Free College in USA - Take 2


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Not fair to lock the previous one! :(
I was in the middle of angling it back closer to the OP with this:

New idea:

Have the "free college" be pay-as-you-go. Give standard loans to anyone who successfully enrolls in a college or training program of their choice. Then, as they pass their classes, forgive the loan amount to date.

This avoids most of my fears about devaluing the worth of a college degree and it allows for all manner of nonstandard post high school education/training. And blends in nicely with my Bullet post earlier in the previous (now closed) thread.

Have this free tuition be on a scale:
-- GPA = 3.25 benchmark or higher; 100% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 3.00 up to but not including previous benchmark; 75% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.75 up to but not including previous benchmark; 50% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.50 up to but not including previous benchmark; 25% of college loan forgiven

Or the scale could simply scale from GPA = 2.49 to 3.25, starting at 0% forgiven to 100% forgiven.

Something like that.

Any takers? thejeff? Anyone?

BTW - the Mods never unlock threads do they? That would be admitting they were wrong so I figure that never happens under any circumstances. FWIW - I wasn't offended by any of my detractors. Disappointed, yes. Offended, no.


School still sucks!

Yes, they have on occasion unlocked a thread, but the pattern of behavior that caused the thread to be locked in the first place continued and, hence, it was re-locked.


They also tend not to be fond of immediately reopening locked threads with complaints about the moderation :)

As for the proposal: Better than nothing I guess. Has the potential to completely screw kids who wind up not succeeding.

Any college or training program? Any need based restrictions on this?

The original proposal was aimed at trade schools & community colleges, IIRC. That's the low end of higher education costs. It doesn't really need to be means-tested, since people with the means will be going to higher end schools already.

If this covers any college and any kid, then it will wind up spending an awful lot of it's budget on kids who were already going to good schools. We don't really need to throw more money at the elite kids going to Harvard.

Which incidentally, is one of the problems with the 529 tax exempt college savings plans. The vast majority of the tax savings in that goes to the top. They're the ones with the money who can afford to put a lot into saves. Many middle class people use them, but can't afford to put much in.

Liberty's Edge

It's actually the problem with all pretax savings. They benefit the wallet far more than the middle class or poor. Especially with things like 401k and 529 plans because your paying potentially large management fees to boot.


We already have programs like the G.I. bill for military service. How about college in exchange for federal service of some form, civil or military, to the person's preferences?

Make it so college takes place concurrently with a civil service program, or after a minimum service period of 2 years. Those that go the military option can do a 2 year term of service and then go to college for a 2 year degree, with the option of reenlisting with the possibility of advancement in rank or change of service type based on education if they so choose.


Or just make college free here to citizens and aliens alike, then you'll massively brain drain the rest of the world as all the smart folks come here.

Germany did something similar recently and I'm sure they're working the same strategy.


It's too many kids. There are 26 million 18-20 y/o's right now. That's more than 6 times the current number of federal employees and active duty military combined (2.7 and 1.4 million respectively).

Plus, the return on investment isn't going to be that good. The government gets high school grads, but has to turn out college grads. Better to send them to school, THEN have them work for you.

For example, there are already programs where you can get your college loans paid for if you're a teacher and you let them pick what school you teach at for the first few years. That lets the government help meet the urgent needs of many urban and rural area communities that need more teachers.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Dire Care Bear Manager

I have no problem if you folks want to try this discussion again, as long as it doesn't go down the path that the last attempt did. If you have questions, comments or concerns about moderation, the place to address that is via email (community@paizo.com) or in the website feedback forum.


Quark Blast wrote:

Not fair to lock the previous one! :(

I was in the middle of angling it back closer to the OP with this:

New idea:

Have the "free college" be pay-as-you-go. Give standard loans to anyone who successfully enrolls in a college or training program of their choice. Then, as they pass their classes, forgive the loan amount to date.

This avoids most of my fears about devaluing the worth of a college degree and it allows for all manner of nonstandard post high school education/training. And blends in nicely with my Bullet post earlier in the previous (now closed) thread.

Have this free tuition be on a scale:
-- GPA = 3.25 benchmark or higher; 100% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 3.00 up to but not including previous benchmark; 75% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.75 up to but not including previous benchmark; 50% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.50 up to but not including previous benchmark; 25% of college loan forgiven

Or the scale could simply scale from GPA = 2.49 to 3.25, starting at 0% forgiven to 100% forgiven.

