We Must Demolish Traditional Universities

[Guest1168644]

Can we address this line of thinking -"We must demolish diploma factories"? The hubris and the arrogance abounds. If we can take anything away from 2020 it is this, the traditional brick and mortar school needs rethought. It no longer serves a purpose, and is not what the future holds in terms of efficiency and sustainability. 

The original post below this one fails to recognize the actual problem our society faces, that being "traditional universities". These institutions no longer exist to produce a beneficial product, if this was the case we would not have thousands of people demanding loan forgiveness; if the product is sound, why would it need subsidized?

The real problem is simply this, universities are now centers to push one-sided ideologies, redistribute wealth through preferenced funding, and ultimately prop up a bankrupt government through 7% interest rate loans. Why do you think programs that could once be finished in 1.5 years, paid for by hospital systems/practices/clinics, now take upwards of 3.5 years, with tuition costs that have went beyond the moon; it makes no sense, even more so when you account for the much discussed provider shortage. These dudes are lining their pockets fraudulently, and it is at the cost of students and  subsequently patients.

Imagine if banks were doing what FASFA and the universities have been doing for the last 3 decades. People would be in the streets rioting. "Fraudulent business practices" would be the term of the day. Unfortunately, these institutions get a hard pass, mainly due to people like the OP below that feel there is a certain prestige associated with given schools.

I live in Western PA, I went to a 3.5 year program that cost me roughly 27k, I would be hard pressed to go to a "respected school" that would cost someone like me +$90k. I passed my boards the same as the OP did, I and I am told, that I do a pretty good job.

Ultimately, knowledge is being decentralized at a rapid pace, we would do well to recognize this and stay with the times. I can buy lectures, given by Harvard historians, for $10 on Amazon, hours of content! If Harvard is your thing, why can't we make all these lectures available and free for all? Share the wealth so to say? In the coming future, there will likely no longer be a monopoly on knowledge, as such the current cost of tuition should no longer be defended, and we should leave arrogance of "prestigious institutions" at the door.

[whalestales, ASN, RN]

7 minutes ago, djmatte said:

Probably depends on the school. Our college level courses were called AP. We had college level education which surpassed regents requirements (NYS) and were essentially college level courses. I wouldn’t say they were “junk”. They were good options for getting basics like math, English, and a few sciences out of the way prior to entering college. Pretty much core class focused.  Most of our local colleges accepted them. But we were to far from any colleges to actually send someone there. 

Junk was an overstep, my apologies. 

But AP isn't accepted at a lot of schools anymore unless you get a 5 (the top grade) and you cant use those credits further than a bachelors degree. So if you enter a pre-med, pre-pa, etc degree the bachelors program won't take them because you are going to have to take them again anyway for med school, pa school etc.

Where as my credits are community college credits, nobody can refuse them unless they don't take transfer at all, or there is a time restraint on how long ago they were taken. Which would still apply to AP

AP is also way harder than most community college or 4yr college classes for the same credits. I can't speak on this directly but this was the opinion of many students who fell into the loophole where none of their AP counted because of the program they were in. And they got mad my credits counted and theirs didn't 

[FiremedicMike, RN, EMT-P]

One of my kids went through a STEM program through high school.  During her junior and senior year, she was taking actual college courses that were being taught, graded, and credited through our local community college (tuition free).  I do believe that these classes were separate from general college students and only had HS students in them, but they were the same curriculum. 

She didn’t go super nuts with it and only took a few classes, but they told us it was technically possible to have your associates degree wrapped up before you graduated high school.

 

[londonflo]

5 hours ago, FiremedicMike said:

She didn’t go super nuts with it and only took a few classes, but they told us it was technically possible to have your associates degree wrapped up before you graduated high school.

 

So were these classes HS requirements plus? I gotta wonder about course achievement deflation. I truly don't mean disrespect. I wonder about the rigor of these courses. Maybe we should look at letting gifted students leave HS at the end of the 11th grade and matriculate into college then. 

[FiremedicMike, RN, EMT-P]

4 hours ago, londonflo said:

So were these classes HS requirements plus? I gotta wonder about course achievement deflation. I truly don't mean disrespect. I wonder about the rigor of these courses. Maybe we should look at letting gifted students leave HS at the end of the 11th grade and matriculate into college then. 

The STEM curriculum was odd and I never fully investigated it, so I can't answer with any certainty whether they were required, only that they had plenty of time to complete them if they wanted.  They could also elect to ignore them and graduate high school a year earlier..

As for the rigor of their college courses, they were the same curriculum as the courses I took.  When I did my bachelors degree, I did my first two years at this same community college, and I looked over the syllabus and found it to be the same as when I went.  Whether the grading is more lenient... I can't say, but the professors for these classes are employees of the college and not the high school.