Re: Grade Inflation
The real problem with grade inflation is not the reduction in information that might be used by employers. As with regular inflation, the real problem is that grade inflation is not uniform - some departments and some professors are more subject to inflation than others. In particular, grade inflation tends to be much worse the softer the science: grades are almost always significantly higher in art, cultural anthropology, and english than in math, physics and economics, for example. And within departments it is well known that some professors grade easier than others. The effect of this is to draw students away from math, science and economics and towards the softer social sciences. Similarly, within departments students are drawn away from harder graders and towards softer graders. Budgets go where students go! Thus grade inflation causes a *misallocation of resources* (measured in student time or in budgets.) Alex -- Dr. Alexander Tabarrok Vice President and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621-1428 Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Grade Inflation
The effect of this is to draw students away from math, science and economics and towards the softer social sciences. Similarly, within departments students are drawn away from harder graders and towards softer graders. Budgets go where students go! Thus grade inflation causes a *misallocation of resources* (measured in student time or in budgets.) Alex Alex, were you reading the New York Times this morning? Seriously, how much misallocation is occuring? Why is better to have more math and physics majors, and less English majors? Maybe this is in some sense optimal. Why should people who can't do math clog up math classes? English professors are cheaper and more numerous, so maybe lax grading is a way of allowing people to get the degree while not burdening the big money generators of the university. Fabio
Re: Grade Inflation
That's what I meant. ;-) The real problem with grade inflation is not the reduction in information that might be used by employers. As with regular inflation, the real problem is that grade inflation is not uniform - some departments and some professors are more subject to inflation than others. In particular, grade inflation tends to be much worse the softer the science: grades are almost always significantly higher in art, cultural anthropology, and english than in math, physics and economics, for example. And within departments it is well known that some professors grade easier than others. The effect of this is to draw students away from math, science and economics and towards the softer social sciences. Similarly, within departments students are drawn away from harder graders and towards softer graders. Budgets go where students go! Thus grade inflation causes a *misallocation of resources* (measured in student time or in budgets.) Alex -- Dr. Alexander Tabarrok Vice President and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621-1428 Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] First Law of Work: If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.
Re: entropy and sustainability
So there maybe physical limits on certain technologies, but are there limits on human creativity in creating new technologies? We may fill the capacity of a silicon chip, but what about a chip made of something organic? or some other yet unthought of way to store info? Certain ideas may have finite limits, but is the number of idea finite? Jason
Re: PhD Gluts
Title: Re: PhD Gluts I don't have the answer to this puzzle, but I want to bring up the fact that there is price discrimination in academia. Not all faculty pay scales are the same. At some universitites (probably most) there is a different pay scale for academic salaries for Business and Engineering (B/E) faculty. I believe most physical scientists are included in this pay scale. The difference is significant. At UC Irvine, the difference is about 25-30% at some levels. Additionally, I think engineering and computer science professors are more likely than the aforementioned humanities professors to get external funding, allowing them to pay themselves the summer salary. This can boost their pay an additonal 33% or more. I may be wrong about the ability of humanitites professors to get grants, though. One more thing. There is a lot of tolerance in engineering departments for consulting. I think up to one day a week is not unusual. This is an additional source of income. However, there are probably ways that humanities professors can acquire income that is not really available to engineering professors. I'd guess that books written by humanities faculty make more money than most engineering texts (not really money makers at all.). I hope this helps. John An article in today's Chronicle by Robert Wright http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i31/31b02001.htmposes the obvious economic solution to the glut in the History PhD market: cut wages. He argues that cutting salaries eliminates non-price rationing and makes the market more efficient. However, I have a problem with this. Whydon'tcolleges cut wages in glut disciplines such as history, philosophy, etc.? Certainly, economists and computer scientists command higher salariesto account for greater scarcity,indicating that schools dorespond tolabor market conditions. Why then arewages in glut disciplines so high?Also, why do people continue to enter the discipline when the expected wage is so low? Some suggested answers: 1) Asymmetric info between administrators and departments. The administration keeps wages high toattract a large number of applicants to any job so that department hiring committeeswill have a harder time hiding candidates who make the current department look bad. (But then why don't administrators do this for all disciplines?) 2) To attract good thinkers to become historians, schools must keep the wage high enough to compete with other disciplines and occupations that require intelligence.Therefore, it is beneficial to keep the wage high and sort applicants for non-wage purposes after the fact. That is PhDs who will work for 30K are not worth 30K. That is 40K historians are at the minimum level of competence. This explanation would also entail thepoor screening of PhD worthiness by graduate schools. A school could easily gain a reputation for having only 40K PhDs, thereby cutting search costs, and outcompete other programs. 3) Interest group reasons. Faculty lobby for higher wages. (This answer is boring and I think incorrect,because current facultybear the cost of the non-price rationing.) In other words, I don't have a good answer. Anyone else want to give it atry? JC _ John-Charles Bradbury, Ph.D. Department of Economics The University of the South 735 University Ave. Sewanee, TN 37383 -1000 Phone: (931) 598-1721 Fax: (931) 598-1145 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- John A. Viator, Ph.D. Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic 1002 Health Sciences Road East University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92612 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 949-824-3754 Fax: 949-824-6969
