There are many debates regarding higher education these days: too expensive for the return on investment and that it abounds with politically motivated sycophants. Here is my take: the GI Bill following the Second World War opened colleges and universities to those without trust funds. Because higher ed was full of people from privileged origins, it was crawling with political agendas all along. Deal with it.
There, my rant for the day out. I feel better now.
My way to higher ed was through night school courses at Northeastern and Boston University’s Metropolitan College- relatively inexpensive, available to someone working days, and they offered degree paths for students for whom college during the day was not an option. Today, you can do the same thing through one of the community colleges. Education was not straightforward: getting a degree and making money. I was interested in knowledge. Sure, that knowledge would help propel a career, but I wanted to learn. My interests? Political science, history, and anthropology.
Many are dissatisfied with their college and university experiences because they only see them as a path to economic stability or wealth. Sorry, there are few lock-on guarantees in life, even if you are a gilt-edged coupon clipping, trust fund sucking, nattering nabob of negativity (to quote the beloved Spiro Agnew on the last bit). If you have no love for the intricacies of knowledge, you will be better suited to other forms of tuition.
Eventually, I shifted to a full-day school curriculum at Boston University as soon as I could bear the economic cost. From there, I went to an Ivy League School on a full fellowship. No, I am not naming it. I like to lampoon it too well in my blog posts. Let’s say that the idea that education is open to the lower orders surprised them, and the day’s uniform for their young darlings was crowns and tiaras.
In recent years, I’ve watched with more than a bit of horror as the cost of education has indexed higher. We have learned nothing from our flirtation with affordable education, which fueled our country’s technological, social, and economic development.
On a final note, get out your BS detectors. In my day, the minimum punishment for plagiarism would have been failing the class, with expulsion an actual probability. These days, with AI, people proudly flaunt the work of others and machines.
OK, I had a second rant I wanted to get out.
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I’m just glad I’m out of it.
me to!
Me too, but I have little sympathy for plagiarists. The recent to do at Harvard is upsetting because it’s politically motivated. But you or I would have faced nasty repercussions in our graduate careers if caught.
My words on plagiarism on my syllabus were always, “Go ahead if learning something has no value to you. I’ll probably catch you, but I might not care. YOU should care, anyway, about turning down the opportunity to learn something. If I catch you and I DO care, you won’t like the consequences.” I taught writing. I only had a handful of verifiable cases of plagiarism in 38 years. I dealt with them with the dreaded, “Come to my office during office hours” message followed by “This is an F and you know why.”
I’m glad that’s as far as I had to go. When Tony Blair was caught with the fake (and plagiarized) “proof” about Saddam Hussein I was totally disgusted. That said SO MUCH and so little came of it.
I enjoy ChatGPT but it’s a lousy writer and it gets things wrong. I’ve tested it. If students rely on it, they do so at their peril. BUT there are other AIs out there… But ChatGPT DID write a beautiful sonnet to my washer/dryer
Anmother blogger today ( Ruth at Ruth blogs here) suggested it would be fun if politicians were required to wear BS detectors, like radiation detectors, so we could tell when the were BS’ing us. Oh! if only that existed!
I like your take on Education. Both of them. My ONLY regret in life has been that I didn’t get a formal education to teach. Libraries and bookstores have been my university. I make a joke (not a funny one) that if I don’t learn something new each day, close the lid. If you aren’t learning, I don’t think you are living. I want to know about everything! I read science and astronomy along with anything else. I wish education was more accessible to those that really wanted to learn vs those that can afford to but aren’t interested in the truth of learning with open minds. The fact that you had to scrap to get your education, made it more valuable to you in more ways than financial. I can rant on this subject too. 😉
Marlene, it’s a good rant. There can’t be a higher education without some profound interest in being literate. And there reaches a point that if you have to be compelled to read, it’s never going to take.
Some of the most literate people I’ve known self educated in libraries and bookstores.
Here in my state there is an effort ot make Community College free. Our state benefited enormously from the success of higher ed. Making it accessible enables the next generation.
I am lucky to teach in California where education is relatively well funded. Some of the red-states especially treat education as a joke unfortunately. Any agenda that doesn’t put big business at the top is not important.
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Great and informative post, thank you for sharing your story.
What is your opinion on companies that train specialists according to their own needs regardless of the candidate’s education? For example, companies like https://computools.com/ train all managers and employees based on assessments received during their internship at the company.
I agree with Martha about GPT chat and plagiarism, unfortunately it cannot yet provide unique text, and students cannot fully utilize it as upon the first uniqueness check, it will show that the text was taken from various sources.
Training is not necessarily education. Training doesn’t necessarily fill in the larger why’s, or concepts. Training often is not geared to a continuing education in new skills, approaches or opportunity to grow and develop.
In my state a former governor wanted to tie the Community College system to the occupational needs of our local industries. He basically wanted to tun it into a sophisticated vocational high school without the academics in liberal arts, humanities, and other areas. The failing of his concept was that when a job went obsolete the individual was back to ground zero without many transferable skills. Luckily he lost his next election.