Things You’ll Learn About Colleges From Watching The ‘Ivory Tower’ Documentary

[Guest]

Things You'll Learn About Colleges From Watching The 'Ivory Tower' Documentary (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/ivory-tower-documentary-college-learn_n_5529308.html)

If you can find a way to watch this movie I don't think you will be disappointed. It is upsetting. I take issue with Trump calling the military a mess but I think it's fair to call colleges a mess.

Since all of my kids went to college and worked very hard at it, I thought I knew what college life is now like. It seemed a lot like what I experienced. I was wrong.

One of the reasons colleges are so expensive are the amenities they offer. Colleges claim they have to offer swimming pools and rock climbing walls to compete for students.

Not so many professors get tenure so they compete for students and need to be popular. Kids being kids choose the easiest ones. How does that work in the long run?

It would be easy to fix all of this but sounds impossible to actually do it. If they make college affordable without fixing what's wrong it will only get worse.

And how do you fix it without more government interference or mandates? Free enterprise created this mess.

[Guest]

For many years I recruited both Undergraduate students and MBA students from America`s most respected colleges .
About half of the schools I visited year after year and again still very respected colleges were turning out young men and women who were completely " Institutionally Programmed ". Further they lacked any basic background for the type of employment they were seeking .
Frankly their education was so lacking that their very expensive tuition was a complete waste .

Fortunately there were still about 50% of the colleges that were turning out well educated students with solid foundational skills . However these tended to be Universities which specialized in a " Quantitative " education such as engineering , math etc . Examples would be Carnegie Mellon and The University of Chicago , Northwestern and The University of Pennsylvania .

[Guest]

Things You'll Learn About Colleges From Watching The 'Ivory Tower' Documentary (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/ivory-tower-documentary-college-learn_n_5529308.html)

If you can find a way to watch this movie I don't think you will be disappointed. It is upsetting. I take issue with Trump calling the military a mess but I think it's fair to call colleges a mess.

Since all of my kids went to college and worked very hard at it, I thought I knew what college life is now like. It seemed a lot like what I experienced. I was wrong.

One of the reasons colleges are so expensive are the amenities they offer. Colleges claim they have to offer swimming pools and rock climbing walls to compete for students.

Not so many professors get tenure so they compete for students and need to be popular. Kids being kids choose the easiest ones. How does that work in the long run?

It would be easy to fix all of this but sounds impossible to actually do it. If they make college affordable without fixing what's wrong it will only get worse.

And how do you fix it without more government interference or mandates? Free enterprise created this mess.

That's what all the Socialists say.

[Guest]

Things You'll Learn About Colleges From Watching The 'Ivory Tower' Documentary (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/ivory-tower-documentary-college-learn_n_5529308.html)

If you can find a way to watch this movie I don't think you will be disappointed. It is upsetting. I take issue with Trump calling the military a mess but I think it's fair to call colleges a mess.

Since all of my kids went to college and worked very hard at it, I thought I knew what college life is now like. It seemed a lot like what I experienced. I was wrong.

One of the reasons colleges are so expensive are the amenities they offer. Colleges claim they have to offer swimming pools and rock climbing walls to compete for students.

Not so many professors get tenure so they compete for students and need to be popular. Kids being kids choose the easiest ones. How does that work in the long run?

It would be easy to fix all of this but sounds impossible to actually do it. If they make college affordable without fixing what's wrong it will only get worse.

And how do you fix it without more government interference or mandates? Free enterprise created this mess.

You've just touched the tip of the iceburg...the problems with the edu system runs deep...very deep.

I love how they keep pushing kids to go to college...so now you have 100,000 kids vying for 10,000 jobs. Good luck with that. Now you know why a white male hates affirmative action and quotas so much...and why YOU should too...99,999 may have beaten them out, but THEY got the job.

For many years I recruited both Undergraduate students and MBA students from America`s most respected colleges .
About half of the schools I visited year after year and again still very respected colleges were turning out young men and women who were completely " Institutionally Programmed ". Further they lacked any basic background for the type of employment they were seeking .
Frankly their education was so lacking that their very expensive tuition was a complete waste .

