More reeducation camps available at Ohio State University.

The Medical College at OSU  "discovered" systemic racism after the George Floyd death in a Democrat, top to bottom run city-- Minneapolis. Since then the new regulations, programs and appointees to IED jobs at OSU have been a-poppin'. The federal government has pumped about $300 million into OSU in just 8 months, far exceeding the whole of 2019. (OSU Health Beat, Sept. 9) Supposedly the extra is to fight Covid19, but I suspect it will find its way into all manner of socioeconomic programs to fight disparities, racism, homophobia, etc.

"We’ve developed some educational opportunities, available in two tracks: 1) Anti-Racism and 2) Equity and Inclusion. The opportunities are offered to reflect our commitment to thwart racism and embrace the differences that make us excel. We encourage you to explore these resources, including the 21-Day Anti-Racism Challenge, the listing of educational opportunities and Conversations that Matter."

Here's a run down of some of the other offerings. It's a shame that special training in working with the deaf, disabilities, and victims of torture had such a poor turn out.

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/-/media/files/wexnermedical/about-us/diversity/fy20-summary-report-of-training-completions2.pdf?

He thinks the federal government is a college student’s friend—an e-mail exchange

Really?  Your source?  Did you know the government and its own predatory loans, grants, scholarships, etc. is the main reason the bubble of student loans is bigger than the housing bubble of 2007?  When I entered Manchester College (private) in 1957, a college education was about $1,000 a year with tuition, fees, housing, food and transportation. My sophomore year at the University of Illinois (public) was about the same. 

If you use a calculator for 1957-58 dollars and convert to 2018 dollars, 60 years later, you’ll see what throwing money at colleges does to the costs.  College costs have soared far higher and at a faster rate than medical costs, even though medicine has gone through far greater changes and technological and pharmaceutical improvements. Our lives have been extended by the medical improvements.  A college education has been cheapened; a BA or BS is today not worth a lot except to go on to graduate school and leave with $70,000 in debt.  Colleges have made few changes except to shift most of the faculty to the left of center, add programs in “area studies,” remove Shakespeare and American history, and deny conservatives their right to a bias-free education. The more money government provides to students, the more the universities and colleges raise their tuition and fees. Funny how the “market” works, isn’t it?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2018 are 772.10% higher than prices in 1958. The dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 3.68% per year during this period.  In other words, $1,000 in 1958 is equivalent in purchasing power to $8,721.04 in 2018, a difference of $7,721.04 over 60 years.

Do you know any college/university where a student can attend for $8,721 a year? All costs, not just tuition and fees. Administrative costs have soared as more and more non-faculty are added, especially in the huge departments of equality, diversity, disability that may have 50 or so employees (at OSU) as well as those assigned to the individual departments, courses are watered down or expanded so it now takes 5-6 years to finish rather than 4, young men and women are encouraged to remain adolescents longer and remain in parents’ care until late 20s, very odd courses are required for students, staff and faculty like “hate speech” or “appropriate non-sexist dating behavior” which chew up many hours that could be  useful for studying and which make the old “in loco parentis” of my era look like wild freedom.

No one can reverse this overbearing, interfering federal meddling in higher education except the Department of Education, and since even Republicans don’t like to give up power, I think not much will come of this except more money being thrown at the problem, and a bigger bureaucracy to make sure the tax payers get screwed again.

Gender statistics and Google

An NSF 2014 report claims the number of Science & Engineering bachelor's degrees awarded annually rose steadily from 398,602 in 2000 to 589,330 in 2012. Women received a slim majority of these degrees in EVERY year. Women’s share of undergraduate degrees is 57%. By age 30, women in the U.S. population begin to outnumber men (many more boys are born than girls), but at age 20-24, the age at which most graduate from college, the males are ahead of females by about 443,000 (2010 census). So there is a big gender imbalance--at the expense of men. Where are the safe spaces for men? Where is the hand wringing?

However, this NSF report includes “psychology and social sciences” in the S & E figure, but not health sciences, which in my opinion makes it almost worthless. Men do outnumber women in computer science and engineering, despite 40 years of special pushing and workshops for women. By lumping so many sciences together, from psychology to agriculture, it is possible to claim that women aren’t getting a fair deal in hiring/promotion for computer jobs. Especially at Google which doesn’t want crack downs on misuse of the H1B visas so more Americans can be hired. It wouldn't surprise me if foreign born Asian and Indians outnumber American men at Google. But I seriously doubt those stats are available.

Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google was born in the Soviet Union.  Do you suppose this type of totalitarianism is in the blood?

https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/truth-women-stem-careers/

https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/college-14.html

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/08/542180434/google-fires-engineer-who-criticized-diversity-efforts

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/google-fires-employee-who-wrote-10-page-anti-diversity-manifesto
 

Educators who make race relations worse

I haven't checked out this story--someone is clearly misguided if it is true. But what is true is it was completely unnecessary: Among 2014 high school graduates, 86.1% of Asians enrolled in college, compared to 70.9% of black graduates, 67.3% of white graduates and 65.2% of Hispanic graduates. So why are educators still trying to create hard feelings, entitlement and victimhood?

