A problem with California Universities?

Check out this youTube presentation/animation about CA schools: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jNK0IKdfg&feature=youtu.be

Here's a summary:

Nationally, in the past 5 years, college costs (tuition, fees, room & board) have increased by 28%. That is way above inflation but it gets worse. In California for the same five years, costs have increased by 63%.

It used to be that a college education was worth the cost. You would get a higher paying job and more than earn back the cost. But today 53% of young adults aged 18-24 are living with their parents and many are either unemployed or underemployed.

Also alarming is the increasing time to graduation. In only six CA schools did a majority of the students graduate in 4 years.  In 13 of 23 schools, half the students had failed to graduate in 6 years! Is this because the standards are higher? No, quite the opposite. Few schools have any requirements for economics or government and students leave quite ignorant about our country's history, its government, and what federal programs cost. Instead they study Spider Man, Mad Men, and the History of Middle Earth. They leave school weak in math, weak in science, with no language skills. Did they learn critical thinking? Not likely. Many classes teach to liberal biases and dissenting thought is squashed.

The University administrators who created this mess are well compensated with Presidents earning $400,000 and all senior admin at 100,000 and above. At many schools the number of administrators now out number the teachers.

Online Education: Udacity

In addition to Coursera, Khan Academy and MIT online that I've blogged about, I'm near the end of two free online classes from a company called Udacity. The format for both was the same so I don't know if it's a company standard or just chance?

What I liked about the Udacity classes is that lesson topics are 3-6 minutes long with a quiz or exercise associated with most topics to ensure you get the point. There are many topics with about 2 hours of video per week, plus weekly homework assignments. It has been VERY hands-on, you learn by doing and end the class with a working program like a web browser or a blogging website.

Online Education: Coursera

I've written before about online education sites like Khan Academy and MIT online. While very good, most sites present recorded lectures for you to watch (or not watch) at any time. Presently I'm using a site that offers instruction in a more "real-time" fashion.

It's called Coursera and is offering free classes from professors at University of Michgan, Stanford, and U. of California, Berkeley. You enroll (along with about 100,000 other students) and get a certificate if you pass the class (no college credit - sorry). Classes last 6 to 10 weeks with new videos each week. Typically there's about two-weeks time to watch the 3 hours of new lectures and take an online test or programming assignment. There are online forums where you can post comments, ask questions, get into debates, catch every error made by the professor, and argue if a quiz question was graded right or wrong. There are also online "study groups" which I've not used.

Several classes are into their 2nd week now so it's not too late to join. Most are computer based but not your common programming class but rather

• Natural Language Process (how does google do searches?)
• Game Theory (multi-player scenarios)
• Probabilistic Graphic Models (too strange to explain)
• Cryptography (what makes a good encryption or breaks one?)
• Design and Analysis of Algorithms  (what's the fastest search method?)

Bottom Line

Check them out. And if you don't care about the cert, just watch for fun and check out the discussions. But time is limited. I'm not sure what will happen to the course material when the classes end.

Things that are Worth the Money

“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.”
-Benjamin Franklin

Typical financial advice tells you how NOT to spend money. But I like the list at wisebread.com of 11 Things That Are Worth the Money.

1. Insurance - spend a little to avoid having to pay a lot
2. Culture - I'm all for culture, my wife & I love museums and visited one just a few days ago. But it's also easy to overspend here. We don't do Broadway Plays - I'd love to but the cost is ridiculous. We also save money by renting CDs instead of going to movie theaters.
3. Doctor Visits - your health is worth spending a co-pay for
4. Education - maybe. There is much talk of a "higher-education bubble" where the cost of college now exceeds the benefits. Education is great - but look for cheaper ways to get a college degree.
5. A Haircut - it is important to look nice, people do judge by looks. Just don't overspend at post hair salons.
6. Health - buy healthy food and do what is necessary to get some exercise
7. Home Maintenance & Repair  - a home is the most expensive thing you own - treat it well.
8. A Sharp Interview Outfit - see #5
9. Well-Made Shoes - Not sure if the list is thinking of dress shoes for looking good, like #5 and #8, or well-made shoes that won't hurt your feet.
10. Travel - Don't go into debt but travel is a great form of education. And fun too.
11. Visiting Family & Friends - "maintaining those relationships is something you can't afford to not do"

Bottom Line

What items do you think are worth the money?

