Posted on 09/12/2005 10:31:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The pessimistic tone about Social Security, aging population, government deficits, taxes, the dollar, ways to compete with hundreds of millions of hard-working Chinese and Indian youngsters, assumes that there isn't much to be optimistic about the United States when it comes to the labor force. Solutions include increasing the age of retirement and taxes, diminishing Social Security benefits, or attracting qualified immigrants. There is another solution, however.
What if instead of spending 16 years of schooling (including college), one could do so in 15 years? Or, in the case of community colleges, get to the finish line in 13 rather than 14 years? In Israel, undergraduate studies take three years and the work force there is amongst the most highly skilled in the world.
There are about 16 million college students in the United States. Assume that from now on, four million join the labor force a year earlier. Each subsequent generation could then stay one year longer working, making greater contributions to America's economy.
The indirect impacts may be as significant. Finishing one's studies a year earlier brings about greater discipline. If youngsters feel they made a bad education choice, they have one more year to correct the mistake. And if toward middle age, they become bored, they have a year gained to invest in a transition, and correct their mistake.
Israeli undergraduates' stellar performance suggests that completing studies in three years does not mean less education. It is true that Israeli youngsters arrive at the university two to three years older relative to their western counterparts because of two years' service in the army (for girls), and three years (for boys). This provides maturity and valuable experience a classroom can't provide.
The implication then for American youngsters is to gain practical experience earlier on, rather than study additional years. It is not accidental that Israel has the largest concentration of high-tech firms outside Silicon Valley, and, with a population of 6 million, has the third largest number of companies listed on NASDAQ, after the United States and Canada. Working under intense pressure prepares one to see with whom one gets along, who is a leader, who works well under pressure and who does not. It is not surprising that teams shaped in the Israeli military founded many of the high-tech companies.
The fact is that U.S. students are bored. Many spend hours watching TV and playing video games instead of focusing on more productive endeavors. Meanwhile, the level of mathematics, reading, and writing proficiency has been declining.
This brings us to execution: What do high schools and colleges have to do to give students the options to spend a year less "delaying real life," as a popular book title among students puts it?
The onus then is on colleges to do the serious restructuring, without sacrificing the quality of learning. To illustrate, consider this: in 2005, accounting seems to be among undergraduates' top choices. But do students specializing in accounting really have to spend four years as "business undergraduates"?
Accounting is a trade that one learns by practicing, rather than passing multiple choice exams. Until the 1960s one could become an accountant or a lawyer by working, rather than studying the trade at universities. What does it mean to take courses with titles such as "management," "strategy," "organizational behavior," and "psychology of organizations"? Further, the classes are taught by lecturers who, more often than not, have no experience in ever managing, executing, financing, or marketing anything.
Imagine if lecturers in medical schools never operated, but wrote 100 papers on "optimizing procedures in operation rooms" instead. The same pattern holds true for most undergraduate studies: they can be offered in three years with positive outcomes. Israel's experience, where youngsters spend a year less at university, and spend more time in a disciplined, workforce-type environment demonstrates this.
Do universities have an incentive to restructure along the above lines? No. But pressures are coming from outside and many directions. Indian and Chinese youngsters are ambitious and hard working. The U.S. middle class is squeezed with high college tuition rates, while often questioning the curriculum.
Education is now ripe for reform in the United States. Although restructuring of education may seem difficult to fathom in the eyes of many Americans who are used to the status quo, experience in other countries demonstrates that sometimes, less education leads to more positive benefits for society.
Cato adjunct scholar Reuven Brenner lectures at McGill University's Faculty of Management, and is partner at Match Strategic Partners. The article draws on his last book, The Force of Finance: Triumph of the Capital Markets.
This is because most 4-year university's spend 18-24 months devoted to leftist indoctrination.
A motivated student can already graduate an American University in three years.
There is more to the college experience than how fast you can get through it and get to work. Teams, clubs, fraternities student government, learning to live on your own and some extra time to recover from a screw up or two are built into the system.
