Should colleges charge future engineers less than future poets?
With Georgia’s tendency of late to look south to Florida for education ideas, we may see some discussion this year in the Legislature on the Sunshine State’s latest brainchild: Incentivize students to become engineers, scientists, health care specialists and technology experts by discounting tuition in those areas of study. Dissuade students from becoming anthropologists, poets and theater majors by charging full tuition for those degrees.
“Do you want to use your tax dollars to educate more people who can’t get jobs in anthropology? I don’t,” said Florida Gov. Rick Scott in a speech last year.
I once was part of an interesting discussion with Emory President James Wagner — he was meeting with the AJC editorial board — on whether tuition should be calibrated so that an education major, for instance, pays less than an engineering major, whose education costs colleges more to provide. The issue came up during a broader discussion about rising college costs and possible solutions.
(Here is a good essay on this issue by Richard Vedder, who directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at Ohio University. If you read it, be sure to read the second comment in response to Vedder’s essay.)
In fact, a few universities already levy fees on students in programs that cost more to operate. In a 2011 survey, the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute found that 143 public universities now impose differential tuition based on major and, in some cases, on year of enrollment in the program.
According to the survey:
The most common majors for which differential tuition charges occur are business, engineering, and nursing. The CHERI research assistants also collected data from institutional web pages on the magnitudes of the differential tuition charges. Examples in 2010-2011 include a $75 per engineering course fee at the University of Maine (a 9.4% increase over the in-state tuition of $801 for a three credit course) and a $460 per semester nursing program fee at the University of Kentucky (a 10.7% increase over the in-state lower-division semester tuition of $4,305).
But the Florida plan goes in the opposite direction, charging engineering majors less to earn their degrees because the state wants more STEM graduates.
As the New York Times reported:
To nudge students toward job-friendly degrees, the governor’s task force on higher education suggested recently that university tuition rates be frozen for three years for majors in “strategic areas,” which would vary depending on supply and demand. An undergraduate student would pay less for a degree in engineering or biotechnology — whose classes are among the most expensive for universities — than for a degree in history or psychology. State financing, which has dropped drastically in the past five years, would be expected to make up the tuition gap.
Dale A. Brill, the chairman of the governor’s task force and a “liberal arts guy,” said universities needed to be realistic. Generous state financing is no longer an option, at least not in Florida. Universities, he said, need to be practical about the value of their degrees at a time when well-paying jobs are scarce, a position taken by a growing number of institutions and one that underscores the latest philosophical divide over education. “The higher education system needs to evolve with the economy,” said Mr. Brill, the president of the Florida Chamber Foundation. “People pay taxes expecting that the public good will be served to the greatest degree possible. We call that a return on investment.”
Florida’s new Senate president, Don Gaetz, a Republican, agrees. He has said he wants “to lash higher education to the realities and opportunities of the economy.”
The Miami Herald had an interesting response piece to the idea:
Science, technology, engineering and math — the fields collectively known as STEM — are all the rage these days. Florida state leaders are so eager for more STEM students that they may even create discounted college tuition for students who pursue those fields. In an economy that is still struggling to regain its footing, boosting STEM is seen by many as a path to jobs.
Except … what if it isn’t? As STEM has become an education buzzword in recent years, a steady stream of research has emerged that challenges the notion of STEM as an economic elixir. In some STEM careers, the employment picture is downright lousy. “Record Unemployment Among Chemists in 2011,” screamed the March headline in Science magazine’s Careers Blog. A headline from June: “What We Need is More Jobs for Scientists.”
Unemployment in STEM fields is still well below the general population (and slightly below college graduates in general). That “record” unemployment for chemists, for example, was 4.6 percent, compared to overall U.S. unemployment at that time of 8.8 percent.
Nevertheless, the glut of workers in some STEM areas (resulting in flat wages, and STEM grads forced to take jobs in non-STEM fields) directly contradicts the widely held view that the United States — and Florida — suffer from a critical shortage of qualified STEM graduates. The truth, many experts say, is more complicated.
“In a general sense, science and innovation do create jobs and drive growth,” said Elizabeth Popp Berman, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Albany whose book Creating the Market University examines the history of university research and its economic impact. “As a nation, having lots of scientists and people inventing stuff is good for us.”
But that doesn’t mean all STEM graduates have a guaranteed job, Berman stressed. The STEM employment picture, Berman said, is “very mixed” and largely dependent upon a student’s particular major. Petroleum engineering majors are doing very well these days; biologists and chemists are not.
