Archive for the ‘education’ Category

Entrepreneurs and Staying in School

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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

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Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think." (Source)

Can You Engineer Happiness?

As being an academic that is…

Today in History : US Education

Children are failing:

This appalling ignorance among American young must be laid at the feet of an education industry that has consumed trillions of tax dollars in recent decades.

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On the Singularity…

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California’s Tax Problem

Ed. Note : Some argue for the abolition of the taxes all together or a flat tax, but really we can’t expect a tax based on "presences" to be appropriately levied. Will the job situation be fixed in 18 months? If it is, expect unions and "innovation" to take a back seat- the problems that were left for this administration make me hope that we do not enter yet another lost decade.

The result of this bill is that any out-of-state retailer will *not* have to collect sales tax if they sever business relationships with a large swath of contractors, service providers, ad networks and affiliates that have a presence in California.

If you are a company that in any way makes a commission or markets on behalf of another company as your monetization, you are in danger.

If you are a contractor, web host of some kind or other service provider that is even peripherally facilitating the sale of a product in any fashion, you are in danger of out-of-state retailers canceling their contracts. This could include web design, web hosting (including out-of-state hosts with a server in California), coding, mobile apps, you name it.

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The Saxifrage School

Imagine a freshman English class set in the back room of your neighborhood bar, or a philosophy lecture reverberating inside a church footsteps from home.

Picture dual majors that require proficiency not only in literature but also in renovating a house.

If this sounds like an unusual notion of a four-year college, that’s only the start.

North Side resident Timothy Cook and a group of his peers say the traditional college experience doesn’t guarantee that students will acquire the balance of physical and intellectual skills they need to lead self-sufficient lives.

And besides, the whole thing costs too darn much.

So they have set out on a quest that, depending on your level of optimism, is either a model for the future or nothing short of a pipe dream.

This group that has almost no capital — let alone experience in such an endeavor — wants to create its own stripped-down version of college.

The Saxifrage School, as it is called, would have no sports teams, no dorms, and no classroom buildings or traditional campus. Instead, classes would be clustered in a yet-to-be determined neighborhood where faculty would hold court in cafes, libraries and other available spaces. Students would have to learn Spanish, in addition to pursuing two starkly different programs of study: one academic, the other technical.

The annual price would be $5,000 in tuition plus a $1,500 administrative fee, a rate intended to help students avoid crushing debt. (Source)

The Crusade Against School

I also think that looking at direct salaries as the sole measure of ROI in an institution is a short-term, short-sighted way to look at the world. Sure, some degrees yield less well-paying jobs than others. However, the contribution to our overall well-being, and to our economy, shouldn’t be overlooked. Just because a degree has a lower financial benefit in the first instance to its graduates, doesn’t mean it has no benefit, either to them or the people connected to them. Think about teachers, or nurses: both are poorly rewarded, but we need them for our society to work. Historians, literary theorists and philosophers are all important, and make our lives better. This is where - or at least, one of the places where - I strongly depart from libertarians like Thiel. Simply put, I think their "enlightened self interest" is near-sighted; perhaps fatally so. (Source)

Not Everyone Should Attend College

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Recently, a bunch of people (some of them high-profile and well-respected) have been going around trumpeting that "college is a waste of time." I agree with them, but I think that they are missing a lot of the point. I think that saying "college is a waste of time" makes about as much sense as saying that "everyone should go to college." I honestly think that college fills a vital role for some people, but on the flip side, a lot of education is clearly wasted (either unneeded or useless). In order to resolve things, we need to become more educated consumers of higher education, and we need to figure out how to fix the higher education system. (Source)