Nice. Too bad there’s no university program in unwarranted arrogance. You could teach.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You have zero idea what you are talking about. I have no idea if you have ever worked in a technical field, or are just blathering on based on some notion you have about how things work. You think employees of cutting edge industries are some sort of mindless worker bees. I don’t know where you get that idea. </p>
<p>First, for some employees, companies do provide extensive training. But first they wish to identify competent candidates for this training. Students, often undecided on their career choice, are willing to pay for an education to exlopre different areas, and employers use that to identify the raw material they need. This has served the United States very well over the years. Nowhere near the incomparable results obtained in a place like France, of course. But okay.</p>
<p>And for many professional employees companies simply cannot train them adequately. How is a company supposed to train someone to invent? To innovate? To come up with ideas others in the company cannot? Universities do this by cultivating creative thinking and ingenuity in a way companies cannot.</p>
<p>Where do you think many of the companies come from? How exactly was Google supposed to train Larry Page to develop the “Page Rank”. Especially since Google did not exist at the time. A lot of cutting-edge advances have grown out of university research. </p>
<p>Good luck with your future navel gazing. I hope none of your brilliant ideas are ever sullied or co-opted by those dastardly “practical applications.” Something tells me that’s not a big concern.</p>
<p>Seems that you are the one lacking common sense and critical thinking
skills.</p>
<p>The reason for being for businesses is to increase shareholder value.
Businesses could pay for university degrees or training with no
guarantee that these students would stick around after this training.</p>
<p>Have you ever been a manager dealing with hiring, firing, training
and having employees leave for other opportunities?</p>
<p>We spend about a year getting engineers up to speed after hire. They
need to know a fair amount of practice and theory and have to be able
to learn quickly. Turnover is a problem as employees can then get jobs
that pay more by leveraging their skills obtained with us.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You should take a few business school courses to help with your ignorance.</p>
<p>^^ Sounds like a couple of those Americans I was blathering about 2 posts above. Perfectly willing to pay thousands of US$ for job training that may be obtained elsewhere. I like the bit where it is claimed innovation and critical thinking can only be “learned” at a university. </p>
<p>BCEagle91, if turnover at your company is a problem, perhaps it is time to revise the business model. Normally, offering a higher salary works. High turnover at a company may be an indication working conditions are horrible.</p>
<p>But by all means, please continue with your delusional lives. I’m positive the 9.5% unemployment rate will solve itself overnight and the increasing amount of people heading to graduate school will increase the salaries of all of them.</p>
Glad you like that thought. Not sure where it comes from though. Maybe you can “learn” to read while you’re at the university. Then you can re-read my post and actually understand it. OTOH, it probably won’t happen if you think what you wrote above is equivalent to this:
</p>
<p>I’d try to explain the difference, but after reading your posts here, I’m certain it’s not something you could grasp.</p>
<p>Actually, both of these statements are somewhat similar to this, with subtle differences.
Of course, I can understand why you might not want to lend credence to the ignoramus that posted the above statement. </p>
<p>BTW - what are the unemployment rates in some of these European countries you want us to model?</p>
<p>You know, now that I think about it, all the thousands of elite international students who pay dearly to attend US universities so they can return home (or stay here) and put those skills to use; and all the top corporations who pay for their employees to get advanced degrees because they think that university education is of some value beyond what the company can teach - they’re all just a bunch of dummies.</p>
<p>Hopefully they’ll all stumble across this thread before throwing any more of their money away. Then we can just close down the universities because there won’t be any funds to support them.</p>
<p>On other, other hand, companies may cultivate creative thinking and innovation in ways universities cannot. Apple, Google, BMW, Boeing, Toyota, etc. (no, not limited to US companies).</p>
<p>The unemployment rate in Europe is higher than in the US and it’s usually offset by their more efficient safety nets. However, European socialist models do not appeal to me and I’m still trying to figure out where having a clearer career progression path for individuals is socialist in nature.</p>
<p>Here’s something you need to grasp, Mr. Bovertine: pushing more and more individuals into college tends to dilute the value of Bachelor’s degrees; pushing college graduates into graduate school tends to dilute the value of advanced degrees. To accommodate all these individuals, society must create new jobs (basically, demand must be higher than supply). Sadly, demand can not grow infinitely.</p>
<p>Those elite international students you mentioned come here because they have a chance for a better life here in the US (hint: we don’t have an oversupply of French, Japanese, nor German elite students here, do we?). Similarly, US companies seem to be begging for more H-1B visas to obtain cheap international labor. Related to that, when a company pays for their employees to obtain advanced knowledge we may classify that as a company investing on its employees (job training) and not the employee paying for job training (let’s forget for a moment those companies usually pay for classes at a local school at the lowest price possible).</p>
<p>At this point, please continue living your life as you see fit and I’ll do likewise. I certainly wish you the best in your journey.</p>
<p>We pay quite well for the area. Benefits are outstanding. Job
flexibility is outstanding. There are a lot of millionaires in my
building.</p>
<p>Sometimes large companies aren’t the best place for grads that like
to job hop for a few years before settling down. Our building actually
has a lot of people that have worked here for 25 to 30 years. The area
is extremely family-friendly which means that it’s not so interesting
for single people.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Have you ever hired, fired, managed, or trained employees? Have you
ever started your own business? Yes to all of the above for me. A
first-line manager at McDonalds knows more about the workplace than
you do.</p>
Honestly, I do not know where you get this stuff. Where does this come from? Not me, I said absolutely nothing about socialism or any economic system. </p>
<p>You are the one who brought up France as some sort of successful paradigm. And you brought up our unemployment rate. Since you brought it up, I inferred that it had something to do with the issue we were discussing. Maybe that was my mistake- assuming you were staying on point.