Something like that.

Any takers? thejeff? Anyone?

BTW - the Mods never unlock threads do they? That would be admitting they were wrong so I figure that never happens under any circumstances. FWIW - I wasn't offended by any of my detractors. Disappointed, yes. Offended, no.

This is a mechanic which seems very "gamer" to me.

The program should really start after the 10th grade. Students who are college bound at that point should be taking college credit classes (the difference between 11th grade us history and college sophomore US history is strikingly small, for example) and students who don't wish to pursue college can begin vocational training with emphasis on entrepreneurship and hard skills.

Basically, 90% of this should get paid for directly by revamping the existing high school education system. Then, you could still have free 2 year college for students doing preprofessional programs. designate degree programs where 2 years of "high school/college bound" and 2 years of preprofessional would yeild a BSc in a target field so kids as young as 20 would have degrees and be prepped to enter engineering/medical/research fields, 18 year olds would be entering the workforce as licensed journeyman, welders, machinists, plumbers, lineman, mechanics, HVAC tech, network engineers, etc; AND students who still wanted to pursue a "traditional" academic experience and study humanities or athletics could do so but without any additional support from the government.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm not sure that squeezing some extra dollars out of the students with lower grades would be worth the added complication and financial uncertainty for everyone that the proposed system of loan forgiveness would involve, and it's also easy to see how such a system would create bad incentives, e.g., driving students out of harder but more desirable classes.


Coriat wrote:
I'm not sure that squeezing some extra dollars out of the students with lower grades would be worth the added complication and financial uncertainty for everyone that the proposed system of loan forgiveness would involve, and it's also easy to see how such a system would create bad incentives, e.g., driving students out of harder but more desirable classes.

Actually, it just creates the incentive to never give any grade but an 'A' in the bottom-feeding schools.


Yeah, I was giving just one example of a resulting perverse incentive, not the only or necessarily even the chief one, thus the use of e.g. rather than i.e. ;)

In any case, I don't really see a great advantage to be had from creating such a system of graduated benefits in the first place. I do tend to favor simple systems of assigning and distributing such benefits over complicated attempts to police them.


Quark Blast wrote:

Not fair to lock the previous one! :(

I was in the middle of angling it back closer to the OP with this:

New idea:

Have the "free college" be pay-as-you-go. Give standard loans to anyone who successfully enrolls in a college or training program of their choice. Then, as they pass their classes, forgive the loan amount to date.

This avoids most of my fears about devaluing the worth of a college degree and it allows for all manner of nonstandard post high school education/training. And blends in nicely with my Bullet post earlier in the previous (now closed) thread.

Have this free tuition be on a scale:
-- GPA = 3.25 benchmark or higher; 100% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 3.00 up to but not including previous benchmark; 75% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.75 up to but not including previous benchmark; 50% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.50 up to but not including previous benchmark; 25% of college loan forgiven

Or the scale could simply scale from GPA = 2.49 to 3.25, starting at 0% forgiven to 100% forgiven.

Something like that.

Any takers? thejeff? Anyone?

BTW - the Mods never unlock threads do they? That would be admitting they were wrong so I figure that never happens under any circumstances. FWIW - I wasn't offended by any of my detractors. Disappointed, yes. Offended, no.

The Valedictorian at my high school one year could not get accepted into a college. She had a near perfect GPA, but had taken no classes to prepare her for college. She hadn't even taken Algebra! Her electives were all Home-Ec classes. So why should she get a free ride, when someone else has worked their way through Calculus and other college prep courses but doesn't have the GPA?


Vod Canockers wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

Not fair to lock the previous one! :(

I was in the middle of angling it back closer to the OP with this:

New idea:

Have the "free college" be pay-as-you-go. Give standard loans to anyone who successfully enrolls in a college or training program of their choice. Then, as they pass their classes, forgive the loan amount to date.

This avoids most of my fears about devaluing the worth of a college degree and it allows for all manner of nonstandard post high school education/training. And blends in nicely with my Bullet post earlier in the previous (now closed) thread.

