Our Maggie Haberman is not the only reporter at the Grey Lady to use the framing of facts to create crap journalism. Kevin Carey writes on higher education from time to time at The New York Times, and in his latest he describes a new move to show which choices of majors are the most lucrative in order to deter students taking on debt for frivolities like…wait for it…social work.
Here is the lede, the nut graf and the first sentences of the body of the piece:
The Department of Education on Tuesday released detailed information showing the average amount of debt incurred by graduates of different academic programs at each college in America. This focus on programs, rather than institutions as a whole, is gaining favor among political leaders and could have far-reaching effects.
With anxiety about student debt soaring — the billionaire Robert F. Smith made headlines last weekend with his surprise promise to pay off the debts of Morehouse College’s 2019 graduating class — the program-level information has the potential to alter how colleges are funded, regulated and understood by consumers in the marketplace.
The new, more detailed debt information was created in response to an executive order issued in March by President Trump.
Other lawmakers have called for similar approaches. In February, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a former university president, gave a speech outlining his plans to revise the federal Higher Education Act.
There’s a lot of fig leafs within that second paragraph. “Has the potential” does a lot of work, and “consumers in the marketplace” accepts a whole conception of higher ed., that is, to put it most kindly, in dispute.
But there’s more than merely a boatload of unexamined assumptions within the piece to raise concerns. Here, Carey clearly lays out what he thinks the story is emerging from the facts (not in dispute) that people are collecting information about income and majors (not in fact a new thing) and are doing so in the context of a phenomenon, college debt, that has economic, social, and political implications.
Carey’s story is that more data will enable policymakers and would be students to tailor decisions about money in the most efficient manner; more information will lead to better approaches to what slices of higher education gets funded and by whom.
Carey does hint that there might be something else going on around the undisputed facts (this information is being gathered and politicians are making choices):
There are still many disagreements and details to resolve. The Trump approach relies on the idea that if students have better information, choices in the higher education market will be enough to ensure quality. But there is little evidence to support this view. Even with program data, students will still be vulnerable to the deceptive marketing and aggressive sales tactics that remain widespread in the for-profit college industry.
The measures matter, too. Mr. Alexander’s plan is to evaluate programs based on loan repayment rates. But it isn’t known whether those rates are a good measure of program quality. The Obama method of comparing debt levels to student earnings, by contrast, was so accurate that many colleges pre-emptively shut down their low-performing programs before the sanctions were even applied. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is now working to repeal those regulations.
Of note: these two paragraphs are numbers 17 and 18 of 20 in this piece. Now go back up to the opening passage above: the two measures he cites as evidence for this new move to apply data to college major choice are those he here decries as likely to be ineffective, at best: Trump’s executive order, which relies on, inter alia, the market behavior of for-profit colleges, and Senator Alexander’s, which replaces a (Carey-attested) effective Obama policy with one that reeks of bullshit.
Again: I’m not arguing with Carey’s facts. I’m quite sure that if I re-reported this piece, it would check out. But only children and John Chait (see the GoS link re Haberman above) believe that journalism is merely the accumulation of stacks of facts like pebbles in a cairn. The order in which a reporter lays out those facts; the qualifiers and modifiers employed; and above all, the explicit choices made about which facts to emphasize (the lede!) and which to bury (paragraph 17) construct a never-neutral account of reality. Every story is shaped thusly, and it can be done well, clumsily, and, often maliciously — whether that malign outcome is intended or not.
And so it is here: it would seem to me that the story is the Trump and GOP allies are continuing to use bad or at best untested criteria to emphasize technical education at the expense of not just of the liberal arts’ ideal of students equipped for civic and moral reasoning — but of anything that bears on social life as well, all those low-paying jobs (social work!) that do not serve the machine.
More, this version of the story fits with another, larger story: the way the Trump administration and the GOP are pursuing a broad, government-and-society-wide attack on institutions and government policies that have a conception of society large than the nuclear family. The use of selectively acquired or deployed data to undermine, say, social work (hey–it’s his example, not mine!) is not a neutral assessment of the economic value of this program or that.
There’s a lot to be argued about the liberal arts, of course, and some academic disciplines and individual departments do indeed go off the rails on occasion — no argument there. But the point I’m making here is that Carey had a choice about how to construct his story, and he decided to present it as another advance of a data-driven approach to life, and not at least highlight in his opening the gap between the rhetoric (data! economic efficiency!) and the actual measures being offered to address the alleged problem. A better edited newspaper might have caught some of this.
TL:DR Framing matters. And in this case, the choice of frame glosses a set of pre-existing beliefs never clearly stated or interrogated, while burying the actual news of more GOP taking advantage of a crisis (student debt) to achieve other goals (fucking higher ed)(.. It’s bad journalism, in other words, not because it’s wrong or even because it points to stuff I don’t like, but because it makes it harder, not easier, to understand what its facts actually mean on the ground.
Image: Gerbrand van der Eeckhout, Scholar with his Books, before 1674.
Wag
sorry to go off topic so early, but this response to the reports that the Navy covered the name of the USS John McCain in a Nvy harbor in Japan to avoid displeasing Trump has to be read far and wide.
Tom Levenson
@Wag: that’s some fine and entirely appropriate thread-hijacking.
VeniceRiley
THIS 1000%! (What? I dropped out.)
HypersphericalCow
That’s a beautiful turn of phrase.
NotMax
To be succinct, money is not a universally applicable measure and is definitely not interchangeable with value.
rikyrah
Just a reminder- the approval rate for student loan forgiveness program of public service applicants was LESS THAN ONE PERCENT THIS PAST YEAR.
LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.
People who had done 10 years of payments….
