Auditor says several college majors indoctrinate students and should be defunded
Auditor says several college majors indoctrinate students and should be defunded
Mississippi's state auditor says numerous social science and humanities degree programs are “indoctrination factories.”
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TLDR:
"Urban Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, German Literature, African American Studies, Gender Studies and Women's Studies". I'm sensing a bias here.
Also that state funding should match workforce demands for the state - this part makes sense.
state funding should match workforce demands for the state
Here's a better idea: companies should actually train their workers. Lots of times a degree isn't even needed at all. They're just being cheap by not paying for a 2 week training program.
My old job at a large corporation didn't want to pay Nortel to fly out from Dallas to host a proper two week telecommunications class to train their new support personnel. Instead they made this 65 year old "Ma Bell" tech to cobble together and teach a one and a half day crash course. I left with a notebook full of unfinished CLI commands, shorthand notes and just enough information to probably not bring down the entire enterprise PBX system. Good times.
Yeah, for entry level jobs fully agree. You cant expect every biotechnology company to pay for 6 years of education for every new employee, every school to pay for every new teachers training, every hospital, every finance company and bank.
That's how PhD programs work in certain parts of Europe.
They're funded by a company for a specific project and end up training an employee in that area.
It's actually quite effective (both cost and otherwise).
Mine actually was partly funded that way, and I ended up being a major player in the area because there was no one else.
Why not? That's how apprentice programs work, and how they used to work back in the day. If you don't know how to get useful work out of a trainee, that's your own problem. Hire an assistant and train them up, maybe work them 20 hours and send them through other math/science classes at the local community college to fill in necessary, but not directly work oriented skills.
In the end you'll have a very loyal, and well trained recruit that knows your business very well.
You are making this sound so simple. It's freaken work. Look, I train interns and it takes a lot out of my day. Then they leave and I have to train more. And I don't blame them for leaving, who the heck even wants to do the same thing for decades? I know I didn't when I was their age.
It feels like your interns are leaving for more money, have you talked to your employer about boosting pay (or maybe just pay, given we are in america) for interns that are showing promise?
Yeah, this dude is acting like people's motivations are a mystery. No one gets an internship where they don't want to work, unless they have no other options.
Interns are not mysterious creatures completely alien to other workers. They want money and a career path. I guarantee you if being a janitor paid $300K, people would be lining up to do it.
Hey say it to me next time directly. At what point did I say that it was mysterious? It is pretty clear cut. They are young and ambitious and life hasn't crapped on them yet. Of course they are going to jump from job to job. I did the exact same thing. Also I don't have the fucking power to give someone with one year of engineering school a 300k salary.
Oh wait I forget because I manage people I am automatically in the wrong.
Also employer here.
I always hate how people believe solutions are easy and clear cut. FFS im lazy- if it was easy it would have been done already and I'd be taking the reward from it.
It's fine. Everyone knows that we are idiots. Can't scratch my ass without 4 peices of paperwork and 8 people giving me advice on how to do it.
Directly:
MONEY
How's that?
Sorry I should have said directly and smart.
I don't see how you took that from what I wrote. It "feels" like you have an ax to grind.
But yes the typical intern salary is in the mid-30s which is well above market rate and I have lobbied to get them more. I mean is the concept so confusing that maybe a 19 year old doesn't want to spend their life doing the same job and instead wants to try to work for a bunch of different sectors? The last one who left told me on the exit interview that they got a job with a certain very large Internet company and asked me what I would do in their position. I told him I would have done the same thing at his age. You don't say no to an internship with one of those.
To me it's simple enough. Humans don't change. When I was young I jumped around a lot and they are doing the same. One day they will be fat middle aged with a family to support and can't do that anymore.
I don't know how I became the bad guy here. I get them as much pay as I can, I give them interesting projects, I truly give a fuck about their success and when they leave I wish them well. That one that just left I made sure he had my personal cell and email address so he could put me down as a reference. And yeah he was screwing me over a bit. Spent all this time training him and leaves in the middle of a project. But that wasn't personal so I didn't take it personally.
At Texas A&M the major chicken companies offer full ride scholarships for people to study poultry science. Industries can afford to pay for schooling, but they say they can’t and make the same arguments you, the non-owner of a large company, have accepted as correct.
If you are saying, “it would be exceedingly difficult and costly to shift the education burden in most jobs,” I’d agree with you. But the other poster is correct - the apprentice model of school and training already exists, and Tyson has shown at least that industry will pay for higher education when demand exceeds supply.
Also that state funding should match workforce demands for the state - this part makes sense.
Should it?
First off, is the point of college to fill job slots or to educate the population? It’s not a trade school.