Have this free tuition be on a scale:
-- GPA = 3.25 benchmark or higher; 100% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 3.00 up to but not including previous benchmark; 75% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.75 up to but not including previous benchmark; 50% of college loan forgiven
-- GPA = 2.50 up to but not including previous benchmark; 25% of college loan forgiven

Or the scale could simply scale from GPA = 2.49 to 3.25, starting at 0% forgiven to 100% forgiven.

Something like that.

Any takers? thejeff? Anyone?

BTW - the Mods never unlock threads do they? That would be admitting they were wrong so I figure that never happens under any circumstances. FWIW - I wasn't offended by any of my detractors. Disappointed, yes. Offended, no.

The Valedictorian at my high school one year could not get accepted into a college. She had a near perfect GPA, but had taken no classes to prepare her for college. She hadn't even taken Algebra! Her electives were all Home-Ec classes. So why should she get a free ride, when someone else has worked their way through Calculus and other college prep courses but doesn't have the GPA?

The real takeaway from this is, "why should GPA be involved with anything?"

We should be doing coursework on a pass/fail basis with 80% as the fail line. Then use professional program testing (MCAT, LSAT, GRE, SAT, ASVAB) for any competitive comparisons.


BigDTBone wrote:
Vod Canockers wrote:
The Valedictorian at my high school one year could not get accepted into a college. She had a near perfect GPA, but had taken no classes to prepare her for college. She hadn't even taken Algebra! Her electives were all Home-Ec classes. So why should she get a free ride, when someone else has worked their way through Calculus and other college prep courses but doesn't have the GPA?

The real takeaway from this is, "why should GPA be involved with anything?"

We should be doing coursework on a pass/fail basis with 80% as the fail line. Then use professional program testing (MCAT, LSAT, GRE, SAT, ASVAB) for any competitive comparisons.

Because as we all know those tests are actually relevant to anything. Generally GPA correlates more directly to success in college than the SAT does, which makes sense considering college grading is done on the same kinds of things high school grades are based on.

The LSAT/MCAT/GRE are all grad school tests that it wouldn't make any sense to apply to people going into college.
The ASVAB applies, but I don't know enough about it to know how much it means.
I'm not real trusting of standardized tests, despite having been pretty damn good at them.

For the Valedictorian's problem, some schools I'm aware of curve the GPA based on the class difficulty. All A's in basketweaving isn't going to look better than B's in all AP classes.


thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Vod Canockers wrote:
The Valedictorian at my high school one year could not get accepted into a college. She had a near perfect GPA, but had taken no classes to prepare her for college. She hadn't even taken Algebra! Her electives were all Home-Ec classes. So why should she get a free ride, when someone else has worked their way through Calculus and other college prep courses but doesn't have the GPA?

The real takeaway from this is, "why should GPA be involved with anything?"

We should be doing coursework on a pass/fail basis with 80% as the fail line. Then use professional program testing (MCAT, LSAT, GRE, SAT, ASVAB) for any competitive comparisons.

Because as we all know those tests are actually relevant to anything. Generally GPA correlates more directly to success in college than the SAT does, which makes sense considering college grading is done on the same kinds of things high school grades are based on.

The LSAT/MCAT/GRE are all grad school tests that it wouldn't make any sense to apply to people going into college.
The ASVAB applies, but I don't know enough about it to know how much it means.
I'm not real trusting of standardized tests, despite having been pretty damn good at them.

For the Valedictorian's problem, some schools I'm aware of curve the GPA based on the class difficulty. All A's in basketweaving isn't going to look better than B's in all AP classes.

Right, that is why you have a pass/no pass environment for degrees rather than GPA. If you felt a need to distinguish excellence in coursework (or those who chose rigorous classes) then have an honor society or diploma distinction. But remove class rankings. There is too much variation from school to school to make GPA/ranking useful at all. If you must rank then rank by percentile.

Then use standardized tests as they were meant in the first place, as competitive benchmarks for awards and programs which are larger in scope than a single institution.


School sucks, but if you have to go, it should be free, with open admissions, and a living stipend for all students.

Oh, yeah, and private universities should all be nationalized and placed under student/faculty/worker control.

Down with the Administration!
School sucks!
Vive le Galt!!!


BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Vod Canockers wrote:
The Valedictorian at my high school one year could not get accepted into a college. She had a near perfect GPA, but had taken no classes to prepare her for college. She hadn't even taken Algebra! Her electives were all Home-Ec classes. So why should she get a free ride, when someone else has worked their way through Calculus and other college prep courses but doesn't have the GPA?

The real takeaway from this is, "why should GPA be involved with anything?"

We should be doing coursework on a pass/fail basis with 80% as the fail line. Then use professional program testing (MCAT, LSAT, GRE, SAT, ASVAB) for any competitive comparisons.

Because as we all know those tests are actually relevant to anything. Generally GPA correlates more directly to success in college than the SAT does, which makes sense considering college grading is done on the same kinds of things high school grades are based on.

The LSAT/MCAT/GRE are all grad school tests that it wouldn't make any sense to apply to people going into college.
The ASVAB applies, but I don't know enough about it to know how much it means.
I'm not real trusting of standardized tests, despite having been pretty damn good at them.

For the Valedictorian's problem, some schools I'm aware of curve the GPA based on the class difficulty. All A's in basketweaving isn't going to look better than B's in all AP classes.

Right, that is why you have a pass/no pass environment for degrees rather than GPA. If you felt a need to distinguish excellence in coursework (or those who chose rigorous classes) then have an honor society or diploma distinction. But remove class rankings. There is too much variation from school to school to make GPA/ranking useful at all. If you must rank then rank by percentile.

Then use standardized tests as they were meant in the first place, as competitive benchmarks for awards and programs which are larger in scope than a single institution.

Are you talking about college or high school here?

Why does it make a difference whether we use GPA or percentile to rank? And where is the percentile coming from if it isn't the same grades used to calculate GPA?

However standardized tests were meant to be used, what they actually measure isn't much beyond how good you are at taking standardized tests. And how much test prep you had time and money for.


"thejeff wrote:

Are you talking about college or high school here?

Why does it make a difference whether we use GPA or percentile to rank? And where is the percentile coming from if it isn't the same grades used to calculate GPA?
However standardized tests were meant to be used, what they actually measure isn't much beyond how good you are at taking standardized tests. And how much test prep you had time and money

Both.

And a 3.8 GPA may represent a 96th percentile in one school and a 87th percentile in another school. So, we can accept that GPA is standardized within the school itself (that alone is a rather large assumption) but the expression of that GPA (ie, percentile of class ranking) can be seen in a more uniformed standard. Granted excellent schools will still have a depression bias for talented individuals, but it is mitigated greatly over grade scales designed to produce bell curves in a system of excellent students.

Also note, I am really not in favor of this either, but said if you MUST rank then it should be with percentile.

Also, extreme disagree on the part of standardized tests. There are ways to meta-test prep and many people (Kaplan) spend a lot of time and make a lot of money on that. But, in the end you have to know the subject material to make the grade. Meta-prepping can increase your scores 10-15% but really only by preparing people who aren't "test takers" for testing tequniques. What questions to skip, how to determine if a question is trying to mislead you, how to prepare mentally for a 3,4, or 8(! - new MCAT) hour exam.

Really these should only be used for acceptance and scholarship criteria and nothing beyond that. Why does your perspective employer need to know your GPA? Doesn't. They need to know that I completed all required coursework to achieve a degree. They want to know about how driven I am? Ok, I ranked in the 82nd percentile of my class. (Which really shouldn't happen, but I can understand it for professional programs like Electrical Enginneeing, MD, etc)


This system seems to be simply pressuring teachers even harder to give out puffery laced grades.

Make public higher education free. No student loans. Fund the public universities directly.

Seriously, what's the worst that is going to happen? Someone will trick the system into educating them twice?

Who cares? We have layabouts now, just lacking a degree, or with crippling loans that prevent them from taking part in the larger economy.


Perhaps we could set it up so that minors are no longer given a first name, and only those with names are citizen, with human rights. The only way to receive a name is to earn it by demonstrating knowledge, skill, or bravery. High school will go from basic daycare to a testing ground designed to weed out the rest and pass only the best. Fight for your right to exist.

Wait, that's that's not my education idea, it's my idea for the plot of a YA novel series (working title: Nomenclasher).


