Good Students = Good Workers?

[arfink]

I have been doing some more of my pernicious thinking again. I ran into a couple of articles about the so-called "signalling method" theory of education and job interviewing. The basic gist of it is that a good student equals a good worker because [b]"Good students tend to be smart, hard-working, and conformist - three crucial traits for almost any job."[/b] [url="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_magic_of_ed.html"]source[/url]

But we already know that going to college doesn't really make you smarter. Your IQ will remain the same. College then is being used as an insanely expensive measuring stick of someone's smart-ness, when much cheaper means of evaluating that already exist.

College won't make you hard-working. It will either confirm that you are a hard-working person or weed you out. It's not a skill colleges are set up to really teach to people, generally speaking. Again, there are much less expensive ways of determining whether someone is hard working, IMO.

This leaves one pillar of the "signalling theory" of education standing: college makes you conformist. I do believe that one can be taught conformity easily enough given enough time, but most colleges actually seem to spend more time trying to [b]undo[/b] previous attempts to make students conformist that happened in grade school.

Ultimately I believe that one of the biggest problems I see with college education is not that it necessarily leaves students unprepared for the "Real World" (which it often does) but it's also a terrible system of measurement where job placement is concerned, mostly because of it's excessive cost. It's utterly horrible at taking unprepared young adults and preparing them. It's possibly even worse if you then use a students success at a college to measure his worth in the workplace.

[Maggyie]

I don't know. I agree that college doesn't make you smarter and that many people get through college without learning much of value.

But I think college works great as an expensive but effective signalling device. And it's expensive for you, not for your perspective employer. If you compare college graduates vs. high school graduates as a group you'll notice many differences.

Probably the biggest is that it signals tenacity. Perhaps it's become even a better indicator of this, with how expensive it's getting. What is it, like 40% of people who enter college graduate in 6 years? It's some kind of alarming statistic like that.

More and more you have to know how to hustle and hang out like the cliche dog with a bone. IF you're going to actually finish. Businesses like that kind of thing.

[princessgianna]

I am currently working to pay for my college education. It is a must that I take over four years. The past year I took 12-13 hour of course(each semester) + 24-30 hours at my part time job. In order to graduate in 4 years, I must take 15 hours each semester.

I am not complaining, I am happy that I am able to pursue a college education and I am happy that I have a part time job and allows some flexability in time and it allows me to keep debt at an all time low- opportunity cost to me? I will not graduate in four years. So what, I am in the "real world" learning the way of the business world. I am happy because I believe that where I am is where God wants me to be.

I know some college graduates that have done very well, I know High School graduates who are a drudge on society
HOWEVER
I know some very accomplished High School graduates (a few are very *now* wealthy business men), and I know some slums of college graduates.

Its [u]what you make [/u]of what God calls you too.
To obtain an education simply means to learn. You can learn all the time, if you read, if you are curious, bascially if you care!
When you go to school, it does not automatically apply that you are getting an education, if your heart is not into learning.

[arfink]

[quote name='Maggie' timestamp='1339553753' post='2444162']
I don't know. I agree that college doesn't make you smarter and that many people get through college without learning much of value.

But I think college works great as an expensive but effective signalling device. And it's expensive for you, not for your perspective employer. If you compare college graduates vs. high school graduates as a group you'll notice many differences.

Probably the biggest is that it signals tenacity. Perhaps it's become even a better indicator of this, with how expensive it's getting. What is it, like 40% of people who enter college graduate in 6 years? It's some kind of alarming statistic like that.

More and more you have to know how to hustle and hang out like the cliche dog with a bone. IF you're going to actually finish. Businesses like that kind of thing.
[/quote]

I don't understand how tenacity is demonstrated by merely being able to afford college. Lots of tenacious people simply cannot go to college because of costs, and lots of extremely lazy people go to college because someone else pays for it. I went to a school where the latter was most definitely the case.

Also, how can you say that "college works great as an expensive but effective signalling device."? Did you think about that before you said it? I hate to jump all over on you about this, but that's kinda the whole point. College generally [b]doesn't[/b] work well as a signalling device, regardless of its cost, yet businesses continue to act as if it does. I have heard of so many businesses just using the "college signals" and really regretting it afterwards, finding many college grads woefully unprepared to do anything useful for them.

This is probably why the business world has been so fixated on years of experience when hiring professionals these days, because they don't want to be bothered with inventing a new measuring system for job candidates. Given the insane cost of college I am thinking it's time for sane people to realize that if college cannot be made more affordable that new measurement systems should be developed and then used by businesses.

