The Case for Universities (Financial Times, Simon Kuper) \ stacker news ~econ

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The Case for Universities (Financial Times, Simon Kuper)www.ft.com/content/1517513c-492b-44fe-97ba-f34597e6216d

852 sats \ 19 comments \ @denlillaapan 21h econ

Eeeeh, yeah they are in dire need for defenders these days.

... and in sum, author doesn't provide a case for universities but chronicles some ways in which they are broken. Alas, typical.

I’ve just returned from a tour of British universities with our 16-year-old twins. The boys can’t wait to finish school and start their degrees, and I’m psyched for them. I grew up around universities. My dad has been an academic for over 60 years. My sister is one too.

"Yet universities are in crisis internationally, far beyond Donald Trump. Perhaps no other existing institution is less in sympathy with our times. In fact, that’s largely why Trump is attacking them."

Absolutely, unquestionably yes... but then Kuper goes well into navel-gazing, throwing up his hands in ignorance. Oh boy, why are these ignoramuses defying their credentialed intellectual superiors?

When the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, urges parents to “do your own research” on vaccines, he is denying the basic principle of academia. Rightwing populists consistently take this position. I wonder why academics are “biased” against them.

Weeeell, because those academics went heywire with their supposed superiority, because the incentive-system of financing (bias, by selection or by shoestring...), and the bureaucratic pressure, and broken peer-review ensured that what came out of them kind of freakin sucks (#972831).

Students who can't count
Students who can't write
Students who can't think, (recent NY Magazine title: "Everyone is Cheater Their Way Through College")
and worst: Students who can't (dispassionately or otherwise) assess conflicting ideas, navigate facts or theory to reason their way to knowledge.

I.e., the very bloody thing that Kuper gaslighting-style pretends universities do/have done so well.

Also, typical: derailing of conversation, not being able to understand that people might take a contrary position, and then solve that by reason rather than noise and high-jacking

Universities such as Bologna (founded 1088), the Sorbonne (1253) and Harvard (1636) are among the oldest functioning institutions in their countries. They’ll survive. But they may be shrinking into signifiers of class, diploma factories, fun parks and networking clubs.

Tl;dr, it's pretty pathetic that he can't see what actually threatens the universities as institutions. WAKE UP, INTELLIGENTSIA! #890832

non-paywalled: https://archive.md/IfNIj

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118 sats \ 3 replies \ @OGD21 19h

Universities will die out without major change.

Thinking back on my time in college (graduated in 2023 from a public state school), it offered me little to no true value. I saw 3 large issues going through undergrad.

The College's goals are misaligned with the customers (students)

Colleges only care about making money and making their school more exclusionary to create a facade of being an "elite University".
Students care about getting skills that translate to getting a job and making money. Most are too brainwashed to care about price... That is a whole different rabbit hole

College doesn't teach you the skills you need for the workforce

I majored in finance and only saw the business school, but it was a mess...
The majority of my professors have never worked outside of academia and were hard to understand due to speaking broken English.
Want to learn how to actually use Excel, PowerPoint, Word, etc? You're going to have to figure that one out on your own.
Want to learn how to get a job? Going to the job fair with a resume in hand is not going to get you there. Yet again, you're on your own for that one.

College brainwashes students into believing the slip of paper is "special"

In school, if you do the basics, you get a slip of paper and a mindset that you deserved it and deserve a great job because of it.
Get ready for the cruel reality of the world, but just showing up or doing the bare minimum does not guarantee success or money.
No company worth its salt wants to deal with a whiny little brat who has never gone above and beyond. There are a million other people with that same slip of paper.

TLDR: College needs major changes made. My time in undergrad offered little true value. Here are the top 3 issues I saw going through school.

215 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 19h

Not sure what school you went to, but I can offer some perspective as someone who teaches at a mid-tier, non-elite state university...

A big part of the problem is the students themselves. We have a high fraction of students who are woefully underprepared and also have a bad work ethic. However, because of the way the incentives are structured (we're funded based on student count and graduation rates), professors get incentivized to dumb down the class.