LESS THAN ONE PERCENT
trollhattan
Well [rocks back on heels, adjusts G. Will bowtie] liberal arts contains both the words “liberal” and “art” and thus, not only unworthy of pursuit by Real Americans, they’re suspect. Besides, somebody was mean to Milo Yiannopoulos and his rights must be protected above all else.
My kid will be matriculating fall 2020 as an unwitting guinea pig for whatever nonsense they have in store. Ugh.
Felanius Kootea
Tom, why do you think so many journalists, even well-meaning ones, seem to go with Republican/conservative framing on issues? It can’t all be malicious (at least I hope not).
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
DeVoss is a monster working for a monster. It’s where we are.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
So roughly the same percentage as billionaires who got a big tax cut.
TenguPhule
@Felanius Kootea:
Why not?
rikyrah
MEDIA ALERT:
SCRIPPS SPELLING BEE
Tonight at 8:30 PM EST on ESPN :)
Citizen Alan
I wonder if he’s given any thought to the “economic value” of a journalism degree from a top university for any student who doesn’t come from a rich family that can subsidize their education (/waves at Anderson Cooper, among others). I also wonder if he’s given any thought to what it would be like to live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people who go to college do so with the goal of becoming hedge fund managers.
Mnemosyne
@Felanius Kootea:
I think a lot of it is ignorance and a herd mentality. As we can see on Twitter, when one journalist gets criticized, the rest of them circle the wagons regardless of what the criticism is.
SFAW
[Disclaimer: did not read the article, only responding to this single comment]
Speaking as the proud father of a social worker, I think they’re among the most underpaid and under-appreciated workers/professionals out there. When my daughter has described some of the shit she has to go through, just to care for patients/persons who desperately need the help, I get kind of annoyed at people who look down their collective nose at social workers. [To be clear, Tom: I don’t take your comment in that way at all.] I could not do what my daughter does — well, not do it and keep my job.
OK, back to more relevant discussions.
Doug R
I gave our local university library my dad’s collection of social work books. They even have a social work program. They got books and I got rid of something responsibly.
TenguPhule
@Citizen Alan:
New Jersey?
rikyrah
HUGE >> 2.2 MILLION viewers saw @KamalaHarris’ MSNBC Town Hall, second-biggest audience of any single candidate cable event so far.#Momentum https://t.co/UmgxsRF2Eg
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) May 30, 2019
rikyrah
A number of these type of stories dropping lately. He’s not the media darling anymore. Poll numbers falling, money probably drying up too: The incredible shrinking … Bernie Sanders? – CNNPolitics https://t.co/SIsNPi882a
— Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) May 30, 2019
Mary G
The Times journalists are convinced that they are perfect and they can be extremely tribal. If one is criticized, they all are. So response to criticism on Twitter can be met with argument like “We are the creme de la creme of journalists and you’re not, you, ignorant peasant.”
They can be “Mean Girls” IRL. Nick Confessiore is the Sir Galahad – he defends Maggie and other female reporters a lot.
If they would be willing to have a dialogue rather than blame “biased crazy liberals who don’t understand that we must cover both sides,” it would make the Times a much better paper.
Kent
I’m not trying to defend the NYT at all.
But I have had occasion to interact with journalists while working in two different professions (fisheries management and education). Not NYT journalists but local journalists on a deadline with multiple stories to cover, etc. Generally they are just trying to get enough facts together to put together a story on deadline and don’t have the time or background knowledge to really understand the nuances. And it is really hard to communicate a lifetime of hard-earned knowledge and nuance on a topic in a quick and dirty interview.
But those are local beat reporters just trying to put out copy. We should have higher standards for NYT reporters who should have specialized beats (environment, education, health care, etc.) where they can and should get up to speed on the topics. We KNOW they can do so as demonstrated by the brilliant financial reporting we have seen this year on Trump’s taxes and income.
I’m not exactly what the lede is in this particular story. Other than that the Trump Admin is doing what they can to fuck up higher education. But that’s been a GOP obsession now for decades. Just like teacher unions. and right-to-work laws. They are going after universities as one of the last bastions of liberalism. While at the same time trying to enrich their cronies in the for-profit ed industry. And this is how they are doing it. Everything Trump does vis-a-vis higher education should be viewed through that lens.
laura
“Consumers in the marketplace”
This. Is. Bulllshit.
We are citizens, not customers. The commercialization of civic life chaps my hide. Free public education is necessary for an informed citizenry and self governance. That is helps employers by freeing them of the burden of training a workforce is incidental and not the primary or even secondary purpose of education.
When i’m in charge, the government by vending machine concept will be nuked from space -by the Space Force, and government as Community Chest will be order of the day.
This abandonment of the commons and enshrinement of the market is evidence of the unraveling of our shared common interests as a society.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: ?ARE YOU READY FOR SOME
FOOTBALLSPELLING BEE!??James E Powell
@rikyrah:
When does Sanders realize that they never loved him, that it was all because they hate Hillary Clinton?
rikyrah
#PicnickingWhileBlack: Pistol-Packing White Woman Pulls Gun on Black Couple
Michael Harriot
Yesterday 3:00pm
A black couple who planned to spend their Memorial Day enjoying the beauty of nature found themselves at the wrong end of a gun barrel when a pistol-wielding white woman confronted them at a Mississippi campground.
According to WCBI, on Sunday, Franklin and Jessica Richardson planned a picnic outside of Starkville, Miss., at Oktibbeha County Lake, a destination for fishing, swimming and frolicking. I don’t quite know what “frolicking” means but I’ve seen white people do it at sunset in Corona commercials and it looks fun as hell. I kinda want to frolic, too.
In the commercials, one person of mixed race is allowed to accompany the Caucasian frolickers, which was probably the Richardsons’ fifth-biggest mistake, the first three being:
Being black;
Going camping in rural Mississippi;
Not making a frolicking reservation.
