife was an elementary/special ed. teacher. She was forced to take so much asinine continuing education that, when she retired early, she had a dual certification bachelors in ed, a masters, and sixty additional credits.  She could of  continued for a doctorate, but it only paid an additional $600/yr. so it didn't pencil out.  All in, she doesn't hesitate to steer any young person that asks, to avoid the whole educational circus. 

* Which is totally bizarre in of itself, you provide your own transportation to a job off campus, you work for free for at least a semester, you pay full tuition for the pleasure of working for free, and you provide free labor to a school, that school teams you up with a seasoned teacher who is coaching you for free, while the university is collecting thousands of dollars.

What an eyeroller!

Can anyone explain why the GOP seems to repeatedly "go after" the education mechanism/establishment? Its not perfect of course but what is the conservative objection to getting an education?

[ingrownstudentloans]

What an eyeroller!

Can anyone explain why the GOP seems to repeatedly "go after" the education mechanism/establishment? Its not perfect of course but what is the conservative objection to getting an education?

I think it is the idea of a national department of education.  If you look at the $$$ sent to DC to fund the DOE, and the $ sent back to the states if the states implement certain programs (e.g. testing), the amount that is lost to the DC washing machine is, itself, a large amount.  If you then calculate the $$$ that it costs the states to implement the required programs to receive their own $ back, the money lost chasing the smaller dollar amount is another large amount.  I forget the actual numbers but its something like $.62 returned to local schools for every $1.00 sent to DC, not sure if that included implied cost of running the required programs to receive the money back or not.

Also, the education system it is perceived (right or otherwise) to be run by democrats.  I believe the states that allow teachers to opt out of union dues are doing half of the right thing.  I also believe that public unions should not be able to make political donations from compulsory union dues - if they want to provide an additional donation bundling service, that would be another thing.  If teacher's unions stopped forcing members to pay dues that would then be used to fund politicians, I do not think there would be as much dislike for the education system by the GOP...maybe

[paddedhat]

The GOP hatred of public ed. has reached a new low with the horrific POS,  DeVos, at DOE. She is nothing but an obscenely wealthy, radical evangelical warrior on a mission. The mission is converting public ed. into a vehicle to force religious extremism on the children of America. She is proud of her efforts, and of the billions of dollars she has behind the effort. She has been a destructive force in Michigan's ed. system, and a disaster for Detroit. If she was a Muslim with the same religious bent, she would be in Guantanamo by now, but Christian extremism is  perfectly acceptable in our country.  Apparently we now just ignore silly things like the constitution, and separation of church and state.

[Gin1984]

What an eyeroller!

Can anyone explain why the GOP seems to repeatedly "go after" the education mechanism/establishment? Its not perfect of course but what is the conservative objection to getting an education?

I think it is the idea of a national department of education.  If you look at the $$$ sent to DC to fund the DOE, and the $ sent back to the states if the states implement certain programs (e.g. testing), the amount that is lost to the DC washing machine is, itself, a large amount.  If you then calculate the $$$ that it costs the states to implement the required programs to receive their own $ back, the money lost chasing the smaller dollar amount is another large amount.  I forget the actual numbers but its something like $.62 returned to local schools for every $1.00 sent to DC, not sure if that included implied cost of running the required programs to receive the money back or not.

Also, the education system it is perceived (right or otherwise) to be run by democrats.  I believe the states that allow teachers to opt out of union dues are doing half of the right thing.  I also believe that public unions should not be able to make political donations from compulsory union dues - if they want to provide an additional donation bundling service, that would be another thing.  If teacher's unions stopped forcing members to pay dues that would then be used to fund politicians, I do not think there would be as much dislike for the education system by the GOP...maybe

No Union is forcing members to pay dues that are used to fund politicans.  All unions allow you to require that portion to go to a different charity.  In addition, the union members actually vote on ANY endorsements in almost every union I am aware of.  The endorsements are there to benefit the union members, just like everything else that the dues fund.  And the idea that people should get the benefits of the union, without paying for it is rediculous.   

[SisterX]

Ah, SisterX! Don't let the farenhitic crucible of the internet forum get you down. These brave new STEM posts always pop up, like multi coloured clockwork. Driving us down the road, to be decanted straight into utopia. Insisting the telescreen is certainly fpr your own benifit.

But it's all just agony, with no ecstatic David to greet you at the end of the bottom of the snow covered hill. Better to let such posts slide off your back, untroubled as a porcine residing on a sustainably maintained farm.

In other words, fuckin' English majors unite, eh?

You are quite right, but I can't resist. I want to help those with infantile black-and-white thinking elevate their standards and to educate them into more wisdom! I can't help it. I guess it's a failing of mine?

Plus, the first insult really, REALLY pissed me off. Don't contribute anything to fucking society? And then to have a statement that's basically "and some, I assume, are good people" set me off even further. That's a level of stupid that I probably should have left alone, but he's wrong and I had to say he's wrong.

Considering the number of messages I've gotten from people saying, "Thank god, what a moron," I'm not alone in this.

[gimp]

There are a thousand articles written about frugality, and they're largely ignored. One fucktard writes about how the dumb millennials are spending all their money on avocado, and it generates enough eyeballs (and rage) that every fucking 'news' site references it. Well done, guys, you made a thread about idiocy.

[Nangirl17]

Avocado is probably my favorite food of all time. I literally got my Costco membership so I could buy my avocados in bulk there. I'd like to have an avocado tree one day, but that is an investment that won't pay off for some time yet.

Avocado toast will come and go, but I'll still be eating avocado cheese sandwiches (sometimes with a fried egg) for breakfast long after.

Have you ever tried eggs benedict with a slice of avocado? My husband introduced these to me when we first married. Yu-hu-hum.
He calls them "avocadeggs"

[Cranky]

Am I the only one that went and bought an avocado to make avocado toast because of this article? It was delicious!

I know! I'd never even heard of avocado toast before this kerfluffle, but I bought extra avocados this week and will bake some nice seedy bread this week, too.

I see no evidence, overall, that life is Much Harder today than it used to be, but it's always hard to be starting out and making big decisions that will stick with you for the rest of your life.

My 3 kids are millennials. They've all gotten a debt free college education, and all seem to be employable. Also, pretty thrifty.

[exterous]

I think it is unreasonable to expect a bunch of CHILDREN to be able to make responsible decisions like this that impact the rest of their lives without guidance. I mean seriously, in May you have to raise you hand and ask permission to go pee and suddenly in September you are expected to make life-changing decisions about majors and career paths and debt that will follow you for decades to come? Something doesn't add up. We need to do a better job (society, schools, counselors, parents, everyone) talking about options and the impacts of choices in advance and while these decisions are being made.

As a fellow older millennial ('86 here), I agree with you completely here. I think the fix for this is for govt student loans to ONLY be given out for in-demand majors that lead to ACTUAL JOBS that have a likelihood of creating enough wealth for them to be paid back! The govt should not be in the business of subsidizing liberal arts and music majors, we have enough of them, they in aggregate add very little to society. If after you work a real career in a STEM field or as a professional in another in demand, well paying field, you save up enough money to do one of the goofy cultural studies majors or major in trombone playing, go for it. These majors should only exist for those that have the means to pay for them without burdening society.

