Joe Biden is now officially the 46th President of the United States of America

[FAST6191]

Maybe avoid the "elitism route" by also implementing a proportional cap on fees?

You seem worried about elitism as you deem it, and frankly I am not sure you can ever stop it, and likewise I am not sure in your scenario it even makes sense to worry about it and instead leave the market to take care of it itself -- rich people tend not to have very large families enough to go full nepotism (though it is very much a thing) and that will leave companies crying out for trained people and thus someone paring things back to give them an education (basic office building, 10 lecturers, 10 assistants, 5 admins) and 3 years x 300 students paying 10k a piece so 9 million before taxes just from that alone... I can do something with that in almost any field and, workshops aside, scales pretty well if going lower. Paid to do research and a few inevitable tax breaks/funds on top of that...

Back onto elitism, and also where the various Nordic models will come short.
I alluded to some stuff I did earlier but go with an example.
I mostly do work for a handful of businessmen (build things, fix things, deal with standards when they want to import/export). One of his kids just got let out of a decent university with what would on paper be similar to what I have/do. He gave him a task or three within that and when the... difference in output quality became apparent I got a call. I did some stuff, and also called up the machine shop (who realised who it was, as in "you know the client 10 of big jobs this year I was point on?") and they suddenly had a free apprentice, a favour from me, and also proceeded to "give him an education" (no school like the old school and all that).
6 months later we are done and he toddles off to an interview. The classic old when the hills were young guy they keep around, and sort of person that if I am going head to head with I am up all night for weeks making sure there is absolutely no avenue of attack or weakness on my part, he actually managed to handle by virtue of the efforts of myself and the machine shop where before... no hope of that one.
Potential is still considered (the 19 year old said machine shop had found around a similar timeframe and had the potential realised, and realised in the other meaning of the term in the years since) but for my client's that sort of thing would not have happened anywhere near as quickly or decisively as what happened had the business type not opened up the wallet to spot that one (cost was equally not all that much to him -- think "semi fancy car for graduation" or "here is your house downpayment" and you might even be too high depending upon where that 20% down is). You are never going to stop that one, never going to stop the "can take an unpaid internship" set, daddy's and daddy's friends that you have personal numbers for will drive some business/contacts our way... type deals and frankly I am not sure you would want to.

At the same time I also had to query the nature of the education (I also collect old books, most of what we taught, and said kid came back a couple of years later (having seen several more rounds of recruits, even getting volunteered to shepherd a few) to say "I get it now" (old school methods are not noted as being easy on the would be recipient), was fairly common and arguably would have been known anyway as back when you tended not to be lectured to before you were time served in the lesser fields) but that is a different debate*.

*or maybe not. Law school graduation vs bar pass rate, architecture school vs architecture reality, medic school vs medic reality...
Plenty of businesses will also be ignoring degrees from various schools as it stands today both "elite" and "we don't care about community college", and plenty more will have "can you do the job?" as a bigger concern.

 

[Plasmaster09]

You seem worried about elitism as you deem it, and frankly I am not sure you can ever stop it, and likewise I am not sure in your scenario it even makes sense to worry about it and instead leave the market to take care of it itself -- rich people tend not to have very large families enough to go full nepotism (though it is very much a thing) and that will leave companies crying out for trained people and thus someone paring things back to give them an education (basic office building, 10 lecturers, 10 assistants, 5 admins) and 3 years x 300 students paying 10k a piece so 9 million before taxes just from that alone... I can do something with that in almost any field and, workshops aside, scales pretty well if going lower. Paid to do research and a few inevitable tax breaks/funds on top of that...