Fortunately there were still about 50% of the colleges that were turning out well educated students with solid foundational skills . However these tended to be Universities which specialized in a " Quantitative " education such as engineering , math etc . Examples would be Carnegie Mellon and The University of Chicago , Northwestern and The University of Pennsylvania .

STEM...everything else is "pretend".

[Guest]

You've just touched the tip of the iceburg...the problems with the edu system runs deep...very deep.

I love how they keep pushing kids to go to college...so now you have 100,000 kids vying for 10,000 jobs. Good luck with that. Now you know why a white male hates affirmative action and quotas so much...and why YOU should too...99,999 may have beaten them out, but THEY got the job.



STEM...everything else is "pretend".

I found that MBA`s with technical undergraduate degrees such as engineering , computer science , math , even chemistry / physics / biology made by far the best candidates to bring in and grow for future senior management .

I was very privileged during the final 20 years of my career to recruit several of such scholars each year , bring them in , develop them for 3 to 4 years and then place them in other areas of the company .

As I look back today several have reached the C-Suite Level at not only the company I worked for but at other industry leaders as well .

It`s one of the major things I do miss about working . When you get that type of talent focused on a task or opportunity or major project it is amazing what can be accomplished .

[Guest]

I found that MBA`s with technical undergraduate degrees such as engineering , computer science , math , even chemistry / physics / biology made by far the best candidates to bring in and grow for future senior management .

I was very privileged during the final 20 years of my career to recruit several of such scholars each year , bring them in , develop them for 3 to 4 years and then place them in other areas of the company .

As I look back today several have reached the C-Suite Level at not only the company I worked for but at other industry leaders as well .

It`s one of the major things I do miss about working . When you get that type of talent focused on a task or opportunity or major project it is amazing what can be accomplished .

Amen that ! Sounds like you worked for a very smart company .
:thumbup:

[Guest]

Take a look at the trailer. It's a movie with a message but I don't think there is a specific political agenda. If there is and I missed it then point it out to me. thank-you
v=BjfwnBuj3O0
After watching the trailer, listen to this discussion about the movie.
v=ofuhlR4LAgQ

[Guest]

Education is all relative. Specialized degrees are valuable but as AS, BS and most MBA's become as common as folks owning a cell phone, they lose their value. Example, which I find predictive to our future. In my travels overseas, I have known many college graduates with degrees that have had to take low level jobs. For instance, we had a full-time maid that had a Masters degree in teaching and used to teach five languages. She said she made more money working for us. I knew a gate guard at the American embassy that was a lawyer. The receptionist in our medical unit was a doctor, a pediatrician. She made more money as a receptionist than in her own country, Armenia as a doctor. When I worked in Turkey, I had a former Air Force colonel as my interpreter. That's the way it will be here unless we realize that not everybody needs to have a college education to make a good living. And that today's college is yesterdays Senior High School. We need engineers, doctors and other specialists. We don't need Liberal arts degrees. And we don't need to waste tax dollars on free college when we already owe foreigners trillions.

[Guest]

Education is all relative. Specialized degrees are valuable but as AS, BS and most MBA's become as common as folks owning a cell phone, they lose their value. Example, which I find predictive to our future. In my travels overseas, I have known many college graduates with degrees that have had to take low level jobs. For instance, we had a full-time maid that had a Masters degree in teaching and used to teach five languages. She said she made more money working for us. I knew a gate guard at the American embassy that was a lawyer. The receptionist in our medical unit was a doctor, a pediatrician. She made more money as a receptionist than in her own country, Armenia as a doctor. When I worked in Turkey, I had a former Air Force colonel as my interpreter. That's the way it will be here unless we realize that not everybody needs to have a college education to make a good living. And that today's college is yesterdays Senior High School. We need engineers, doctors and other specialists. We don't need Liberal arts degrees. And we don't need to waste tax dollars on free college when we already owe foreigners trillions.That's interesting but you may consider watching the movie.