What we really need is some direction for students who won’t be going to college, a place they’ll rack up debt for jobs that won’t be able to support the debt.

About that pay inequity?

Mr. President,

the 60s called Tuesday night. They are upset that you don't know your history, employment law or what JFK did. The law about equal pay for equal work was passed in 1963. Employers are not allowed to discriminate based on gender. If they are not obeying the law, why didn't you do something? If they are not obeying that law, why will another one help? Also, women have earned 9 million more college degrees than men since 1982. They haven't been earning the same kind of degrees nor working the same number of hours, however. Last I checked, a mining engineer earned more than an art museum curator. Also for over 5 years, young, single college educated women have been earning more than young, single college educated men--in some cities like Atlanta and Memphis it's as much as 20%. Black women are so outpacing black men in college degrees, it is alarming. I think they get about 71% of the masters awarded to blacks students. What will you do about those gaps? Demand more laws?

Georgetown University did a study in 2011 of differences in gender and race in selecting a major. The study found that white men are concentrated in the highest-earning majors, including engineering and pharmaceutical sciences, while women gravitate toward the lowest-earning majors like education, art and social work.  The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education noted that educated white women were less likely to work full time than educated black women, accounting for the difference in their pay (educated black women earn more).

https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/omooxnult5yvuctf0ftl

http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html

http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/47_four-year_collegedegrees.html

http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/64_degrees.html

Employers can't discriminate by law, but I’m sure they can read resumes.  And HR reps can talk among themselves and note absences, difficulties with co-workers, willingness to travel, etc.

The least recommended college majors

Here are the top 12 majors not recommended by people in the field:

8-12 (Tie): Liberal Arts

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,600

8-12 (Tie): Political Science

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $41,700

8-12 (Tie): Art History

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,900

8-12 (Tie): Sociology

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $37,400

8-12 (Tie): Psychology

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,300

6-7 (Tie): Art

• 26% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,100

6-7 (Tie): English Language

• 26% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $38,700

5. Journalism

• 27% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $38,100

4. Social Science

• 28% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $37,300

3. Visual Communications

• 29% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $37,300

2. History

• 33% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $39,700

1. Anthropology

• 35% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,200

I don’t see anything remarkable; except for journalism, I assumed the same about these majors when I was in college. But obviously, if only 25-35% are unhappy in the job, they are finding other satisfaction besides salary.

Survey was by PayScale and reported in Higher Ed Morning.

I wonder if this was used with gender if it would explain some gender gap in wages.

“In both 1978 and 2005, engineering, physics and mathematics lagged behind many of the humanities departments in attracting women, who tend to flock to fields ranging from art history to English, as well as the “softer” sciences, such as biology and environmental studies.” (2006, The gender gap in majors at Yale)

Then the Harvard Crimson did an article on the differences of majors by genders.  And yes, anthropology was the most female of all the majors, but most of these were listed.

Georgetown University did a study in 2011 of differences in gender and race in selecting a major. The study found that white men are concentrated in the highest-earning majors, including engineering and pharmaceutical sciences, while women gravitate toward the lowest-earning majors like education, art and social work. https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/omooxnult5yvuctf0ftl

Studying achievement, rather than failure

"Black men are overrepresented on revenue generating intercollegiate sports teams. In 2009, they were only 3.6% of undergraduate students, but 55.3% of football and basketball players at public NCAA Division I institutions (Harper, 2012)."

It would probably be called a racist comment if a sports announcer said this, but it appears in The Black Male College Achievement Study.

http://www.gse.upenn.edu/equity/sites/gse.upenn.edu.equity/files/publications/bmss.pdf

For this thousands are taking on massive debt!

Why are recent college grads underemployed?

Three of the top four areas of growth 2010-2020 require less than a high school degree, Retail Salespersons 706,800; Home Health Aides 706,300; Personal Care Aides 607,000.

In the three occupations “retail sales person,” “cashier,” and “waiters and waitresses” there are more than 1.7 million college graduates employed, and the other fourteen occupations listed in the table employ almost one million more college graduates. There are, of course, many other occupations requiring little education with significant numbers of college graduates, such as taxi drivers (36,945 have college degrees—15.4 percent of the total), and parking lot attendants (16,138 have at least a bachelor’s degree—12.9 percent of the total).

What to do with degrees like these?