Re: Grade Inflation
In response to Fabio's comments: If you just start by saying what's the optimal number of math or english PhDs then obviously you are going to get nowhere. A better procedure, however, is to say that the current situation is non-optimal if it is based upon arbitrary factors. In particular, the distribution of students and budgets can't be optimal if it is based on the fact that some professors and disciplines arbitrarily grade easier than other professors and disciplines. Thus, rather than say I think there should be more math and science degrees I say I think the choice of what degree to puruse should not be based on an arbitrary grade inflation factor. Alex P.S. I very much doubt that such a system is second-best optimal. Here is a test for all such arguments (in this and in other contexts). If all disciplines and professors graded on a common scale would anyone argue in *favor* of grade inflation in English? I seriously doubt it - thus such ex-post rationalizations should be given little weight (even - perhaps especially! - if they come from exceedingly clever people like Fabio). P.P.S. I was not reading the NYTimes this morning but I did find what Fabio was referring to, an article by Valen Johnson. Available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/edlife/14ED-VIEW.html Several years ago in Statistical Science, Johnson proposed a grading scheme that would overcome the grade inflation problem. You can find the paper on his home page, but to make a long story short the essential idea is to downweight an A from a professor/discipline that gives all As (and thus provides little discriminating information) and to upweigh an A from a professor/discipline where there are As and Cs. I was enthusiastic about Johnson's proposal when I brought it up on this list some time ago. There was some discussion then, I think Robin had some critiques - check the archives. Alex -- Dr. Alexander Tabarrok Vice President and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621-1428 Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Grade Inflation
The misallocation of resources seems obvious if you look at the job prospects of English majors vs Engineering majors: the world wants more engineers. Fabio's argument seems to be that most students' ability to be an engineer is partially predetermined, and that the ones with fewer talents wouldn't be much more useful if they decided to study engineering anyway (compared to their usefulness with an English degree). The bottom line is: grade inflation shouldn't interefere with the process of students choosing their majors. Gustavo - Original Message - From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 15, 2002 1:45 PM Subject: Re: Grade Inflation The effect of this is to draw students away from math, science and economics and towards the softer social sciences. Similarly, within departments students are drawn away from harder graders and towards softer graders. Budgets go where students go! Thus grade inflation causes a *misallocation of resources* (measured in student time or in budgets.) Alex Alex, were you reading the New York Times this morning? Seriously, how much misallocation is occuring? Why is better to have more math and physics majors, and less English majors? Maybe this is in some sense optimal. Why should people who can't do math clog up math classes? English professors are cheaper and more numerous, so maybe lax grading is a way of allowing people to get the degree while not burdening the big money generators of the university.
Re: entropy and sustainability
So there maybe physical limits on certain technologies, but are there limits on human creativity in creating new technologies? We may fill the capacity of a silicon chip, but what about a chip made of something organic? or some other yet unthought of way to store info? Certain ideas may have finite limits, but is the number of idea finite? Jason There are ultimate physical limits on the speed of data processing, but I don't see why there are any limits on computer programs, and thus no limit to software technology, even given hardware constraints. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/
Re: entropy and sustainability
There are ultimate physical limits on the speed of data processing, Are there? I mean, there are limits on how fast silicon can go, but are there real limits on how fast /any/ material can go? but I don't see why there are any limits on computer programs, and thus no limit to software technology, even given hardware constraints. Actually, there are hard limits on certain software technologies, same as for hardware. Comparison-based sorting can't use less than O(n log(n)) comparisons, for example. Of course, there are other algorithms that may or may not be faster in your particular case, but specific technologies do possess hard limits. Jon Cast CS Student
Re: entropy and sustainability
Fred Foldvary wrote There are ultimate physical limits on the speed of data processing, Jon Cast wrote: Are there? I mean, there are limits on how fast silicon can go, but are there real limits on how fast /any/ material can go? Divide the diameter of a neutron by the speed of light: you probably can't make a gate flip in less time than that. but I don't see why there are any limits on computer programs, and thus no limit to software technology, even given hardware constraints. Actually, there are hard limits on certain software technologies, same as for hardware. Comparison-based sorting can't use less than O(n log(n)) comparisons, for example. [...] Quantum computing will break some of the rules, but it won't remove all limits. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
