I don't like it

[random axe]

I was this || close to rewording that, but I said to hell with it.

[Celegorm]

It's like Rage Against The Machine Said.

Don't stand on a silent platform.  Fight the war, FUCK the Norm.

[mybabysmomma]

Do we all have to fuck the NORM?  Not that I don't want to, I just don't like when it gets all messy and stuff.  I'll just watch if that's ok.

[Celegorm]

I'm not sure... but he repeats it a lot, so I'm guessing that it's some sort of imperative.

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

Hah. I always wanted to be the standard deviation, but I'll settle for what I can get.

Ruth, couple things about what you said way up there:

With regards to the federal gum't and higher education, pretty much the only thing they directly do is grants and loan guarantees for students - and for sure those are just as good for votech education as they are for university education. So they are very fair there already - leaving aside the exploitative nature of student loans, which is a really bad problem for everyone.

The availability of votech training is a local issue on which the states and localities are not doing very well, I agree, but I don't think the feds can or necessarily should do much about that. On the other hand, the lack of public opportunities has led to the rise of private for-profit vocational schools with outrageous tuition. I don't think that's good, even though you can often use federal financial aid at those places.

Finally, there is a big question of how much votech training is wanted. Because of the wholesale export of American industry overseas and general anti-labor success by what remains, there are very few if any skilled manufacturing jobs in this country (outside of the trades, which are tremendously new-construction dependent and really can't be considered steady in this economy). Most people in their right minds are going to want to get a job that pays the bills, and retail or clerical jobs aren't cutting it any more. So, many of them want to go to college. Is this right? I don't know. I wish it were possible for someone who doesn't want to pony up for a college education or a hideously expensive vocational training thing to get a steady job that allows them to live a comfortable life without fear of penury. But all those jobs are now in Malaysia.

tl;dr sorry

[flipper]

Too much goes on while I'm not around.

Back to the military thing.  I heard the first five minutes or so on the drive home.  I haven't watched it yet.  But from just listening (not watching) I honed in on him saying that the military is heroic because it just gets the job done, as opposed to the asshats in congress who are incapable of getting the job done.  I think it was his way of being passive-aggressive to the congress critters.

As for fucking the Norm.  It reminds me of that chess scene from HOTWPO, Rook takes the Norm, Knight takes the Norm, Bishop takes the Norm, Pawns take the Norm, GANGBANG!

[mybabysmomma]

Thanks for the in depth, really.  I understand what you are saying and it all makes sense.  I live in an area where I am hearing with some regularity, companies talking about how they want to hire but they need people with skills and can't find what they need.  I think that is what votech is for.  I live in the middle of NC and have many companies that require skilled labor.  Does that make any sense?  Our community colleges are fairly good but are trying to play catch up with the job market with getting people the skills they need to get and keep jobs.

I also live where many major universities pad their payroll with favors and relatives and whatnot so I'm a little bitter there when it comes to them asking for higher tuition fees.

[random axe]

I wish it were possible for someone who doesn't want to pony up for a college education or a hideously expensive vocational training thing to get a steady job that allows them to live a comfortable life without fear of penury.

College education is often not much help there, either, of course.

I'm hugely in favor of education, and, additionally, huge in favor of a good liberal arts foundation.  For everyone.  But college costs are simply ridiculous.  According to the feds, average cost per credit hour:

- in-state public:  over $250

- out-of-state public:  over $650

- private:  over $900

Bullshit, Klaus.  And that's just tuition itself.  That might be a good price if you were hiring a professor as a private tutor.  Actual average annual cost to a student for any four-year school was over $27,000 in 2010.  For almost all majors, it simply should not cost anything like that much.  And it's not the teaching professors who are sucking up that money; their average salary at a four-year is now hovering around $100k, which is a lot to most people but not a lot in terms of how many students' tuition it uses up.

Now, if you have a major that requires, say, access to a cyclotron, there's a heavier per-student cost there for the university, assuming the university pays for the cyclotron.  But the fact is that students get milked severely.  Hell, probably half of them get a shit education no matter where they go to school, and even if that's usually their own fault, it doesn't diminish the level of wasted money.

[feffer]

I also live where many major universities pad their payroll with favors and relatives and whatnot so I'm a little bitter there when it comes to them asking for higher tuition fees.

Duke sucks?

[mybabysmomma]

That may well be but the UNC system is rife with that kind of crap.

[TFJ]

in-state public:  over $250

that is only about $6 fiddy per actual in-class hour...not counting office hours or labs.

[random axe]

Yeah, average 'contact hour' claim per credit hour is over 45, which is to say that allegedly you get 45 hours of professional professoring per credit hour.  It's a stupid metric, but most metrics are stupid.  (Especially centimeters, WTF.)

But that's the low-end cost, and we all know that for a lot of classes and/or professors those 'contact hours' are often not going to be great hours.  There are certainly classes that are worth every dime.  And there are a lot of classes that are total crap.

Six bucks an hour would be good for a decent lecture hall class.  It's a hell of a bargain for some smaller classes and for access to some professors.  And if tuition were the whole cost of going to school, it'd be a vastly different story.