……………………….
If nothing else, this incident should serve as a valuable lesson to all black people:
Camping is stupid: That’s why the ancient Egyptians invented a thing called “inside.” I go camping at hotels.
Picnics are stupid: Unless a church is involved, picnics are always trash. The fried chicken skin is always cold and chewy. Flies and mosquitoes won’t leave you alone. And who the fuck knows where to find baskets?
Going to Kampgrounds of America is stupid. I don’t know about the company’s reputation but, as a general rule, I tend not to get involved with organizations that gratuitously use the letter K. It just seems vaguely racist. That’s why I don’t mess with the Klan, the band Korn, Kappas, or Amerikkka.
Mississippi is stupid: Aside from shooting a white person, there’s almost nothing you can do with a gun that’s illegal in Mississippi. It has the nation’s laxest gun laws and an aggressive “no duty to retreat” law. You don’t need a gun permit to own a gun. The state doesn’t even require that residents get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. That’s probably why the state has the fifth-highest rate of deaths by firearm in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Chris Fisher
One might come away with the impression that the GOP would like nothing better than to turn higher education into a glorified job training program where kids aren’t exposed to ideas that challenge their belief systems, but are only taught when/how to press the button that keeps the machines going.
rikyrah
Sons of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade to Follow in Their Fathers’ Footsteps and Join Forces at Sierra Canyon High School
Jay Connor
Today 2:00pm
Over the course of the past year, the careers of NBA superstars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have undergone significant changes. While James surprised no one when he took his talents out west and decided to join the Los Angeles Lakers, Wade’s 16-year career finally met its conclusion in April.
However, the Los Angeles Times reports those aren’t the only changes the future NBA Hall of Famers have on their plate, as their sons Bronny James and Zaire Wade look to follow in their fathers’ footsteps by joining forces on the court at Sierra Canyon High School in Los Angeles.
As one of the premier basketball programs in California, Sierra Canyon went 32-3 last season before taking home the state championship with a roster that boasted the offspring of NBA legends Scotty Pippen and Kenyon Martin.
James E Powell
@Kent:
It was so brilliant and so devastating that Trump’s approval ratings plummeted from 42.2% down to 41.5%. Talk to me about reporting when it has some impact on the world. Trump’s financial corruption is not news. He bragged about not paying taxes during the campaign.
rikyrah
I am so glad that she’s still competing :)
Jaw, Meet Floor: Simone Biles Unveils Unreal New Moves in Lead-Up to Summer Competition
Anne Branigin
Today 1:03pm
While your ass was busy complaining about how long this week feels even after having Monday off, gymnast Simone Biles (arguably the very best athlete on the planet right now) was out here being … Simone Biles. By which we mean doing things that literally no other woman gymnast on the planet can do.
On Tuesday, Biles dropped two videos showcasing jaw-dropping additions to her floor routine. As Team USA notes, the first video she posted includes her signature move, “the Biles,” a double layout flip with a half twist. Except she went on and added a front layout somersault.
For perspective, “signature moves” in gymnastics aren’t like signature moves in real life (see: the same body roll I’ve been hitting since ’98). The Biles is named for Simone because she was the first—and thus far, only—woman to land the element in international competition.
Cheryl from Maryland
I’m more incensed more about what these data collections reflect regard values in this country than the framing in this specific article (although FTFNYT and the writer since nowadays most journalists come from privileged backgrounds). Even the stats under Pres. Obama is inadequate and problematic. If being a social worker or a nurse or a history teacher means having student loan debt forever (let alone a house and a family), and yet this country has a shortage of students choosing those careers, what does that say about the relationship between education and jobs in this country? It says that the balance between the cost of education and the salary related to that career and the value of that career is incredibly out of whack. We know it is — the total heartless mess of adjunct teachers in universities, where they live contract to contract and need work at least three schools to make a living along should show something is seriously wrong. And all I see from collecting data without a deeper dive into why it costs so much to be a nurse or whatever when the salaries are so low is just assisting this essential mistake and gives us no tools to remedy the issue. Students, being no fools, will mainly choose careers for which they can get a job and pay off their debt, but eventually, there will be too many people in finance and software and no one in social work.
FlipYrWhig
@James E Powell: There was true and authentic pro-Sanders “from the left” support. The massive error, believed in by political reporters, by Team Sanders, and it seems by St. Bernie his own self, was presuming that *all* support for Sanders was “from the left,” and especially that he was widely and affirmatively supported by the (white) working class.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
I have to admit, I did literally LOL when the reporter who interviewed Neera Tanden’s mother for a Tanden-bashing profile got all huffy that plebeians would DARE to question Haberman’s connections to Trump and the Kushners through her mother’s job.
She earned one hell of a Twitter ratio, so that was fun.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris Fisher: They started thinking college was for sissies right about 1968.
rikyrah
LOL
It’s a horror movie, so I won’t be seeing it..but, for those who don’t mind movies like that…
Ma Proves Why Black Mamas Never Let You Go Over Anybody’s House
Tonja Renée Stidhum
Today 1:00pm
Ma has one mantra: “Don’t make me drink alone.” My response: Don’t drink around her, ever.
Growing up, black kids learn two major things concerning “other” people, (meaning, outside of the family): You can’t eat anybody’s food, and you can’t go over anybody’s house. Ma is a film-based masterclass to remind you why.
I clearly remember my grandma and/or mama being extra-hesitant to let me spend the night at a friend’s house if they didn’t know the parents. Or if they did know the parents and they had roaches. Either way.