One of the problems the movie presents is that colleges want the outside of the state students who pay full tuition. To attract those students the colleges have pool parties and condo like accommodations. Unfortunately the students that want to focus on their schooling have to pay the extra tuition too for these amenities.

In a college survey they said 36% of the students spend 5 hours or less a week studying.

[Guest]

Education is all relative. Specialized degrees are valuable but as AS, BS and most MBA's become as common as folks owning a cell phone, they lose their value. Example, which I find predictive to our future. In my travels overseas, I have known many college graduates with degrees that have had to take low level jobs. For instance, we had a full-time maid that had a Masters degree in teaching and used to teach five languages. She said she made more money working for us. I knew a gate guard at the American embassy that was a lawyer. The receptionist in our medical unit was a doctor, a pediatrician. She made more money as a receptionist than in her own country, Armenia as a doctor. When I worked in Turkey, I had a former Air Force colonel as my interpreter. That's the way it will be here unless we realize that not everybody needs to have a college education to make a good living. And that today's college is yesterdays Senior High School. We need engineers, doctors and other specialists. We don't need Liberal arts degrees. And we don't need to waste tax dollars on free college when we already owe foreigners trillions.

Very well written and insightful . Your comments caused me to recall that when I was living in Northern, NJ and commuting to Lower Manhattan to work at Chase Manhattan that we hired a local painting and wall paper contractor to do some work in our home .

I was stunned to learn that the owners were brothers who each had completed Law School but felt that they could make a better living doing home improvements .

[Guest]

Amen that ! Sounds like you worked for a very smart company .
:thumbup:

Despite our best efforts to find US Citizens who had both a technical undergraduate degree with some experience in their fields and then earned an MBA from a top school iit proved to be very difficult .

We ended up most often with a person who had come into the uS legally with a Green Card and then ultimately became US Citizens .

Often these were men who had been educated at the highest rated Technical College in India . They have to score very high on a National Exam to get accepted .

These people had an ungodly work ethic . They would just never quit until the task was completed and accepted . A person could come to our office floor at 8 PM and think that it was 1 in the afternoon the place just buzzed .

One of my guys had an Undergraduate Degree from the top Tech. College in India , then a Masters in Engineering from the University of Chicago followed by a PHD in Metallurgical Engineering from Ohio State University . I found him at Carnegie Mellon where after 10 years with US Steel he earned his MBA with highest honors .
He ran my Planning Group which did a great deal of mathematical modeling to forecast among other things customer behavior .

We had a very smart chairman who had a very expansive vision but also knew what was going on within his company . In fact Warren Buffet became a significant shareholder which gave us the necessary capital to constantly buy up other institutions which fit our business style .
It was a great run . Part of me never wanted to retire but there comes a time . The weekly travel , the 60+ hour work weeks being on call 24/7 , one day you look up and realize time to go .

[Guest]

For most students, college is scam, but they get to party, take spring break trips, study abroad, Buy new suv, all with student loans. Then, after racking up 6 figure college loans and maybe A degree that's worthless at best cause they have no skills except how to get money for student loans. Now they expect taxpayer to pay for there parting, bad habits, and poor choices. On top all that majority still haven't learnt damn thing. :thumbup:

[Guest]

For most students, college is scam, but they get to party, take spring break trips, study abroad, Buy new suv, all with student loans. Then, after racking up 6 figure college loans and maybe A degree that's worthless at best cause they have no skills except how to get money for student loans. Now they expect taxpayer to pay for there parting, bad habits, and poor choices. On top all that majority still haven't learnt damn thing. :thumbup:

Hey why do you think Bernie was so popular. Free, free, FREE for all.

[Guest]

Despite our best efforts to find US Citizens who had both a technical undergraduate degree with some experience in their fields and then earned an MBA from a top school iit proved to be very difficult .

We ended up most often with a person who had come into the uS legally with a Green Card and then ultimately became US Citizens .

Often these were men who had been educated at the highest rated Technical College in India . They have to score very high on a National Exam to get accepted .

