I gotta get busy on my lecture videos!

On his Forbes blog, Jerry Bowyer espies an Internet iceberg dead ahead of Titanic U.

…you and your iPod (or desktop) can listen to the smartest people in the world give interesting lectures on the most important topics for free, or you can pay lots of money to hear an inarticulate and resentful grad student ladle out early 1960s French intellectual fads in one of collegedom’s cavernous freshman lecture halls at a time of his, not your, convenience.

If we–university faculty–expect students to keep showing up, we’d better start giving value for their time and money. Snoozeworthy lectures, 2.0 GPAs, and no marketable skills ain’t gonna cut it.

Tip from the Instapundit.

Maybe education isn’t the solution to every problem

Frank Fleming thinks our education system is on the wrong track:

Children are taught for 13 years in grade school, and many people want everyone to get at least 4 years of college on top of that. And what exactly do we get out of all this? If someone told me I was going to spend the next 17 years just studying, I’d expect at the end of it all to be Batman — a master of all sciences, languages, and martial arts. We’re lucky if our kids come out of this able to read and with at least one marketable skill.

It gets better.

I need to check Frank’s statistics on teachers and students. 76 million students and 7.2 million teachers. That’s not even an 11:1 ratio, so why all the fuss about budget cuts pushing schools to have classes with 30 or 40 students?

Tip from Joanne Jacobs.

College-educated? Show me.

Undergraduate assessment is about to get a lot more attention.  I’m looking for more outside assessments like the Actuarial Exams and the SAS certificates.

OK, what am I missing here?

American University is bragging about their sustainability director whose seem to be qualifications managing an eco-freako bed and breakfast and some serious craft brewing.  But what kind of beer-drinker goes for this?

In the bathroom, he showed off a spray bottle of green liquid that he picked up at a trade show; called “GoFlushless” and redolent of 7-Up, the product claims to mask urine smells and reduce flushing by a ridiculously specific 87 percent.

Really. Who’d want to work with a guy who only flushes the crapper one time in eight? The term dirty hippie comes to mind.

The case for campus concealed carry

There’s a whole lot of debate, handwringing, and gnashing of teeth over Jeff Wentworth’s proposed legislation that would permit the concealed carry of handguns on Texas college and university campuses.

I just received this via email, which seems like a good argument in favor of CCC:

OK, there’s at least one sane teacher in this country

Mike Mazenko’s neighbor had a frozen pipe fixed, for $300.  “…current education reform based almost entirely on standardized test scores and college degrees is the wrong direction for Colorado and for the United States.”

Tip from Community College Spotlight.

Update (26 February).   Thomas Benton thinks this is the beginning of a perfect storm in education. “But I earned nothing but A’s in high school!”

Heads up guys, those are real bullets he’s shootin’

Texas Governor Rick Perry fires a $10,000 shot across the bow of the great fleet of Texas universities.  They all say it can’t be done, except at three Texas colleges.  Not to worry, the Legislature is planning to shut those 3 bad examples down, probably so they don’t make everyone else look bad.

Unlike some obtuse Texans, the folks at the the University of the South got message loud and clear, and took action.

Maybe the folks in Nevada should invite Governor Perry and his pistol to come put this one out of its misery.

Update (23 February).   Here’s the outline of a plan to make it happen.  Tip from the Instapundit.

Don’t take that student loan!

…unless you’re damned sure you can pay it off.

Good luck on that “Tell Congress…” jive.  They’re broke, and definitely not in the mood to listen to your whiney crap when 25%+ of student loans are in default.

Infographic by College Scholarships.org

Tip from Boing Boing.

Update (15 February).  If you do take the loan, be damned sure you don’t get hurt.

“We are the people we’ve been waiting for”

Some highly-compensated administrators in the University of California system haven’t internalized the President’s statement “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money…”.  Now they’ve gone public, putting themselves on a new California Taxpayer’s $h!t List. To their credit,  citizens and lawmakers in California are not amused.

Tip from George Leef at Phi Beta Cons.
Update (8 January).   Even the Democrats in the California legislature aren’t amused.  It looks like all the rich* little piggies on the state payroll are going on short rations.  I bet there’s a lot of California state employees who wish the UC 36 had STFU.  Tip from the Instapundit.

* “Obama rich” as in earning more than $245,000 per year.

Why, it almost sounds like higher ed is some sort of scam, or something…

Don’t count on a college degree getting you a better job.

approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less. Only a minority of the increment in our nation’s stock of college graduates is filling jobs historically considered as requiring a bachelor’s degree or more.

I’m not too hopeful for my students who are looking for a credential rather than skills.

Tip  from Joanne Jacobs.