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08/25/2013

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Lucy Lu

I picked up the most suitable college in my affordable options. I graduated without any tuition loans. It was my best choice thinking backwards 10 years later. The high school students and their parents shall take their responsibilities to make a reasonable choice without putting themselves in debt of unaffordable tuition loans. I am kind of concerned about the allocation of federal aids linking with federal rating system. No matter which metrics picked for the federal rating system, it may bring the constitutional challenges in the federal aid allocation.

Neilehat

Fundamentally it's a problem between our Ideals of and for Education and the Realities of Life, especially in the Economic sense. "Education is good, vital and important, so get as much as you possibly can" - the Ideal. The Reality, "Education costs and someone has to pay for it". Since the Budgets are screwed-up and inflation out of control, you're going to have too pickup more of the costs yourself. Couple that with the reality of, "We operate in an International Economic environment and due to your education you cost too much (but we need and want educated employees). Job Application denied". But Education is a good, vital and important thing, so get as much as you possibly can". See the Paradox and Contradiction? So what's the "poor" student too do?

Terry Bennett

Henry Goddard, whose grave I often pass, may have gotten several things wrong but I believe he had a couple of things right. One of them is that his work had a decidely practical bent. He coined the term "moron", still quite popular, for a person with an IQ between 50 and 75, but he then elaborated a scale of useful work that could be done the moron, imbecile, or idiot.

Check my arithmetic, but something north of 150 million people in this country are below average, and they are our focus here. The above average are doing okay.

People want the financial rewards of an education, which leads them to take practical subjects, but they also want the experiential rewards of the process, so they take a lot of not-so-useful stuff too.

A talent is an ability that comes without training, e.g., some people can sing well without studying singing. A skill is an ability that comes from effort - study and practice. Aptitude is a pre-disposition to acquire a skill with less than average effort.

My point, and I do have one, is: Whatever happened to guidance counselors? There seems to be an enormous disconnect between the aspirations and the abilities of large numbers of people. A hundred years ago many people had only a few years of school or less, and it was figured out quite quickly who should continue and who should go into labor - no doubt albeit with some inaccuracy here or there. When I went to 9th grade, I sat down with a guy who looked at my grades and suggested college prep; he didn't say that to most of my classmates. Suddenly we have Bill Clinton saying everyone should have two years of college, and up has sprung an industry of providing "college" after a fashion to people who obviously have little aptitude for what was previously known as college. I believe an enormous inefficiency flows from this faulty premise. People buy a lot of education they don't need and can't use, and they end up even worse off than they started because now they are not only unemployed but in debt besides. So, I think the problem at hand can be cut down to size by intelligent targeting, people thinking more carefully about what education they buy and what benefit they will be able to extract from it. Of course, the individual is currently constrained by a system of overly broad degrees, certifications, and licenses, so this solution depends on cooperation from the top - which makes it entirely nonviable. I guess we're stuck.

Neilehat

Terry, "Guidunce Counselors"? I remember mine from High School, "Like Huh?". As for Goddard, I prefer Heller's Yosarian from "Catch 22"... ;)

D

I'm almost agree with Michael Pillsbury - http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpillsbury that Obama knows more than we think together about his politic campaign. You'll see his tactic in October.

CristobalBates

I grew up in my father's steel fabrication cooperation. I ran my own construction business and worked on getting the first synthetic oil operation operation up and running. When I asked the owners (who I knew) why they they took my bid, I was told it was because I was driving a late model 240D Mercedes Benz. But I did job on time and budget, and as head hunter found and supplied them with a excellent quality control chemist as well as building her QC lab. Later I switched my MB with a Cessna and a Hughes 500 (AKA OH-6) to keep my clients happy whether crossing the country or putting them, their bankers and lawyers at the race track to watch their thoroughbreds (the first trainer we used won at the 2004 Kentucky Derby). I drove their limousines (I was trained at the Bondurant driving school), I also rescued, refurbished, or simply babysat their boats through hurricanes.

But despite the impressive skill set I had, I wasn't college educated, and treated as such. Like Chuck Yeager, being the fastest and most talented wasn't enough. He wasn't an astronaut because he didn't have a college degree. There is something very wrong with that picture, and I now have 3 degrees - two Summa Cum Laude - from an internationally known private school - surrounded by kids who complained I asked to many questions and yet would have been gibbering with an engine fire because they only had one engine and couldn't feather it. Because they didn't ask questions, and as General Yeager said (the only father I knew that borrowed a jet to get into Vietnam and "hunt" with his son) "never wait for trouble."

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