collegealum314

^^Most people who value academic success like to think that it translates to the real world. However, I think this derives from a core value of respect for academic achievement rather than a calculation that academic success will translate to more money.

soozievt

Two things....
1) I do believe that college itself enhances future career success as opposed to not going to college at all. What I don't believe is that going to X college is going to enhance greater economic success as compared to going to Y college.

2) I would pay for a college education even if my child NEVER worked a day in her life upon graduation. Why? Because I value education for its own sake. To be educated. And for the four year experience while there. Let's say my girls decide to become stay at home moms some day. Their educations will have been still worth it to me.

Ben Golub

sakky - your recent post says that parents are only willing to pay because it improves SOMETHING about their kids. clearly that's true, but that SOMETHING doesn't have to be future money-making ability. there are many worthwhile somethings, as soozievt and others have eloquently said, and you see only one of them.

sakky

Soozievt, in those above 2 quotes, you just contradicted yourself, and in fact, have proven my point. You have just conceded that, "iif a major is too hard, then there are many alternatives". That's precisely my point.

Again, nobody is saying that you shouldn't pursue a major that you want if you can do it. But my question is, what if you can't do it? You just said it yourself - if your kids just can't do what they want because it's too hard, then they would consider an alternative. Exactly. Sloan is that alternative for those MIT students whose desired majors are too hard. QED.

Again, it's because they can do it. Good for them! But what about those people who can't do it? What happens to them?

I don't see why you find it so difficult to relate to what I am saying. Look, not everybody who goes to college, including MIT, will graduate. Some people will flunk out. I think that's fairly common knowledge. You say that your kids will rise to the occasion, and perhaps they would. But not everybody can or will. I don't know about you, but I think it's fairly clear that graduating from Sloan is better than just flunking out of MIT entirely. I don't think that's a close call.

Ben Golub

sakky, in the last few lines you assert an uninteresting and obvious point. your original contention was much more thoroughgoing and ambitious (and, also, false) -- that career concerns are all that matter in determining people's educational pursuits. i think we've knocked you down pretty decisively on that score. thanks for discussion.

sakky

The issue is not what I see, it's what mootman, or more importantly, what other parents see.

But, to your point, let me put it to you this way. When I was a kid, I used to love playing video games. I mean LOVED it. And I used to tell them that playing these games improves my hand-eye coordination, my reflexes, ability to think quickly, and so forth. And it's true - I did improve those skills greatly. You think my parents cared about that? Heck no! They did everything they could to restrict my game-playing and instead encourage me to study.

What I am saying is that those skills that parents encourage can't just be any skill, but have to be something that parents think are actually useful.

sakky

Oh? And when did I specifically say that "career concerns are all that matter in determining people's educational pursuits"? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that. Can't do it, can you? Looks like you've been knocking a straw man this whole time.

What I have said is that career concerns are AN IMPORTANT concern. However, nowhere have I ever asserted that it was the ONLY concern that mattered.

Ben Golub

sakky, #36 is once again an obvious point. but then you jump from "useful" to "likely to increase future income" and the latter just isn't a good model of how the world works.

look, i understand how someone who is focused on careers (perhaps as a professional occupation) would see things in your way, and an ivory tower academic would see it in my way, and the truth is somewhere in between. but it's very clear that maximizing {money earned}/{hour of work} isn't everybody's goal, and neither is maximizing {hardcoreness of class load}. the truth is complicated and somewhere in between.

sakky

Then you are clearly in the minority for I think it has been shown that most parents - whether rightly or wrongly - do believe that certain schools do provide better career opportunities than do other schools. I doubt that that is surprising: look at the mania of parents trying to get their kids into top-ranked colleges.

And to that, I think you are also clearly in the minority, or perhaps, you have the wealth and luxury to afford such a choice. But be honest - do you think most Americans can afford to be this generous? Or even want to be? Let's face it. Most Americans aren't exactly rich. In fact, you can even click through the various threads in CC in which people discuss whether they should take a full ride at some lower-ranked school over going into personal debt for a higher-ranked school, presumably because their parents couldn't or didn't want to pay.

soozievt

sakky, I believe that the students that MIT accepts, on a a whole are capable of graduating in their chosen fields of interest. Students may change fields if the field is not exciting them as that is very common in college. But if it is the field that they truly want, most students of the caliber that MIT accepts, can rise to the occasion and pass and graduate. If they feel MIT is too difficult, they can transfer. I know my kids would not change majors as an easier path toward graduating. They just would not. They are too interested in their fields.

