darksabre

Germany is just doing an incredible job.

I don't think kids were pushed out of these things because of perceived harm, they were simply excused for a number of reasons. The job market, for one, is not accommodating to kids working temp jobs anymore. Adults make livings mowing lawns now, adults make livings delivering papers, working fast food jobs, working at golf courses, working at grocery stores. These jobs that used to fall to teenagers are often being taken up by the underemployed. But that's also because, like I said, those jobs have been vacated by teenagers because they simply do not have the time with all the work they're being asked to do to prepare for college. If you're on a college track you really don't have time for anything so trivial (in the big picture) as a part time job. That's the thinking of most parents, and they're probably right. I don't think colleges could care less about a kid working some job at a pizza place. They want good GPAs, extracurriculars, good SAT scores, and a sign on the dotted line for those student loans. Unless things have changed drastically since the early 2000s, when I was in high school, the only kids who work (during the school year) are kids who aren't going to college. I'll have to check that out.

Again, this is weird commentary. Maybe it's because I'm younger than you and spend a little more time in the social spaces occupied by Gen Z, but they seem way more hardnosed than my generation...

I think there's a lot of hyperbole here. I don't think kids aren't learning lessons or taking responsibility for themselves. The participation trophy thing is a veritable myth. Those things you talk about, mowing the lawn, delivering papers, have been pushed out by all of the school work and extra-curricular activities kids have to be involved in now in order to pursue college educations. The paper route is replaced with volunteering, the lawn mowing is replaced with mountains of homework. I don't know if that's a bad thing. I had plenty of time to "be a teenager". I come from the generation most burdened by this and "learning the value of a buck" is not the problem. I worked during high school. I had a bank account as soon as I could get one. And a credit card my parents didn't monitor because they trusted me. But that didn't help me understand the significance of student loan debt any better, because it's something that is simply too convoluted for a teenager to really grasp. Especially when you're being told "you just have to do it" by the adults you trust. Until you're paying rent, maintaining a car, trying to keep health insurance sorted out, and so on, there's really nothing that can put student loans in context. There are studies in the criminal justice world that argue men don't really get their sh*t together mentally until like...26. So I believe you.

I don't think this makes any sense. Letting kids be teenagers used to mean letting them drop out of high school. That would certainly let them understand some things better, but...

This is one of the big problems I think we need to solve. Our system is set up to encourage 17-18 year olds to borrow money at levels they aren't experienced enough to comprehend, and by the time they do understand it they're already trapped in the system. It's predatory. This is why I want young adults to be able to go out and get some education, get some world experience, before they start spending unearned money on "future considerations". I feel like a 20 or 21 year old, who has grown up just a bit more, might be better able to decide whether student loan debt is a worthwhile investment for them. A high school kid simply has no idea what the real world is like, and that has pretty much always been true. It just used to be a LOT cheaper to figure it out as you went along.

We need reform somehow. I just want to find a way to strike a balance between education being about ROI and education being about curiosity, exploration, fun... This idea of "useless" majors makes me crazy. Learning is good! Not everything has to be about financial gain! We can do both, I believe.

My wild (and not fully fleshed out) idea for college is that we should split it into more defined steps and then nationally standardize a base level. The way I see this working is such: College Level 1: Core classes. Everyone who wants to go the college route out of high school starts here, regardless of the path they want to take. Offer 100 level classes for various majors, but nothing higher. You learn writing, math, and research skills here, and also study the humanities (because I think we don't do enough of that in the US). You can do this level either in a classroom OR online, and the curriculum and course offerings are exactly the same nationwide. It's also free. The idea here is that a lot of students entering college actually need to get to a certain baseline because of how variable our education standards are from state to state, and the country as a whole benefits from everyone being able to get to this level of education. Anything after that is up to you, but nationally we should want as many people as possible to get to this baseline. And if you want that "going away to college" experience, you can get it. You could spend each semester in a completely different state if you wanted! It would allow young people to experience new places, people, and ideas without shackling them to a bunch of debt and any specific career path. I think this level would take 2 years to complete. College Level 2: If you complete Level 1 then you may move on to Level 2 colleges. These are your degree programs and professional certifications tracks. This level is not free, BUT, the costs should be lower because these colleges should be more specialized and streamlined; we reduce redundancies in the system. You've already taken care of the core stuff, you've done some exploring, you've matured and you're ready to get serious. These colleges are going to require more in person learning; you wont be able to do them fully online. But we would treat them the way some Master's programs are right now: a lot of online courses, and then you have set periods of time where you have to come to campus to do work, maybe a week or two at a time. You could study the non-classroom stuff from anywhere in the country, you just have to get to in person stuff a few times a year. College Level 3: These are your advanced degrees and extremely scholarly institutions. Doctorate level stuff. Only at this point should you be reaching a Harvard or a Princeton. There would be more of these types of institutions than there are now, but they would be smaller. This would bring back some of that prestige as well as allow all those "useless" majors to have less costly homes. And reduce the drinking age to 18.

