General Discussion
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Last edited Wed Jan 25, 2012, 12:36 AM - Edit history (1)
Education is critical for a democratic society.
This country needs to stop seeing education as a matter of a personal investment. It is not. Education is an investment in the country's future: for example, with an adequately educated populace, there would be no policy debate on whether global climate change is real.
This country needs to adopt a policy that allows all to go to school up through the Ph.D. level at virtually no cost.
This is the sort of competition that this country faces:
How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work
By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 21, 2012
...
Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apples executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The companys analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
In China, it took 15 days.
Companies like Apple say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force, said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelors degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. Theyre good jobs, but the country doesnt have enough to feed the demand, Mr. Schmidt said.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ref=general&src=me
Elaboration On Edit:
Work-study is a time drain. It takes away from study time. If a person is committed to his or her field of study, that is all that one is in school to do. The fundamental point is that education needs to be funded so that students can get in to universities, apply themselves fully to their various fields of study, get their degrees at whatever level they can accomplish, and get out without the burden of debt. Innovation seldom occurs without freedom, and debt is the antithesis of freedom.
It is possible to provide stipends that cover the cost of living to students: Germany, for example, provides money to students while they are in school to defray the cost of living. Their system while not totally free of loans (http://www.bmbf.de/en/892.php) would seem to provide an excellent example of what can be achieved, but, for whatever reason, our policies are continually misdirected. Unless someone in power (say...a president...maybe) has the vision to articulate and fight for a better policy, there will be no meaningful change. Sadly, the policy of calling for more work-study is not that far distant in spirit from turning teenage students into janitors.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Skittles
(153,199 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)load them down with student debt. It's a national shift in our mindset, that talent needs to be nurtured at a national level and subsidized. That our best and brightest can dream without thinking "oh crap, I'm going to be $100k in debt by the time I'm 24"
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)People need to get a clue about how the real world works.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Response to xocet (Original post)
Indianademocrat91 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Bjorn Against
(12,041 posts)My work study job that helped cover my expenses through college. I agree we should provide free college education, but even with free tuition students will still have expenses and a work study job helps them to pay their rent and food expenses.
FrenchieCat
(68,867 posts)Congrats! Good work!
Hope you get a reward for that hard work!
He didn't provide you with all of the fucking answers
exactly how you wanted them served, unlike
every other fucking Presidents there ever was!
SaintPete
(533 posts)you may think him wrong, but an "Epic Fail"???
Really?
graywarrior
(59,440 posts)ForgoTheConsequence
(4,869 posts)And he was right on. I like having a little extra money and knowing that my tuition will be largely paid off when I graduate.
graywarrior
(59,440 posts)Especially at my age. I appreciate the opportunity more than anyone could every realize.
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)SunsetDreams
(8,571 posts)with College education. Some need it to go to school.
liberal N proud
(60,346 posts)Companies participating are pumping money into education while giving young people a glimpse of the real world.
Since we don't use apprenticeships to teach new workers, work study helps bridge that gap.
uppityperson
(115,681 posts)"This country needs to adopt a policy that allows all to go to school up through the Ph.D. level at virtually no cost."
Since more work study programs help achieve this, how is it wrong? Not sure what your problem here is. Please clarify.
FarLeftFist
(6,161 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Instead I had to hold down two part-time jobs- one putting building trusses together, and another clerking at a hardware store.
Shitty hours that never quite worked with my school schedule, for less money than tuition deferment would have saved me via work study.
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)And we already have a huge glut of Ph.D's who can't find jobs. Bad idea all around.
yellowcanine
(35,701 posts)jobs doesn't mean everyone needs to go to college. It just helps people who are already in college. Nothing wrong with that.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)A lot of these engineering students here depend on work study to either help pay for tuition or supplement their living costs. We all had work-study jobs in college.
Jeebus. We all -- especially the president, who has talked about it repeatedly -- agree that the US needs to train more engineers, as in India and China. But you are really off the deep end trying to make some sort of issue of work-study aid here.
Skittles
(153,199 posts)THERE ARE PLENTY OF TRAINED ENGINEERS IN AMERICA - employers CLAIM they cannot "FIND" any so they can turn around and hire CHEAP FUCKS in India and China. IT IS A FUCKING SCAM.
yellowcanine
(35,701 posts)their course of study. For example a chemistry student works in a chemistry lab helping a professor with his research. How is this a bad thing?
FarLeftFist
(6,161 posts)DevonRex
(22,541 posts)It is tweetiliciously funny.
ddeclue
(16,733 posts)this is just an excuse not to hire them because Chinese workers work for 50 cents a day.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)China TRAINS people to do engineering tasks, but they don't need a traditional education. In America, engineers have to have a four year degree. What Apple needed most were mid-level engineers to watch equipment, record things, and other minor tasks.
China also built dormitories and required their workers to live on site.
We can't compete with neo-slavery and countries that don't value education, but merely train robots. America isn't that kind of country and doesn't want to be.
But I'll grant you that we should be producing more degreed engineers. Starts in elementary school with math and science. Excellence and interest in learning and elementary school studies require a good home life and parents that participate in their children's education, see they do homework, check on grades, spend time with their kids, make them feel worthy and qualified to make good grades, etc.
But many think that a solid home life has nothing to do with anything. It all starts there, IMO. In China, you won't find many broken families. And you'll find many people who won't complain about having to "work hard," meaning work 40 hours a week, like I've heard complaints about here.
Bluerthanblue
(13,669 posts)educated. And many who are acutely aware of its reality haven't been to college or hold advanced degrees.
"Education" happens in and out of school. "Work-study" jobs are important, and shouldn't be looked down upon. Not everyone is cut out to be PhD level.
I agree that we need to adequately fund education- but to ignore the place of 'work-study' or belittle those involved with is foolishness.
I paid my way through college on Work Study. It helped me get a job in the library administration which was a good advantage for me also. I think Work Study did more for me than taking a loan would have. It also provided good networking sources and references once I graduated. If I had just accepted the Pell Grants by themselves, those contacts wouldn't have materialized.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)I did grounds crew...