That sounds an aweful lot like my elementary school ANd i turned out fine *twitch twitch twitch*


I hate the GPA thing to tell the truth. I took some lower end classes and made straight A's, so I moved onto classes that were Advanced and AP to challenge myself...and didn't have all A's. The Valedictorian...they remained in the "standard" classes and never took an Advanced or AP class EVER.

To rate someone based on their GPA from that school simply means that you are choosing the ones that go for the easy classes instead of trying to expand their education.

If that is the measure of success in college, it would appear those that are successful are NOT the ones that get educated, but the ones that try to take every Physical Education class and every class where they don't really stand a chance of failure if they put minimal effort into it.

Who wants to go to a college like that?

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.


Krensky wrote:
A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.

OTOH, a lot of colleges turn around and ignore that. On the gripping hand, a lot of them also ignore the basket weaving and PE grades and concentrate on the core classes. They do get the actual transcript from the school, after all.

I guess my point is that any single number is going to be too reductive to mean anything. GPA is at least based on your overall accomplishments in school and you can look at the transcript and see where the numbers came from. The standardized tests don't even have that going for them.


thejeff wrote:
Krensky wrote:
A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.

OTOH, a lot of colleges turn around and ignore that. On the gripping hand, a lot of them also ignore the basket weaving and PE grades and concentrate on the core classes. They do get the actual transcript from the school, after all.

I guess my point is that any single number is going to be too reductive to mean anything. GPA is at least based on your overall accomplishments in school and you can look at the transcript and see where the numbers came from. The standardized tests don't even have that going for them.

Where as standardized tests have the ability to measure actual competencies and don't measure whether or not you had a life emergency.


BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Krensky wrote:
A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.

OTOH, a lot of colleges turn around and ignore that. On the gripping hand, a lot of them also ignore the basket weaving and PE grades and concentrate on the core classes. They do get the actual transcript from the school, after all.

I guess my point is that any single number is going to be too reductive to mean anything. GPA is at least based on your overall accomplishments in school and you can look at the transcript and see where the numbers came from. The standardized tests don't even have that going for them.

Where as standardized tests have the ability to measure actual competencies and don't measure whether or not you had a life emergency.

Yeah, they're really much better at core competencies than teachers who've seen a wide variety of work and responses from you over whole semesters or years.


Open admissions. Problem solved.

Vive le Galt!!!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I say pretty much b$~~*!~s to using any form of grading system to restrict access to higher education.

If you pass high school with a decent grade, that should be enough. We need greater access to higher education, not more reasons to say no.


thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Krensky wrote:
A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.

OTOH, a lot of colleges turn around and ignore that. On the gripping hand, a lot of them also ignore the basket weaving and PE grades and concentrate on the core classes. They do get the actual transcript from the school, after all.

I guess my point is that any single number is going to be too reductive to mean anything. GPA is at least based on your overall accomplishments in school and you can look at the transcript and see where the numbers came from. The standardized tests don't even have that going for them.

Where as standardized tests have the ability to measure actual competencies and don't measure whether or not you had a life emergency.
Yeah, they're really much better at core competencies than teachers who've seen a wide variety of work and responses from you over whole semesters or years.

That would be great if grades were assigned as product of course mastery and not busy work completion. Also, it implies that you are in an environment where the instructor gives enough of a damn to determine what you know beyond what you can produce on their test.

But neither of those is reliably true, and indeed are generally false. Also, part of what qualifies you as being "competent" is encountering a question in an environment other than being spoon-fed by your teacher and still being able to demonstrate mastery. Additionally, they have the benefit of being universal across the entire population; so even if they are flawed then all testers must cope with the flaw.


LazarX wrote:

I say pretty much b@+@*~+s to using any form of grading system to restrict access to higher education.

If you pass high school with a decent grade, that should be enough. We need greater access to higher education, not more reasons to say no.

I'd rather see restrictions based on grading than based on ability to pay.

OTOH, I'm not at all clear how "pass high school with a decent grade" fits with not "using any form of grading system to restrict access to higher education."

Whatever you define as "decent grade" restricts access, doesn't it?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote:
LazarX wrote:

I say pretty much b@+@*~+s to using any form of grading system to restrict access to higher education.

If you pass high school with a decent grade, that should be enough. We need greater access to higher education, not more reasons to say no.

