Re: Consequences.

Martha Adams <mhada@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"David Friedman" <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ddfr-D33A0B.10333703122008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <gh68ej$ful$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
rkshullat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I can also note that many colleges, I have read, also outpace
inflation in
their charges.
<snip>

Unfortunately this isn't surprising. Their costs are weighted toward
things that have increased more than the general inflation rate.
Energy,
highly-skilled labor (both salary and benefits), property and
construction,
etc. They don't get as much benefit from things like clothing and
technology which have been more moderate.


My rather casual impression from last year, when we were visiting
colleges with my daughter, is that part of the cost increase
represents
an increase in quality, or at least the addition of expensive extras.
Certainly the dining halls provide a much greater variety of food than
when I was a student, and there seems to be a lot more money for
subsidizing educational activities during the summer. I'm pretty sure
that one of the schools made it clear that if a student accepted some
sort of unpaid internship, the school would provide the money needed
for
room and board. And the ratio of students to teachers seems a good
deal
lower. And there seems to be a lot more hand holding
support--tutoring,
and dorm advisors, and the like--than I remember.

That impression should be discounted, however, for the fact that the
schools we visited, with the exception of Stanford, were elite liberal
arts colleges. I was a student at Harvard, equally elite but perhaps
different in some of the other dimensions.

But Stanford seemed to have the same characteristics.

The one thing that hasn't improved, indeed if anything is worse than I
remember, is housing.

And, of course, all of my data is at the high end of the market. I
don't
know how the big state universities, which account for a lot more of
the
total college population than the Oberlin/Grinnell/Vassar/... niche,
have changed.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.

I think the above thread is interesting and even true
in some ways, but it misses the point by touching only
a small part of it.

The center of the error is conflating 'schooling' with
'culture.'

Personally I think the error is conflating 'schooling' with 'education.'
Schools, especially universities (in the US sense), tend to have their
own culture, which may or may not resemble the culture of the surrounding
area, but is still valid.

But here we are today in a wonderfully rich world of
technology, and few of us can use those riches. Thus
we become properties, statistically studied little
money sources, greatly valuing toys, and not prime
movers of any sort. That's a *consequence* and a
bad one.

Purely my own cynical speculation, but...
For the most part people are lazy. Sometimes physically, sometimes
intellectually, sometimes both. Most (not all) of my wife's students
are taking her class because they have a science requirement in their
degree. They're getting their degree because they want a job that pays
more money for the same (or less) effort. Beyond that they don't really
care. She does her best to change that, and a few of her students become
interested enough that they learn because they want to rather than because
they have to.
The lazy (at least the intellectually lazy) tend not to show up in fandom,
but they're out there, everywhere. They don't care why the sky is blue,
that not all of those lights in the night sky are the same sort of thing,
that there's a pattern to those changes in the moon. They don't care
because they don't have to, because their boss doesn't care, their neighbors
don't care, their friends don't care. They don't lose any money by not
knowing, they wouldn't make any more money if they did. Show them a
direct benefit and they might (might) make the effort to learn, but not
otherwise. Learning is hard for them and not fun. Making an effort is hard
and not fun either. Playing with toys is easy and fun.
I don't think you can change this for any great percentage of the people,
but it's a worthy effort and, once in a while, you succeed.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com
.

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