[quote name='princessgianna' timestamp='1339555451' post='2444174']
I am currently working to pay for my college education. It is a must that I take over four years. The past year I took 12-13 hour of course(each semester) + 24-30 hours at my part time job. In order to graduate in 4 years, I must take 15 hours each semester.

I am not complaining, I am happy that I am able to pursue a college education and I am happy that I have a part time job and allows some flexability in time and it allows me to keep debt at an all time low- opportunity cost to me? I will not graduate in four years. So what, I am in the "real world" learning the way of the business world. I am happy because I believe that where I am is where God wants me to be.

I know some college graduates that have done very well, I know High School graduates who are a drudge on society
HOWEVER
I know some very accomplished High School graduates (a few are very *now* wealthy business men), and I know some slums of college graduates.

Its [u]what you make [/u]of what God calls you too.
To obtain an education simply means to learn. You can learn all the time, if you read, if you are curious, bascially if you care!
When you go to school, it does not automatically apply that you are getting an education, if your heart is not into learning.
[/quote]

So we just accept the status quo because God placed us in a rough spot? Why not encourage changes to the system?

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1339553239' post='2444156']
I have been doing some more of my pernicious thinking again. I ran into a couple of articles about the so-called "signalling method" theory of education and job interviewing. The basic gist of it is that a good student equals a good worker because [b]"Good students tend to be smart, hard-working, and conformist - three crucial traits for almost any job."[/b] [url="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_magic_of_ed.html"]source[/url]

But we already know that going to college doesn't really make you smarter. Your IQ will remain the same. College then is being used as an insanely expensive measuring stick of someone's smart-ness, when much cheaper means of evaluating that already exist.

College won't make you hard-working. It will either confirm that you are a hard-working person or weed you out. It's not a skill colleges are set up to really teach to people, generally speaking. Again, there are much less expensive ways of determining whether someone is hard working, IMO.
[/quote]

I disagree about the hard work part. High school was no challenge to me at all, college made me organize my life better and work my butt off to get my degree.

[arfink]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1339558089' post='2444182']
I disagree about the hard work part. High school was no challenge to me at all, college made me organize my life better and work my butt off to get my degree.
[/quote]

You were inherently hard working then, I suspect. Obviously you had to work hard- nobody will deny that colleges are hard. The fact that you did in fact work hard doesn't show that you learned such a skill in that place, since it's actually darn near impossible to learn a skill while simultaneously using it. I suspect you learned it elsewhere, if not in high school then perhaps from your parents. I could totally be wrong here though, in which case you'd definitely fall outside the norm.

[Innocent]

Arfink, would it make sense to think of college as the [i]Kobayashi Maru[/i] that trains you for real life?

( I mean, it provides you with a situation in which you can, of your own initiative, develop skills that will help you in the real world, and as you are developing them, you are bound to fail a lot, especially beginning. Not being fully out in the real world is helpful in the sense that your initial falls do not maim you as severely as they might in the real world. Of course, the initiative is on your side, and if you aren't motivated to grow in the virtues of studiousness and industriousness, college won't help. On the other hand, if you are indeed motivated, a good college provides you with a safe incubator/greenhouse where you can grow until you are strong enough to get planted in the harsh environment outside. I hope I am making sense?)

[sixpence]

College will train you for jobs where you have solid deadlines to meet and give you some? skills? maybe? but probably not for anything where you have to be very self-motivating and set your own deadlines (as I have come to learn is the case with grad school)

[Lilllabettt]

Dismissing the value of higher education is "razzle dazzle" at the moment - and the idea is gaining traction. This despite the fact that graduating from college remains the one most effective thing a person can do to improve or secure their socioeconomic status and the trajectory of their children.

Setting aside the economic impact -- whatever happened to learning for the sake of learning? To improve your capacity to think deeply and enjoy life? The chief benefit of higher education is that it changes the brain. There is no amount of cognitive activity a less educated person can do to fully make up the deficit. Woe to us when the opportunity is offered only to the well-born or super-rich.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' timestamp='1339614027' post='2444343']
Dismissing the value of higher education is "razzle dazzle" at the moment - and the idea is gaining traction. This despite the fact that graduating from college remains the one most effective thing a person can do to improve or secure their socioeconomic status and the trajectory of their children.

Setting aside the economic impact -- whatever happened to learning for the sake of learning? To improve your capacity to think deeply and enjoy life? The chief benefit of higher education is that it changes the brain. There is no amount of cognitive activity a less educated person can do to fully make up the deficit. Woe to us when the opportunity is offered only to the well-born or super-rich.
[/quote]
Arfink's questions about hiring criteria are only generalities about the value of a college education, which was discussed in another thread. A college education 'may' demonstrate you 'may' be a good employee, but not necessarily. A college education doesn't mean you have common sense, a work ethic, or are able to utilize your additional knowledge in an economically productive manner as an employee. Certainly an education isn't a negative unless the degree holder thinks their diploma is a Certificate of Entitlement.