“In 2010, the New York Times reported on Cortney Munna, then 26, a New York University graduate with almost $100,000 in debt. If her repayments were not then being deferred because she was enrolled in night school, she would have been paying $700 monthly from her $2,300 monthly after-tax income as a photographer’s assistant. She says she is toiling “to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back.” Her degree is in religious and women’s studies.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-subprime-college-educations/2012/06/08/gJQA4fGiOV_story.html

But what are all those tuition and fee increases going for?  In part, narcissism.  Bloat. Says George Will.  And I’ve blogged about it when I see it at Ohio State which has an Office of Diversity and Inclusion; Faculty of Color Caucus of the Department of History; the Race, Ethnicity, and Nation Constellation of the Department of History; and DISCO, Diversity and Identity Studies Collective . Courses like “Gender and race in contemporary architecture.”

UCSD found money to create a vice chancellorship for equity, diversity and inclusion. UC Davis has a Diversity Trainers Institute under an administrator of diversity education, who presumably coordinates with the Cross-Cultural Center. It also has: a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center; a Sexual Harassment Education Program; a diversity program coordinator; an early resolution discrimination coordinator; a Diversity Education Series that awards Understanding Diversity Certificates in “Unpacking Oppression”; and Cross-Cultural Competency Certificates in “Understanding Diversity and Social Justice.” California’s budget crisis has not prevented UC San Francisco from creating a new vice chancellor for diversity and outreach to supplement its Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and the Diversity Learning Center (which teaches how to become “a Diversity Change Agent”), and the Center for LGBT Health and Equity, and the Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention & Resolution, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Committees on Diversity, and on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, and on the Status of Women.

What goes into “best school” in . . . ?

It doesn’t say anywhere in the Wall Street Journal listing of Best Schools by major that the graduates have jobs, but in business and economics Ohio State and Rutgers outrank Harvard.  So looking through the comments about these rankings, I see:

Rod Schultz asks:  “Would anyone in the right state of mind really pick Ohio State or Rutgers over Harvard to study business and economics?”

Rick Joseph responds:  “Certainly! Subsequent to a comprehensive evaluation of the tuition costs at each institution, the debt incurred after graduation, the relative ranking of the universities under consideration, etc. Ohio State and Rutgers, as well as Florida, Texas, Virginia would be preferable over Harvard.

Not surprisingly there have been several recent studies (like "Estimating the Return to College Selectivity Over the Career Using Administrative Earnings Data," Stacy Dale and Alan B. Krueger, NBER Working Paper (June 2011), and those that show employers prefer State University Grads over Ivy League, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704358904575477643369663352.html?mod=WSJ_PathToProfessions_TopLEADNewsCollection) that have doused cold water on the traditional Ivy League fetish when considering an undergraduate degree. Since the 1950s these institutions are not what they once were, they are considerably overpriced, and most flagship public universities have become exceptional institutions on par or better. Ask most high school students in states like Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Florida where they would prefer to attend and very few would pick the Ivy League institutions over their flagship state universities.

 
Today, the fetish for the "Ivies" is limited mainly to the Northeast.”

Well said.

Who will employ these college graduates?

These numbers don't look good. Apparently a lot of students go to college just to keep the professors employed, because they aren't finding jobs in their fields. According to Alexander Tabbarok we are graduating too many in the humanities and not enough in the sciences to maintain a sound economy. Hmm. Maybe this is an area where "free markets" and "choice" aren't working?

In 2009 the U.S. graduated 37,994 students with bachelor’s degrees in computer and information science, less than 25 years ago; 2,480 students with bachelor’s degrees in microbiology—about the same number as 25 years ago; 5,036 chemical engineers in 2009, no more than we did 25 years ago. In mathematics and statistics there were 15,496 graduates in 2009, slightly more than the 15,009 graduates of 1985.

In 2009 the U.S. graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual and performing arts graduates in 1985, and 95,000 students a year in psychology, more than double the number of 25 years ago and far in excess of the number of available jobs. And everyone knows what is happening with the print media, but journalism and communications graduates have doubled since 1985!

What you can do with a degree in literature

Or theater. Or art history. Or psychology. First find a job to pay the rent with the government in a field that will not die--like sexually transmitted diseases, then follow the money.

Thomas E. Getzen is Professor of Risk, Insurance and Health Management at Temple University and the founder and Executive Director of iHEA, the International Health Economics Association. After receiving an undergraduate degree in literature from Yale University, he worked for the U.S.P.H.S. Centers for Disease Control Venereal Disease program in New York and Los Angeles, and then obtained an MHA degree in Medical Care Organization and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Washington. Dr. Getzen’s main research contributions have been in the areas of contracting, price indexes and forecasting of health care spending. His consulting work has included employee benefit negotiations, laboratory diagnostics, risk assessment, and capital financing for managed care. Dr. Getzen has been a visiting professor at the University of York (U.K.), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Center for Health and Wellbeing of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has served on the boards of Covenant House, a local community health center in Northwest Philadelphia, MSI Inc, a venture-capital financed managed behavioral health care corporation, Catholic Health East (CHE), a multi-institutional health provider system with over 60 hospitals and nursing homes. Dr. Getzen has written more than 80 papers in the field and serves on the editorial board of the journal Health Economics.