Some studies, meanwhile, have challenged the notion of an overall STEM worker shortage — instead finding that the United States is producing vastly more STEM graduates than there are STEM jobs awaiting them. As science organizations and corporations continue to sound the STEM shortage alarm, critics charge that these groups are motivated by self-interest — tech companies, for example, have claimed a shortage of trained workers even as they laid off thousands of U.S. employees, and moved those jobs to low-wage developing countries.
“It’s a way for them to sort of excuse why they’re shifting so much work offshore,” said Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira, who has testified before Congress on the need to tighten the legal loopholes that allow such maneuvers.
What’s interesting to me is that the Florida plan contradicts what experts keep saying: Businesses want employees who can think, write and discern, skills often honed by a liberal arts degree. (A friend in advertising told me once that if you want a strong writer with sharp reasoning skills, hire a philosophy major.)
Writing in Forbes, Cornell President and cardiologist David Skorton and Vice President for University Relations Glenn Altschuler said:
The liberal arts, moreover, also serves as a preferred pathway to rewarding and remunerative careers. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, medical schools accepted 43 percent of the biological sciences majors, 47 percent of physical sciences majors, 51 percent of humanities majors, and 45 percent of social sciences majors who applied in 2010. “Admission committee members know that medical students can develop the essential skills of acquiring, synthesizing, applying and communicating information through a wide variety of academic disciplines,” the AAMC states.
The American Bar Association agrees: “The ABA does not recommend any undergraduate majors or group of courses to prepare for a legal education. Students are admitted to law school from almost every academic discipline.” A study by a Chicago State University professor bears this out: the top ten majors with the highest acceptance rates for law school include philosophy, anthropology, history and English. Both organizations advise prospective applicants to choose majors that interest and challenge them, work hard for excellent grades, develop their research and writing skills and make the most of the opportunities that come their way
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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92 comments Add your comment
DeeInGa
December 14th, 2012
12:18 pm
The problem is not enough slots open in good engineering schools in Georgia. When a high school graduate with an 800 on math on the SAT, 2160 total, 31 college credits from High School AP classes can’t get into a god aerospace engineering school in Georgia because of a lack of space, it begs one to consider why colleges are not doing more to expand space at those colleges. Also, consider that most of those graduating engineers have to move out of state because of a lack of engineering jobs in Georgia, given that Republicans in Georgia support the wholesale transfer of engineering jobs from Georgia to Texas, is it any wonder we have so many problems with STEM in Georgia schools. Who wants to move away from family when they get their degree? I had to do it and didn’t like it one bit.
Prof
December 14th, 2012
12:26 pm
I am curious about what would happen when this plan to charge tuition according to majors hits the psychology of the undergraduate who is 18-21 years old. They are generally inquisitive, exploratory, and open, and VERY prone to change their majors at least once while in college. Very often, their ideas change about what they want to do with the rest of their lives and what really interests them. That’s just the way they are, especially when they’re 18 and 19.
Unless they’re going to a 2-year trade school, they take the initial two-year Core Curriculum at the college/university that introduces them to the hard sciences, the arts, the social sciences etc., which is designed to give them a basic understanding of all the areas of knowledge. You know, a well-rounded education for our citizenry? Often enough, they find new interests in the fields they hadn’t known about before.
So how do you decide what tuition to charge for the student (like my own off-spring) who comes in to college wanting to be a practical veterinarian and takes 2 years of courses in the sciences for this (and does well), but winds up with a degree in Cultural Studies because “it’s so much more interesting and teaches me the way different people think”? Now, it’s worked out fine because it was the perfect background for an MA in Linguistics and a job working with international executives in the corporate world. But should her University have charged her less for being a STEM major for her first two years, and more for being a Humanities major in a far-out field for her last two?
MiltonMan
December 14th, 2012
12:26 pm
“It is indeed a myth that liberal arts education is less rigorous.”
That right there is pure BS! I saw plenty of engineering students drop out of engineering & major in Liberal Arts – many went on to graduate with high honors. Never, never saw a liberal arts clown switch to engineering.
Timmy
December 14th, 2012
12:41 pm
Great idea. While we are at it…stop funding for the arts. If people want it…they will pay for it. We need engineers. We don’t need poets.