I think changing how government subsidizes loans would be a blunt tool trying to force an adjustment in one area because a different area is broken. Legislative action is slow, clumsy and is rarely adjusted to reflect reality as the world changes too often leading to a host of unintended consequences. I think its a poor tool to use especially when its the very politicians themselves perpetuating the college 'problem'. For example Cuomo is on record saying "College is a mandatory step if you want to be a success". I would think that would be a slap in the face to many, including successful business owners, who now find out they aren't successful because they didn't go to college but it largely flew under the radar. This mantra is pervasive and reinforced across our culture. In sitcoms involving families there is almost always the inevitable show(s) about getting into college and how all the kids have to get in. There was a Modern Family episode where a dark cloud hung over the entire family because one of the kid's hadn't gotten an acceptance letter yet and no one knew what dark and terrible thing would happen if that letter never came.

If we fix the 'everyone has to go to college' mentality and remove degree requirements from jobs that don't need them I suspect the problem will unwind itself

That might be the case in economics, but not as much in history or English. I've seen too many cases where students were publicly excoriated for using the wrong word in a classroom discussion. One young man in particular used the word "clear" to describe understanding and got his grade lowered because the word had patriarchal associations. Until he publicly admitted that every word that came out of his mouth was an artifact of the patriarchal narrative, he could do no right in the class. Now I'm a big fan of understanding when privilege exists and taking it into account, but I see no merit in publicly browbeating a student who's actually trying to understand the material and who's operating in good faith. I've seen other instructors go after adult students for disagreeing about economic or historical events they lived through or were present at; history instructors can be bad for this. There's blatant favoritism, with marks taken off for a specific kind of error in one student's paper but another more favored student is not punished. It's as though the instructor truly didn't believe students ever talked to one another. Yet another made mandatory extracurricular volunteer work in a set of her favored charities a condition of participation in the course (which had nothing to do with charity admin., it was a speech course).

Not all professors are this way but it's sadly quite common. I've never noticed the same level of viciousness or vindictiveness in the maths or hard sciences.

I'd be curious to know what you base the 'quite common' on as it doesn't match my experience. I'll certainly admit that I don't have any studies to back up my claim but I suspect you don't either beyond potentially some personal experience or articles about a minority of cases at specific schools (But I would be interested in reading your supporting information if I am wrong). FWIW my company works works with numerous Universities and colleges from the small and unknown to ones whose names everyone recognizes and we interact frequently with employees across the University job spectrum both in and out of the classroom. I've seen more than a few classroom debates, including many at schools that really should bold the Liberal in Liberal Arts, and its been my experience that what you describe exists in only a very tiny minority of classes. Frankly I see it just as often in the hard sciences if someone doesn't come up with the 'right' answer

[Just Joe]

Am I the only one that went and bought an avocado to make avocado toast because of this article? It was delicious!

I know! I'd never even heard of avocado toast before this kerfluffle, but I bought extra avocados this week and will bake some nice seedy bread this week, too.

I see no evidence, overall, that life is Much Harder today than it used to be, but it's always hard to be starting out and making big decisions that will stick with you for the rest of your life.

My 3 kids are millennials. They've all gotten a debt free college education, and all seem to be employable. Also, pretty thrifty.

Yum! What would a kerfluffle taste like? j/k

[maizefolk]

That's a nice theory but it isn't what colleges and universities are actually doing. Independent thought and disagreement is actively squelched especially in the humanities courses where the only way to get a good grade is to agree with the instructor's political agenda. The result is that the student's perspective is not broadened, but narrowed. If there was any reasonable kind of "science" in the social sciences (as in, quantitative experimentation and an actual effort to structure experiments and research in a way that reduces or eliminates the effect of bias bias) or if it was organizationally acceptable to apply critical thinking to ALL theories and not simply to bash whoever or whatever is unpopular at the moment, then "fluff" courses might have a purpose.

That is not accurate, at all. I often disagreed with my instructors in college and found the social science professors to have no issue with it.  The key was actually understanding the material and having citations to back up your case.  It was not opinions but data that mattered. 
Someone walk in and said for example "US is a christian nation" and therefore "we should follow biblical laws", well no.  Your premise was inaccurate and yes the student got her grade lowered because her supporting documents did not exist.

That might be the case in economics, but not as much in history or English. I've seen too many cases where students were publicly excoriated for using the wrong word in a classroom discussion. One young man in particular used the word "clear" to describe understanding and got his grade lowered because the word had patriarchal associations. Until he publicly admitted that every word that came out of his mouth was an artifact of the patriarchal narrative, he could do no right in the class. Now I'm a big fan of understanding when privilege exists and taking it into account, but I see no merit in publicly browbeating a student who's actually trying to understand the material and who's operating in good faith. I've seen other instructors go after adult students for disagreeing about economic or historical events they lived through or were present at; history instructors can be bad for this. There's blatant favoritism, with marks taken off for a specific kind of error in one student's paper but another more favored student is not punished. It's as though the instructor truly didn't believe students ever talked to one another. Yet another made mandatory extracurricular volunteer work in a set of her favored charities a condition of participation in the course (which had nothing to do with charity admin., it was a speech course).

Not all professors are this way but it's sadly quite common. I've never noticed the same level of viciousness or vindictiveness in the maths or hard sciences.

TGS & Gin, I think part of the miscommunication above may be the result of lumping the humanities (think literary theory, musicology, philosophy, pretty much any two word field where the second word is "studies") and the social sciences (political science, economics, linguistics, psychology, etc) together.

In my experience humanities are as different from the social sciences as the social sciences are from the hard sciences. Basically the farther you get away from being able to either run an experiment or consult a dataset to test a dissenting idea, the less tolerant people become of dissenting ideas.*

Even in, say, biology, subfields like ecology (where it is slow and expensive to collect data and it is hard to conduct clean experiments without confounding variables) devote a lot more time and passion to arguing and fighting about sacred cows than subfields like genetics (where it is generally simpler to design and conduct experiments that cleanly test models and hypotheses).

*This is an incredibly broad generalization and there are certainly some great profs who do the incredibly hard and important work teaching students HOW to think, not just WHAT to think in any field you care to name from religious studies to particle physics.

[zolotiyeruki]

I think changing how government subsidizes loans would be a blunt tool trying to force an adjustment in one area because a different area is broken. Legislative action is slow, clumsy and is rarely adjusted to reflect reality as the world changes too often leading to a host of unintended consequences. I think its a poor tool to use especially when its the very politicians themselves perpetuating the college 'problem'. For example Cuomo is on record saying "College is a mandatory step if you want to be a success". I would think that would be a slap in the face to many, including successful business owners, who now find out they aren't successful because they didn't go to college but it largely flew under the radar. This mantra is pervasive and reinforced across our culture. In sitcoms involving families there is almost always the inevitable show(s) about getting into college and how all the kids have to get in. There was a Modern Family episode where a dark cloud hung over the entire family because one of the kid's hadn't gotten an acceptance letter yet and no one knew what dark and terrible thing would happen if that letter never came.

If we fix the 'everyone has to go to college' mentality and remove degree requirements from jobs that don't need them I suspect the problem will unwind itself

I would argue that student loan subsidies have made the problem dramatically worse.  After all, even the government (or, perhaps especially the government) is subject to the laws of supply and demand.  Throw more money at student loans, and you get more student loans.  Earmark more money to help kids pay for college, and you get higher tuition.  What has resulted is a larger number of college graduates with an arguably lower-quality education.  The result is a devaluation of a college degree.

