“It is called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it…”
“Only eight percent of children born into the lowest income quintile rose into the highest quintile. Only 20 percent in the middle quintile achieve the same rise. By this metric, the American Dream hasn’t really been shattered. It never really was – at least not for the past 20 years, and, by earlier studies, perhaps 30 years before that.”
“Only when hard-working Americans begin to question why their wages are stagnant and their children are stuck in the same economic rut as they are, will they begin to campaign for policies that may lead to greater equalization and mobility, including education…”
“This is why it is important that the University engages in helping to frame a national debate about the dream on which this country is predicated: Transforming economic failure into personal failure is a pernicious, life-sapping idea, a rich person’s idea, and it is factually wrong as well.
The truth is that just as people seldom succeed on their own, people seldom fail on their own. Each of us lives within circumstances larger than ourselves – most obviously the economic status of our parents. Even if you question the statistics about mobility, we all know people who work very hard, some two or three jobs, and still can’t make ends meet — much less achieve the dream with its $130,000 price tag. In fact, one could make a good case that the people who work the hardest in America are the ones rewarded the least.
So even as the University leverages mobility for poor students through education, it should also educate the larger public as scholars and intellectuals once did. We had a dream. It is gone. But we can regain if we understand how we lost it. In part, that is our University’s job."
Sounds like my Be Responsible plan.
I’d rather DO than have a national debate. Just get on with it!
One way would be to get businesses to sponsor certain degree courses that would be beneficial to them.
Another is to have “barefoot” universities where volunteers or those paid only expenses teach.
Also - do we really need universities? I never went to one and yet I worked in shipping getting up the post of manager. Can’t think of any of my colleagues that had a degree. Some had a certificate from the some sacred Institute or other but whilst these certificates etc were recognised they were mostly a waste of time and money as in shipping the complexities and practices of companies vary hugely. Chartering boats is the only area where formal education would be useful.
The problem is that we’ve been brainwashed into believing that we need a degree for nearly everything. How long before toilet cleaners need to go to uni?
I’d want my airline pilot, surgeon and the like to have a degree but not business people or anyone involved in an organisation where hands on learning is more effective.
The first thing to do is end the racket of selling degrees to those that don’t really need them and businesses are the first target here. Show them that it’s likely that they can get just as good employees from non graduates than graduates. Some might say even better. And of course you would be able to pay non graduates less as they wouldn’t have any university fees to pay back.
A friend of mine never hires Computer Science graduates for his software company. He says it takes six months to debug them. All candidate for positions within his company have to solve a problem of logics. None of the Computer Science graduates solved it but those that had no university education but were self taught and loved all things to do with computers had no problem.
No need to discuss - just do! For once on a systems thinker forum maybe people will stop discussing and DO!
So what’s this got to do with the American Dream? Nothing as the American Dream is a mirage, always has been in my opinion. In some ways it' has been and is the American Nightmare.
Education comes from the Latin “to draw out” or to “to lead out” not force feed. Even uni courses sponsored by businesses could follow this model.
Whilst social mobility is good it’s not everything especially when it comes to education. Something is wrong if we consider university education as a means to enhance social mobility.
Can anyone think of what the next action should be? DO, don’t discuss.
For me it would be to show business people that there are many talented people out there who don’t stand a chance of being employed by those said businesses because they don’t have a university education.
Regards
Frank
Frank, thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agree with you that college degrees are not necessary for many jobs, and can actually be a disadvantage. The question becomes: HOW do you convince businesses of that fact?
Regarding social mobility: In a society in which education and money are necessary to live a comfortable life, most people don’t want to work at minimum wage jobs their whole life. There are many poor people with talents that are left undeveloped because of this double emphasis. And they can’t even get a “foot in the door.” For that reason, I disagree with you that “you would be able to pay non graduates less as they wouldn’t have any university fees to pay back.” How is that a justification for lower pay? Just because a person doesn’t have a degree, why should the boss be able to pay them less for the same work? That still puts the employee in the same low position monetarily. That’s been a major problem over the past 30 or more years—productivity increases have gone to the CEOs and the shareholders, not to the employees, so the income gap keeps increasing.
Regarding ““barefoot” universities where volunteers or those paid only expenses teach”: Unfortunately, we already have this, as universities and colleges have more and more “outsourced” teaching, contracting out teaching jobs for essentially minimum wage. There have been many stories recently of talented people who are in poverty while teaching full time as “adjuncts,” e.g http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/adjunct-faculty_n_4255139.html
A system that is designed to “increase the gap” is unsustainable, as more and more people fall into poverty who thought they did everything right to be successful. Change will happen, one way or another.
Thanks for your reply Lori,
[Lori] Just because a person doesn’t have a degree, why should the boss be able to pay them less for the same work?
[Frank] I’ll flip that and ask:
Just because a person does have a degree why should the boss pay them more for the same work that someone without a degree could do just as well?
SNIP [Lori] HOW do you convince businesses of that fact?
[Frank] One way would be to get them to try it out with someone that never has gone to uni. Also review all their graduates as regards their performance and now long it took them to get settled in and did the employer have to “debug” them first.
I’m not completely anti graduate, they work best when teamed up with the old salts of the firm and provided both parties have open minds then it can be a productive cross fertilisation. It’s the total exclusion of non graduates that I fear is harmful.
Regarding social mobility: In a society in which education and money are necessary to live a comfortable life, most people don’t want to work at minimum wage jobs their whole life.
The problem is that there are not enough decently paid jobs to fulfil people’s ambitions to be upwardly mobile.
I don’t think in the UK there is the same hunger for riches as in the USA. The old image of white van man happy as long as he has money for beer, ciggies and chips is to some extent still there although now he has a mortgage which changes things somewhat.
Getting people to want more and more is a perfect way to keep them in chains.
[Lori] Regarding ““barefoot” universities where volunteers or those paid only expenses teach”: Unfortunately, we already have this, as universities and colleges have more and more “outsourced” teaching, contracting out teaching jobs for essentially minimum wage.
[Frank] There are now many online courses that are free or almost free so it’s obvious there are people who are willing to teach these courses for a pittance. I agree teachers should be paid a decent salary but at the same time I don’t think it’s fair that a graduate is saddled with a huge loan that on top of his house mortgage may take the rest of his life to pay off.
Regards
Frank