Mary Elizabeth
December 14th, 2012
12:41 pm
Each person is born with aptitudes in different areas. Generally, people seek courses of study which fit their particular aptitudes and, thereby, their interests. Is it right, or smart, for the state to try to turn a future Tennessee Williams into an engineer, or the engineer into a playwright if the student’s aptitudes are not designed to that natuarl fit?
Aware educators recognize these differences in their students and they attempt to bring out the innate talents of each student under their tutelage. It is better for the state, and for the nation, if each student rises to the fulfillment of his or her particular aptitudes and abilities. In that way, the individual finds joy and productivity in his or her work, and the nation benefits through having had the innate talents within its various citizens maximized in ways specific to the unique talents of each.
That being said, most people have aptitudes in more than one area; thus, for the state to offer incentives for students to pursue an area of secondary interest to them is feasible.
Moreover, it should be stated that writing skills are needed in every area of pursuit, including science and mathematics, if effective communication, to the greater public, is desired. When Albert Einstein was trying to give credibility and validity to his Theory of Relativity – before he confronted his critics firsthand publicly – he would first engage, privately at home, in ascertaining how his scientific opponents would present their arguments against his theory, and then he would formulate thoughts to refute their arguments, so that when he encountered the arguments of his critics in public, their arguments would not be a surprise to him and he would be well-prepared to defend his Theory of Relativity not only to them but to the press in attendance in the larger audience. That skill, used by Einstein to make his Theory of Relativity acceptable to the scientists of his day and to the public at large, took literary understanding.
The value of studying the Liberal Arts for the purpose of offering enlightened communication to others – through the centuries – must never be underrated. The movie, “Lincoln,” is currently playing in Atlanta’s theatres (and I recommend it highly to this reading audience). Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address will have social impact for generations to come, just as will Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The arts and the literary, as well as the mathematical and the scientific, will remain of substantive value to humankind, indefinitely. Only the short-sighted will fail to recognize this abiding truth.
janet
December 14th, 2012
12:44 pm
Just what we need more engineers who can’t write a cohesive sentence or express a thought without a notepad in their hand. Think back through history and who do you remember? Poets, authors, musicians, historians, painters, sculptors. Quick give me the name of a great engineer?
Chemist
December 14th, 2012
12:50 pm
As a young chemist I find this discussion to be rather interesting. In short, no I do not think universities should charge less for STEM degrees. The government already manipulates the cost through scholarships targeted to these specific degrees. Also a graduate degree is almost always free for a STEM major through government and industry research grants and/or teaching assistantships.
I’m originally from South Florida, so I’m surprised the Florida government has chosen this approach. Simply put, Florida doesn’t have a science or technology industry. Most jobs in South Florida are for health care, tourism, or agriculture. The glut of science majors I know from Florida have left the state, myself included.
From my perspective, we do not have a shortage of STEM workers in this country. When most employers complain about worker shortages, what they mean is, “We can’t find a unicorn with this exact number of years of experience, with this very narrow background of experience, in the immediate geographical location, willing to work at this wage, and needs zero training on day one.” However, I think this is the case in most fields. The sluggish economy allows employers to be very picky. Also, an unfilled position looks better on a budget sheet. The best and the brightest, or should I say the best at marketing themselves, are still able to find gainful employment. Unfortunately, everyone else is SOL.
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
12:50 pm
What this really is is rationing. A fixed portion, especially an amount of food allotted to persons in military service or to civilians in times of scarcity.
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
12:52 pm
great engineer: Gustave Eiffel.
Undisputable thought
December 14th, 2012
1:14 pm
Years ago, I attended a small Bible college, in Dallas, TX, where the school did not believe the Deaf (like myself) were capable of going into ministry. We were only there, to provide someone for unknown evangelists to pray for (to heal deafness, which, according to Exodus 4:11, isn’t even an illness).
The problem, as I see it, is they required the Deaf students to pay the same room and board (they DID give tuition scholarships, but that was because we weren’t allowwed to decide for ourselves which classes we would take — the Deaf students had to vote on which classes the entire group would attend and, if your preferencde didn’t win the vote, you could do nothing about it).
Looking back, I see that they wanted us to be there, without believing we could do anyting, after we’d graduated and, although a few of us proved them wrong, they refused to acknowledge our successes.
My point is this: If you’re going to cheat one group, it’s still cheating!
