Having worked in some of the admissions process during grad school because of my dissertation advisor's involvement, and grad student are the slaves of the profs, I don't think that a lot of college admissions are merit based. Either that or standards have dropped. First off there are legacies - students admitted because their parents graduated from the school (that's Bush and Kerry). Then there are the various dean exceptions. This can be for any reason, typically though daddy has just made a large contribution to make sure his dumber than a stump kid can get into a college. then comes the merit - and frankly that system is so arcane, based on grades, act/sat scores, applications, essays etc that merit is not the choice.
As for the so called government assault on for profit schools. Lets be honest about these places, they are not really degree granting institutions. They are corporations specifically designed to separate their customers from their money/student aid. I do not think that the government would have any objection to these places, if the graduation rates were better, rather than typically well below 60%. On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Jerry Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: > > "Education is not a free market. It's heavily subsidized, by federal money, > and > by loans. If it were a finance based free market, you'd only get to go to > school if you had the money or could prove you were good for a loan. In an > intelligence based free market on education, only the smartest people would > get in." > > Disregarding the subsidies, it is still not a free market. Colleges are > "supposed" to admit students based on merit, not cost (but then George Bush > and John Kerry got into Yale, so the system is no where near completely > merit based). > > > Then, there is the rising issue of the government assault on for profit > colleges. While some of these institutes implement some very questionable > practices, they are meeting a demand. Hense, the number of these > institutes continue to grow. If the demand continued, I believe the issues > would self correct. That is, institutes would open that did not use the > questionable practices, forcing others to do so also. > > I do not believe that the government attack on for profit colleges has > anything to do with protecting students. I believe it has everything to do > with protecting the existing educational industrial complex. > > > "AFAIK - neither of these criteria are used for student loans." > > And why is that? It's almost like someone wants people to be buried under > debt. > > > Anyway, this goes back to a thread on CF-Community several months ago that > touched on several issues. > > At what point does it become worthwhile to skip college? If it is going to > take 300k in loans to get a degree, is it worth it? > > At what point, do those giving the loans say "You cannot major in > philosophy, history, political science, art history, etc." since there are > no jobs for these fields and you will not be able to pay us back? > > > J > > - > > You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you > do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do > well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. - John Kerry > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:352007 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