I'd rather see restrictions based on grading than based on ability to pay.

OTOH, I'm not at all clear how "pass high school with a decent grade" fits with not "using any form of grading system to restrict access to higher education."

Whatever you define as "decent grade" restricts access, doesn't it?

Decent grade meant to equate to qualifying for your diploma.


BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Krensky wrote:
A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.

OTOH, a lot of colleges turn around and ignore that. On the gripping hand, a lot of them also ignore the basket weaving and PE grades and concentrate on the core classes. They do get the actual transcript from the school, after all.

I guess my point is that any single number is going to be too reductive to mean anything. GPA is at least based on your overall accomplishments in school and you can look at the transcript and see where the numbers came from. The standardized tests don't even have that going for them.

Where as standardized tests have the ability to measure actual competencies and don't measure whether or not you had a life emergency.
Yeah, they're really much better at core competencies than teachers who've seen a wide variety of work and responses from you over whole semesters or years.

That would be great if grades were assigned as product of course mastery and not busy work completion. Also, it implies that you are in an environment where the instructor gives enough of a damn to determine what you know beyond what you can produce on their test.

But neither of those is reliably true, and indeed are generally false. Also, part of what qualifies you as being "competent" is encountering a question in an environment other than being spoon-fed by your teacher and still being able to demonstrate mastery. Additionally, they have the benefit of being universal across the entire population; so even if they are flawed then all testers must cope with the flaw.

Ah yes, teachers suck, so we must use sucky tests to be fair.

Except universal sucky tests just discriminate universally. Rewarding both teaching of test taking skills and teaching strictly to the test material. And rewarding those good at taking those kinds of tests rather than those doing broadly better work.
And I say that as someone who did much better at standardized tests than at school in general.


thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Krensky wrote:
A lot of schools use a weighted GPA so AP, honors, gifted, or college prep classes will give you a GPA above 4.

OTOH, a lot of colleges turn around and ignore that. On the gripping hand, a lot of them also ignore the basket weaving and PE grades and concentrate on the core classes. They do get the actual transcript from the school, after all.

I guess my point is that any single number is going to be too reductive to mean anything. GPA is at least based on your overall accomplishments in school and you can look at the transcript and see where the numbers came from. The standardized tests don't even have that going for them.

Where as standardized tests have the ability to measure actual competencies and don't measure whether or not you had a life emergency.
Yeah, they're really much better at core competencies than teachers who've seen a wide variety of work and responses from you over whole semesters or years.

That would be great if grades were assigned as product of course mastery and not busy work completion. Also, it implies that you are in an environment where the instructor gives enough of a damn to determine what you know beyond what you can produce on their test.

But neither of those is reliably true, and indeed are generally false. Also, part of what qualifies you as being "competent" is encountering a question in an environment other than being spoon-fed by your teacher and still being able to demonstrate mastery. Additionally, they have the benefit of being universal across the entire population; so even if they are flawed then all testers must cope with the flaw.

Ah yes, teachers suck, so we must use sucky tests to be fair.

Except universal sucky tests just discriminate universally. Rewarding both teaching of test taking skills and teaching strictly to the test material. And rewarding those good at taking those kinds of tests rather than those doing broadly...

Not "teachers suck," but rather "teachers who chose to teach for the wrong reasons," or "teachers who are inexperienced," or "teachers who are overburdened by inappropriate class sizes," or "teachers who lack resources to be proactive;" all contribute to a possible situations where an instructor can't really guage content mastery in any reliable fashion beyond testing.

Not all standardized tests suck, many are currently designed to combat the issues fostered by NCLB. Also, "learning how to take tests," doesn't get you very far without content mastery.

As for, "teaching to the test," that is easily avoided by giving mastery guidelines rather than sample problems. In short, all of your issues with standardized tests are actually with bad testing paradigms. Those are much easier to address than the issues that lead to GPA disparity between an Mexican immigrant in Brownsville, TX and a white kid in the Hamptons.


BigDTBone wrote:
Those are much easier to address than the issues that lead to GPA disparity between an Mexican immigrant in Brownsville, TX and a white kid in the Hamptons.

Those same issues don't lead to a disparity in the standardized tests?


thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Those are much easier to address than the issues that lead to GPA disparity between an Mexican immigrant in Brownsville, TX and a white kid in the Hamptons.
Those same issues don't lead to a disparity in the standardized tests?

