Academics see themselves as the artists, the thinkers, the inventors, the cutting edge of intellectualism. It’s an affectation, as if getting a job at a college as a teacher suddenly makes whatever crap pops into your head sufficiently sacrosanct as to be beyond reproach. Some profs aren’t quite as brilliant as they believe they are. Some are kinda dumb. But hey, they have the title, the attributed cred that comes with it, and the security of knowing that mommy always told them they were special.
But what if the people who fund your college or university disagree? Freddie deBoer, whose arms grasp tightly around the breast of progressive ideology, sees the problem.
Only 36% of Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center, believe colleges and universities have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country, versus 58% who say they have a negative effect. Among Democrats, those figures are 72% and 19%, respectively. That finding represents a crisis.
For it to be a crisis does not depend on you having any conservative sympathies. For this to be a crisis requires only that you recognize that the GOP is one of two major political parties in American life, and that Republicans’ lack of faith in higher education will have practical consequences.
The significance of this poll depends on the color of lenses in your specs. To progressives, it confirms their certainty that Republicans are stupid, anti-intellectual, haters of knowledge. To non-progressives, it suggests that academia has been seized by radical ideology and lost its way, putting far more effort into indoctrinating young minds to its dogma than teaching academic subjects. Indeed, should anyone spend four years in college majoring in gender and deviant sexuality? Should “white privilege” be a compulsory course?
Despite the belief that one ideology is so much more (obviously) right than any other, democracy has played a dirty trick on academics.
Further, it helps if you recognize that, in the present era, Republicans dominate American governance, with control of the House, Senate, presidency and crucially for our purposes, a significant majority of the country’s statehouses and governor’s mansions.
Wrong, though it may be, deBoer sees the writing on the budget bill.
As an academic, I am increasingly convinced that a mass defunding of public higher education is coming to an unprecedented degree and at an unprecedented scale. People enjoy telling me that this has already occurred — that state support of our public universities has already declined precipitously. But things can always get worse, much worse.
It’s a truism that the alternative to bad isn’t necessarily good, and so, while placing primary blame on the other team, Freddie posits a plan for self-preservation.
Who’s to blame for the fact that so few Republicans see the value in universities? The conservative media must accept some responsibility for encouraging its audiences to doubt expertise; so must those in the mainstream media who amplify every leftist kerfuffle on campus and make it seem as though trigger warnings are now at the center of college life.
But academics are at fault, too, because we’ve pushed mainstream conservatism out of our institutions.
And this has been the core message of such groups as the Heterodox Academy, to make it safe for academics to offer diverse ideas without fear of being burned at the stake by their progressive captives. But is this enough? Is allowing the teaching of ideas that conflict with radical ideology enough to balance the scales?
Most importantly, there is a case to be made, one having nothing to do with academic politics, that we are over- and misinvesting in higher education, rather than under-investing. A bachelor’s degree used to set people apart in a way it no longer does.
Only 7.7% of American adults held one in 1960, compared to 33.4% in 2016. As economist Richard Vedder has repeatedly made clear, the growing ranks of bartenders, waiters, hairdressers, and letter carriers with undergraduate and graduate degrees argues that too many young people, not too few, are steered into the 120-credit-hour slog for that one credential. The resources, including public money and private time now squandered on that quest, would do more people more good if redirected to training programs that match the jobs actually attainable and emerging in the 21st century.
The American dream has long been premised on the ability to get an education and raise one’s status from working class to middle class. It was a nice dream, but unsustainable. Eventually, all the corner offices would be filled. And somebody has to build houses and bridges, fix cars and air conditioners. There is no shame in hard work, even though your delicate hands might callous.
We’re also over-investing in higher education if too many college students receive degrees despite not learning anything in particular. In Academically Adrift (2011) Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa described precisely that situation: large numbers of recent college graduates are “failing to develop … higher order cognitive skills.” Specifically, 45% of the students Arum and Roksa studied were no better at critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication after two years of college than they were at freshman orientation, and 35% were no better after four years. This is a particular problem in large public institutions, where many students become “maze smart,” figuring out how to accumulate credit hours without really learning anything, and students and professors tacitly enter into a “mutual nonaggression pact,” exchanging good grades, easily earned, for students’ favorable evaluations of their instructors.
If public money is dedicated to public institutions whose success is more grounded in political indoctrination than sending out graduates capable of serving a function that benefits society or earns them a decent living engaged in an occupation for which they schooling helps, then why spend it? We believe that education is good. But how good? To what end?
Freddie deBoer’s pitch is one of resigned self-preservation. It’s like selling overincarceration to law and order taxpayers based on the expense rather than the fact that it’s counterproductive and harsh. But what if college taught all ideas, even the ones that progressive intellectuals are totally certain are wrong? What if colleges stopped offering majors designed to nail that barista job? What if colleges stopped lying to Americans that getting a degree, any degree, was worth the exorbitant price exacted from students and would assure them a fabulous future?
What if they won’t? Maybe then it’s time to cut the funding and stop pissing away money on an academy that no longer fulfills its mission of educating students so they can achieve the American dream.
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As I point out to young people nowadays, if they do things like HVAC, electrical work and auto mechanics, they don’t have to worry about their customers outsourcing that to India or China. They also don’t have the six-figure debt to contend with.
I do the same. You know the old plumber joke.
More seriously, it has become nearly impossible to get any tradespeople to do work, no less competent ones. If you find one who takes pride in their work, it’s a miracle.
I’d say it’s an ongoing trend that kids coming into the trades lack various character traits and social skills, but I’d just be dating myself and the truth is there have always been plenty of screwballs and scoundrels muddying the waters. On the consumer end the difficulty with hiring either an electrician or a lawyer is significantly similar, in that the details of their work are nigh incomprehensible to the layman, without inside references selecting one is a matter of throwing darts at advertisements.