I think also that K-12 education has become devalued--there has been a huge shift in emphasis away from trades and towards academics in high school, and high school graduates are less prepared now to enter the "real" world than they were a few decades ago.  I get the feeling also that kids today are involved in waaaaay more extracurriculars than past generations.  When I was a kid, only a few of my upper-middle-class peers did (expensive) travel sports teams.  Nowadays, it seems like everyone is doing it.

Those two factors have really paved the way for college degrees to be required for lower-skilled jobs.  When high school grads aren't as capable as they used to be, and when there's a glut of college graduates looking for work, it makes sense for a business to have more stringent job qualifications.

[Gin1984]

That's a nice theory but it isn't what colleges and universities are actually doing. Independent thought and disagreement is actively squelched especially in the humanities courses where the only way to get a good grade is to agree with the instructor's political agenda. The result is that the student's perspective is not broadened, but narrowed. If there was any reasonable kind of "science" in the social sciences (as in, quantitative experimentation and an actual effort to structure experiments and research in a way that reduces or eliminates the effect of bias bias) or if it was organizationally acceptable to apply critical thinking to ALL theories and not simply to bash whoever or whatever is unpopular at the moment, then "fluff" courses might have a purpose.

That is not accurate, at all. I often disagreed with my instructors in college and found the social science professors to have no issue with it.  The key was actually understanding the material and having citations to back up your case.  It was not opinions but data that mattered. 
Someone walk in and said for example "US is a christian nation" and therefore "we should follow biblical laws", well no.  Your premise was inaccurate and yes the student got her grade lowered because her supporting documents did not exist.

That might be the case in economics, but not as much in history or English. I've seen too many cases where students were publicly excoriated for using the wrong word in a classroom discussion. One young man in particular used the word "clear" to describe understanding and got his grade lowered because the word had patriarchal associations. Until he publicly admitted that every word that came out of his mouth was an artifact of the patriarchal narrative, he could do no right in the class. Now I'm a big fan of understanding when privilege exists and taking it into account, but I see no merit in publicly browbeating a student who's actually trying to understand the material and who's operating in good faith. I've seen other instructors go after adult students for disagreeing about economic or historical events they lived through or were present at; history instructors can be bad for this. There's blatant favoritism, with marks taken off for a specific kind of error in one student's paper but another more favored student is not punished. It's as though the instructor truly didn't believe students ever talked to one another. Yet another made mandatory extracurricular volunteer work in a set of her favored charities a condition of participation in the course (which had nothing to do with charity admin., it was a speech course).

Not all professors are this way but it's sadly quite common. I've never noticed the same level of viciousness or vindictiveness in the maths or hard sciences.

TGS & Gin, I think part of the miscommunication above may be the result of lumping the humanities (think literary theory, musicology, philosophy, pretty much any two word field where the second word is "studies") and the social sciences (political science, economics, linguistics, psychology, etc) together.

In my experience humanities are as different from the social sciences as the social sciences are from the hard sciences. Basically the farther you get away from being able to either run an experiment or consult a dataset to test a dissenting idea, the less tolerant people become of dissenting ideas.*

Even in, say, biology, subfields like ecology (where it is slow and expensive to collect data and it is hard to conduct clean experiments without confounding variables) devote a lot more time and passion to arguing and fighting about sacred cows than subfields like genetics (where it is generally simpler to design and conduct experiments that cleanly test models and hypotheses).

*This is an incredibly broad generalization and there are certainly some great profs who do the incredibly hard and important work teaching students HOW to think, not just WHAT to think in any field you care to name from religious studies to particle physics.

I do believe that he is combining the humanities with social science.  However, I don't think it is a miscommunication.  If you are so ignorant that you think those two groups are equivalent, your opinion on those teaching those subjects should be suspect.  I think the statement shows a profound lack of understanding of teaching at the college level and of the work it requires as a student and as a professor.

[A Definite Beta Guy]

Those two factors have really paved the way for college degrees to be required for lower-skilled jobs.  When high school grads aren't as capable as they used to be, and when there's a glut of college graduates looking for work, it makes sense for a business to have more stringent job qualifications.

Yup, I suspect we're never going back to the old days. We're in an equilibrium. If you're a business, there's no incentive to hire non-college grads when you have such a huge pool of college grads. So if you're a young adult, there's little incentive to not go to college, because you'll never make it past that initial filter (and even if you do, you won't be promotable).

Only the federal government is big enough to change the game.

[exterous]

I think changing how government subsidizes loans would be a blunt tool trying to force an adjustment in one area because a different area is broken. Legislative action is slow, clumsy and is rarely adjusted to reflect reality as the world changes too often leading to a host of unintended consequences. I think its a poor tool to use especially when its the very politicians themselves perpetuating the college 'problem'. For example Cuomo is on record saying "College is a mandatory step if you want to be a success". I would think that would be a slap in the face to many, including successful business owners, who now find out they aren't successful because they didn't go to college but it largely flew under the radar. This mantra is pervasive and reinforced across our culture. In sitcoms involving families there is almost always the inevitable show(s) about getting into college and how all the kids have to get in. There was a Modern Family episode where a dark cloud hung over the entire family because one of the kid's hadn't gotten an acceptance letter yet and no one knew what dark and terrible thing would happen if that letter never came.

If we fix the 'everyone has to go to college' mentality and remove degree requirements from jobs that don't need them I suspect the problem will unwind itself

I would argue that student loan subsidies have made the problem dramatically worse.  After all, even the government (or, perhaps especially the government) is subject to the laws of supply and demand.  Throw more money at student loans, and you get more student loans.  Earmark more money to help kids pay for college, and you get higher tuition.  What has resulted is a larger number of college graduates with an arguably lower-quality education.  The result is a devaluation of a college degree.

The number of subsidized loans is dwarfed by non-subsidized loans (Approx $270B vs $1.1T) although I would agree easy money compounds the issue. I don't think getting the government out of the loan business or to change how they loan is going to help much. There are already caps on the amount that people can borrow from the government and there seems to be a general trend of, when that limit is reached, they move on to the private sector. Given that loans are not dis-chargeable in bankruptcy there is a huge incentive for the private sector to fill any void the government creates by vacating the market.

You could say 'change the law!' regarding college loans but that is why we are in the position where people are saddled with non-dischargeable debt. Enough people were racking up large loans and then declaring bankruptcy that the pendulum was shoved to the other extreme by legislative action. A refining of the laws would be useful but, given past examples, I don't trust that government to not create a hazard of unintended consequences.

I think also that K-12 education has become devalued--there has been a huge shift in emphasis away from trades and towards academics in high school, and high school graduates are less prepared now to enter the "real" world than they were a few decades ago.

I think the perceived value of K-12 education has gone down but I'm not sure the actual education opportunity has. I'm not quite sure what you are referring to in terms of getting them ready to enter the "real" world but I don't think there has been any major swings in covered content in the last 20 years or so. Trade electives are certainly scarcer but I'd be surprised if a large chunk of kids took those 20 years ago. (But I could be wrong). Many of what I would consider "real world" education topics have long been under the purview of parents although there has been a shift in having the school deal with those despite them being less equipped to* (Behavior, finance, summer job searches etc)

*Taking finance as an example there are quite a few studies that show a few school classes have little to no effect on the overall financial stability or even knowledge of people. What has been shown to be effective is to consistently reinforce values over the course of many years. Despite this there is still a push for schools to provide a service that would be much more effective if parents provided it. I understand that not every parent is equipped to provide it but the conversation is still 'how schools can do it' as opposed to 'how parents can do it'.