These people had an ungodly work ethic . They would just never quit until the task was completed and accepted . A person could come to our office floor at 8 PM and think that it was 1 in the afternoon the place just buzzed .

One of my guys had an Undergraduate Degree from the top Tech. College in India , then a Masters in Engineering from the University of Chicago followed by a PHD in Metallurgical Engineering from Ohio State University . I found him at Carnegie Mellon where after 10 years with US Steel he earned his MBA with highest honors .
He ran my Planning Group which did a great deal of mathematical modeling to forecast among other things customer behavior .

We had a very smart chairman who had a very expansive vision but also knew what was going on within his company . In fact Warren Buffet became a significant shareholder which gave us the necessary capital to constantly buy up other institutions which fit our business style .
It was a great run . Part of me never wanted to retire but there comes a time . The weekly travel , the 60+ hour work weeks being on call 24/7 , one day you look up and realize time to go .

Bullsh!t...you couldn't find a citizen to work for what YOU offered to pay them.

So you went with H1b visas...didn't you? "Outsourcing" by bringing the slave labor here.

Slave labor...produce or go back home to the slums. Of course they did whatever you told them to do. Better than picking through the dump for your next meal.

That's right, use our minds weaknesses against us, to get us to buy your crap. They employ psychologists and marketers to "figure us out", get into our heads. How to use scents, colors, music...to get you to BUY BUY BUY.

Please tell me you're not Gorden Gekko, or Mitt Romney, buying up distressed companies for pennies on the dollar and stripping them down for a quick profit.

I think YOU are what's wrong with America today...greed...insatiable greed...bet you did "very well", am I right? YOU (if I'm right) will be taking the elevator down if there's any "cosmic justice".

For most students, college is scam, but they get to party, take spring break trips, study abroad, Buy new suv, all with student loans. Then, after racking up 6 figure college loans and maybe A degree that's worthless at best cause they have no skills except how to get money for student loans. Now they expect taxpayer to pay for there parting, bad habits, and poor choices. On top all that majority still haven't learnt damn thing. :thumbup:

Not a "scam", but a waste of time. A C student or lower isn't going to get hired. There are 100,000 graduates for 10,000 jobs.

Easy money for college is what pushed up the cost. Just like easy money for housing pushed up the real estate prices. Just like easy money from the Fed pushed up stock prices and brought down interest rates.

They haven't learned anything because the majority now in college are women and minorities. White men are the minority in college now...

WHY do you think the rankings go down? As the percentage of white men leave ANYWHERE, the corresponding ranking goes down proportionally. The number of white males determines success. Everywhere on the planet this holds true. Find me ONE example where it isn't true. "Goodness is proportional to white men". It's a fact, I demand you challenge it.

[Guest]

Find me ONE example where it isn't true. "Goodness is proportional to white men". It's a fact, I demand you challenge it.You're white. As soon as you stop posting the intelligence level here will go up.

[Guest]

You're white. As soon as you stop posting the intelligence level here will go up.

Blacks and Hispanics have the lowest IQs. THEIR leaving will make the intelligence level go up. Everyone knows this, why don't we admit it? Fear of being ostracized by the liars?

This is like voting...we ALL know both parties are crooked and filled with a$$holes, but we keep doing the insane thing of voting for them...over and over.

Some of YOU need to leave to raise the collective IQ.

[Guest]

Blacks and Hispanics have the lowest IQs. THEIR leaving will make the intelligence level go up. Everyone knows this, why don't we admit it? Fear of being ostracized by the liars?

This is like voting...we ALL know both parties are crooked and filled with a$$holes, but we keep doing the insane thing of voting for them...over and over.

Some of YOU need to leave to raise the collective IQ.What was the thread about? Nice hijack. Why don't you just start your own thread. I can teach you how if you want?

[Guest]

What was the thread about? Nice hijack. Why don't you just start your own thread. I can teach you how if you want?

Please do. Not that he would restrict himself to it. It would be interesting to see the conversation he would have with himself.