Back onto elitism, and also where the various Nordic models will come short.
I alluded to some stuff I did earlier but go with an example.
I mostly do work for a handful of businessmen (build things, fix things, deal with standards when they want to import/export). One of his kids just got let out of a decent university with what would on paper be similar to what I have/do. He gave him a task or three within that and when the... difference in output quality became apparent I got a call. I did some stuff, and also called up the machine shop (who realised who it was, as in "you know the client 10 of big jobs this year I was point on?") and they suddenly had a free apprentice, a favour from me, and also proceeded to "give him an education" (no school like the old school and all that).
6 months later we are done and he toddles off to an interview. The classic old when the hills were young guy they keep around, and sort of person that if I am going head to head with I am up all night for weeks making sure there is absolutely no avenue of attack or weakness on my part, he actually managed to handle by virtue of the efforts of myself and the machine shop where before... no hope of that one.
Potential is still considered (the 19 year old said machine shop had found around a similar timeframe and had the potential realised, and realised in the other meaning of the term in the years since) but for my client's that sort of thing would not have happened anywhere near as quickly or decisively as what happened had the business type not opened up the wallet to spot that one (cost was equally not all that much to him -- think "semi fancy car for graduation" or "here is your house downpayment" and you might even be too high depending upon where that 20% down is). You are never going to stop that one, never going to stop the "can take an unpaid internship" set, daddy's and daddy's friends that you have personal numbers for will drive some business/contacts our way... type deals and frankly I am not sure you would want to.

At the same time I also had to query the nature of the education (I also collect old books, most of what we taught, and said kid came back a couple of years later (having seen several more rounds of recruits, even getting volunteered to shepherd a few) to say "I get it now" (old school methods are not noted as being easy on the would be recipient), was fairly common and arguably would have been known anyway as back when you tended not to be lectured to before you were time served in the lesser fields) but that is a different debate*.

*or maybe not. Law school graduation vs bar pass rate, architecture school vs architecture reality, medic school vs medic reality...
Plenty of businesses will also be ignoring degrees from various schools as it stands today both "elite" and "we don't care about community college", and plenty more will have "can you do the job?" as a bigger concern.

dude I was talking about the "college institutions becoming more elitist" possibility that Foxi mentioned

 

[Foxi4]

The reason why I mentioned it is because setting tuition to be prohibitively expensive, far beyond what a bank would be willing to/allowed to lend (via government backing - privately they can lend however much they want) would, in effect, restrict a lot of students from applying while keeping the same cash flow. I think what FAST meant was that it was an unlikely scenario, and he's right. In regards to price controls, I am completely against any - everyone should be allowed to charge however much they want for their goods/services and the market will decide how much the product is actually worth. There's room for Fiats, priced sensibly and giving customers good value for money, and there's room for Lamborghinis, prohibitively expensive and with outstanding theoretical top speed that you *never* get to utilise on the road, making the number on the dashboard just a status symbol. Ultimately universities will figure out how to maintain the same or similar cashflow regardless of what you do on the governmental end, what you do have control over is whether people will be in a position to face those fees or not.

 

[Plasmaster09]

The reason why I mentioned it is because setting tuition to be prohibitively expensive, far beyond what a bank would be willing to/allowed to lend (via government backing - privately they can lend however much they want) would, in effect, restrict a lot of students from applying while keeping the same cash flow. I think what FAST meant was that it was an unlikely scenario, and he's right. In regards to price controls, I am completely against any - everyone should be allowed to charge however much they want for their goods/services and the market will decide how much the product is actually worth. There's room for Fiats, priced sensibly and giving customers good value for money, and there's room for Lamborghinis, prohibitively expensive and with outstanding theoretical top speed that you *never* get to utilise on the road, making the number on the dashboard just a status symbol. Ultimately universities will figure out how to maintain the same or similar cashflow regardless of what you do on the governmental end, what you do have control over is whether people will be in a position to face those fees or not.

I guess.
Besides, they can't realistically all go straight up in terms of pricing- they'll naturally want to undercut each other as well to avoid losing potential students to another uni with the same or better education but cheaper (or just "one that's closer to reasonably affordable").

 

[Foxi4]

I guess.
Besides, they can't realistically all go straight up in terms of pricing- they'll naturally want to undercut each other as well to avoid losing potential students to another uni with the same or better education but cheaper (or just "one that's closer to reasonably affordable").

Of course they will. They can be competitive in price if you let them, or better yet, put them in a position where they must be competitive. That's precisely why throwing money at them is not the answer - the more free money they get the less incentivised they are to compete for money that isn't free.

 

[notimp]

Of course they will. They can be competitive in price if you let them, or better yet, put them in a position where they must be competitive. That's precisely why throwing money at them is not the answer - the more free money they get the less incentivised they are to compete for money that isn't free.