…………………….
rikyrah
Yes, Marsai…make those Boss moves, young lady :)
Marsai Martin to Star in Fantasy Adaptation Amari and the Night Brothers, Will Also Produce With Don Cheadle
Tonja Renée Stidhum
Today 11:30am
Marsai Martin may be Little, but that secured bag ain’t.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures has optioned the rights to Amari and the Night Brothers. The debut novel comes from first-time author B.B. Alston and the option resulted from a bidding war. Pretty damn impressive.
Marsai will be starring in the film, but will also rack up yet another producing credit in the project with her father Josh Martin, via their Genius Productions. See, this is why I have resorted to lovingly calling her “Yung EP.” Don Cheadle is also set to serve as producer on the adaptation, along with Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman of Mandeville Films (Beauty and the Beast, Wonder).
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: This would be funny if I hadn’t heard it repeated in dead earnest for over twenty years.
Mouth-breathing, non-college educated Americans believe this more completely than anything in their damned Bible.
mrmoshpotato
OT: Traitorous Trump trash SAYING THE QUIET PART out loud.
It’s a screenshot from Charles Johnson (LGF) so here’s a Dump’s face trigger warning.
This orange moron…
rikyrah
Get.the.ENTIRE.Phuck.Outta.Here
Barr Says Mueller Could Have Made Decision
May 30, 2019 at 3:00 pm
Attorney General William Barr told CBS News that he believes special counsel Robert Mueller could have reached a decision on whether President Trump obstructed justice during his investigation.
Said Barr: “I personally felt he could’ve reached a decision.”
rikyrah
The 10 Biggest Cultural Thefts in Black History
Michael Harriot
Today 9:30am
The list is pretty good. Two of these I didn’t know at all, and I’m ashamed because I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about little known Black History Facts.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah:
And then go to the Phuck store, buy more, bring it in, and get all that outta here too.
To hell with Dump’s personal lawyer Bill Barr.
The Moar You Know
@laura: And that’s why the GOP is so against public education. Well, actually, they were fine with it until school integration. It’s why they’re against it NOW.
Anecdote: my grandmother quit a twenty+ year career as a teacher when Alabama had exhausted the last of their appeals and options and the schools were finally forced to integrate. That was around 1965 or so. Black boys would be able to look at white girls’ legs. I remember her telling me this. Bridge too far. She loved teaching, too. It was the only thing she had in her life that she enjoyed, really. She died two decades later.
Don’t underestimate what racism means to those who labor under its beliefs. You can’t “educate” people out of it. I seriously think you have to wait until they die, their kids die, and then you might have a shot with the third generation.
jl
@rikyrah: Barr is effing hilarious (edit: and disgusting). What a lying hypocritical hack and flunky. The US AG perfectly tailored for Trump.
As for the post, comparison of income distributions by college major has been around for a long time. I don’t see what is new about it. Seems like just a trivial bell to distract from adopting a dubious switch in what indicators to use to measure value added of specific majors.
” the liberal arts’ ideal of students equipped for civic and moral reasoning ”
The commie liberal do-gooder Adam Smith worried about the mind deadening effect of work that came with increasing specialization of labor and industrial production. He thought that universal education was a way to counteract that effect, which he feared would lead to a population to ignorant and thoughtless to conduct a productive civic life and vote wisely.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Pardon the rant but here goes: I hate these exclusive prep schools that vacuum up regional sports talent to go forth and dominate state high school championships. One year at Sierra Canyon: $37,700.
My kid’s HS girls basketball won California D1 in 2015, the city’s first and only state championship. In 2017 they were back in the finals, losing to Windward High from LA. $40,718/year. Here’s their coach. Kiddo’s school is public with more than half the students from families below the poverty rate.
Rant: off.
jl
@rikyrah: However, it is a small but good sign that Barr is reduced to such transparent and lame drivel and excusaficaton.
Barr Has Some Thoughts After Mueller Presser: He ‘Could’ve Reached A Decision’
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/barr-mueller-decision-obstruction
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
I understand what you mean, but, it never occurred to me that the children of Lebron and Dwayne would be going to public school. Not in any consideration at all. That there are private schools who have learned how to achieve athletically, is interesting. There are still public school athletic powerhouses where I live.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
“I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.”
Well, now that we have that out of the way.
He typed what?!?
Chetan Murthy
When I was a first-year grad student at Cornell in 1986 there was a senior who was graduating in Labor Relations; her next step was to work as a labor organizer for some union. And even at the time, I thought: “she’s the last of her kind”. A labor organizer with an Ivy League degree.
One of the brilliant tricks RoNnIe RaYgUn pulled, was turning college tution/living grants into loans. So that all those students who might have thought about doing something with their lives that didn’t earn money, were FORCED to become little capitalists in order to pay back their loans. But like all grifters, his successors went too far, and saddled those students with so much debt that they could never pay it off. And now hopefully those students will tear down the system.
It’s infuriating that assholes like this NYT reporter pretend that the value of everything is given by its market price. I wonder if his wife presents him with a bill each evening for her domestic labor. Or his mother and father for his upbringing.
And then I think about teachers: who spend their nights and weekends grading, b/c for sure there’s no time set aside in the day for that. And it’s not even counted as working-time. Grr.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Rich kids are gonna do rich kid stuff but believe you me, when you see the cast of players they build to support these guys you won’t be surprised to find many are there on scholarship, and from surprisingly large distances.
Yutsano
@rikyrah:
Oh.
No.
He.
Did.
NOT.
Fucker should have never been confirmed. Fuck the Senate.
Immanentize
@trollhattan:
Where is the spawn headed?
So exciting. HS Graduation week here….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@laura:
*Powered by Coal.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Are you throwing Little Imma a graduation party?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Bracing for an incoming onslaught of anti-Indian bigotry on social media. Confession: I have never watched a spelling bee or participated in one, is it fun?