With all the knowledge available on the internet, classic literature, white papers, articles, forums, texts, the 'Education System' no longer has a monopoly on knowledge. We're way beyond economic barriers that would prevent the inquisitive mind from seeking in depth knowledge for the pursuit of self fulfillment or personal enjoyment.

[Vincent Vega]

Am I the only one who wants to make sure that the guy slicing me open didn't simply spend a bunch of time checking out webMD?

[Slappo]

I'd like to know how many people commenting in this thread actually hire employees...

I do. I see a major difference between the college applicants and the highschool grad applicants. It is big.

Now college does not give you the tools necessary to walk into an office, sit down, and start performing the job you were hired for without any job training. It does give you the tools necessary to write an e-mail that doesn't contain grammatical errors, draft a memo in an office setting, understand basic and complex principles in your degree field which will in turn make you more easy to train on the specifics of the area you work in, and give you the skills necessary to do research on your own without asking 20 questions.

Of course you have the college flunkies who worked their way through with minimal effort learning very little. This can be difficult to tell off the bat if the person has no prior work experience. [b]You are always taking a risk when you hire a new employee[/b]. Regardless of their qualifications they may not do well in the position you have hired them for. I'd much rather take that risk with a college graduate starting in the business world than with someone whose been in the workforce a few years with moderate experience and average performance evaluations/reviews.


Also, when I'm in an interview with someone and I ask them what the difference is between a debit and a credit, the college grad starts talking to me about financial statements, journal entries, and ledgers. The high school grad is much more likely to start talking to me about plusses and minus', debit cards, and credit cards.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Slappo

[Anomaly]

I don't know if you were asking me, but I've hired hundreds of employees in a specialized construction industry, from ditch diggers, to branch operations managers. We all have preferences and our own experiences. Sure college may provide specific knowledge and a rough measure of sucess, but it doesn't indicate work eithic, ability to work with others, being a team player, being pro-company, and the myriad of other qualities required to be a good employee. I've lived through college grads with no real work experience being hired to perform a specific job and failing at it because they think they're smarter and more able than the department manager who's been managing the department for 10 years. Now give the college grad some years of experience and I would have different expectations down the road. It's the old saying, 'Don't tell me what you know and will do, show me what you've done and are doing.'

[arfink]

OK, in no particular order here:

@everybody: Obviously college is good for some things. The studies that actually relate to your field are great tools and often completely necessary. Obviously. I'm not arguing against that.

What I'm considering problematic is the idea that somehow the obtaining of a degree- any degree- somehow confers something extra upon you besides the actual skill training you got.

@Slappo- do you think that the difference in [b]character quality[/b] (NOT SKILL SET) is something that college students have placed into them in college, or do you think it's something that you wind up with as an end-product after all the "losers" are isolated and "weeded out" by colleges?

@Lillabett: I know you love hating on people who love to embrace the latest hype in hater-ness, but bear with me. I do not believe that college will continue to be a good investment for young people to be making. Job placement for recent graduates is at an all-time low since the introduction of the GI bill. I will not deny that the status quo absolutely demands you have a college degree, everybody knows that. What I rail against is the idea that something like that can be demanded when it's a comparatively ineffective measure of worker competence, and because it's far far more expensive than it ought to be.

As for learning for its own sake: great. We'll always have higher education for that. But why should everyone be forced to attend institutes of higher learning? (and I do mean forced, being made to have a degree in order to get a job is a brilliant coercion)

Literacy and numeracy are great things. Higher learning is a great thing. But for many people it's not only unnecessary, it's extremely costly as well.

[Maggyie]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1339557219' post='2444180']
I don't understand how tenacity is demonstrated by merely being able to afford college. Lots of tenacious people simply cannot go to college because of costs, and lots of extremely lazy people go to college because someone else pays for it. I went to a school where the latter was most definitely the case.
[/quote]

Where the tenacity comes in, is finding a way to pay for it come hell or high water. Sure some people are wealthy enough to have their parents pay their way, but as the costs increase that is becoming less and less the case. Even the comfortably middle class must get creative to afford it. Case in point, my father makes six figures most years but I took college credits in high school so I could graduate early and I entered writing contests (for the prize money) because there was still no way he could pay for everything given how much it costs.