Free Online Education

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own.
And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go.”
- Dr. Seuss

The blog, Marc and Angel Hack Life, Practical Tips for Production Living, list over 100 Internet sites that offer free classes, lectures, books, or research materials online.
http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/11/15/12-dozen-places-to-self-educate-yourself-online/

 I've used a few of them

MIT OpenCourseWare – MIT OpenCourseWare is a free web-based publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.

<amazing amount of subjects and I still learned something after 20 years in the computer science.>

Khan Academy – Over 1200 videos lessons covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, and biology.

<aimed at High School and Undergraduate level>

The USGenWeb Project – Free genealogy and family history resources online.

One Minute Languages – Learn a new language via podcasts that are updated regularly.

TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.

Project Gutenberg – More than 20,000 free books from the first producer of free e-books.

Weather Channel – You can learn about weather all over the world, but the Weather Channel also offers dynamic content based upon seasons and special conditions and a special multimedia and education section.

Bottom Line

Many of our greatest men were self taught, Lincoln, Thoreau, DaVinci, Einstein, Newton. Many are considered genius but they became that way because they read and studied on their own time and of their own passion.

Who said it? God or Shakespeare?

Instead of one quote today I offer 17 quotes. Your task is to decide the source for each - the Bible or Shakespeare?

1.) Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
2.) Eat, drink and be merry.
3.) Nothing but skin and bones.
4.) To thine own self be true.
5.) Practice what you preach.
6.) The apple of my eye.
7.) You have to be cruel to be kind.
8.) Wear your heart on your sleeve.
9.) The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
10.) By the sweat of your brow
11.) How the mighty have fallen!
12.) Forgive and forget.
13.) You can’t have too much of a good thing.
14.) He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
15.) Forever and a day.
16.) I escaped by the skin of my teeth.
17.) Like mother, like daughter.
Answers below.

Yesterday I mentioned things learned in High School like Cooking and Typing. But what high school student has not had to suffer Shakespeare; usually a different play each year: Romeo & Juliette, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, etc. Why do we spend so much time on Shakespeare? A 20-year-old girl named Becky from London offers a clue. She posted a page from her notebook on Tumblr which got featured on the English Muse blog, and went viral....

Shakespeare not only wrote great stories that are performed 400 years later, but he had a flair for inventing phrases that remain popular and in common usage. Few English authors can make this claim. (See Erasmus of Rotterdam and John Heywood for two other profligate quote makes who are not as well known as they should be.)

Bottom Line

Answers:

1.) Shakespeare. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.

2.) Bible. "Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry" Luke 12:19

3.) Bible. "All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me. I am nothing but skin and bones." Job 19:19-20

4.) Shakespeare. "This above all: to thine own self be true" Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.

5.) Bible. "They do not practice what they preach" Matthew 23:3

6.) Bible. "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings" Psalm 17:8

7.) Shakespeare. "I must be cruel, only to be kind" Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

8.) Shakespeare. "I will wear my heart upon my sleeve" Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.

9.) Bible. "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret." Matthew 6:3

10.) Bible. "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. Genesis 3:19

11.) Bible. "How the mighty have fallen!" 2 Samuel 1:19

12.) Shakespeare. "Pray you now, forget and forgive." King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 7

13.) Shakespeare. "Can one desire too much of a good thing?" As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.

14.) Bible. Watch out for false prophets. "They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." Matthew 7:15

15.) Shakespeare. "For ever and a day." As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.