[zolotiyeruki]

The number of subsidized loans is dwarfed by non-subsidized loans (Approx $270B vs $1.1T) although I would agree easy money compounds the issue. I don't think getting the government out of the loan business or to change how they loan is going to help much. There are already caps on the amount that people can borrow from the government and there seems to be a general trend of, when that limit is reached, they move on to the private sector. Given that loans are not dis-chargeable in bankruptcy there is a huge incentive for the private sector to fill any void the government creates by vacating the market.

Sorry, when I said "subsidized," I wasn't referring to the official term, where the gov't pays the interest while you're in school.  I meant "subsidized" as in "loaning money at below-market rates" as it applies to all undergrad student loans.  The ready availability of low-interest loans, IMO, is one of the major drivers for skyrocketing college costs and enrollment in less-marketable programs.

*Taking finance as an example there are quite a few studies that show a few school classes have little to no effect on the overall financial stability or even knowledge of people. What has been shown to be effective is to consistently reinforce values over the course of many years. Despite this there is still a push for schools to provide a service that would be much more effective if parents provided it. I understand that not every parent is equipped to provide it but the conversation is still 'how schools can do it' as opposed to 'how parents can do it'.

Can you provide a reference for that?  My dad is on a school board, and adding a financial literacy class is something they're considering.  If there's a proven lack of effectiveness, I'd like to pass that information on.

[ingrownstudentloans]

No Union is forcing members to pay dues that are used to fund politicans.  All unions allow you to require that portion to go to a different charity.  In addition, the union members actually vote on ANY endorsements in almost every union I am aware of.  The endorsements are there to benefit the union members, just like everything else that the dues fund.  And the idea that people should get the benefits of the union, without paying for it is rediculous.

Not entirely accurate - In PA you can elect to have your dues go to a charity ONLY if you have valid religious objections (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426949/dues-democrats-jillian-kay-melchior).  And dues ARE used to fund politicians (https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/issues/detail/political-spending-by-government-unions-during-the-2014-election).

Maybe endorsements are for the "benefit" of the members, but what if certain members object to the candidates?  In non-right-to-work states, they have to pay dues or they don't have their job.

[paddedhat]

No Union is forcing members to pay dues that are used to fund politicans.  All unions allow you to require that portion to go to a different charity.  In addition, the union members actually vote on ANY endorsements in almost every union I am aware of.  The endorsements are there to benefit the union members, just like everything else that the dues fund.  And the idea that people should get the benefits of the union, without paying for it is rediculous.

Not entirely accurate - In PA you can elect to have your dues go to a charity ONLY if you have valid religious objections (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426949/dues-democrats-jillian-kay-melchior).  And dues ARE used to fund politicians (https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/issues/detail/political-spending-by-government-unions-during-the-2014-election).

Maybe endorsements are for the "benefit" of the members, but what if certain members object to the candidates?  In non-right-to-work states, they have to pay dues or they don't have their job.

Oh the horror of having to put some skin in the game for better pay, benefits and working conditions.  MY DW and a good friend started teaching together in the early 1980s. The friend went to a rural area in a right to work southern state. She started at roughly half the salary my wife made, working in PA. She finished with roughly 2/3rd the pay. Her pension is just over half  what my DW's is. The friend was constantly spending hundreds of dollars a year in school supplies for kids who were too poor to afford things that were taken for granted in schools in the northeast (pencils, paper, notebooks, etc....)  DW got about $4k in accumulated sick days vested in a 403 plan, the friend got $5/day for hers, about $175. The friend worked in two rural areas that are essentially still segregated, the schools systems suck, and the white folk, those who are anything but dirt poor, send their kids to private school. Naturally, even thinking about unionizing in a southern shithole system like that would get you fired, but at least they didn't pay dues to support 'dem awful liberals.

[Gin1984]

No Union is forcing members to pay dues that are used to fund politicans.  All unions allow you to require that portion to go to a different charity.  In addition, the union members actually vote on ANY endorsements in almost every union I am aware of.  The endorsements are there to benefit the union members, just like everything else that the dues fund.  And the idea that people should get the benefits of the union, without paying for it is rediculous.

Not entirely accurate - In PA you can elect to have your dues go to a charity ONLY if you have valid religious objections (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426949/dues-democrats-jillian-kay-melchior).  And dues ARE used to fund politicians (https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/issues/detail/political-spending-by-government-unions-during-the-2014-election).

Maybe endorsements are for the "benefit" of the members, but what if certain members object to the candidates?  In non-right-to-work states, they have to pay dues or they don't have their job.

If certain members object, they can vote for a different candidate.  And no, legally you cannot base it soley on religious objections because that would be against the federal constitution.  Try to look up information without major bias. 
They pay dues for their benefits, and yes, they can chose to not to fund politicans and donate to another charity.  But yes, the union gets to limit which charities because that was the compermise reached.  Regardless, a member should pay for the benefits the union gives them.

[exterous]

The number of subsidized loans is dwarfed by non-subsidized loans (Approx $270B vs $1.1T) although I would agree easy money compounds the issue. I don't think getting the government out of the loan business or to change how they loan is going to help much. There are already caps on the amount that people can borrow from the government and there seems to be a general trend of, when that limit is reached, they move on to the private sector. Given that loans are not dis-chargeable in bankruptcy there is a huge incentive for the private sector to fill any void the government creates by vacating the market.

Sorry, when I said "subsidized," I wasn't referring to the official term, where the gov't pays the interest while you're in school.  I meant "subsidized" as in "loaning money at below-market rates" as it applies to all undergrad student loans.  The ready availability of low-interest loans, IMO, is one of the major drivers for skyrocketing college costs and enrollment in less-marketable programs.

Depending on your credit you can actually get private student loan rates below what the government charges. That won't always be the case and there are repayment differences to consider but government loans are not significantly different than market rate for many people. Even if there were there doesn't seem to be much support for the idea that notably higher interest rates dissuades enrollment

*Taking finance as an example there are quite a few studies that show a few school classes have little to no effect on the overall financial stability or even knowledge of people. What has been shown to be effective is to consistently reinforce values over the course of many years. Despite this there is still a push for schools to provide a service that would be much more effective if parents provided it. I understand that not every parent is equipped to provide it but the conversation is still 'how schools can do it' as opposed to 'how parents can do it'.

Can you provide a reference for that?  My dad is on a school board, and adding a financial literacy class is something they're considering.  If there's a proven lack of effectiveness, I'd like to pass that information on.

Sure. Here's joint effort by a Harvard Economist and Chicago Fed where they find no effect of traditional financial classes on outcome:
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/13-064_c7b52fa0-1242-4420-b9b6-73d32c639826.pdf

http://www.nefe.org/Portals/0/WhatWeProvide/PrimaryResearch/PDF/CU%20Final%20Report.pdf

We conduct a metaanalysis of the effects of financial literacy and of financial education on financial behavior in 155
papers covering 188 prior studies. We find that interventions to improve financial literacy explain only 0.1% of the variance in financial behavior

https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/docs/pubs/Two%20Cheers.pdf

Currently, about 20 percent of US high school graduates complete a semester-length course
in personal finance. Unfortunately, five consecutive surveys by the Jump$tart Coalition have
found no evidence that teaching personal finance in high schools has improved students’
ability to understand and use financial information. Many hypotheses have been advanced
to explain the lack of success in teaching personal finance at the high school level.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21571883-financial-education-has-had-disappointing-results-past-teacher-leave-them

A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (see sources below) reported that: “Unfortunately, we do not find conclusive evidence that, in general, financial education programmes do lead to greater financial knowledge and ultimately to better financial behaviour.”