Only in so far as they lead to a disparity of content mastery. But GPA padding in affluent neighborhoods is common place, and the immigrant is far more likely to have a life event disrupt their GPA. Even if that student comes back to class after failing a semester they can achieve content mastery but a semester full of F's will trash even the best GPA.

Standardized tests filter all of that.


Some confusion here about my proposal, I think.

My latest proposal was college admission on normal grounds - get in however you can and pay for it however you may. If however you have to take out loans to do so, then those loans would be forgiven term-by-term based on how well you pass the classes leading towards your degree from the previous term.

Sure some people could still "work the system" but that will always be the case. At least this system directly benefits in near real-time the person making the effort. And remove private colleges from this program and/or limit it to only the first two years of a degree/certification. If the degree/certificate can be earned in two years or less, then it's free if you do well enough in your studies.

Will there be a net change in society? I doubt it. I'm happy to be wrong but my cynicism is deeply bred - 5,000 years of recorded human history remember.

And for those who state (or have stated) that I'm not justified in my cynicism:

I most certainly do have justified reason.

Taking just my overhead question from the previous topic thread:
The apparent total lack of effort by those who would correct my thinking [who don't apparently actually do anything that matters about modern slavery e.g.], makes my point about the pointlessness of long term effective political change among humans. Especially long term change brought about through voting and/or education. Is America not the oldest going democracy on the planet, with the first instituted public education system, and we sit here and do nothing but argue how relevant our opinions are to solving these problems. Problems like education for all or modern sex slavery.

TL/DR:
Even those that pretend to care, well... they pretty much do nothing.
Ergo, my cynicism.

A rewards system should reward those who try and succeed with the proviso that they try things they actually have a chance at accomplishing.
no degree in Quantum Field Theory for me e.g.


BigDTBone wrote:
...GPA padding in affluent neighborhoods is common place, and the immigrant is far more likely to have a life event disrupt their GPA. Even if that student comes back to class after failing a semester they can achieve content mastery but a semester full of F's will trash even the best GPA....

If you receive an "F", then when you retake the class the new grade replaces your former grade. Or it ought to. Hence, no impact on long term GPA.


Quark Blast wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
...GPA padding in affluent neighborhoods is common place, and the immigrant is far more likely to have a life event disrupt their GPA. Even if that student comes back to class after failing a semester they can achieve content mastery but a semester full of F's will trash even the best GPA....
If you receive an "F", then when you retake the class the new grade replaces your former grade. Or it ought to. Hence, no impact on long term GPA.

Yeah, your institution may do that for the purpose of your internal GPA, but if you want to transfer or get into a post grad program then they will want a full transcript with a full accounting of courses, including retaken.

Same reason EVERY college wants your high school transcript, they want to see the skeletons. They assign your acceptance GPA based on their own criteria which will often include everything.

Also, sometimes you have a bad semester and part of going back is reevaluating what you are studying. Why should an F in Animal Phisiology have an impact on an entrance application for an Art History program?


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BigDTBone wrote:
Also, sometimes you have a bad semester and part of going back is reevaluating what you are studying. Why should an F in Animal Phisiology have an impact on an entrance application for an Art History program?

If the program deciders are that stupid, then it's a program where I'll happily let them pass me over.


Scythia wrote:

Perhaps we could set it up so that minors are no longer given a first name, and only those with names are citizen, with human rights. The only way to receive a name is to earn it by demonstrating knowledge, skill, or bravery. High school will go from basic daycare to a testing ground designed to weed out the rest and pass only the best. Fight for your right to exist.

Wait, that's that's not my education idea, it's my idea for the plot of a YA novel series (working title: Nomenclasher).

One of the Grognards here says Heinlein has already done that. He was apparently all about tests for citizenship.

Maybe not YA though... you might have something there.


Quark Blast wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Also, sometimes you have a bad semester and part of going back is reevaluating what you are studying. Why should an F in Animal Phisiology have an impact on an entrance application for an Art History program?
If the program deciders are that stupid, then it's a program where I'll happily let them pass me over.

That's a fine attitude for someone with options to have.