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: I know. Just sitting on the porch shaking the still-wrapped stacks of cash at the cops.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Watching it is fascinating. You get hooked. You can feel the excitement, and you get in awe of these kids knowing words that you’ve never heard of. It’s so much fun. And, as they dwindle down to like the last 5 to the winner – it’s intense.
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
No party here because he had too many other parties to attend. Also, less cleanup.?
But his Grandfather and Uncle are coming in from Texas tonight and we are going to have a super dinner at Legal Seafood (crowd favorite) tomorrow after the official ceremony
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
No idea and I wish somebody would clue me in. There’s a spreadsheet!
Would also be nice to know how much longer I have to work.
And yours? Congrats on the soon-to-be grad!
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Hmm. I would take slight issue with the smallpox one, since Edward Jenner developed his vaccine using live cowpox viruses, which was safer than live smallpox viruses. There are a LOT of innovations that were developed simultaneously or close to it in different locations, but didn’t get communicated outside of their local area.
He should definitely get credit as an early, American pioneer and be celebrated in Boston, though. And white people will be okay with the Cotton Mather-bashing because all of us whypipo know from the Salem Witch Trials that Mather was a total asshole. ?
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Exciting times! Congratulations to the Immp!
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Great piece, especially the kicker.
I was just listening to Rhiannon Giddens, Freedom Highway, on the way home and just thinking, God, we will never expiate this sin.
Immanentize
@trollhattan: Ah, the spreadsheet! My friend’s son got into a few places. Agonized for a month. Decided on one, but then got an offer off of a wait list school! More agony! My friend says she needs a month rest in a sanatorium.
Good luck — and the answer is “forever.” You must continue to work forever. I seem to have to, why not you too?
James E Powell
@FlipYrWhig:
We’ll never know, of course, but I argue that if he hadn’t been running against Hillary Clinton, Sanders would have done about as well as Dennis Kucinich.
Gelfling 545
@SFAW: Exactly. The fact that a field is woefully underpaid does NOT mean it’s not valuable, even necessary to society.
Walker
I have some sympathy to this type of analysis (College is expensive and learning for learning sake is a luxury of the wealthy). However, these studies are ripe for abuse and will be abused. Are you going to measure initial earnings or lifetime earnings? In one of these the humanities does not look so hot. In another they look pretty damn good.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: Congrats to Immp. My parents sent me out the the wilderness the week after mine. I still have the pictures.
Kent
@trollhattan:
Lot of things wrong with Texas, but at least in Texas they don’t allow private schools into the same leagues as public schools so all the state championships and tournaments in all the sports are public school only. The private schools have to run their own tournaments that no one pays any attention to.
Gelfling 545
@schrodingers_cat: They were a fact of life in my elementary school years. Every Friday afternoon. Not fun particularly but it made a change.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine–forever is about seven more days than I’m allotted. :-P
Actually need to discuss with the supervisor a partial separation next year because I’m tired of missing most of the soccer matches and track meets and award thingies because I’m at the damn office. One more year as a hands-on dad, then she’s [poof] off to her next chapter.
FlipYrWhig
@James E Powell: Sound about right. IMHO he was basically Howard Dean — new on the scene, slightly rough around the edges, connects with young people, chances amplified by older people tired of things that are “corporate” or whatever. It feels to me like his 15-20% this year is about where he would have ended up most years, but in ’16 he lucked into the Anyone But Clinton vote too.
trollhattan
@Kent:
A damn sight better than what we have here. In a state of 40 million we should have a lot more schools represented on the rolls of champions than what actually appears.
FlipYrWhig
@Walker: There’s a huge difference between seeing college as a way to get a job that currently exists and seeing it as a way to become the kind of person who can get a job that she never knew existed. I am very glad my parents saw college for me as a “find yourself” proposition — loans and all, though it was 30 years ago and loans were less burdensome then — rather than as a job training proposition.
Mary G
@Immanentize: Congratulations to Immp! and kudos to you for helping him spread his wings to fly. My dad died five years before I was college-aged and a not insignificant number of my mom’s friends pushed me to stay home and go to community college because I was the only child and she needed company. My mom wanted that, too, but supported my choice. She ended up blossoming, went to Europe every summer with better friends and all over America.
TenguPhule
House Republicans block $19.1 billion nationwide disaster aid bill for third time
trollhattan
@Kent:
ETA, it looks like starting in 2013 they created an Open Division above D1 and siphoned several of the perennial elite schools into it, the aforementioned Sierra Canyon included. Dunno if that applies to other sports.
Walker
@FlipYrWhig:
First of all, job training is different than career training. That is why I make the distinction between initial salary and life time earnings. But when the humanities is talking about building “critical thinking skills”, they are talking about how it can improve your career prospects.
But you cannot separate college from the idea of earnings. While some people do still go to college as a way to improve themselves, they have the money to do this. This is called “finishing schools” for the wealthy. The vast majority of people who go to college do it because of how it affects their earning prospects.
I work in academia. I have had to come to peace with this new world as college costs have risen.
Redshift
Using how much money something/someone makes as the only measure of value is far more likely to lead to a society of dull gray drones than any Soviet system.
College is not a trade school.
If important fields like social work and education don’t cover the cost of the education needed to do them, that means they don’t pay enough, not that they’re somehow “less productive.” (And the obvious counterpoint about finance and hedge funds.)
Grrr…
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Yeah, why not? I remember they’d gavel the Senate into session for a nanosecond during breaks to stop Obama from making recess appointments.
TenguPhule
Revealed: women’s fertility app is funded by anti-abortion campaigners
I don’t like this john grisham timeline we’re trapped in.
rikyrah
Happy Anniversary raven :)
TenguPhule
Is burning it to the ground an available option? //
TenguPhule
Guess who.