(btw: In 1991 or 1992, the, above-mentioned, Bible college closed the Department of Deaf Studies, on the guise that it hadn’t grown enough to warrant the money being used there. I, along with several other former members of that department, believe the reason is actually because not one Deaf student was ever healed, despite all the healers, they’d bring in — they never admitted two things: First, the Deaf culture is of God (Exodus 4:11 is proof of this) and, secondly, several former Deaf students succeeded without the help of the institution! )
SBinF
December 14th, 2012
1:18 pm
My family lived and payed taxes in Ga for 25 years before I matriculated. That alone says I should major in what I want and pay the same price as everyone else if I attend a public university.
SBinF
December 14th, 2012
1:21 pm
Better yet, I’ll go engineering for two years at the reduced rate to get my core courses out of the way, then head to the anthropology department. That’s the ticket!
vuduchld
December 14th, 2012
1:25 pm
My neice graduated in May 2012 with a ” do nothing” degree in African-American studies with a minor in Pop Culture. Currently she’s a Business Analyst for Target at their Coroprate HQ. Looks like her “do nothing” degree did her just fine.
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
1:26 pm
MiltonMan, when I taught humanities with moderate rigor, my boss told me to back off and that I was asking too much of students. The students did not see it that way and if anything, wanted more, so to speak. Any field can be taught with rigor or be a soft sell. It can be an advantage to the business class to eliminate or otherwise devalue the persons capable of being critical of the actions of the business or political class. There is a long history of devaluing humanities persons, sometimes putting them in insane asylums to shut them up. Devaluing the opponent is one of the formal operational methods of propaganda, hence,
“Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the chosen result in audience attitudes.”
“As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare.”
and this is basic, persons should be informed. Education initiative naming is rather glaring in this respect: http://mason.gmu.edu/~amcdonal/Propaganda%20Techniques.html
The American, Edward Bernays, who is Sigmund Freud’s nephew, is generally credited with formalising and defining usage of propaganda on the public and he was employed to do so strategically by U. S. industry. Here is Bernays himself telling how he does it to support “the club” that does not want to be diluted by “democracy” http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html One of Bernays’ earliest successes was to conceive of making television commercials showing “independent” women smoking cigarettes and inventing public stunts to promote this same and to film it. The result was that tobacco sales increased greatly. Bernays was paid by the tobacco companies to increase their sales.
One of the more noted works he performed was telling the U. S. public / officials that South America had communists in it, so this allowed a military coup for the purposes that Bernays was paid to secure the area for United Fruit Company to take over production of fruit.
“UFCO hired Edward Bernays, a prominent public relations man with numerous ties to American politics and media, to produce this propaganda. This included paying for reporters to travel to Guatemala on “fact finding missions” and then exposing them to staged events showing the onslaught of communism in the country. The UFCO also produced a great amount of unfounded literature detailing the supposed communist infiltration of the Arbenz regime. This literature was then circulated to influential politicians and opinion leaders… In 1952 the CIA began making plans for a coup in Guatemala… http://revolutions.truman.edu/guatemala/united%20fruit,%20the%20cia,%20and%20counter%20revolution.htm
“Uncle Sigmund’s “talking cure” was designed to unearth his patients’ unconscious drives and hidden motives, in the belief that bringing them into conscious discourse would help people lead healthier lives. Bernays, by contrast, used psychological techniques to mask the motives of his clients, as part of a deliberate strategy aimed at keeping the public unconscious of the forces that were working to mold their minds.”
“Characteristically (and again paradoxically), Bernays was remarkably candid about his manipulative intent. “If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it,”
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html
beteachin
December 14th, 2012
1:29 pm
Wow…how many days in a row will this blog make my blood pressure go sky high! Are we living in China now? Are we telling people what to study in college and what careers to pursue? What about personal choice/celebrating the gifts God gave us/asking What Color is my Parachute? If a student is smart enough to get into college, then surely he/she is smart enough to major in something that will yield a lucrative career. And if he chooses to become a starving artist (or an English teacher), that’s his right. The State shouldn’t add insult (higher tuition) to injury (a low-paying career by personal choice).
Good Grief
December 14th, 2012
1:29 pm
As an English major who turned his degree into a decently successful career, I’m not thrilled with this notion. Not all English majors become “poets” or teachers. Some of us concentrated on writing and publishing, and we find work in all sorts of writing fields. On top of that, students who focus on English and History typically have a harder time with math than engineers do. Are you saying we should be forced to pay a higher tuition price, simply because we don’t understand math the way they do? Have you ever read an engineer’s writing? It takes people like English majors to decipher what engineers are trying to tell the world, because these math geniuses tend to lack basic communicaiton skills that Liberal Arts majors often have in abundance. But yeah, punish the non-mathematically inclined, simply because they are not as good at mathas someone else. Great idea.