Should I report this for trolling?

Universities, that compete for being allowed to enlist students?

Just because the moderator doesnt want to acknowledge, that the problem was created by boomers literally shifting society by optimising for this?

Here’s how I like to explain the outcome of matriculating:

If you send a dozen kids off to college,

• Five drop out.
• Three graduate but end up underemployed.
• Only four graduate and get a “real” job.

edit: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-per...to-university-in-the-United-States-of-America

So the selection criteria for companies changed. They now only select high achievers and well connected people and put the rest into what some people would call 'BS jobs'.

The problem is not, that its not fair that you gave people those ideas of becoming something - they all had a chance - and they would have opted for university education, just for the chance of it.

This is not a problem of universities, if there is a demand increase - why should you not try to give more people a higher education?

Not their fault, that the economy went full automation at the same time, and that thanks to digitization and AI this mainly meant slashing white color administerial jobs.

Foxi just wants to push the idea, that market principals will solve the problem they created - by going the Hunger games route.

Thats what he always demands.

 

[Plasmaster09]

Should I report this for trolling?

Universities, that compete for being allowed to enlist students?

Just because the moderator doesnt want to acknowledge, that the problem was created by boomers literally shifting society by optimising for this?

edit: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-per...to-university-in-the-United-States-of-America

So the selection criteria for companies changed. They now only select high achievers and well connected people and put the rest into what some people would call 'BS jobs'.

The problem is not, that its not fair that you gave people those ideas of becoming something - they all had a chance - and they would have opted for university education, just for the chance of it.

This is not a problem of universities, if there is a demand increase - why should you not try to give more people a higher education?

Not their fault, that the economy went full automation at the same time, and that thanks to AI this mainly slashing white color administerial jobs.

Foxi just wants to push the idea, that market principals will solve the problem they created - by going the Hunger games route.

That what he always demands.

Since major change in the right direction (i.e. the Finnish system, which is the complete antithesis of our fucked up excuse for an education system and seems to be a shining example of how to do education right) is nigh impossible for now, we might as well exploit capitalist greed by making simple moves that force them to do what is right (not strangle students with life debt basically) in order to make the most money.
It's still horrible, but it's the best way of handling our awful system without upending it.

 

[notimp]

Since major change in the right direction (i.e. the Finnish system, which is the complete antithesis of our fucked up excuse for an education system and seems to be a shining example of how to do education right) is nigh impossible for now, we might as well exploit capitalist greed by making simple moves that force them to do what is right (not strangle students with life debt basically) in order to make the most money.
It's still horrible, but it's the best way of handling our awful system without upending it.

Also what Foxi4 might be neglecting is, that there already is high competition over jobs deemed 'desireable'. In fact so much so - that the selection outcome is, to be totally conformist, fake enthusiastic, driven for no logical reason, ... and that you have an immense fear over "saying the wrong thing" - because it could upend your career choices. Not to even begin to talk about how your facebook profile needs to be managed...


Let me tell you another tale I whitnessed in Alpbach (young future leaders, high achievers, bla bla) - a young girl, in the fashionably labled 'black ball pit' (an artist project - of course), openly told a college in the 'political correctness - session', that she is so happy, that she is under likeminded people, because now - finally - she would be able to speak freely. And by that she meant praising the benefits of political correctness culture.

The pressures are immense.

But those are the criteria that people get preselected for. Degree alone, is worth nothing. (In several of the more 'popular fields'.) Connections help, presentation helps. Being motivated helps. So does being malleable.

 

[Foxi4]

Imagine thinking that education is not a business and universities are not competing to get the best and brightest in their seats every year. Students are *in limited supply*, people only have so many children, only so many of them are gifted, and out of that subset of a subset only so many apply. The education system is just as much a part of the market as any other human endeavour aimed at generating an income. If you don't think it's aimed at generating an income, visit a university.

EDIT: To illustrate, Yale University's endowments are valued at approx. $30.3 billion. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year the university made $4.2 billion in operating revenue, significantly less than their expenses. The excess was invested into the school's portfolio - they're famously invested in Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, and have been investing in emerging technologies for decades. Their stock portfolio generates 93% returns and is the university's major source of income, the returns are accounting for 34% of their net revenues. You're welcome to check their public financial statements.