16.) Bible. "All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me. I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth." Job 19:19-20

17.) Bible. "'Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: 'Like mother, like daughter.' " Ezekiel 16:4

Heather at "HeresWhatsLeft" provided the answers and offers this conclusion:

"So, how did you do? Not so good? If it makes you feel any better, the King James version of the Bible came out about 7 years after Shakespeare died. So they're basically written in the same vernacular, meaning that for phrases with words like "thine" it can be easy to get confused."

Self-Reliance EXPO in Denver

"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part"
-bumper sticker

Here's an event I wish I could attend. I'm not aware of anything like it on the East Coast.
It's the Self Reliance Expo in Denver, CO Sept 16-17, 2011. Cost is $9 for adults.

Workshops include aquaponic gardening (my wife wants to try this in our living room), how to go solar, Red Cross Preparedness, the role of Vitamin Supplements in Food Storage, Solar Ovens, how to grow sprouts (we're still working on that, have failed several times), and understanding seeds.

You can follow the location of future Expo events on Facebook and Twitter but oddly the site does not support email registration for newsletters, etc. Hey event organizers, not everyone wants to use Facebook! I have an account but use it rarely. I don't trust Facebook.

Bottom Line

Years I participated in a Preparedness Expo sponsored by local churches. The presentations and booths were excellent but sadly the event was poorly attended. Please take the time to visit Preparedness events in your region- you'll be amazed at what you'll learn.

Education for the masses

“I never let schooling interfere with my education.”
-Mark Twain

A year ago I wrote about Online College courses; most notably the Khan Academy. A recent Wired magazine article describes how Khan is a complete game changer, and how children have been able to advance at a blistering pace using Khan's materials. So what does the public school system think of it?

So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”

Bottom Line

American grade school education is not "about the children", nor is it about what is best for the children. It's about conformity. It's about social engineering and promoting "correct thought". Only a factory-assembly-line educational system, a "we don't care about individual", would complain about students becoming too advanced.

Too much Sitting?

“The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.”
-Tom Bodett

The other night I heard a TED-xKids talk by the publisher of Make magazine with Do It Yourself (DIY) projects. He expected the magazine to appeal to guys and was surprised to find it popular with families with children. Kids love to make things and yet our schools are geared to produce "scholars" not "makers". Students must sit and read and think and write. Art & Crafts is an optional program at most schools that gets cut when the budget is tight. And shop class is only for some High School students. The publisher lamented that many kids don't even know who to hold a screw driver correctly. This is doubly sad he concluded because studies show that young brains grow faster when there is manual activity.

Last month, Lawyer-blogger Ann Althouse also expressed some ideas on early education: Don't send 4-year-olds to school. Send them to work. She quotes Cornell Anthropologist Meredith F. Small:

In non-Western culture, parents expect children to learn about what it means to be an adult by doing adult work. When we were an agriculturally based nation, American children used to work just as hard and contribute in the same way. But now, Western children are trained intellectually, in school, where they are taught to think about things as the entree to adulthood, and few contribute anything to the household economy.
That cultural expectation is now creeping earlier and earlier as 3-year-olds go to preschool and 4–year-olds start kindergarten. Everyone sits quietly at their desks, thinking and thinking.

Althouse then makes a few pointed remarks about too much sitting and thinking, perhaps this is a leading cause of childhood obesity?  There's also a new study that says excessive sitting is as bad as smoking, “being sedentary causes factors to happen in the body that are very detrimental”.

Althouse also questions the motives behind pre-school and kindergarten. Do we really have the best interests of the children in mind or is early education just

childcare, paid for by taxpayers who wouldn't accept paying for the childcare of parents who want (or need) to go to work. The children, unschooled, would be an economic burden on parents who would either purchase private childcare or forgo income from the second of 2 parents working.

Bottom Line

Are schools creating a new generation of weak limbed, overweight drones?

36 Events that Changed the World

History is philosophy teaching by examples. 