This is especially the case when children are taught the subject at school, often well before they have to deal with the issues personally. Surveys by the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a campaign group, found that American students who had taken courses in personal finance or money management were no more financially literate than those who had not. A detailed survey of students from a Midwestern state found that those who had not taken a financial course were more likely to pay their credit card in full every month (avoiding fees and charges) than those who had actually studied the subject.

Many of those also include initial support for frequently reinforced behavioral\habit forming or 'Just In Time' education but both of those are tough for schools to handle. Here are some of the pros and cons of Just In Time financial education:
http://business.time.com/2013/10/25/financial-education-is-all-the-rage-but-does-it-work/

Additional support for the role of parents:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/kids-money/article321745/By-age-7-most-financial-habits-have-been-formed.html


Part of the problem appears to be language based:
https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money

[ingrownstudentloans]

If certain members object, they can vote for a different candidate. 

Thank goodness that retain their constitutional right to think and vote outside of the union mandate (just don't let the union bosses find out, right???)

And no, legally you cannot base it soley on religious objections because that would be against the federal constitution.

Citation?  Supreme Court case? Credentials?

Try to look up information without major bias. 

 

I just did a quick google search and cited to some articles that supported the points I was making.  Sorry I did not curate my citations for your peer review objections.  Next time I will spend more time proving where you were incorrect in your post.

 

They pay dues for their benefits, and yes, they can chose to not to fund politicans and donate to another charity. . . Regardless, a member should pay for the benefits the union gives them.

 

You keep going to this - I never said they shouldn't pay for benefits received.  If they opt out (in the states in which they are allowed), they should not get the benefits.  I agree.  But they should not be essentially forced to opt out by allowing the union to co-opt what should be their goals (negotiating local teacher contracts and representing them in front of the administration) from their real goals (political power).
 

[zolotiyeruki]

...

Whew, thanks for such a thorough response!

[TheGrimSqueaker]

That might be the case in economics, but not as much in history or English. I've seen too many cases where students were publicly excoriated for using the wrong word in a classroom discussion. One young man in particular used the word "clear" to describe understanding and got his grade lowered because the word had patriarchal associations. Until he publicly admitted that every word that came out of his mouth was an artifact of the patriarchal narrative, he could do no right in the class. Now I'm a big fan of understanding when privilege exists and taking it into account, but I see no merit in publicly browbeating a student who's actually trying to understand the material and who's operating in good faith. I've seen other instructors go after adult students for disagreeing about economic or historical events they lived through or were present at; history instructors can be bad for this. There's blatant favoritism, with marks taken off for a specific kind of error in one student's paper but another more favored student is not punished. It's as though the instructor truly didn't believe students ever talked to one another. Yet another made mandatory extracurricular volunteer work in a set of her favored charities a condition of participation in the course (which had nothing to do with charity admin., it was a speech course).

Not all professors are this way but it's sadly quite common. I've never noticed the same level of viciousness or vindictiveness in the maths or hard sciences.

I'd be curious to know what you base the 'quite common' on as it doesn't match my experience. I'll certainly admit that I don't have any studies to back up my claim but I suspect you don't either beyond potentially some personal experience or articles about a minority of cases at specific schools (But I would be interested in reading your supporting information if I am wrong). FWIW my company works works with numerous Universities and colleges from the small and unknown to ones whose names everyone recognizes and we interact frequently with employees across the University job spectrum both in and out of the classroom. I've seen more than a few classroom debates, including many at schools that really should bold the Liberal in Liberal Arts, and its been my experience that what you describe exists in only a very tiny minority of classes. Frankly I see it just as often in the hard sciences if someone doesn't come up with the 'right' answer

I'm peripherally involved in academics because of some of my job duties and social contacts. Many of my friends have kids in school full-time at the undergraduate level, some of my friends teach university for a living or for kicks as a side gig, and I occasionally take university or community college courses either to learn a new skill or for personal enrichment. So I've been watching trends in higher education both directly and indirectly for the last 25 years or so. Rubric-based grading and student feedback initiatives have helped grading become something besides an arbitrary exercise, but sadly, I'm still seeing cases where students are reprimanded or publicly shamed by the instructor for either presenting a cogent and respectful argument based on reliable evidence, or for questioning the reliability of evidence presented to them.

Here are a few pretty high-profile cases that don't rely on my personal anecdotes. These went way beyond debate-stifling and in some there was a component of escalation from the student's side. I got them from a basic Google search and picked a few responses from sources that weren't ultra-dubious. Pattern-wise it looks to me more like individual professors behaving like immature jerks.

http://www.centralfloridapost.com/2017/03/31/polston-reinstated-after-muslim-professors-claims-debunked-by-rollins/

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/15/sacramento-state-student-says-she-was-kicked-out-class-arguing-native-americans-were

http://www.chicagonow.com/dennis-byrnes-barbershop/2016/11/an-update-on-john-mcadams-marquette-university-prof-punished-for-defending-a-students-right-to-disagree/


Here's a book with a slightly contradictory argument that suggest campuses are more balanced than critics might think and that systematic oppression of differing points of view isn't a universally serious problem:

https://books.google.com/books?id=9WEeCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT243&lpg=PT243&dq=university+student+punished+for+disagreement+with+professor&source=bl&ots=nGIgQm3LOa&sig=o1iCWkFKSy7RdRIkc_uT7Pquzu8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiczt3hn4bUAhWJh1QKHbUtBaA4ChDoAQgwMAM#v=onepage&q=conservative&f=false

[iris lily]

...posting to follow discussion abput public education on personal finance...

[iris lily]

Yes, many things are better today than they used to be. That doesn't mean everything today is better than it used to be -- and the generation whining about Millennials is the generation that raised them.  Who's to blame?

My point:  Millennials tend to whine about the things that are worse, while ignoring the things that're better.  It's a lack of perspective. 

No one's whining about Millennials; rather, we're laughing at the posturing about the world's injustices.  In reality, Millennials have a tough road in some ways ... but they're not in a no-win position, as some like to pretend. 

I'm actually a huge fan of streaming kids into those groups especially if there's some kind of apprenticeship program that results in kids being transformed into competent adults.

Thing is, you go take Education 101, and you'll learn in a hurry that's called Tracking, and it's B-A-D, BAD.  In all honesty, it's what was done back in the late 60s -70s, and it was done poorly then.  Kids from middle class families were put into the upper class (even if they weren't too bright), while kids with non-white skin were put into the lower tracks.  Worst of all, once you were put in a track, you STAYED in that track, even if you were a late bloomer who really could've been in the college-bound group. 

I agree that it would've been wise to keep Tracking ... but manage it better.  Look at standardized testing plus year-long grades and teacher recommendations.  Include parents in the decision, but don't allow for unrealistic options.  Allow for movement between tracks.  But it'll never happen.  The educational system is too strongly against it.