SBinF
December 14th, 2012
1:32 pm
“That right there is pure BS! I saw plenty of engineering students drop out of engineering & major in Liberal Arts – many went on to graduate with high honors. Never, never saw a liberal arts clown switch to engineering.”
I attended a well known technological university in Atlanta. As a history/sociology major there, I was definitely in the minority. The worst was group projects in my major classes, I’d get stuck with engineering majors that couldn’t form a cohesive argument, much less articulate it. We all have our strengths. Because the type of work in a liberal arts program is different, doesn’t make it less rigorous.
Sfour4
December 14th, 2012
1:38 pm
What is the role of college – is it for education, or for filling jobs? Being a college student, for myself as well as for many others, would be totally worthless if it were for filling vacant seats in an office. You can do that without college, as evidenced by so many people finding jobs outside their chosen major after graduation. So, if education is the goal of… college education (it is), then dissuading anyone from taking any one direction over another based on purely monetary incentive is insane.
And whoever said that college should be attended only by people that can afford it apparently didn’t take advantage of their privilege and go to school. Geez.
Guest
December 14th, 2012
1:38 pm
“Never, never saw a liberal arts clown switch to engineering.”
Why would a “liberal arts clown” be at an engineering school? (Judging by your enmity and lack of self-awareness, I’m guessing you went to Tech.)
Hell of an Engineer
December 14th, 2012
1:42 pm
janet,
How is name recognition “back through history” relevant? Just because more people recognize the name Picasso than Tesla, does that make the artist “greater” in your mind? The contributions that engineers make to society are rarely recognized. People just take everything for granted; when you flip a light switch or turn on a faucet, you don’t think about the engineer who designed the complex system. Engineers can’t exactly sign their names to their work like a poet, author, etc.
Hillbilly D
December 14th, 2012
1:45 pm
When I was coming along, all those years ago, I knew several people who were going to go to medical school. They wanted to be doctors, for the money not for any interest in medicine. They ran into problems, along the way, because they couldn’t keep their grades up. Some of them then went to Plan B and went to law school and others couldn’t cut that either. A couple finished college and most didn’t.
Maybe there’s a lesson in all that.
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
1:48 pm
What about… What Color is my Parachute? (career book)
ha. That’s funny. Good call. http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/features/what-color-is-your-parachute/ with video of author commentary
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
1:54 pm
SBinF, you’re making me chuckle when I think of some engineering students I’ve known. One of them had a real strong interest in humans having no body hair – anywhere other than hair-do. He said it was “gross.” This is from a full grown adult. The topic was not open for debate either. This particular person was insecure, narcissistic, and mal-adjusted. Hmmm sounds like some policy makers?
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
2:02 pm
There is a much repeated doctrine in business that you do not want the engineers communicating with the client. This is not to say that there are not engineers who also run full scale companies and are excellent with both staff and clients, but this is a saying I have heard more than once, and from sources unrelated to one another. In other words, the engineer will be preoccupied with their specifics and not able to relate to the client’s overall schema, requirements, viewpoint.
Private Citizen
December 14th, 2012
2:09 pm
Oh my goodness. There has been a catastrophic event in Connecticut (reading the “latest news” pop-up bottom of my browser).
Gerald
December 14th, 2012
2:27 pm
I am an engineer whose career prior to retirement spanned many types of jobs. I also originated and/or managed college recruiting programs for 3 Fortune 500 corporations. We looked for people with high intellect from demanding universities. We recruited Engineers, Scientists, MBA’s, Accountants and Finance Majors. Many of the MBA’s had Liberal Arts undergraduate degrees – but always from premier schools. The common thread was intelligent, ambitious people with good written and oral communications skills. I worked for CEO’s from Harvard (MBA), Yale (MS ChE), Davidson (Finance), as well as two with no college degree. At some point the eternal argument about the value of various degrees is a distraction. If one can afford the luxury of education for it’s own value, then do whatever interests you. If you wish to increase your odds of gainful employment, try to attend highly regarded schools in disciplines you are qualified for and that are likely to be in demand. Having said that, flexibility and continual learning throughout your life will be key to continuing success.
