What I'd like to see is major Universities taking some of the ideas used in technical colleges: goal (job/career) oriented degrees, focus on actual experience, and for the love of all things sacred don't require (for example) CS majors to take dance appreciation and psychology. Students could shave a year or two off the time it takes them to graduate, and in doing so save themselves a lot of money. All without harming the "integrity" of the degree.
Do you really believe that a liberal arts education is worth $62,000 tuition + 2 years of lost wages (roughly another $140,000)? Particularly when, to borrow a phrase from Good Will Hunting, that liberal arts education is available to anyone for about $4.25 in late fees at the public library?
http://cs.nyu.edu/webapps/content/academic/undergrad/majors
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CS5fT5z...
For one thing, NYU trades on their name as well as their education, that's a big chunk of the money you're talking about.
But the more poignant question to me is whether you're getting less out of the liberal arts classes than you are out of the CS classes. I'm not sure that's clear, you can learn engineering anywhere, but 80% of the people I've ever worked with can't write for crap.
If college is just an exercise in signalling, why bother with classes at all?
Why not just replace classes with final exams, give out the paper, host a few networking events and save billions of dollars?
Personally, I value large chunks of the education I got in college, and think the majority of it had some value. I dunno how that value compares to the cost, and I've never seriously considered graduate school of any kind because the (tuition + lost earning) changes a bunch once you have a job.
I was mostly commenting that I thought a lot of the liberal arts education was just as valuable as the technology education, provided that I actually learned the tech so I could get a job. I learned a lot about music, literature and history that I'll have for my whole life, and that I really wouldn't have gotten off my duff to learn on my own.
What do you think made me so anti-college?
Only for some values of "computer science". There is a lot of very tough math involved and having a teacher will save you ages.
There are alway value to an education, in anything. The question is if it is really worth learning about?
Beside, people can learn to appreciate basket-weaving and dance appreciation in their own time. All they need to do is get rid of their TV and get a hobby. People don't need an overly expensive course to do that.
Specifically, I found that the networking (meeting those outside your potential field) and ability to see things from other perspectives was invaluable in my college experience. This breaks down the "siloing" effect that I see a lot of talented CS majors have problems with, an effect that is consequently ruining the business world. Taking off the blinders once in awhile is a good thing, regardless how seemingly useless that Drama 101 class is. It's all what you make of it...
The programs were not quite equivalent. US Ph.D. programs have traditionally included more courses and include a comprehensive examination in addition to a dissertation. A US Ph.D. candidate must demonstrate a broader understanding of the field and cannot just jump into thesis work upon starting their Ph.D. program.
Sure, they may not be identical but they were teleologically equivalent. Newly minted PhDs from both countries proceeded to compete for the same jobs on a seemingly equal footing.
It's terrible, and eats a lot of time. Essentially, your professors can't completely count on what professors of pre-req classes have taught you, and often have to review some things. This problem is compounded when the school admits community college students, whose classes inevitably never match up well to the University courses, so they wind up trailing.
I've also been in classes where a class that was NOT a pre-req SHOULD have been a pre-req; for example, I took a class in sensors, and learned a lot about filters in the process. A huge component of using electronic sensors is filter design, so it was a very appropriate class to learn about filters in. After that, I took quite a few classes that used filters, but didn't require any pre-existing filter courses, so the professor would have to (briefly) teach filters again every time.
Maybe what I want is more tests as pre-requisites rather than only full fledged courses (my alma mater had an English test that could be taken in lieu of one mandatory course)
2-year Universities: Who made up the rule that we have to attend college for 4 years?
Tertiary education does take a hell of a long time in the US. In my field, and in my generation, most UK students got their PhDs around 24-25 years of age; for the US students it was more like 27-28. Yes, if that is a real effect that would definitely be a problem.
I can think of two factors that may be affecting this (I have no data):
1. The level of the student arriving at college. Yes you can probably get a professional degree in 2 years with no holiday breaks, provided your college doesn't have to teach you basics.
2. The fact that US colleges cost so much money potentially create a vicious cycle - you need a job to pay for college, which means you need enough spare hours in which to work, which means you have to space out your courses, which means you need more money etc etc.
I would be certainly interested in views from US graduates as to why they feel it takes so long.