By the way, as far as post #36, we definitely encouraged skills with our kids that were not "useful" or were not "academic" in nature. We were and continue to be very very very into their extracurricular pursuits which I have to say have been lifelong passions of theirs. They continued these in college as well. We encourage that and those areas may not have any bearing on an eventual career. One of my kids actually turned her EC pursuits which began as a preschooler through high school graduation into her college major and career path in fact. Of course we also encouraged her academic achievements in the classroom but these other interests have become her lifelong passion and now her career pursuit.

sakky

Again, nobody has ever argued that people are always out to maximize every single dollar that they will make. Ben, you're an economist, and so we both know that people don't actually do that, as the marginal utility of every dollar is a decreasing function. That is to say, once you have secured a middle-class lifestyle, earning a few thousand dollars more a year doesn't really matter very much. But certainly nobody wants to be below the poverty line. When you're at that level, extra money really matters.

Similarly, I have never stated that nobody ever values 'hardcoreness'. Like I've said throughout this thread, if you can handle rigorous topics, then by all means do so. I did. You did. But what I am asking is what about those people who can't handle it? These are like people below the 'poverty line'. For these people, some marginal decreases in 'hardcoreness' really matter, just like for poor people, a few thousand dollars more a year can really matter.

And that's precisely the point I've been making. I have never said that everybody should want to go to Sloan. In fact, I have specifically stated that this is not the case. What I have said is that some people, and in particular, those people who are failing in rigorous technical majors, will probably be better off in Sloan. In other words, if you're in course 6 in MIT and are doing well, good for you! Stay there! But my question is, what if you're not doing well?

sakky

But some are not capable. That's the point. What happens to those people?

The majority probably can. But not all. That's my point.

I would argue that's because they never truly had to face the 'barrel of the gun', if you will. Look, it's very easy to say that you wouldn't do this-and-that if faced with a terrible choice. But actually following through is an entirely different matter.

I don't speak out of inexperience. I know quite a few people who flunked out of college or came close to it (i.e. landed on academic probation). Believe me, when placed under that kind of crisis, people's desires change quickly.

And besides, I think this topic is endogenous anyway. After all, let's be honest, people's interests in topics tend to be affected by how well they are performing. If you're constantly getting failing grades in that topic and having everybody constantly telling you that you're doing poorly and always being made to feel dumb, then you're almost certainly going to lose interest in that topic and want to study something else.

soozievt

My kids attend TOP colleges (one is at an Ivy and is heading to MIT for grad school) and one is at one of the top specialized programs in her field (with an acceptance rate of approx. 6%). However, they go to these schools because these schools were good fits for them. I do believe that their futures will be bright. I don't believe they will earn more money for having gone to these schools. I think they hopefully will have fine opportunities due to their backgrounds.

I am not wealthy. My children are on financial aid and I will be paying the loans for their college and graduate schools for many years to come. I value education. I don't care WHAT college they attend....only that they are happy with their choices and that they get the most out of the experiences (and they have).

I don't need to click through various CC threads. I have been on CC for six years. I OBSERVE the way of thinking that you describe that SOME parents or students have and I cannot relate. Actually, I am a college counselor and I need to get back to work. I have some clients who only want "Ivy" and nothing else will do. My kids, nor we, can relate at all. I know what you are talking about but I am saying that I don't agree, nor feel as you do, and nor do my kids. Since you are talking about MIT and I read what Ben wrote about the typical MIT student, I am merely saying that my future MIT grad student fits Ben's description and not yours.

sakky

I'll use the example from my own life again. When I was a kid, if left to my own devices, I would have played video games literally all day long, heck sometimes 24 hours straight without sleeping. That was my "EC".

Now, maybe you might be one of the few parents who might have actually encouraged your kids to do that. But my parents certainly did not. Nor were they exceptional: I think every kid on my block had an addiction to video games and had parents who were trying to stop or at least limit them. But hey, we were all improving our "hand-eye coordination", right?

What that shows is that most parents won't encourage just any old EC, they only encourage [i]certain[i] EC's that they think are useful, and my parents certainly did not think video games were useful at all. Maybe they were wrong - maybe right now I could be a professional video game player making millions in endorsements. I guess we'll never know. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that they, for whatever reason, didn't think it was useful.

sakky

And I think that you are an exception. YOU may do that. But, honestly, what do you think other parents are doing?

The real question is no what YOUR future student will do, but rather what most future students will do. And let's get down to brass tacks about what I mean by that:

I assert that

*Most students will switch majors if the alternative is to flunk out entirely.
*Most students are interested in multiple subjects and hence would be perfectly happy in any one of a group of potential majors. Very few students are interested in one, and only one, topic and hate everything else.
*Most students, and more importantly, most parents, care about future career opportunities. Note, that's not to say that that's the only thing they care about. But they do care about it.
*Most parents tend to encourage skills in their children that they think are actually useful.
*Most parents would rather send their kids to top-ranked colleges vs. lower-ranked colleges.


I think all of these points are noncontroversial.