Lots more people want to come to college in the U.S. - our good colleges are doing fine.
We've got a lot of crappy colleges but that's another thread.
It seems the trend is toward 5 years, not 3.
Well-rounded, my butt, they merely want you to stay 5 or 6 years and pay for this indoctrination. To hell with them!
A lot of young people would rather acquire the knowledge and skill necessary to a productive career than to waste precious time in an extended adolescence. Teams, clubs fraternities, and student government are forms of recreation, and unless the student is footing the bill for his education, housing, and all expenses, he is not learning to live on his own. He is still a subsidized child.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner. BTW, isn't it great how the professors write their own $125 texbooks in which they regularly make superficial changes to thwart the used texbook market?
It seems to me that signigicant portions of the classes I was required to take in College were a huge waste of time, and many left me in disgust at the professors and their hair-brained liberal ideas.
English teachers making up background stories about great authors in direct contradiction to the written history easily available even in those pre-internet days. Not to mention emerging authors still crawling out the slime that spawned them.
College required courses seem a lot like the Federal Budget, and there is a lot of fat that could be cut, quite probably 1 year out of a 4 year program.
I was at an orientation for incoming college freshmen and their parents for a very expensive college. Some recent grads were telling about their experiences and one said that she took an extra year and went on about how worthwhile it was. Then one of the parents shouted from the back "Someone shoot that kid". The annual cost is about 45,000 per year.
College can wait or can be bypassed if one has the desire to gain practical knowlege.
Too many people destroy their talents by studying and not doing.
A lot of young people would rather acquire the knowledge and skill necessary to a productive career than to waste precious time in an extended adolescence. Teams, clubs fraternities, and student government are forms of recreation, and unless the student is footing the bill for his education, housing, and all expenses, he is not learning to live on his own. He is still a subsidized child.Young people who would rather do it three years already can.
Before you could possiby discuss mandating three year programs you would need to significantly improve high school education.
I have seen them switch the order of chapters and nothing else! Though it's very much the publisher and retailer who gouge students the worst, then blame each other.
The better professors have moved away from texts and simply hand out lecture notes, or post them online. Moreso in graduate courses, however; undergrads pay greatly for those mammoth "intro" books.
"Before you could possiby discuss mandating three year programs you would need to significantly improve high school education."
Right on. The senior year of high school is often a joke.
unless the student is footing the bill for his education, housing, and all expenses, he is not learning to live on his own. He is still a subsidized child.
Thank you, I was about to post the same thought.
I have several relatives who could have put their
kids through college and some not. They all made
their kids work their way through and have all been
successful in the real world.
Agreed. I didn't have time for any of that because I had to work my way through college. I was able mostly to work in the field I was studying, so the work experience was far more useful than the classroom stuff. The only use I've gotten out of my degree in 25 years is when some idiot liberal starts yammering about how stupid Republicans are, I note that I'm a Republican and I have a magna cum laude degree with a fistful of academic honors, then challenge them to a game of "Jeopardy" on the subject of current events, which usually makes them pipe down and go away. I never got much out of my degree other than that, but anything that helps clam up a bloviating lib is probably worth the time and money.
Amen to that!
I shake my head at parents who support their children, but balk at setting boundaries of behavior on the grounds that the kids are "adults".
When the kids pay the piper, they can call the tune.
These days its almost impossible for a kid to put himself through college.
When old guys like us (I can see you're an old guy about my age from your profile) were in college, you could work part time and pretty much pay you're way through, I did.
Since then tuition and other costs of college have greatly outpaced inflation, and I'd rather not see my kids graduate and find themselves $100k in debt.
I think there is a lot to be learned in living away from home and being responsible for yourself and your performance, even if you're parents are footing the bill.
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Mostly state-run universities. Wanna get a real education? Go to a junior college or a tech college and get an associate's degree.
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