If only they can get some culture. Then it might be worth it.

A lot of the “universities” with the highest loan burden were “for profit” institutions with very questionable practices. Thankfully many of these places are being shut down, but you can’t just snap your fingers and click your heels and fix things.

Education in the US is often an enterprise managed by individual states, hugely political and 4 years of Betsy deVos will take some time to rectify…..education in the US requires some major overhaul.

In some instances debt relief is a useful strategy.

To be fair, many state community institutions do their best to educate.

I absolutely agree...Trump U was one of the worst, but there are plenty of tiny so-called educational institutions that should be held to standards. Trouble is, where do you find any qualified teachers these days?

Clearly the USA learned a lot from that. "Anything you can do I can do better"

The whole system is messed up. From a young age, kids are taught that you're basically nothing if you don't go to uni. They're taught that community/tech colleges are for losers and those who couldn't cut it at a "real" uni.

There needs to be a mental shift away from 4-year college degrees being the end-all and be-all of life. There is nothing shameful in being trained for a trade, especially if it's something you like.

I agree that cancelling debt isn't really creating initiative, except perhaps for students to take on more debt because they think there will be further cancellations.

I think a good start would be an apprenticeship model based on the Swiss or German model . In which young people don’t just learn the practical stuff but also go to school to learn the theory .

Then there need to be proper universities that teach useful degrees that are actually taylored towards the job market and address actual real skills shortages rather than imaginary careers . And taught by people who have actually worked in the real world rather than slipping directly from being a student to being a teacher .

And then there needs to be academic thoroughness to ensure the content of what is taught is actually objective and valuable .

The only way to stop crappy universities issuing worthless degrees and charging an arm and a leg for them is to assure they run out of people willing to pay . Debt cancellation is totally counter productive if not irresponsible IMHO

Yes. It doesn't help people grow up. It is a political move. Sometimes it felt like 35 there is 15 here. You assume that people there know what they want to do, like in here, at 11-13yr, though. The culture seem to benefit from not giving responsibilities to the youngsters and constantly "protect" them from growing up. It's not profitable to know to think early, or be responsible. Living in a debt is really not facing the reality. The system benefits from infantilizing the society. You will reduce people going to crapy unies if they stop prioritizing edutainment (while paying later...) and go there to learn. They will go there to learn if they know how to think. That's not a matter of unies but way before.

The whole political situation is a matter of trust or lack there of, easy manipulation of those who prioritizite affective/socio-affective aspects to cognitive aspects.

Otherwise your theory is interesting. I also think that teaching solely for a career, in a utilitarian way, is as bad as teaching only for exams. Humanities and stems have different return of investments. Both are needed to teach to think. Hums are getting majorly shafted because it is considered basket weaving, with slower returns. Teaching for careers when too specific does not give enough opportunity to learn to think, either.

If you want good thinkers, give them thinking teachers. Not somebody who needs to brand themselves fast in the world of edutainment, even before they finish their teaching degree, so they could pay their teachin' degree edu debts.

Most 'best in...' people I know always mixed and found a good ratio of the theory and practice. Because they know how to think, because they know how to live.

Somebody told me yesterday that we will have what the US has, in cca 20 years.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

I suppose the "non-thinking" teachers know what they want to do very early on. (i.e. to teach a subject or more)
Which should be a good thing, according to your theory. But well, sorry if I misunderstood what you meant here, it's a tad cryptic.

Let's not forget that kids should have a right to their childhood. Forcing a kid here in CH right out of primary school to decide on a career move is IMO putting quite a bit of pressure on a preteen. Forcing Gymi exams down their throats with many facing an early defeat in life! Is that a way to treat a kid?
I grew up in the States. It wasn't so bad. I had my childhood and could enjoy it even into college. Sure, I never thought about getting work with my major. But hell, I had a fun childhood and even as a young adult I could explore and do things that most career-oriented people never got the time for. I once had a crew boss, who told me that it seems that most guys he's met seem to have to try several things out before finding a career by 30. In my case, he was right. In the end I figured out that my major brought me peanuts in work world, but then went on and got a decent Masters and found my calling. All in all, the only thing I regret is not having studied any finance and Latin.
In the same breath, I am not saying that education in the States is the way to go. Far from it. Unfortunately, in the last decade it's been less and less subsidized. Who needs educated kids if the space program is grounded and hell, its trendy to reduce gov. spending. In my day, I could put myself through a state college with only a summer job. Today, no college kid can even think of it. As for the poor school teachers, one has to be real proud of such dedicate folk earning minimum pay. https://www.businessinsider.com/10-a...33630-a-year-4
As for college professors, they write horrible books and make their students buy em.
However, getting back to my point, it seems that many here on this thread are harping about how bad education is in the US. Yeh that's right, but remember one thing, there are still many opportunities there and that many kids can still have fun and a real childhood. Where summers are forever still school free. https://youtu.be/2Oo8QzDHimQ?list=RD2Oo8QzDHimQ

Yes. And they make up for it at universities hardcore. Those US unies I worked for, most students had summer courses to shorten the study time, so they could start paying off the insane student loans.

You gotta think about a system that underpays teachers while the tuition is sky high. Where does that money go in that industry. I am not sure if Biden realizes where the cash he did not want should have gone.

I am not dissing US system, people have what they had watched happening gradually and for a long time and did not change it. But your childhood was a while ago, it is incomparable now. Mine is too, regimes change.

The local system allows children to have dreams while giving them independence to achieve them, on their own. Without debts. It is similar where I am from.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

It used to be possible to get a decent education in the US without lots of money. I went to a top uni that had many scholarship kids enrolled. (Having said that, if your parents went to Harvard, chances are you also qualified fairly easily for a top uni. Those on top tend to stay on top...those on the bottom stay there.) The biggest problem is not indebtedness, but the fact that (like the healthcare system) the entire system needs to be torn down and restructured. You'd have to grow a generation of decently-paid teachers, for a start...and who will teach them? The whole system is dummied down now. BTW, Latin and finance were my faves. And I also took a while to find my niche, whilst singing in pubs, painting houses, ending up in high-tech patent licensing with the big boys.

That makes three patent people on here.

Often in order to remember how things really are I think everyone has to have this image in their head and then think and create an opinion ...(valid not only for the US)

You, me and...?

EPMike

Headline inflation figures not looking good for Biden, hopefully, the claims that this is just a short-term post-Corona issue are true.

Consumer prices rose 0.9 percent in June, according to data released Tuesday by the Labor Department, the consumer price index (CPI) increased to an annualized rate of 5.4 percent last month.
This was the largest recorded since a 1-percent increase in June 2008.

Like Ticino.

Tom

Americans can use a bit more culture. Don't you think?

What do you expect if the value of a used car goes up cause there's not enough chips to make new ones?

They could buy a painting of that promising new artist Hunter Biden.