“Childhood and Education Roundup #6: College Edition” by Zvi

Childhood roundup #5 excluded all developments around college. So this time around is all about issues related to college or graduate school, including admissions.

Tuition and Costs

What went wrong with federal student loans? Exactly what you would expect when you don’t check who is a good credit risk. From a performance perspective, the federal government offered loans to often-unqualified students to attend poor-performing, low-value institutions. Those students then did not earn much and were often unable to repay the loans. The students are victims here too, as we told them to do it.

Alas, none of the proposed student loan solutions involve fixing the underlying issue. If you said ‘we are sorry we pushed these loans on students and rewarded programs and institutions that do not deserve it, and we are going to stop giving loans for those programs and institutions and offer help to [...]

---

Outline:

(00:18) Tuition and Costs

(03:07) What Your Tuition Buys You

(05:45) Decline of Academia

(07:24) Grading and Stress

(14:29) Lower Standards

(15:43) Degree Value

(19:39) Shifting Consumer Preferences

(21:01) Standardized Tests in College Admissions

(21:44) Discrimination in College Admissions

(25:18) Required Classes and Choosing Your Major

(28:31) Everything I Need To Know That Waited Until Graduate School

(31:19) When You See Fraud Say Fraud

(33:03) Free Speech

(35:28) Harvard Goes Mission First

(37:03) The Waterloo Model

(38:33) DEI

(45:20) In Other News

---

First published:
June 26th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pn5jWW4zcWSAjM9s3/childhood-and-education-roundup-6-college-edition

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.