~Thucydides (460 and 400 BC), The History of the Peloponnesian War

It's been awhile since I've talked about one of the lecture series that I listen to while commuting to work. Many fade in to oblivion. But the latest has been interesting: The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History by Professor J. Rufus Fears of the University of Oklahoma. He tells a good tale but I worry that it's more historical fiction than history. The dry facts of history are enlivened with speculative background details and colored with personal opinions and spin. He has selected 36 events that changed the world.

1. He begins with Law and Civilization as represented by the the Law of Hammurabi (1750 BC)
2. Then a second law code and birth of a new religion - the law of Moses (1220 BC)
   
   The "Axial Aga" where great teachers of religion and philosophy arose around the world:
3. Buddha (526 BC)
4. Confucius (553-479 BC)
   
   Democracy!
5. He mentions Socrates as one of the great teachers of the Axial Age but does not credit him with changing the world. Instead the honor goes to Solon of Athens for the birth of Democracy (594 BC) followed by
6. The Battle of Marathon (490 BC) where Democracy is triumphant against the Persian Empire
7. Still in Greece, the Oath of Hippocrates and the birth of scientific medicine
8. Caesar crosses the Rubicon (49 BC) and Democracy dies until resurrected 1800 years later in America.
   
   New Religions
9. Back to great religions again: The Trial of Jesus (36 AD)
10. Constantine Victorious - and Rome converts to Christianity (312 AD)
11. Muhammad moves to Median (622 AD)
    
    The Renaissance
12. Jump 400 years to the first university in Bologna, Italy (1088) and the Age of Learning
13. Dante's Divine Comedy & the birth of the Renaissance (1283)
14. The Black Death (1348)
15. Columbus Discovers a New World (1492)
16. Michelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel (1508)  - world changing how? (have not reached this point yet)
    
    The Reformation
17. Erasmus retranslates the Bible from Latin back to Greek (1516) paving the way for
18. Luther and the Protestant Reformation (1517)
    
    Perhaps not so well known is that the Reformation led to centuries of vicious warfare over religion and over empire building once the domination of Rome was broken
    
    An Age of Empires
19. The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) - Britannia Rules the Waves
20. The Battle of Vienna (1683) - I was not familiar with this one so I looked it up. The Islamic Ottoman Empire failed to capture Vienna in 1529; the first failure after almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe. For the next 150 years Europeans battled the Ottomans for control of Austria culminating in 1683 with victory at Vienna. This marked a turning point where Islam was halted and the start of the Great Turkish War to push the Ottomans out of all of Europe.
21. The Battle of Lexington (1775) - Birth of America
22. Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg (1863) - The US Civil War and how dedicated individuals are defeated by technology.
    
    The Industrial Age
23. Adam Smith (1776) versus Karl Marx (1867) - Capitalism vs Socialism
24. Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution (1831)
25. Louis Pasteur and the Germ theory of medicine (1885)
26. The Wright Brothers achieve Flight (1903)
    
    The end of the Age of Empires?
27. The death of an Archduke begins WWI (1914)
28. The Birth of the Soviet Union and Communism (1917)
    
    Who will rule the 20th century?
29. The Stock Market Crash (1929) - a Great Depression changes the world...
30. ...Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany (1933)
31. ...Franklin Roosevelt Becomes President (1933) - restoring hope in a disillusioned world
32. ...Mao Zedong and Communist China (1934)
33. The Atomic Bomb (1945)
    
    Dreams and Ideals
34. John F. Kennedy Is Assassinated (1963) - end of American Innocence
35. Dr. King Leads a March (1963) - I have a Dream
36. September 11, 2001 - Islam vs the modern world

Bottom Line

Do you agree with these events? Which ones are missing? I'll present my list of 36 on Monday.

