And the whole "changing the line" thing made me think of the hippies. Rather spiritual and arty, and therefore easily dismissable (especially since I'm not that kind of guy, and I doubt you are either - we don't think like that, we don't express ourself in that manner, we don't use those tropes in our speak etc). But the hippies didn't just do acid, they accomplished things as well. Mostly social, which doesn't bode well for the whole "stop Wall Street from destroying the country" thing, but (in my own narrow experience) social change has kind of stagnated in the states anyway. And getting them to focus on the political system shouldn't be impossible either.[/qujote]
I think the problem is that these people think of themselves as hippies, yet the (older now) hippies I know (and due to my school affiliation I know more than a few) just shake their head at them.
Erm… doesn't the price usually go down when the supply increases?
Yes, but it's not a simple 'there are more degree programs and the same number of students.'
1) As a percentage of the population, more people than ever are going to some kind of college or university. That in and of itself is not necessarily bad, but when you have people going to school, spending large sums of money and getting into significant debt for degrees that ultimately have no real economic value to them, it becomes a problem.
Add in the huge influx of graduate programs, and the problem is even worse. What percentage of people had an MBA 20 or 30 years ago vs now? But are they really producing any more economic value? When I started MBA school, getting an MBA was a fairly prestigious thing still, and for my position, I use what learned daily (that's compounded though because my undergrad is in Journalism, which I do use some of the skills, but not as many). Now, I have literally met managers at fast food restaurants, not franchisers, that hold MBA's from some of these lesser programs. Are they really doing a better job managing a Taco Bell due to $45k worth of MBA classes?
So back on tract, the total population of students has increased, which is driven by this concept that you have to have a degree to get a decent job.
2) The competition for top professors is through the roof. I sit on one of the advisory boards for the University of Texas at Austin so I get to see a lot of this first hand. Competition is fierce for top quality professors. We actually have a special donors fund that the President of the University can use, among other things, to spend whatever it takes to get a specific prof to come to UT. This is vastly different than things were even 10 years ago.
The number of top quality profs hasn't increased that much, but the number of schools recruiting them has.
3) The other costs associated with running any organization (technology, facilities, health care, etc.) has gone up at a staggering rate as well. As a school, you can't afford to be behind on technology or the education you are providing will suffer.
4) State funding of schools has gone down dramatically. In Texas, this has been a huge problem (and is directly related to the reduction in oil production after the oil bust in the last 80's). So more of the burden is falling on the students (and parents).
Why is there such a huge amount of Americans who don't know how American society works anyway? I find that to be a more interesting topic than being mad of pepole not knowing what you (in all your middle classness) know.
It more comes down to a sense of entitlement in this country that has grown for decades. We could discuss that for years, but it seems to me that it comes from a lot of the attitudes we have fostered in child development (giving everyone the 1st place, blue ribbon at science fairs, not keeping score in sports, banning dodgeball so as to not hurt anyone's feelings).
It's not just the millennials (people that have graduated in the last ten years mostly), but I've heard horror stories of dealing with these people in particular. I've heard them called 'the most praised generation' among other things.
But like I said, its not just them by any means. Its the same reason we have a civil justice system run amok. You can't even just blame the lawyers as behind every lawyer is a client demanding 'its someone else's fault!' (not that all lawsuits are unjustified by any means). I've read that a lot of these actually traces to the 'War on Poverty' that President Johnson kicked off in the 60's. Many people feel that rather than solve poverty, it trapped a lot of people in it and fostered a dependence attitude that has spread throughout society.
(Also, provided you can live off of $400 a month (two summer months not counted for) you don't have to borrow a single cent to study in Sweden. There's one company that provides student loans, and since it's the same company that provides those $400 everyone's aware of the possibility to loan.)
That's pretty nice!