Y'know. Education.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Technically speaking, due to government funding cuts to education at various levels being the primary cause of the batshit insane fees causing this entire problem (by forcing schools to dig deeper and deeper into students' wallets), the government is by proxy impeding people's access to college education. This is basically the only case where by not directly enabling it, the government IS impeding it. "Not part of the solution -> part of the problem" applies to education funding.

Have you any proof for the claims made in said image?
You posted it, you prove it.

Direct quotes arent proof? Also, youre claiming its false YOU prove it, *snip*.

This isnt what I voted for hes letting us down!

 

[KingVamp]

This isnt what I voted for hes letting us down!

Looks at flag.

 

[Plasmaster09]

Direct quotes arent proof? Also, youre claiming its false YOU prove it, *snip*.

This isnt what I voted for hes letting us down!

You claimed his promises were false.
That is the original claim being made.
It is your job to prove it because that is how the burden of proof works.
End of story.
The only quote there that even has a shred of possible validity is the 2k thing, and even that's just a large mess of semantic interpretation.

Imagine thinking that education is not a business and universities are not competing to get the best and brightest in their seats every year. Students are *in limited supply*, people only have so many children, only so many of them are gifted, and out of that subset of a subset only so many apply. The education system is just as much a part of the market as any other human endeavour aimed at generating an income. If you don't think it's aimed at generating an income, visit a university.

EDIT: To illustrate, Yale University's endowments are valued at approx. $30.3 billion. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year the university made $4.2 billion in operating revenue, significantly less than their expenses. The excess was invested into the school's portfolio - they're famously invested in Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, and have been investing in emerging technologies for decades. Their stock portfolio generates 93% returns and is the university's major source of income, the returns are accounting for 34% of their net revenues. You're welcome to check their public financial statements.

Y'know. Education.

Funny thing is, Finland has THAT problem covered too!
An interesting consequence of a system that values cooperation and schools being safe, healthy and well-funded environments where students can grow and learn at their own pace... is that it practically produces droves of star students without even trying!
(The article I posted a few pages ago on said system noted that, despite it explicitly NOT being the goal, Finland's new system resulted in shockingly good performance from an absurdly high amount of students. Probably because it encourages working together instead of obsessing over being "the best one in XYZ".)

 

[Valwinz]

Biden has to be one of the biggest racist I ever seen

I just spit out my water pic.twitter.com/GL5F3phxG0

— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) February 20, 2021

 

[Lacius]

Biden has to be one of the biggest racist I ever seen
https://twitter.com/stclairashley/status/1363224533759574016

Biden is referring to this article. Thank you for bringing this idiotic suggestion that Biden's remarks were racist to our attention. I await your next post where you will undoubtedly admit that you were espousing fake outrage and you concede that it wasn't indicative of the reality of the situation. Thanks again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/world/us-coronavirus-vaccine-minorities.html

 

[Plasmaster09]

Biden has to be one of the biggest racist I ever seen
https://twitter.com/stclairashley/status/1363224533759574016

As Lacius just mentioned, Biden was referring to a legitimate article (and just stumbled a bit on the wording).
This boils down to, once again, mocking him for a verbal flub.

You people do realize that Biden's infamous gaffes and flubs... are likely due to his stutter, which he's struggled with since childhood? (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/joe-biden-stutter-profile/602401/)
Which is to say, a literal neurological disability? (No, I'm serious. Stuttering isn't just the r-r-repeating bits when you're nervous thing, it's also an actual serious disability that can basically be described as a glitch in the processes related to speech and has more effects than just simple, no-meaning-changed repeating. Basically imagine if your own vocal cords and speech processes fought against you as actively as the Republican Congress minority is fighting against Biden's every breath.)
Now combine that with the sheer amount of stress and responsibility placed on the President, as well as just how often he has to give entire speeches on live television.
Suddenly, using Biden's gaffes as a common trick to paint him as irresponsible or unfit goes from mocking someone for their age and trying to use their slip-ups to portray them as mentally unstable (already pretty messed up) to mocking someone for their disability and trying to use that to portray them as mentally unstable (which, if I really have to say this, is absolutely fucking horrible and is on par with a particularly vicious school bully trying to slander his victim to the rest of the school).
It may be funny, I will admit... but using it as a primary tactic to paint him in a negative light is unacceptable.