Deep Thought

"O Deep Thought computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us...." he paused, "The Answer."
"The Answer?" said Deep Thought. "The Answer to what?"
"Life!" urged Fook. "The Universe!" said Lunkwill. "Everything!" they said in chorus.
Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection. "Tricky," he said finally.
"But can you do it?"
Again, a significant pause. "Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it. ... But, I'll have to think about it."
Ford glanced impatiently at his watch. "How long?" he said.
"Seven and a half million years."
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds has adopted (coined?) the phrase, "Credentialed, Not Educated" to describe our nation's Ivy League leaders that see themselves as uber-intelligent from the best schools but in reality are clueless on the real world. He points to an editorial in the Washington Post, Our superficial scholars, that makes a similar point about today's top students.

"For most of the past 20 years I have served on selection committees for the Rhodes Scholarship. ... We interview the best graduates of U.S. universities for one of the most prestigious honors that can be bestowed on young scholars. ... I have, however, become increasingly concerned in recent years ... high-achieving students seem less able to grapple with issues that require them to think across disciplines or reflect on difficult questions about what matters and why."

The editorial gives some examples of students with very narrow focus who have never considered alternative points of view or the consequences of their goals:

"An outstanding biochemistry major wants to be a doctor and supports the president's health-care bill but doesn't really know why. A student who started a chapter of Global Zero at his university hasn't really thought about whether a world in which great powers have divested themselves of nuclear weapons would be more stable or less so, or whether nuclear deterrence can ever be moral. A young service academy cadet who is likely to be serving in a war zone within the year believes there are things worth dying for but doesn't seem to have thought much about what is worth killing for. A student who wants to study comparative government doesn't seem to know much about the important features and limitations of America's Constitution."

Bottom Line

Again from the editorial,

"I wish I could say that this is a single, anomalous group of students, but the trend is unmistakable. Our great universities seem to have redefined what it means to be an exceptional student. They are producing top students who have given very little thought to matters beyond their impressive grasp of an intense area of study. This narrowing has resulted in a curiously unprepared and superficial pre-professionalism. ... [The students] seem so surprised when asked simple direct questions that they have never considered."

Although I belong to a church that is traditionally very conservative, locally we have several very liberal families in positions of leadership. One night after Cub Scouts in the church building, I enjoyed a conversion with several young teens from these families. They were discussing the evils of the world. "War and McDonalds should be outlawed," one said. [McDonalds?!!!, that caught my attention.] "Well then," I replied, what will you do to countries that break the law and start an illegal war? They had not thought of that.

Another replied, "If I were in charge of the universe, I'd make war impossible."  "How would you do that," I asked, "without destroying the agency of man?" The freedom to choose (right or wrong) is a keystone of our faith. It is very tempting (but wrong) to destroy personal agency for the greater good.

A third said, "I wish everyone were Intelligent. Intelligent people would not kill." To which I observed she had not yet read, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in which a young man murders an "evil person" for the "good of society" just to prove how intelligent and superior he is.

I encouraged the youth to keep thinking. The topic of war and violence is deadly serious (pun intended) with no easy solutions. You can't just wish it away or or eliminate it with "proper education" or ban it with legislation. But is definitely worth Deep Thought.

Sadly, today's schools are not teaching and not requiring deep thought.

Better Study Habits

“Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor”

- William Cowper (English Poet, 1731-1800)


Everyone, young and old, sometimes needs to study. It may be homework, learning a language or work rules and regulations. And most of us are doing it wrong according to the New York Times.

According to the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, we are not limited to specific learning styles. The concepts that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; or some are “left-brain” students while others are “right-brain” is bunk they say. Research has not found evidence of this. The same journal also claims that there is no perfect teaching style - students learn successfully from a variety of teaching styles.
Personally I disagree. I am much more perceptive of visual information than I am with audible instructions.

Another interesting claim is that it's better to study in different locations. Otherwise the information you learn becomes imprinted with the background colors, noise, lights, etc of your study area and those clues won't match the test room making the information harder to retrieve. Memory is made stronger when acquired under different backgrounds.

Another new trick - mix up your study material. The brain becomes lazy with repetition so mix English with Math or studying verbs with reading and speaking practice. "Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work."