</p>
<p>You can’t even remember what you write from post to post.</p>
<p>There’s very little one may do to avoid young job hoppers. I apologize for those remarks. As for workplace experience, I have never hired or fired anyone; I have trained and managed people in a high pressure environment (e.g. in the desert, someone shooting at us). I agree, a first-line manager at McD knows more about pushing burgers and fries than me.</p>
<p>@Bovertine:</p>
<p>Yes, a high unemployment rate is great in the long-term for the economy. You are absolutely correct! BTW, explain to me the disadvantages of studying Law at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>It seems you two agree that paying high tuition, loading on a high amount of debt, and/or having a high unemployment rate is beneficial.</p>
<p>I had most of two degrees paid for by employers so I have some
background in the latter. Companies were generally far more generous
in the 80s and early 90s. You could get a general bachelors degree on
your employer. The tax code paid for much of this as companies
received generous tax benefits for employee education. In the 1990s
there was a lot of debate over the “job required” aspect of education
and you then had to demonstrate that the courses taken were required
for your employment. This was obviously harder to do for general
education courses.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You still need the theory and practice background to discuss those
things that turn out creativity in products. I work at such a company
and we have wonderfully creative discussions but everyone has to have
a base of understanding in order to participate.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>The times are changing.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Have you ever started your own company?</p>
<p>Why would you start a company?</p>
<p>To provide jobs?</p>
<p>Why would you risk your own capital in a company?</p>
<p>You ever have to make quarterly withholding deposits?</p>
<p>Produce quarterly statements?</p>
<p>Deal with making unemployment compensation payments?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Where did you hear that? It’s not the practice where I work.</p>
<p>A first line manager at McDonalds undestands what loaded costs are. You
clearly don’t.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I paid off my home in the 1990s. I think that we paid off our mortgage
in 13 years. We pay cash for everything. No debt at all. The country
has made a lot of bad decisions on a variety of policies that have led
us to high unemployment. I don’t know if that was unavoidable given
what I’ve read about K-Waves.</p>
<p>You continually make up things I never said. </p>
<p>So why not just make up an explanation. I’m not going to bother explaining something to somebody who can’t even read my posts.
Where do you go to school? Remind me never to send my kid there.</p>
<p>Both my last and current employer would contribute toward university degrees. However, at my last employer the level of contribution was less for a non-job related degree. My current employer will not fully finance any degree, but they have a reasonably generous reimbursement program.</p>
<p>My first employer paid for the last two years of my undergrad - but it was job related and I didn’t start working for them until my junior year.</p>
<p>A previous coworker went for his MBA and the company covered it. He was an engineer so I didn’t see how it was job-related but I guess whatever you can negotiate works. He’s now in management consulting. It pays a lot of money but it’s murder on his family life because he’s away from home for so long.</p>
<p>^^ Engineering managers and higher level managers/executives of technology compaies can benefit from a person with an undergrad degree in engineering and with some practical experience working as an engineer then gaining the MBA education and then moving into and up in management. The conbo gives them an excellent background to understand management issues and make the appropriate decisions.</p>
<p>S has accepted one of the 3 job offers he got for his BA in EE. His employer has indicated it is willing to finance further education, so that is his current plan. He has many collegues that did NOT get job offers due to the poor economy. Some will continue in school to get a masters or going on to law school while others are still trying to figure out their next steps.</p>
<p>There has never been that great a path between a university education & the job market; much depends on a lot of variables–some within the individual’s control and others beyond his/her control.</p>
<p>We work in a satellite building and have more than enough managers. We also don’t do management consulting. He left the company after he got his degree. I suspect that paying for his degree was just to keep him working on an important project until he finished his degree.</p>