As to the issue of Florida’s incentives, I do not support that idea. I do believe that students should pay the actual cost of their classes – and certainly most lab sciences and computer science courses tend to have additional costs when compared to classical liberal arts courses. As an additional point, I would hope that the government would insist on Universiities providing accurate statistics as to jobs and salaries for graduates by major – not just averages. College loans should be only made in recognition of the applicant’s possibility of repaying said loan in a reasonable amount of time.
williebkind
December 14th, 2012
2:42 pm
Hey if you got a liberal arts degree in basket weaving you can go to work for the federal government making 70K a year. I have learned the liberal arts degree earners can cut and paste really good.
Pride and Joy
December 14th, 2012
2:43 pm
If an engineering degree was downright inexpensive, I’d get one; however, making an engineering degree cost marginally less won’t drive behavior.
The cost of any education, even one with free tuition, is expensive because one still has to eat, live in a shelter, get medical care and so on and those things aren’t free. Although I had free tuition, I still had to work to pay for the dormitory, my medical and dental costs and so on. I supported myself in college as many kids do.
If our government really wants more STEM graduates, then offer the education for absolutely nothing; otherwise, quit hiring foreign nationals who take our jobs, then ship their families over here to take the rest of our jobs.
We need to stop outsourcing America.
lahopital
December 14th, 2012
2:44 pm
There’s no point in diluting the quality of engineers or other science majors by trying to attract more people to its study. As long as you can major in hostpital administration, marketing or hotel management, study half as much as an engineer, and make twice as much, you’re not going to have that many people going into the engineering. Businesses can import engineers or outsource their engineering at a lower cost than paying for US grads, so there isn’t any problem with getting engineering talent.
An Accidential Professor
December 14th, 2012
5:46 pm
@ Jessica- Trade schools are “real colleges”. In my personal experience, trade school graduates are more likely to be employed than your traditional “well rounded” liberal arts grads. Many “real colleges” have done nothing but produce “well rounded” students who are not qualified for anything but graduate school. At least a trade school graduate can begin working and contributing to society with legitimate marketable skills the day they graduate.
While I do not believe that schools should charge different tuition rates based on major, I do believe that federal funding should be restricted for students that choose to pursue degrees that are unlikely to lead to gainful employment.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
December 14th, 2012
6:25 pm
@Fred “Folks get those soft degrees because they aren’t very bright, not because of the cost of the degree. ”
Or maybe, they get soft degrees because that is what INTERESTS them, as opposed to making a choice based upon possible income. For some people, satistaction comes from following their passion, not from money.
I am frankly tired of folks suggesting those with liberal arts degress are necessarily less “intelligent” than those with STEM degrees. Some liberal art majors may not be brilliant, but many are. Few STEM majors are dumb as rocks, but some of them are very rigid in their thinking and exceedingly arrogant. It takes all kinds to create a well rounded society.
Billy Bob
December 14th, 2012
9:04 pm
And here I thought I was a bit of a conservative Republican…maybe libertarian…and, yet, there are other Republicans who apparently are in favor of centralized planning. If we need more STEM professionals, are the people who would do well in STEM classes not smart enough to see the availability of jobs and higher salaries 4 years hence? Is that not enough motivation for them to pursue STEM degrees now? Does supply and demand and do market forces not work in this regard? As for me, thank you taxpayers for giving me a military scholarship to get a lib arts degree that has allowed me serve my country for 30 years…and get a law degree during that time. And, also, thank you for giving scholarships to many of my colleagues who received STEM degrees and have served in their own ways. But leave it to some of the knuckleheads who have posted here not to see the value of both….
bootney farnsworth
December 14th, 2012
10:55 pm
of course not:
outside of the fact STEM courses are more expensive to offer, the sheer numbers of STEM students vs humanities students make the idea impossible.
what we ought to do is limit the amount of humanities degrees offered, and the amount of schools offering them as upper level courses. just because a student wants a degree in a field of limited prospects, that doesn’t mean we should have to offer them.
part of the major reboot needed in higher ed is a massive revisiting of what we offer, and why we
offer them.
I would have loved a degree in girl watching, but the college I went to didn’t offer it
My goodness...
December 15th, 2012
3:10 am
I have a liberal arts degree and an engineering degree. You all are making sweeping generalizations, once again – as tends to be a trend on this blog among regular posters, about both groups of people and both types of schools. That’s the preface to my comment.