While cramming may help for a test the next day, information quickly obtained is quickly lost. For longer retention review the material an hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now, then a month out, etc. Dozens of studies have found such spacing improves later recall.

Bottom Line

It pays to learn good learning habits.

DIY Dunces

“It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.” - Napoleon Hill

The Daily Mail of London had discovered that our latest generation is unskilled. "Do it yourself? Not likely if you're under 35. More than half are DIY dunces who can't even rewire a plug and have to rely on parents"

"More than half of young people lack the skills they need to maintain their homes, with many relying on their parents to carry out basic tasks, a survey suggested today.


Around 50 per cent of people aged under 35 admitted they did not know how to rewire a plug, while 54 per cent did not know how to bleed a radiator and 63 per cent said they would not attempt to put up wallpaper, according to Halifax Home Insurance.

Other basic jobs, such as putting up shelves, were beyond 45 per cent of those questioned, while 36 per cent said they would not even attempt to do gardening themselves."

Bottom Line

It's important to teach basic life skills and involve youth in house project. Boy Scouts can also help with teaching skills. My wife is more handy than I. She was quite unimpressed when I managed to break a copper pipe joint in our plumbing by trying to remove an outdoor faucet incorrectly. We are both dreading calling a plumber to fix it.

 "The study also found that when the under-35s do attempt to do a job themselves and it goes wrong, it costs nearly three times as much to fix as problems caused by other age groups."

Avoid College?

“You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does..."” - Guitarist Tom Petty

DailyFinance.com has an interesting article titled, Seven Reasons Not to Send Your Kids to College. I was recently talking with my wife about the NY state HS exams in which 30% more students failed under new grading rules. It's horrible, she said, that so many HS graduates are not prepared for college. I countered that perhaps not everyone should be expected to be college ready. Before WWII, college attendance was mostly for the very rich or those on professional tracks like law and medicine. Everything changed with the GI Bill that paid WWII veterans to get a BA degree. By the next generation it became normal, even expected, for children to go to college and a college degree (of any type) became required for many jobs.

So is college worth the cost? The Seven Reasons article says no.

1. More than 60% of students require more than 4 years to graduate so the cost may be higher than you expect. I wonder if this includes summer classes to makeup low grades?

2. The rate of inflation for college expenses is 10% a year! Since 1976 tuition has increased 9-fold versus 7-fold for health case and three-fold for general inflation. There is fear amongst university administrators that the tuition bubble is about to burst. College is no longer affordable, especially in this great recession.

3. A college graduate can expect to earn $800,000 more over a 45 year career. But if you invest $200,000 at 3% instead of spending it on tuition, room & board, and text books, you'll earn $851,000 over 49 years (45 working + 4 college). So if you put your money in a trust for your child, they may come out ahead.

4. The average debt burden of a graduate is $23,000, up from $13,000 ten years ago. Debt for a professional degree (graduate work) can exceed $200,000. That's a horrible way to start your career.

Not paying for college does not mean encouraging stupidity or idleness. Here are options to consider:

- Send them to a trade school or apprenticeship for profitable work in plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc.

- Allow them to enlist in the military and let it teach your child a trade and pay future college bills.

- Have them apply for a union job. Auto union workers and government union workers are doing quite well financially without college degrees. I know Iraq war veteran who is second generation garbage collector for NYC and is quite happy with the salary and benefits.

- Invest in your child's business venture(s); but require them to present a business plan first. Most attempts will fail - that's normal and they'll learn from the school of hard knocks. Thomas Edison was famous for his many failures but when he succeeded it was big. Ditto for Babe Ruth - he was the strike-out king but when he connected he was also the home run king.

- Give your child money to travel the world or hike through Europe. They'll learn much more about the world than they would from a book or lecture.