Thanks for that summary of tracking. I had wondered  what happened to it, and assumed it was one of those educational trends that went by the wayside. Doesnt it still exist n some form, though, with the this called AP classes? Do I have that term right?

In my high school, which kids went in which track wasnt so easy to deliniate since we all had white skin. I guess our teachers had to work a little harder to make those decisions.

[BreakTheChains]

Ah, SisterX! Don't let the farenhitic crucible of the internet forum get you down. These brave new STEM posts always pop up, like multi coloured clockwork. Driving us down the road, to be decanted straight into utopia. Insisting the telescreen is certainly fpr your own benifit.

But it's all just agony, with no ecstatic David to greet you at the end of the bottom of the snow covered hill. Better to let such posts slide off your back, untroubled as a porcine residing on a sustainably maintained farm.

In other words, fuckin' English majors unite, eh?

You are quite right, but I can't resist. I want to help those with infantile black-and-white thinking elevate their standards and to educate them into more wisdom! I can't help it. I guess it's a failing of mine?

Plus, the first insult really, REALLY pissed me off. Don't contribute anything to fucking society? And then to have a statement that's basically "and some, I assume, are good people" set me off even further. That's a level of stupid that I probably should have left alone, but he's wrong and I had to say he's wrong.

Considering the number of messages I've gotten from people saying, "Thank god, what a moron," I'm not alone in this.

You're showing your true colors by AGAIN posting more insults indirectly calling me a moron after misquoting me yet again. You have not addressed ANY of my points and continue to attack me personally without repercussions, but I refuse to sink to your level. I'm guessing you have some moderator friends considering you've got thousands of posts here and can insult me with impunity. I just want to thank all of the individuals that have contacted me in support, since they haven't posted in this thread I guess they're worried about getting targeted by the liberal arts hit squad here.

[FrugalToque]

As a fellow older millennial ('86 here), I agree with you completely here. I think the fix for this is for govt student loans to ONLY be given out for in-demand majors that lead to ACTUAL JOBS that have a likelihood of creating enough wealth for them to be paid back! The govt should not be in the business of subsidizing liberal arts and music majors, we have enough of them, they in aggregate add very little to society. If after you work a real career in a STEM field or as a professional in another in demand, well paying field, you save up enough money to do one of the goofy cultural studies majors or major in trombone playing, go for it. These majors should only exist for those that have the means to pay for them without burdening society.

[MOD NOTE]

Look, I've already reviewed what happened in this thread.  Whether you intended the phrase "subsidizing liberal arts and music majors" to refer to the degrees, the programmes, or the people, you ended up insulting the degrees, the programmes and the people.  Predictably, those other people were offended and piped up, vociferously, to an oft-peddled line of reasoning that leads to an oft-stated insult.

Your returned with the insult about "outrage culture", suggesting that SisterX doesn't have the right to either be upset about your insult or speak out about how upset she is.

Honestly, when I clicked on the first request for moderation, I had assumed they were complaining about you, which would have been really thin-skinned of them, and I'd have told them so.  But you seem to be angrier about the fact that they used Bad Words in their insults, whereas your initial insult used only Society Approved Words.  That doesn't really hold water here.  MMM swears.  We swear.  It's normal in this part of the Internet.  Whether you call someone a "fucking loser" before telling them that they or their education adds little to society, it's the same to us.

For the record, I have an Engineering degree.  I'm one of those people who got a STEM degree and made the "smart" choice you recommend.  Even then, reading the initial comment, I can't in good conscience pretend that I could censure the responses of SisterX and others since the controversial tangent began while leaving ignored the initial spark to this conflagration.

Toque out.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

I'm actually a huge fan of streaming kids into those groups especially if there's some kind of apprenticeship program that results in kids being transformed into competent adults.

Thing is, you go take Education 101, and you'll learn in a hurry that's called Tracking, and it's B-A-D, BAD.  In all honesty, it's what was done back in the late 60s -70s, and it was done poorly then.  Kids from middle class families were put into the upper class (even if they weren't too bright), while kids with non-white skin were put into the lower tracks.  Worst of all, once you were put in a track, you STAYED in that track, even if you were a late bloomer who really could've been in the college-bound group. 

I agree that it would've been wise to keep Tracking ... but manage it better.  Look at standardized testing plus year-long grades and teacher recommendations.  Include parents in the decision, but don't allow for unrealistic options.  Allow for movement between tracks.  But it'll never happen.  The educational system is too strongly against it.

I understand that, because of the abuses, tracking (we called it "streaming") is politically incorrect and therefore the root cause of all the problems caused by the abuses. But it appears to me that the abuses were caused by bad decisions of people who frankly weren't doing their jobs.

The system I grew up in was in Alberta. At the time, each major course had multiple streams with options for movement between them. There was the matriculation stream (with courses numbered 10/20/30), the trades preparation stream (courses numbered 13/23/33 emphasizing applied learning) and the business stream (courses numbered 15/25 and covering minimum survival components). You could move up from the lower stream into the stream above it, 15/13/22/33 or 11/22/20/30. There was more than one path up the mountain. A student earning 80% or above in a lower stream course was a candidate for moving to the higher stream and was encouraged to do so. A student who was struggling in a higher stream class or earning 60% or below despite his or her best efforts was encouraged to move to an easier stream.

Having access to the 13/23/33/30 stream option (four classes in place of three) allowed students more time and exposure to learn more difficult material. That was one of the reasons some of my friends were able to not only graduate but actually master the material in the courses and pass the Departmental exams in 12th grade. A student could be on different streams for different subjects. One friend of mine was on the slower stream in Math but a faster stream in English, for example.

How students were selected for each stream was managed differently than what you describe. The student's grades coming into 10th grade was the starting point for the decision; I don't recall ethnicity as having been particularly relevant. The student's opinion and preferences stream-wise, as expressed in the courses the kid signed up for on the registration form signed by the parent, were combined with the teacher's assessment and run by the parent for final review. During the school year, each student had a homeroom teacher who also functioned as an academic advisor. It was part of that teacher's job to keep track of each student's grades and progress.

There were some flaws: the 10th grade year was higher-consequence in terms of changes in streaming. Half of a student's final grade in key 12th grade courses depended on the province-wide Departmental Exams. So high stakes testing existed but it was at the end of the streaming, not as a factor to determine who was streamed where. Overall it kept the grade inflation in check as students got ready to graduate but it didn't do much to control it in grades 10 and 11.

If tracking were to be re-implemented today, I believe it would be managed much more intelligently simply because of the checks and balances that have since been built into the system.

[A Definite Beta Guy]

Yes, many things are better today than they used to be. That doesn't mean everything today is better than it used to be -- and the generation whining about Millennials is the generation that raised them.  Who's to blame?

My point:  Millennials tend to whine about the things that are worse, while ignoring the things that're better.  It's a lack of perspective. 

No one's whining about Millennials; rather, we're laughing at the posturing about the world's injustices.  In reality, Millennials have a tough road in some ways ... but they're not in a no-win position, as some like to pretend. 

I'm actually a huge fan of streaming kids into those groups especially if there's some kind of apprenticeship program that results in kids being transformed into competent adults.

Thing is, you go take Education 101, and you'll learn in a hurry that's called Tracking, and it's B-A-D, BAD.  In all honesty, it's what was done back in the late 60s -70s, and it was done poorly then.  Kids from middle class families were put into the upper class (even if they weren't too bright), while kids with non-white skin were put into the lower tracks.  Worst of all, once you were put in a track, you STAYED in that track, even if you were a late bloomer who really could've been in the college-bound group. 