Now, I see a few folks making the argument that reducing tuition will reduce quality — hogwash. You want to increase quality, you decrease to cost to the student and keep the standard the same if not higher.
More importantly, it’s time to take the E out of STEM when talking about these fields at the university level and beyond. The STEM acronym was borne out of a need on the K-12 level to push content that gets kids thinking more quantitatively and the need to connect that so some employment fields — that’s it. In reality, engineering, theoretical sciences and math have little in common other than the first year coursework and are pretty divergent (I imagine) when it comes to employment outcomes. Engineers have an unemployment rate of somewhere between 2 and 3 percent, depending on who you ask — and there are jobs everywhere doing just about anything. Not the case for chemists (as discussed) and biologists.
I know it’s hard in a blog setting and that there are trolls everywhere, but tightening up the language a bit when it comes to defining these terms mean will help have a more meaningful discussion.
Finally on topic, the universities should charge whatever they want/need to. You want to output employable individuals, first and foremost provide quality instruction to students who are ready for the content (you may need to fix K-12 issues first, which of course is a whole other issue). The fact that undies are in a bunch at the reality that all fields are not of equal value to society and that we do not live in an egalitarian fantasy land is a bit of an issue in itself.
In general, every person should probably do what they are good at, whether it is building bridges or putting paint on a canvas. Just be prepared to live with the decision to make a living at that “thing.” In my case, I worked my butt off (no luck was involved) to be really good at math &science and the social sciences. I worked hard, got my degree in International Relations and worked for a decade or so in a related field. Did great, made some bucks, helped a lot of people, got burned out. Then I got my engineering degree and am an engineer today. Was there debt, yes. Was there help from mom and dad, no. Was it tough, yes. But it happened that that’s my path. Anything can be done with hard work and dedication.
John Konop
December 15th, 2012
4:58 am
We should limit the government backed loan amount via ROI of degree.
Private Citizen
December 15th, 2012
8:36 am
MY goodness, interesting point you make that following “STEM” path does not mean great employment for some. Also, there is very little media representation of engineering culture, what they do, what kind of work they do.
Not to overstate it, but in the US, the History channel is marketing UFO’s and such. It is as they are ridiculing the public. This is part of the populist mono-culture from the media, it’s like a planned menu. If you think about it, there is really a discord between the pop media – tv/radio – and the STEM type initiatives.
Private Citizen
December 15th, 2012
10:38 am
The Yardbirds – Roger The Engineer (1966) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Iq7mmgMMk
Private Citizen
December 15th, 2012
10:51 am
from “Roger the Engineer”
Baby I got a problem,
Don’t know what to do.
Baby I got a problem,
I don’t know what to do.
Can’t find the words to describe you, woman,
None I got will do.
I gonna search a dictionary,
I find new words to use.
Gonna search a dictionary,
Find new words to use.
Woman you defy me,
Ain’t no words to choose.
Baby I’m rackin’ my mind,
Mitch
December 15th, 2012
10:23 pm
@Rick in Grayson. Best boss I ever had was a Chemistry Major. Never worked a day as a chemist. Wound up as chairman of the board of the Huffy Corp.
Regarding STEM. These fields have been cheapened by force feeding every high shool student high math. Many do exceptionally well but most are useless. Then add to the problem by requiring the college student to take it all over again. Rediculous. Our education system totally wastes three or four years of every students life by requiring them to sit in a cdlas room when they should be at work learning something.l
Cobb History Teacher
December 16th, 2012
8:11 am
Although that does sound enticing to get people to choose degree / careers that we have a shortage of bottom line their salaries will be far higher and they will be able to pay off loans far sooner. The problem is we have been in an era of “everyone must go to college at 18.” This mantra has made colleges just another industry. How can we find more students to justify more professors to increase the schools bottom line. We need to focus on students strengths, talents, and interests rather than just push everyone into the college track.
bootney farnsworth
December 16th, 2012
12:02 pm
@ prof,
actually, more more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m kinda liking fees directly based on major.
it’ll hopefully help steer some towards more desired majors/skills, while making the workplace useless majors less desirable.
a major devil in the details to be sure, but one which I think has great potential.
Prof
December 16th, 2012
12:38 pm
@ bootney. I think that the workplace right now is already doing its own weeding of “useless majors.” So is the well-publicized federal student loan fiasco. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is once again proved to be correct.