/facepalm
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
Sanders had a coalition. It was pretty big, but has drained steadily over time. It included purity leftists and rightist trolls, both of whom have no real motivation other than to hurt the Democratic Party. It included sheltered liberals of that balance of bigotry where they’re normally Democratic, but get in a huff when women or minorities get attention instead of their personal economic favorite issues. Those folks in particular hated Hillary Clinton. It included loyal Democratic voters who hate the rich and respond strongly to an angry anti-rich appeal. That’s a group well represented on Balloon Juice. It included a lot of young idealists who know things are fucked up, but don’t have the experience to understand all the details, so they were looking for someone to tell them in simple, emotional terms that Justice Will Prevail. They tend to also particularly hate the rich.
He lost a whole lot of the loyal Democratic voters as the primary went on and they learned he was an empty suit and an asshole. You have a good point about the liberal bigots and Clinton, although they’re going to be tough to juggle because I guarantee our nominee will be loud about civil rights issues and probably a woman. What made Sanders poison and I hate him is that he convinced so many young idealists that the Democratic Party cheated them. I watched that in action among people I know. The highly activated new crop seem to think he’s a grandstanding idiot because of how he’s acted with gun control.
Sanders will be a footnote in this election.
TenguPhule
Colin Powell will no longer be the record holder for shittiest presentation at the UN.
Roger Moore
I think a key issue is that the people who are telling the story already share the Republican framing of the issue. The basic Republican frame for this is:
1) Student debt is a big problem
2) Some majors pay better than others, so students in those majors are better able to pay back their debts
3) We should therefore encourage people to go into the high paying majors so they can pay their student debts
They treat 3) as an obvious conclusion from 1) and 2), but it’s only obvious and inevitable if you assume that the government can only make suggestions instead of more concrete actions. One could just as reasonably decide that we should subsidize the tuition of students in socially important but poorly paid careers, or that we need to pay social workers better so they can afford their student debt, or that we should bring tuition down so everyone can afford college regardless of their chosen career. The whole thing supports the Republican policy preference only because it ignores all of those alternative policy ideas.
TenguPhule
Trump prepares to threaten Mexico with new tariffs in attempt to force migrant crackdown
What could possibly go wrong, amirite?
zhena gogolia
@Roger Moore:
Well said.
ThresherK
@TenguPhule: My friend tried that app. It kept telling her she was 15 weeks pregnant, once it learned she was in Georgia.
(I’m kidding, I think.)
Richard Guhl
The thing is the big problem of student debt is not the English major working as a barista at Starbucks, but more the get your degree in cosmetology variety.
Also, ask the chemists at Eastman Kodak how things are going.
Mnemosyne
@Walker:
I’m going to be a bit snarky here: what’s your plan for when we run out of nurses and teachers? We can only import them for so long and both our education and hospital systems are already at a breaking point.
We either need to pay teachers and nurses enough that they can afford the loans they have to take out, or we have to figure out a way for people who are willing to take socially useful jobs to get the education they need at a reasonable price.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
You have summed up the last 40 years of American politics in one pithy phrase.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TenguPhule:
I think this “senior White House official” is Trump himself. He has a history of pretending to be other people.
So let’s say he makes his announcement and slaps tariffs on Mexico. This does imperil markets and increases the risks of a recession occurring before the 2020 elections. Does a recession alter Trump’s approval numbers? It would be a disaster for him and the GOP if it did. He’s already underwater and the economy is ok-ish*.
*People keep telling me that the economy is doing well, but I just don’t see it. Is it true or is it bullshit?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
I was under the impression that nurses make decent money?
Mart
@Roger Moore: My memory tells me that part of Devos’ concerns is Obama guidelines were going to measure performance of for profit mills like Trump U, and shut them down if they sucked like Trump U. Can’t have that shit.
ThresherK
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The economy is doing okay on the average.
The economists and media who buy into such “average” measurements are also the ones who drown themselves crossing a stream that averages a foot deep.
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: how are their lacrosse and water polo teams?
Omnes Omnibus
@Walker: I may well be tripping over some form of privilege here, but, when I was asked in a college application why I decided to go to college, the honest answer was that not going had never crossed my mind. I would suspect that this was the case with other kids I’m my high school classes and I am virtually certain that it was true 99% of my undergrad classmates. Which college and what major were questions that were asked, but never whether or not to go never was. It was simply the next step after high school. I see it playing out the same way with my niece and nephew.
FWIW this was the case for the POC at my college. I can think of some parents who would have (not literally) killed their kids if they had chosen to get a job at the post office like the parents had done. They had worked their asses off so that their kids could get into “good” schools so not going was never on the menu.
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat: I crushed my elementary school spelling bee. It was fun to lord over the poorer spellers, but it didn’t get me any chicks. Of course, I was a 6th grader at an all-boys school so that wasn’t going to happen regardless.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Nurses are kind of interesting, there’s not just one kind of nurse. LVN’s tend to be rather low paid and don’t require a bachelors degree, they just have to pass an exam. RN’s aren’t paid all that bad(when the kid graduated, starting pay was about 70k for a new BSN), but it required at least a bachelors degree(not necessarily a BSN) and pass the boards.
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
Never.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize:
The one at the airport? Then you can send them right back to Texas! I’m sure they’ll be missing their guns and big-haired women.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne: Cotton Mather rocks now, though
ETA: link fail. Imma, please repost your guide for link fail recidivists!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ItB4hXEdx4
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: I thought you’d be more interested in their golf team.
SiubhanDuinne
@TenguPhule:
Jeez, that’s going to be a fun state visit next week.