I agree that it would've been wise to keep Tracking ... but manage it better.  Look at standardized testing plus year-long grades and teacher recommendations.  Include parents in the decision, but don't allow for unrealistic options.  Allow for movement between tracks.  But it'll never happen.  The educational system is too strongly against it.

Thanks for that summary of tracking. I had wondered  what happened to it, and assumed it was one of those educational trends that went by the wayside. Doesnt it still exist n some form, though, with the this called AP classes? Do I have that term right?

In my high school, which kids went in which track wasnt so easy to deliniate since we all had white skin. I guess our teachers had to work a little harder to make those decisions.

I am not sure if tracking went by the wayside or what my school district practiced wasn't tracking. We had remedial, normal, honors, and super-honors classes. This all began in 6th grade. I graduated a bit more than a decade ago, and my understanding is that the school districts still do the same thing.

It was pretty easy to track, at least from my perspective. The smart kids went into honors classes, the super-smart kids went into super-honors classes. The smart kids were apparent to me as early as 1st grade (at least, among those I had gone to school with for that long). There were no major misses, as far as I could tell. There were a couple kids in the normal track who were obviously too smart for normal classes, but were also obviously too lazy for any honors course-work.

I assume most parents didn't have a problem with this. I went to a "good school" where 95+% of the kids went to a 4-year institution after graduation. Probably a different story if you're at a school with a 20% drop-out rate and maybe 5% will go on to a 4-year institution.

[Chris22]

Yes, many things are better today than they used to be. That doesn't mean everything today is better than it used to be -- and the generation whining about Millennials is the generation that raised them.  Who's to blame?

My point:  Millennials tend to whine about the things that are worse, while ignoring the things that're better.  It's a lack of perspective. 

No one's whining about Millennials; rather, we're laughing at the posturing about the world's injustices.  In reality, Millennials have a tough road in some ways ... but they're not in a no-win position, as some like to pretend. 

I'm actually a huge fan of streaming kids into those groups especially if there's some kind of apprenticeship program that results in kids being transformed into competent adults.

Thing is, you go take Education 101, and you'll learn in a hurry that's called Tracking, and it's B-A-D, BAD.  In all honesty, it's what was done back in the late 60s -70s, and it was done poorly then.  Kids from middle class families were put into the upper class (even if they weren't too bright), while kids with non-white skin were put into the lower tracks.  Worst of all, once you were put in a track, you STAYED in that track, even if you were a late bloomer who really could've been in the college-bound group. 

I agree that it would've been wise to keep Tracking ... but manage it better.  Look at standardized testing plus year-long grades and teacher recommendations.  Include parents in the decision, but don't allow for unrealistic options.  Allow for movement between tracks.  But it'll never happen.  The educational system is too strongly against it.

Thanks for that summary of tracking. I had wondered  what happened to it, and assumed it was one of those educational trends that went by the wayside. Doesnt it still exist n some form, though, with the this called AP classes? Do I have that term right?

In my high school, which kids went in which track wasnt so easy to deliniate since we all had white skin. I guess our teachers had to work a little harder to make those decisions.

I am not sure if tracking went by the wayside or what my school district practiced wasn't tracking. We had remedial, normal, honors, and super-honors classes. This all began in 6th grade. I graduated a bit more than a decade ago, and my understanding is that the school districts still do the same thing.

It was pretty easy to track, at least from my perspective. The smart kids went into honors classes, the super-smart kids went into super-honors classes. The smart kids were apparent to me as early as 1st grade (at least, among those I had gone to school with for that long). There were no major misses, as far as I could tell. There were a couple kids in the normal track who were obviously too smart for normal classes, but were also obviously too lazy for any honors course-work.

My experience was similar.  And it was on a course-by-course basis, and easy to move between tracks as desired; you had to apply (or be asked) to be in an honors class, but you could turn it down if desired.  For instance, I took honors English all 4 years of high school, but declined to take honors Calculus because I wasn't going into a program that was going to value that much extra effort (studied accounting) and I wasn't that good at math anyways.  As a junior and senior, most Honors classes were also AP classes. 

[ChpBstrd]

Best post of this tl;dr thread. Read it again.

A lot of 'blame game' thinking going on here.

I believe MMM's central point is about taking control of your own destiny.  If real estate is too high, find another way. Make more money, move elsewhere, form a coop with like minded folks, work overseas, etc. Convert your problem into a solution by being mentally and physically flexible.

Blaming the status of the world for ones own lack of success is victim mentality.  When i lived in the highest cost of living community in the world for 3 years (central Tokyo cerca 1990) i hung out during weekends at a free public park, playing ultimate frisbee games where anyone was welcome,  with some people earning almost nothing in that incredibly expensive city..., including various immigrants (who would overstay tourist visas to work as illegal labor), poor 'outsider' Japanese, and student language teachers on mmm style budgets.  We learned that we could live in almost no space, and that almost any city has great fun, free events for creative people.  We made our own fun, held parties on public transit, cooked for each other from almost free food sources (rice is subsidized, farmers market end of day sourced in season greens almost free), etc.

For me the central message is that we can achieve our financial goals if we take control.

Various things have become expensive and cheap over time. As another poster noted, mortgage rates used to be 4X what they are today. Cars used to have seat belts, power steering, and power brakes AS AN OPTION because so few people could afford that "luxury". Avocados? They used to not even be available to most people at any price.

Now the shortages are not manufactured goods, jobs, or debt, they are housing, education, and fixed income yields. Yes, these shortages are all tied to government policies that inflate the price of these particular goods, but does it even help to know that? Based on price alone, you can figure out what to do: rent or move, community college or trade school, and entrepreneurship. You find your way through the realm of the possible by being flexible, which is not all that different than shopping for bargains at the grocery store.

We could make a long list of the ways the "greatest" and boomer generations fucked over gen X and the millenials: tax policy, national debt, not warning about useless majors, the bubbles, low savings / no inheritance, exurban infastructure, Trump, etc.

However, the worst thing they did is teach us how to blame all our problems on others. Our two political ideologies are arguments about whether all our dissatisfactions in life are the fault of minorities or the 1%. Excuse-making has become natural. How could I not pay half a million for a "starter house" when that's what they cost in my particular city? How could I not have gone into six-figure debt at the prestigious university? How can I possibly retire when treasuries yield 2.5%? I can't get a job because of Honduran immigrants! Wah, wah, wah...

Drop that bullshit complainypants thinking and adopt a lifestyle that avoids the expensive things of our era. Millenials are already doing so, by skipping the boomer staples of suburban housing, cable TV, and V8 powered cars, and instead buying what's relatively cheap in their time: travel and avocados.

[MgoSam]

Millenials are already doing so, by skipping the boomer staples of suburban housing, cable TV, and V8 powered cars, and instead buying what's relatively cheap in their time: travel and avocados.

They also are less likely to gamble or have sex....

http://www.cleveland.com/casino/index.ssf/2016/09/millennials_not_interested_in.html

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-millennials-less-sex-20160802-snap-story.html

[ysette9]

liberal arts and music majors, we have enough of them, they in aggregate add very little to society.

I'm a little late to the party here, but I wanted to chime in anyway. I'd like to commend SisterX for speaking out, even if the colorful language she used may have caused the original poster of this comment to miss the broader point. As the mod pointed out, it isn't the adult language so much as the direct attacks of people.