BigDTBone wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Also, sometimes you have a bad semester and part of going back is reevaluating what you are studying. Why should an F in Animal Phisiology have an impact on an entrance application for an Art History program?
If the program deciders are that stupid, then it's a program where I'll happily let them pass me over.
That's a fine attitude for someone with options to have.

I'm cynical remember?

And your example was Art History...


every majors terrible


Quark Blast wrote:
Scythia wrote:

Perhaps we could set it up so that minors are no longer given a first name, and only those with names are citizen, with human rights. The only way to receive a name is to earn it by demonstrating knowledge, skill, or bravery. High school will go from basic daycare to a testing ground designed to weed out the rest and pass only the best. Fight for your right to exist.

Wait, that's that's not my education idea, it's my idea for the plot of a YA novel series (working title: Nomenclasher).

One of the Grognards here says Heinlein has already done that. He was apparently all about tests for citizenship.

Maybe not YA though... you might have something there.

Yeah, alien fighting satire of fascism just doesn't have the emotional angst that the YA genre offers. Also, I plan to keep Casper VanDien far away from this.


Quark Blast wrote:
The apparent total lack of effort by those who would correct my thinking [who don't apparently actually do anything that matters about modern slavery e.g.], makes my point about the pointlessness of long term effective political change among humans. Especially long term change brought about through voting and/or education. Is America not the oldest going democracy on the planet, with the first instituted public education system, and we sit here and do nothing but argue how relevant our opinions are to solving these problems. Problems like education for all or modern sex slavery.

Quick question... how old do you think America is? By that I mean it's current governmental form, being organized through our constitution.

You're claiming nothing has changed in 5000 years. Are you operating under the assumption that America as we know it is 5000 years old?


Scythia wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Scythia wrote:

Perhaps we could set it up so that minors are no longer given a first name, and only those with names are citizen, with human rights. The only way to receive a name is to earn it by demonstrating knowledge, skill, or bravery. High school will go from basic daycare to a testing ground designed to weed out the rest and pass only the best. Fight for your right to exist.

Wait, that's that's not my education idea, it's my idea for the plot of a YA novel series (working title: Nomenclasher).

One of the Grognards here says Heinlein has already done that. He was apparently all about tests for citizenship.

Maybe not YA though... you might have something there.

Yeah, alien fighting satire of fascism just doesn't have the emotional angst that the YA genre offers. Also, I plan to keep Casper VanDien far away from this.

Ha! Had to look that one up. Now I'm thinking maybe Casper could be the evil grownup/antagonist in the screen adaptation of your YA novel. :D

Oh, and here's fair warning on how not to film your book (once it gets published and is a best seller):
The Hunger Maze


Irontruth wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
The apparent total lack of effort by those who would correct my thinking [who don't apparently actually do anything that matters about modern slavery e.g.], makes my point about the pointlessness of long term effective political change among humans. Especially long term change brought about through voting and/or education. Is America not the oldest going democracy on the planet, with the first instituted public education system, and we sit here and do nothing but argue how relevant our opinions are to solving these problems. Problems like education for all or modern sex slavery.

Quick question... how old do you think America is? By that I mean it's current governmental form, being organized through our constitution.

You're claiming nothing has changed in 5000 years. Are you operating under the assumption that America as we know it is 5000 years old?

Trying real hard not to be sarcastic here since I know you know what I've already said on the other thread.

Reiterating what I said here:
America is as good as it gets in human history and yet look at all the legit whining and flailing about inequality invoked by posters to these threads.

Breezing over the roughly five millenia of recorded human history we see that it flat out doesn't matter what culture or time period you look at. Each generation has to learn wisdom the hard way and every invention of statecraft that has advanced the general populace has eventually been turned into chains.

The last 60-70 years has been somewhat of an anomaly in human history and I think that is mostly do to all the "free" energy we've gotten from oil. If we can make controlled and scaled nuclear fusion, then maybe we can continue on this anomalous course for several more generations and institute some of the Utopian thinking others have been promulgating re education.

I won't be holding my breath though


Quark Blast wrote:
America is as good as it gets in human history and yet look at all the legit whining and flailing about inequality invoked by posters to these threads.

So why is europes standard of living higher? If its partially due to their own college policies why not adopt some of them here?


America is as good as it gets? Are you serious, Quark?

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