Boy, do my past words come in handy right about now.
For future, any use of simple wording slips or other verbal gaffes as sole (as in, with no other evidence alongside them) points to discredit Biden and either falsely accuse him of negatives or imply he's unfit to be President purely based off of them should be taken as what it is: a baseless accusation attempting to smear someone for their disability.
They're funny, but using them as a solitary 'argument' (likely because you've run out of actual arguments) is not only an ad hominem attack, but one tantamount to school-level bullying.

 

[osaka35]

The issue, which is usually the issue when it comes to..."disagreements" like this, is one of perspective and goals. If you view students as product and consumer (and switch between the two as convenient), and your goal is profit (either directly or indirectly), then yes. of course you're going to see universities as businesses. and you're going to try and min/max the risk/profit while squeezing as much out of your product while minimizing the actual amount of effort put in. As funding on the federal and state level have continued to plumit over the years, it's not been possible for universities to continue to be bastions of progress and research. They've had to cut corners, teach only the "more profitable" courses and degrees, and lean far more heavily on students/connections to be the income support.

If you view education as a place where humanity develops and codifies knowledge, to pass on the understanding of those who came before, to be a safe place to develop ideas and concepts, to test various hypothesis, disprove age-old myths and legends, to ignite passions and to nurture mature thinking in anyone who desires to learn...well, then, the state of higher education (and primary) in both funding and how it's presented in US politics is sad, pathetic, and barbaric.

If your perspective is only the strongest or most-privileged survive, then I think you need to reevaluate your ethics

 

[Plasmaster09]

The issue, which is usually the issue when it comes to..."disagreements" like this, is one of perspective and goals. If you view students as product and consumer (and switch between the two as convenient), and your goal is profit (either directly or indirectly), then yes. of course you're going to see universities as businesses. and you're going to try and min/max the risk/profit while squeezing as much out of your product while minimizing the actual amount of effort put in. As funding on the federal and state level have continued to plumit over the years, it's not been possible for universities to continue to be bastions of progress and research. They've had to cut corners, teach only the "more profitable" courses and degrees, and lean far more heavily on students/connections to be the income support.

If you view education as a place where humanity develops and codifies knowledge, to pass on the understanding of those who came before, to be a safe place to develop ideas and concepts, to test various hypothesis, disprove age-old myths and legends, to ignite passions and to nurture mature thinking in anyone who desires to learn...well, then, the state of higher education (and primary) in both funding and how it's presented in US politics is sad, pathetic, and barbaric.

If your perspective is only the strongest or most-privileged survive, then I think you need to reevaluate your ethics

"The way things are being handled is logical. A horrible storm of soulless atrocities putting human minds and the success possible in human lives at stake for the sake of pinching pennies, but still *logical*."

 

[Valwinz]

Biden defence fore defending his constant actual racism

 

[Plasmaster09]

Biden defence fore defending his constant actual racism

As stated previously, you're deliberately misinterpreting what he said.
All of this combined, you're:
-trolling
-baiting
-bordering on spamming if you say this same point again
-being disingenuous
-using indirect ad hominem attacks on both us and Biden
-overall being as obnoxious as possible to hide your lack of a real argument

 

[tabzer]

Biden is referring to this article. Thank you for bringing this idiotic suggestion that Biden's remarks were racist to our attention. I await your next post where you will undoubtedly admit that you were espousing fake outrage and you concede that it wasn't indicative of the reality of the situation. Thanks again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/world/us-coronavirus-vaccine-minorities.html

Being unable to connect to the internet is the bottom rung and has nothing to do with being a minority. Transportation issues and crappy facilities are a more connected with income inequality than to do with racial matters. Language barriers shouldn't exist because of, at least, the internet.

I didn't read the full article because it wants me to log in. But, if it's racist, then people who uphold it as an authority are racist; right?