So if you didn't learn job skills, you can blame:

The bad students who are coming into college.
The administrators who admit those bad students, and who don't really allow professors to fail them like they deserve (departments get punished if they fail too many students)
Lazy professors who take the easy way out, dumbing down their classes instead of figuring out ways to reach the students.

But I'd say the lazy professors are the minority. Most professors are just struggling to balance not failing too many students without dumbing down their material. It is really tricky balance to achieve. And it's the bad students' fault. My class is not that hard... I truly believe that someone who just tries, even if they have a 10th grade level math background, can at least get a B.

So, just try to see it from the profs perspective as well...

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30 sats \ 1 reply \ @OGD21 15h

I'm sure it is difficult to deal with students who are unmotivated and unprepared for a college course load. I hope you do your best to offer value to your students!

"A big part of the problem is the students themselves."

This is the equivalent of a company blaming its customers for its subpar products or services, and a viewpoint that makes no sense to me...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 15h

Well if the customers keep coming despite the subpar services...

And another aspect of this is that the students aren't paying the full cost out of pocket, and it's the other payer, the state, that's demanding subpar services (emphasizing throughput at the expense of learning)

I'm not blaming all the students. I'm blaming the bottom 20 to 30 percent who should be kicked out but we can't kick them out

Also, think of me as an employee of the company upset at some customers, not the company itself 😅

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148 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 20h

Universities are perfectly fine. It’s the state that sucks.

35 sats \ 5 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 20h

in most places, especially the UK, there's no difference

13 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 20h

Fair enough, but I wouldn’t say that hospitals suck for the same reason.

35 sats \ 3 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 20h

I would.

Have you been to any recently??

13 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 20h

Irrelevant. I’m saying that these things don’t have to suck and wouldn’t if not for state intervention.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 20h

Ok, I concede that it's feasible that state-owned and state-financed entities work well (my village is excellent at clearing snow from the road, which the municipality pay farmers to do). But I wouldn't put hospitals in that camp

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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 12h

That is laughable. The publicly funded British Health Service is massively more effective in providing universal healthcare than the US privatised system where many people have little or no cover. Public healthcare provision is one area where demonstrably state provision can be and is vastly more cost effective than the US privatised health system which is the least efficient most expensive least equitable in the developed world buy a large margin.

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22 sats \ 1 reply \ @nkmg1c_ventures 13h

I had some great times at university and some terrible times. I think everyone should have a chance to go, even if the end goal isn't a four year degree but courses / continuing education

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 13h

Not sure if it was Bryan Caplan or Tyler Cowen who said it, but something along the lines of "we are pretty rich societies, we can waste 4-6 years of everyone's working career on a consumption good"

18 sats \ 2 replies \ @Aardvark 20h

I think there's a real issue with what jobs "require" degrees. It's really my same gripe with "no child left behind" in USA. When everyone is practically guaranteed to get a high school diploma, then how do you tell which student has work ethic and which basically just showed up? When everyone is special, no one is.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan OP 20h

Yes yes, signaling theory. But as a society we gotta find a better way to signal competence and work ethic

18 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 20h

100% agree, I just hate that the signal is literally any bullshit degree that you can think of. Obviously there are highly specialized jobs where a degree matters, but a bachelor's degree to be an executive assistant seems insane.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Jerrian_thedeep 11h

Kuper's piece is a timely reminder of the indispensable role universities play in fostering critical thinking and innovation. While acknowledging their current challenges from financial strains to political pressures it's crucial to recognize that these institutions remain pillars of knowledge and societal progress. Instead of dismantling them, we should focus on reforming and strengthening their foundations to better serve future generations.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan OP 11h

Knowing their problems and how they got corrupted, how do you suggest we ("we"?) reform and strengthen them?

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jerrian_thedeep 4h

Universities need to be recentered around learning and public good, not prestige games or bureaucratic growth. Reform starts with changing incentives reward teaching and accessible research, not admin expansion or rankings. Greater transparency, student voice, and public accountability are essential 'we' includes anyone who values education’s role in democracy.