Second, if you change funding now it impacts programs a few years down the line then prior take 4/5 years to graduate. If you overspecify your funding on the current economic situation you’re always 6 years behind when the grads hit the market.
Republicans treat it as a trade school.
Yes it should. It isn't a discussion (well, it is heavily implied though) that they shouldn't exist, only that the state shouldn't fund it. States job is to get a return on their investment, and funding what is needed is a good way to start - especially in the context of a brain drain from the state.
For the record, im only arguing against the facts at face value. Well aware this has a much deeper motive im not going to defend.
The state’s “job” is to provide services for its people. Not everything the government does needs to turn a profit.
I've said in other comments- investment isn't just financial return. Im not talking about making money, im talking about education in things the state needs and will lead to employment. The state doesn't have unlimited money- put it into things its people need.
Has the state been funding schools though? Because state funding has been falling across the board and if the state has an interest in being lean then they should focus on out of prop salaries of administration and sports spending. After all what interest does the state have in sports? By this line of reasons colleges should have to fund that themselves.
This is of course setting aside that humanities does help society and is in the vested interest of the state. I'm saying this as someone who was a STEM major. Giving context to the world and giving people a greater understanding is useful for every major. It allows them to understand their world and make better decisions from their station in life.
To take the stance that the state has an interest in funding "useful" degrees then no one should be allowed to do anything outside their education, which is aburd. People with different points of view and knowledge enhance professions, not destroy them. That's what happens when a profession only has one allowable perspective to deal with infinite possibilities of the world.
Yes it should. It isn’t a discussion (well, it is heavily implied though) that they shouldn’t exist, only that the state shouldn’t fund it. States job is to get a return on their investment, and funding what is needed is a good way to start - especially in the context of a brain drain from the state.
Educated people still benefit the state, even they are educated in things that wealthy people don't think they can monetise.
I think the key thing people are misunderstanding (or im not being clear with) is that investment isn't just financial return - education in things the state needs is an investment, even if they don't make money from it
Your previous comment said that education funding should match workforce demands. That is what I responded to and disagree with. Education has value beyond just placing people into the workforce.
Let me lmao at you and at your view of how a state should actually function. A state is not at the service of its enterprises, it should only be concerned with the well-being of its inhabitants and citizens: should a state work according to your view then we shouldn't have any public transport, public school or public health. Basically nothing should be founded by the state given that all of these investments do not bear direct returns after they are placed.
Why don't workplaces arrange training courses to ease the entrance of their workforce in their ranks? Is it maybe to save on costs while maximising profits? And why should the state be responsible to form the companies workforces if it doesn't receive anything back from the same companies asking for trade schools instead of colleges?
Late stage capitalism must fall and this moment will never arrive soon enough
I find it hard to believe that the wealthiest humans who have ever walked the earth can't afford to have a few people to study subjects that don't have immediate dollar value. I also find it hard to believe that a random appointed accountant in Mississippi knows that studying German literature will never ever be an investment that pays dividends.
Right now the living author with the most books on the NYT best seller list is a professor of Bible studies who made most of his career comparing ancient Greek manuscripts.
The state’s job is to improve life for those in the state. And given your username I think you may not understand exactly what’s going on in that state so let me add some perspective about Mississippi. It’s a state notorious for its massive racial divides in everything from economics to education to political power to clean water access. The state has brain drain because in order to live in Mississippi you have to live in Mississippi and those who can avoid it tend to. This is their capital.
So how do we fix Mississippi? Honestly probably through massive public works projects, massive infusions of education that we know will get brain drained, and active focus on remedying the racial divide in political power. Cutting funding the liberal arts for more financially desirable fields won’t do shit.
The moment the headline said "indoctrinate", we all knew what this list was going to include.
I see Christian studies isn't on the list....
Funny that....
Aren't christian schools all private?
You left out the context that makes it all way worse:
In numerous statements on social media leading up to the report's publication, White said there should be no taxpayer funding for “useless degrees" in “garbage fields” like Urban Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, German Literature, African American Studies, Gender Studies and Women's Studies.
Man, I remember back when it was women's studies getting bullied, then they added gender studies, now we've got African Americans, Germans (I assume because of Marx?), the study of the development of society, and the study of society. They're becoming so inclusive in their discrimination 🤗
The German Literature one made me LOL, at least he’s being transparent about it.
Although they’re not well advertised in the South, trade schools do exist in the US. The reason trades are seen as a bad job down there is the fact these states are all hot and humid, so working outside can be miserable. A lower paying job in the south is ranked by how much air conditioning you get, which can explain why people slave in Walmart instead of doing trades down there.