Like any other specialist, if you do find a good one, go out of your way to keep them forever.
Totally agree. I have the same sparky today that I had 25 years ago. Now, we’re old pals. Back then, it was a recommendation that panned out. A lot don’t.
As a lawyer, I want clients referred by other clients. When I get a call from someone who found me through the internet, I charge a significant fee for the consultation to scare them off. But then, I’m old enough to get away with this.
Dear Papa,
Do you think academia will pick up the gauntlet you’ve been throwing down? Na, there’s money to be made. That the University of Phoenix existed at all demonstrates the point well. Degrees are commodities to be bought and sold. It makes sense then that marketers would go to town on all of the miraculous benefits of education for education’s sake.
I mean law schools still misreport their ridiculous employment figures for their JDs. It wouldn’t happen if the Dean didn’t want to drive a Mercedes like he thinks he deserves.
Yours,
PK
That’s what makes Freddie’s call to arms interesting. His motivation may be misguided, but he sees that the geniuses in academia are missing the big picture. I don’t expect them to heed me at all (they aren’t necessarily my biggest fans, you know), but I do hope to save a kid a life of misery and debt. Whether the College, Inc. will continue to pay off the Mercedes leave is another story.
College, Inc. might very well be the next bubble to burst right along with all the young people’s hopes and dreams of improvement through education. There’s real pain there. What happens to all the students who realized the truth too late?
There really is a soft side to all your bristles, isn’t there? Humanism and now caring for outcomes of the youth? Nice.
It won’t matter. In a few years, there won’t be jobs anyway, so they’ll all be on guaranteed income paid for by Gates and the FB guy, spending their days in the basement eating Cheetos and bitching about whatever hurts their feelz at the moment to make their life seem worth living.
Yeah, there’s method to my madness. It’s not always easy to see, but it’s there.
I don’t know about Gates, but I’m pretty sure that the FB guy expects the UBI to be paid for with your money and my money, not his.
I’m probably more sensitive to the issue than most–my father worked for 30 years in adult education. But college isn’t for everyone; some people don’t have the inclination, while others don’t have the intellect (and some have neither). And we do everyone a disservice when we structure K-12 education as though everyone wants to, should, can, or will go to college. I don’t know that the Germans exactly have it right, but they seem to do a better job of recognizing that some students will be going to trade schools, and preparing them for that rather than for a college they’ll never attend.
I’d like to know how it was decided that programming a $2M CNC mill was suitable work for those who lacked the intellectual heft to write for Vox about how quinoa hurt their feelings.
My son wants a CNC mill for his birthday. I was wondering what they cost.
Interestingly, I’ve been shopping for one as a hobbyist recently. It looks like a small-ish turnkey CNC mill starts around $5k from Tormach, and prices go up rapidly from there.
I’ve looked at used, but I really can’t buy one without him since he knows what he wants and I don’t know squat.
Not for publication as I know you will kill the link, but depending on what he wants to do and the size of his intended work-piece the pocketNC is a decent tabletop 5-axis CNC. I was looking at one for myself a couple of years ago but decided that I really wouldn’t get enough use out of it to justify buying it.
http://www.pocketnc.com/
That’s a pretty darn cool looking CNC mill. What’s it cost?
No reply link in your reply to me so I’m doing it here. Website says it runs about $4K. Not pocket change (at least for me) but not break the bank either. It’s aimed at the pro or serious hobbyist that needs a real CNC for small piece-work.
Checked it out. Not sure it’s tough enough for what it’s supposed to do, but 5 axis is impressive.
Disclaimer: I am but a lowly ME a couple years older than your son, but I have done a bit of fitting tools into apartments in the Camberville area.
The Tormach is, from everything I’ve heard, a lovely tool. The pocketCNC below looks fun too. Despite its name and advertising, the Ghost Gunner is also a viable desktop machine that takes standard gcode as well.
With his technical background, he might also consider retrofitting a basic benchtop machining center like the Microlux, and do a homebrew retrofit with LinxCNC or similar.
All of these have the same downsides – size, noise, and mess. Assuming you’re using it at home, you have to balance workpiece size with the space it takes up in your apartment. Neighbors (and roommates) like to complain about machines running when inspiration strikes at 2am.
Another option is to look into any of the local makerspaces, of which the Boston area has many. Membership comes with access to more and bigger tools, and a community that enjoys when compressors run at odd hours. They also provide time to understand what you want out of your tooling at home.
If he’s never been by the Artisan’s Asylum, in Somerville, and is curious, feel free to pass him my info.
He’s very involved with makerspaces, teaching at MIT and actively involved in many from SF to Cambridge. I hoped to give him that 2 am alternative when he feels the urge, or the 2 pm alternative when some cowboy is on the CNC with barely a clue what he’s doing. Biggest problem is size/space, as he is used to working with industrial strength power.
Not knowing your son or his needs and experience/skill level, I can’t make a specific recommendation.
That said, if he’s anything short of full-on professional, it may be worth considering a maker-grade unit like the X-Carve or Carvey. An X-Carve kit can be had for ~$1200 and is still quite capable.
I would not go with anything cheaper, however. My home CNC needs as a electronics hobbyist are very limited so I thought I could get by with a WhittleCNC (~$400). Unfortunately, it’s not quite powerful enough, and has me wishing I’d gone the X-Carve route instead.
Thanks for the info. I’ll check it out.
From some of the things you’ve mentioned, Haas offers their Mini Mill in a MINIMILL-EDU series starting at 19K. XYZ travel 16″ x 12″ x 10″. No tool changer but it’s an option.
https://baq.haascnc.com/quote/Vertical-Mills/MiniMill/MINIMILL-EDU#gsc.tab=0
$4 to 19k just made me swallow. Hard.