That's not what myself or Liger are saying and you know it. Stop being obtuse.

I agree with you. And it got this way because a bunch of very clever people figured out how to turn higher education into an industry that you have very little choice but to participate in. A lot of people would forego college and the associated costs if the job market wasn't looking for Master's Degrees for entry level jobs. My parents generation (boomers) were raised on the idea that everyone could and should go to college. But that model has become unsustainable and we need to dismantle it. And student loans are a huge part of that.

That's not the point. The point is that if we believe we're #1, then we have to act like it. And that means expecting our government and our institutions to rise to the occasion when challenged. This is about our expectations for our nation. Certainly we should expect better than this.

Worrying about myself is hardly the issue here. The discussion at hand is about our ability as a nation to respond to challenges like this in a way that we can be proud of. We love talking about how badass we are, bragging about all the wars we win and all the money we have. Home of the brave, land of the free. The response to this has completely betrayed that motif. If this is what American Exceptionalism looks like then we're a nation of suckers. I think most people, though, want to believe in that exceptional vision of America. It's why so many people have actually stayed home, why so many people are following the recommendations our state leaders and health officials are making. The people are taking this seriously because we want to do this the best we can. The problem is that we, the little guy, are currently being let down by our Federal Government; you know, the one that flies the stars and stripes and demands global respect. We, the little guy, deserve better than this. 2,000 ventilators is a joke. It's a crumb. NYS needs at least ten times that amount.

I don't think the shutdown is ending next week, at least not in NYS.

"getting through this" is hardly a high bar. Hardly exceptional. The United States should be capable of responding to situations like this in a manner that is second to none. Our wealth alone should allow us to simply buy our way through it with minimal ill effects to people and the economy. Germany is testing 160,000 people per week and is capable of increasing that number. As a result they're identifying infections sooner and have managed to keep their death rate at the lowest in Europe. There's really no good reason the US shouldn't be doing an even better job, right? Lots of people lining up to simply excuse the inexcusable.

Haphazardly too. Woody's post stays but the others don't?

The Concept of American Greatness is crumbling before our very eyes and all it took was a challenge we couldn't solve with bombs. If we're so damn special we would be handling this with efficiency and grace. We'd be leading the global effort to quash this pandemic, less wealthy countries would be praising our leadership. Instead we're over here baring our butt to the world.

I could buy a house tomorrow if my student loan debt was eliminated. At the very least I would have a lot more money to pump into the much vaunted "economy" so that all the wall street people could see their little chart go up. They should consider doing it down the road if the economic shock ends up lasting longer than planned. edit: I want to add that student loan debt is ultimately a symptom of a broken system. Higher education in the United States is completely out of whack given the supposed greatness of our nation. If we're truly the "greatest county in the world" we need to fix higher education at any cost. If we don't then we're just full of sh*t.

The "essential" tag to me is more interesting as far as how it shows just how many of us do work that we don't actually need to commute to. A lot of businesses are running normal operations with no one in a central office. Technology has come so far that in many cases "the office" is now obsolete. Think about how much less we would pollute, how much less energy, how much less real estate we would use if we simply...continued this work from home practice? Though I do think there is value to having workers socially interact in real life spaces together, it's probably something we could get away from doing all the time. All of this brick and mortar office infrastructure suddenly seems...superfluous.

716 is weird. I've definitely had good food there. But I've also had some real mediocre food too. They must struggle to keep their good kitchen staff, which doesn't surprise me.

Yessss the epic collapse Bruins Leafs game

Damn. Fingers crossed.

It sucks that these games are probably just going to be on MSG and NHLtv probably wont carry them.

Port is underappreciated. Same with Grappa.

Spinnin records, cleaning, and working out. I'm gonna be able to do a thousand situps when this thing is over lol

The fan theory is that he really didn't like being involved in that John Scott scandal in Arizona.