Mike in NC
@ Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) :
Depends on where you live. Around here there are a decent number of “Help Wanted” signs posted but those are almost entirely for minimum wage, part-time jobs. A lot of them are also seasonal and go away around Labor Day.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
it depends on what end of the shafting you’re on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: I should add for some context that the closest thing to a practical “this will lead directly to a job” major offered at the college was Music Education at the Conservatory.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
There is literally no more boring sport then that.
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule:
Almost as credible as the evidence TaMara’s cat presented that the Iranians knocker her plants off the dresser
trollhattan
@Steve in the ATL:
Guessing the actual polo team is the most popular. ;-)
They always nail that SAT question: “Which pony should you be riding in the third chukker?”
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Instead, they wind up making high schools larger than is ideal for education so they have the largest possible football recruiting pool. The problem isn’t public or private school; it’s excessive focus on athletics over academics.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Uh oh, you said “literally.”
Trick question really, because golf is a hobby, not a sport.
trollhattan
@Steve in the ATL:
Bastards had it coming–the plants, not the Iranians, because they were hiding mobile chemical weapon factories.
MomSense
I have a solution. Let’s pay social workers more. Forty years of Reaganomics has created a lot of human misery that needs to be dealt with. Forcing birth on all women should only increase the demand for social workers.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
It really was the Persian what done it!
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
And Slavic, of course.
Sab
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Nurses make decent money ( my niece has been one for 15 years.) The instructors don’t ( or at least not commsnsurate with their skill, experience and education) so people who are good at nursing don’t want to move up and teach the next generation.
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: you know what chukkers are? Elitist bastard!
SiubhanDuinne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I may be misremembering, but aren’t you a nursing student?
(My grand-niece and her fiancé are both nursing students, and will graduate next spring, right before their wedding. But that’s not enough for my over-achieving niece: she just announced that she’ll be enrolling in a PhD. program in Clinical Psych.)
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule: well played
TenguPhule
Hundreds of minors held at U.S. border facilities are there beyond legal time limits
The courts are not going to save them.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: Trick question: is it a four or eight chukker game?
satby
@Frankensteinbeck:
Me too, and it infuriates me to this day. He cynically and deliberately undermined those newly engaged voters’ belief in the party system just to try to score a few more delegates and keep his con game going way after he knew he wasn’t going to win. He’s just an asshole. Trump of the left.
Yutsano
OT: Alexandra Petri once again being brilliant.
WhatsMyNym
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Economy is still doing fine even on the outskirts of Seattle. Oh… you say you what some place to live as well??
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Of course.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@SiubhanDuinne:
I am.
Ruckus
Liberal arts, social work, these ideals do not make effective labor, in the eyes of the important rich owners.
Baud
@satby:
Me three. I blackballed Elizabeth Warren for a long time because she once said “yes” when asked if the primary was rigged. You can imagine how I feel about the founder of that lie.
Roger Moore
@Mart:
The original article touches on that:
They don’t raise the issue of badly performing for profit schools, but they do point out that Obama’s version was working well and this is being put forward as an alternative. It’s up to the reader to guess why.
Plato
@TenguPhule: lol. Touché.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: yeah but that opened up your VP slot for Poco so it all worked out in the end
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: knock it off, you guys. We are trying to increase proletariat participation at B-J to get into the elite top-10,000 political/pet blogs.
trnc
@James E Powell:
True, but some of his gullible supporters probably assumed that he took advantage of legal loopholes. I suspect some more will be peeled off as more information about the money laundering and the made up numbers for loans vs taxes come out.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Those POC may not have questioned whether they were going to go to college, but they sure as hell knew why. Working class parents who are striving to send the first generation from their family to college are doing it for very concrete reasons of economic and social advantage, and they drill those reasons into their kids from a very young age. It’s only the privileged children of college educated parents who can fail to question not just that they’ll go to college but why they might want to.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Mea culpa.
JaySinWA
@rikyrah:
Of course he could. Mueller said so himself. If he found Trump innocent he would have said so. He just came to a different conclusion. Also that is a decision, of sorts. just not one Barr approves of.
Mnemosyne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Decent money, but not MD money or hedge fund money. Even MDs who go into family practice or pediatrics have trouble paying off their loans, which is why we have an oversupply of orthopedists and plastic surgeons and too few primary care doctors.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Collapse of Industrial Civilization: Concerning Humanity’s Future: Interview with Nick Humphrey, Climatologist and Geoscientist
Christ, after reading that shit, I wonder what’s the point of anything? Let the missiles fly already and get it over with if the planet is so irreparably doomed and the situation hopeless.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
May also be why in a lot of places, a primary may not even be a doctor. Been using the VA for 7 years now and just got a new primary, an MD, the first in those 7 years.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I went to Urgent Care and the ER right here in Glendale after I gave my head a good bump at work and they needed to screen me for a concussion, and I only saw Nurse Practitioners all evening. Not an MD in sight.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Also, too, if the AMA isn’t careful, we’re going to end up back in the 18th century where physicians were too high-falutin’ and educated to deign to touch their patients with their gentlemanly hands and the actual work was done by surgeons and midwives. MDs will be supervisors only and the actual patient contact will be done by nurse practitioners and physicians assistants.
debbie
Like lots of other things in this country, it’s ass backwards. “Here are the categories; let’s stuff you into one.” Lots of marketing campaigns do the same thing. Instead of providing product that your target market will like and want, force the market to accept whatever crap you want to provide.
And by the way, did Trump ever use the I-word in his constant tweeting when Obama was president? I can’t remember, but I just listened to him screaming about it being a filthy, disgusting word.
Mary G
Ted Cruz and AOC may work together on a bill to keep members of Congress from becoming lobbyists after they leave government.