If we can push past the nonsense, I think both sides have some points. I agree that we need some reform of the student loan business and I don't think it is unreasonable to tie the amount one can borrow to the reasonable expected lifetime earnings of an average graduate in degree X. That is just being smart about loan underwriting. Like being willing to lend more to someone buying a nicer house in a more expensive area than a crappy house in a town with no growth prospects. As I've mentioned before, having some logical limits combined with being very up front and educating kids on the impacts of the loans they are taking out would help quell some exuberance of youth. I certainly didn't appreciate this stuff when I was making decisions about what to major in so I don't fault other people for also struggling.

That said, I think it is a big mistake to conflate the inherent value of education and a degree in a particular area solely with the earning potential of the graduates. Yes, ROI is an important consideration (as someone on this forum and an engineer, I get it). However, life is more than your earning potential and education is more than facts you memorize. In the US we pay medical doctors tons of money whereas in Germany they earn a lot less. Does that mean that the work that doctors do in Germany is less meaningful? Teachers in Scandanavia get more pay and more respect for fewer hours than teachers in the US. Does that mean that the work teachers do in the US is less important? I'd argue "no" in both cases.

I am an engineer by education and career. I also got a lot of value out of my music classes, my foreign language classes, and some of the most interesting, most thought-provoking classes I have taken at either the undergrad or grad level have been in the ethics/philosophy realm. At work the most important skill I use is communication, specifically writing. My grandmother only went to secretarial school after age 14 in England. Though she has lived and traveled around the world for most of her life and is an avid reader, she is also very ignorant in many ways. The thing that strikes me most about her is that she lacks critical thinking skills. I attribute this to her lack of education. Yes, she knows a lot from her reading, but she doesn't have the skills and training to put those things she reads into context and to critique them on her own. That leaves her prey to a lot of nonsense, in my humble opinion. These "squishier" things are the stuff that I feel are really valuable about higher education, beyond the very important part of being qualified for a job that will put a roof over your head. We need a society of people who can think and communicate and debate ideas rationally and change their world view in light of new evidence. That stuff is hard for our monkey brains and a well-rounded education goes a long way to helping achieve that state.

[Gondolin]

Ah, SisterX! Don't let the farenhitic crucible of the internet forum get you down. These brave new STEM posts always pop up, like multi coloured clockwork. Driving us down the road, to be decanted straight into utopia. Insisting the telescreen is certainly fpr your own benifit.

But it's all just agony, with no ecstatic David to greet you at the end of the bottom of the snow covered hill. Better to let such posts slide off your back, untroubled as a porcine residing on a sustainably maintained farm.

In other words, fuckin' English majors unite, eh?

Very good. 7 references? Did I find them all?

[mm1970]

I am not sure if tracking went by the wayside or what my school district practiced wasn't tracking. We had remedial, normal, honors, and super-honors classes. This all began in 6th grade. I graduated a bit more than a decade ago, and my understanding is that the school districts still do the same thing.

It was pretty easy to track, at least from my perspective. The smart kids went into honors classes, the super-smart kids went into super-honors classes. The smart kids were apparent to me as early as 1st grade (at least, among those I had gone to school with for that long). There were no major misses, as far as I could tell. There were a couple kids in the normal track who were obviously too smart for normal classes, but were also obviously too lazy for any honors course-work.

I assume most parents didn't have a problem with this. I went to a "good school" where 95+% of the kids went to a 4-year institution after graduation. Probably a different story if you're at a school with a 20% drop-out rate and maybe 5% will go on to a 4-year institution.

I'm not sure how it works in the upper grades here (my oldest is in 5th).

But we have a wide disparity in our district, from the very poor to the very rich.  And a lot of English learners.

They realized that the elementary GATE program (magnet at one school) did not accurately represent the student body, because the only kids tested were recommended by parents or teachers.

They changed the system to test ALL second graders.  It worked.

[Cranky]

Reporting back that we all voted 2 thumbs up on the avocado toast! Very tasty!

I spent about $4 to make 6 pieces of toast for 3 adults, and we all agreed that it will make an excellent summer supper.

[onehair]

If you scramble the egg I might be game I despise fried eggs.  Though I find it hard to believe the reason millenials can't afford houses is constantly eating avocado toast. But that being a tone deaf statement from a rich man has been covered here already.  My brother is a millennial he has a house.  I don't want one in my current situation I may never want one.  I am a Gen X-er.   In my first marriage we were going to buy a condo but he scotched it arguing with the housing association long story.

[jinga nation]

If you scramble the egg I might be game I despise fried eggs.  ...

In Homer Simpson's voice, "Why you heretic!"

That fried egg is pure liquid gold.... OMG! And use some bread and mop up them drippings. Hell Yeah!

[ysette9]

Have you ever tried eggs benedict with a slice of avocado? My husband introduced these to me when we first married. Yu-hu-hum.
He calls them "avocadeggs"

To answer this question: yes! Maybe it is a CA thing, but it is pretty common to find [whatever] with avocado on it on menus. I've never tried making actual eggs benedict at home (that is something I should learn), but I occasionally do fried egg/avocado/cheese sandwiches for breakfast. Yummmmmmm

[Nangirl17]

Have you ever tried eggs benedict with a slice of avocado? My husband introduced these to me when we first married. Yu-hu-hum.
He calls them "avocadeggs"

To answer this question: yes! Maybe it is a CA thing, but it is pretty common to find [whatever] with avocado on it on menus. I've never tried making actual eggs benedict at home (that is something I should learn), but I occasionally do fried egg/avocado/cheese sandwiches for breakfast. Yummmmmmm

Eggs Benedict is one of those "Let's eat out at home" meals - so decadent!! Really, it is just making the sauce that take a wee bit of time, the rest is just toasting the english muffin, prepping the ham/prosciutto, cooking the eggs, slicing the avacado (if you wish), and BAM! A delectable, rich, restaurant meal for a fraction of the cost and avoiding all the hassle of mingling with traffic and strangers!

[ysette9]

I'm sure I can handle the sauce part. I've never poached an egg before, so that will be the learning experience for me. Any tips?

[mtn]

I'm sure I can handle the sauce part. I've never poached an egg before, so that will be the learning experience for me. Any tips?

Microwave.

[Mr. Green]

I must be the only millennial that doesn't like avocado. Tastes like cardboard to me. Lol

[ingrownstudentloans]

I'm sure I can handle the sauce part. I've never poached an egg before, so that will be the learning experience for me. Any tips?

use some apple cider vinegar in the boiling water, take your spoon and create a whirlpool (carefully) in the boiling water and carefully drop the egg into the center of the whirlpool.  This will help keel the egg together and prevents the octopus-like egg arms that sometimes happen.  Let it go for 30 seconds and then use your spoon to flip the partially poached egg onto itself, this will help lock down and strains that have floated from the center.  Have a bowl of ice-water next to the pot for when they are done, take out of hot water, put into ice water, let sit for 15 seconds or so, then put onto paper towels to dry.

[MgoSam]

I'm sure I can handle the sauce part. I've never poached an egg before, so that will be the learning experience for me. Any tips?

This is probably the best video I've seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbAQgJF3d7E

This is what happens when you can't poach a goddman egg properly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZy5PL9VjWU

The second video is completely a joke, of course.