Sen, Scatz D-Hawaii, and Chip Roy R – no you can’t give disaster relief without wall money have both tweeted that they’re in.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus:
I know a guy like that–he’s a D.O., which is not quite an R.N., as I understand it.
WhatsMyNym
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Well you asked for it by actually bothering to read it. The guy’s a Meteorologist, who hasn’t done any published research on the subject.
Sab
@WhatsMyNym: Lots of people around us (NE Ohio) go out west after school, work for a few years in fun places (Seattle, San Francisco) then move back here when they decide they want to settle down and buy a house. They can get entry level jobs out there and experience. People I know who did it ( me included) are in nursing, accounting (employees not owners), and banking, where you don’t need to build a client base.
TenguPhule
i’m just gonna leave it at that.
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
I’ve seen this low budget comedy plot before. It never ends well.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
Actually, a D.O. is the exact equivalent of an M.D. and they usually attend classes side by side. Basically, a DO has more of a holistic and musculoskeletal focus than an MD. It started off related to stuff like chiropractic but broke away around the 1960s.
ETA: I’m seeing a Girl Parts Specialist right now who is a DO and is certified by the exact same boards that an MD in the same specialty would be.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne: I was going to ETA but got distracted by some actual paying work. So:
ETA: or maybe I understand exactly what a D.O. Is but enjoy tweaking my brother-in-law.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Stephen Ward of Profumo Affair fame was an osteopath fwiw.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne: wife’s primary GI doctor is a D.O., which is pretty impressive considering that English is his third language. My brother in law has no such excuse!
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Your Julie will be very much present all weekend long. You, and she, did a great thing in rearing the Immp to be the amazing young man he is. Well done, all.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Your insurance company thanks you.
WhatsMyNym
@Sab: Buying isn’t really that bad around the West coast – if you’re very patient. The market always goes down again (cycle seems to be 6-8 years). My brother bought at a peak and then was under for years until it started zooming up again. I’m better at getting the timing right (too cheap to overpay).
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
A lot of rheumatologists are D.O.s. Wish I hadn’t wasted more than 25 years with specialists.
Omnes Omnibus
@WhatsMyNym: I would guess that someone in her mid-30s who is looking to start a family may not see waiting 6-8 years to buy a house as a reasonable action.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Osteopaths were considered quacks or worse until relatively recently. I think the term used to be interchangeable with chiropractor.
There’s also the classic exchange in Double Indemnity where “osteopath” was clearly understood to be a code word for a, er, specialty massage:
https://youtu.be/bushmxg9krs
Sab
@WhatsMyNym: I bought a nice if smallish house with a decent size yard next to a metropark in the best school district in town for under a hundred grand. Try doing that out west.
J R in WV
@Wag:
Thanks for the link. I never had much respect for Captain (ret) McCain as a person or as a senator, but by god he did his best as a POW to do his duty as a leader in the prison camp. While Trump did his best to Avoid STDs in the clubs of NYC. What a contrast!
And what a failure on the part of the 7th Fleet, after managing their fleet so poorly that they can’t even dodge cargo ships in normal traffic! The court-martials should be from the Fleet admiral down, not from Officer of the Deck up!
RSA
@laura:
Totally agree. And it’s particularly inappropriate for college education. When I was teaching, I’d sometimes hear stories about students making demands of professors as if they were in a buyer-seller relationship. “I’m paying your salary,” for example. First, no, and second… Okay, it would take too long to explain the differences, but they’re huge.
Kathleen
@rikyrah: I refer to “camp” as one of my 4 letter “C” words (for every single reason cited in your comment). The other 4 letter “C” word is “cook”.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I hope you have a wonderful time! I love their blackened tuna sashimi – love it so much I learned to make it. It’s now a family favorite.
Damn I’m going to have to make some this weekend.
Emily68
@rikyrah: Many years ago, back in my low income days, my husband and I took several vacations, staying at KOAs along the way. It cost maybe $10 when a motel was $50. We are white, so nobody threatened to shoot us. The bathrooms weren’t too bad. Obviously, it’s not communing with Mother Nature, but they have their place.
debbie
@Immanentize:
My parents took me there a billion years ago when they took me to college! *Sniffle* Great food, for sure! Is Anthony’s still around? Or No Name?
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
If you consider watching children spelling under great pressure to be fun, then sure.
Roger Moore
@satby:
I think there’s more to it than that. He undermined their belief in the party system because he doesn’t like the party system, as shown by his unwillingness to join a party except as a cynical move to use it for his own advantage. I understand why people don’t like the party system, but I see it as being like the old quote about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the other forms people have tried. Parties seem like a really terrible idea, but nobody has figured out how to make an effective democratic government work without them.
Kathleen
@Immanentize: Congratulations to the Immp and you! Enjoy your time with family. You will be “empty nester” soon when he goes to college, correct?
Roger Moore
@WhatsMyNym:
The problem is that the recent downs have never been as low as the previous ones. The West Coast simply isn’t building enough housing to keep up with the population, and until we do the prices are never going to be reasonable.
Steve in the ATL
@Kathleen: well, he’s keeping the Swedish au pair
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Not to mention all of the money laundering being hidden in real estate transactions. I honestly think that’s a big part of our problem in California. Prop 13 makes money laundering purchases more attractive than in other states because the purchasers know that the property tax will be fixed at the time of purchase and they can hold onto it longer.
PJ
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I would humbly suggest that, if you are looking for optimistic solutions to our climate problems, you not turn to a website with the url http://www.collapseofindustrialcivilization.com
PJ
@Mnemosyne: Money laundering via real estate in New York is, to quote someone, huuuge, and, aside from other ills (including ugly ass skyscrapers), it drives the price of housing up everywhere in the region.