- Encourage them to get a blue collar job. They'll learn the value of honest work and the value of money. After a few years they may decide that they want to attend college for a business or management degree - but now they have a goal with experience to back it up. I know a mature TV studio technician who has decided he wants to be lawyer so he can sue his former bosses. He's just completed his BA and will begin work on the law degree. I also know a legal secretary who was sponsored by the law firm she worked at to get a law degree.

- Encourage them to volunteer full-time or go on a mission. The Peace Corp and foreign missions are other ways to see the world.

- Encourage them to educate themself! College level text books can be checked out from the library or purchased used online. There are many excellent online university courses for free. With computer programming there are free code compilers and many free tutorials online. You can teach yourself coding and have all the tools you need for free (except for the computer).

Bottom Line

There's nothing wrong with delaying college until a person is mature enough to appreciate the value of what he/she is getting for the vast amount of money spent. For the self-starter, create a business or product; but be sure to do some reading on business principles or hire good managers. The computer industry is filled with stories of startups who created a great product in their garage, achieved national success, and then failed or were forced out of the company because they had no experience running a large company.

Here's a book on the same topic:
Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It

And a related story I just read:

For-Profit Colleges Caught On Video Encouraging Financial Aid Fraud
Investigators found that all 15 colleges investigated "made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements to GAO's undercover applicants," and four of them "encouraged fraudulent practices."
The investigation also found that for-profit colleges are often a waste of money because the same associate's degrees and certificates are usually available at nearby public colleges and community colleges for significantly less. For example:
“A student interested in a massage therapy certificate costing $14,000 at a for-profit college was told that the program was a good value. However the same certificate from a local community college cost $520.”

Online College Courses

"If you were going to create a college from scratch, what would you do?"

Last Sunday at church an old friend was staring raptly at a bulletin board. "Is there something new posted?", I asked. He pointed to a poster for independent study courses at a church university. "Have you looked at the MIT online courses?", I suggested. To my surprise he had no idea what I was talking about.

MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is one of the leading Universities in America (and in the World). When I was applying to colleges back in the 80's, I read that one-third of the freshmen admitted to MIT had a perfect 800 score on the SAT mathematics test. The college store proudly sells T-shirts that say, "Harvard is for students who couldn't get into MIT".

Given the elite status of the school and the very high cost of tuition, it is very surprising that MIT offers over 1900 courses online for free at
http://ocw.mit.edu/. You can watch entire courses on your computer, buy the text book and do the homework assignments. Some courses include lecture notes and exams. It's a great way to learn science, business, economics, art, history, philosophy, political science, etc. This will take some time however - these are complete college lectures for an hour or more, several times a week, over many months. And your brain may melt if you watch too many in a row without a break.

I bring this up because I learned today of another online education series that has become very popular on YouTube and rivals MIT online for the number of students. It's called the Khan Academy.
http://www.khanacademy.org/

Salman Khan is a 33-year-old who quit his job as a financial analyst to make homemade lecture videos for his friends and relatives. "My single biggest goal," he says, "is to try to deliver things the way I wish they were delivered to me." He now has 1200+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology, finance, and history. Lectures are 10 to 20 minutes long and what you see is a digital blackboard upon which Khan draws as he lectures. I recommend starting at his website to see what's available rather than surfing YouTube for them. I've listened to two of his lectures so far and found both to be entertaining and well-done.

Bottom Line

There are many opportunities to learn online. Expand your brain!

More government? More spending?

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”- Albert Einstein

Today I’ll jump from the heat of a volcano to the heat of politics. An editorial by Radley Balko at Reason.com describes the problem I fear today – “more government is better government”.

In the private sector failure leads to obsolescence (unless you happen to work for a portion of the private sector that politicians think should be preserved in spite of failure). When government fails, … the government claims it’s a sign that we need more government. It’s not that government did a poor job, or is a poor mechanism for addressing that particular problem, it’s that there just wasn’t enough government. Of course, the same people will point to what they call government success as, also, a good argument for more government.

It’s a nifty trick. The right does it with national security. The fact that we haven’t had a major terrorist attack since September 11, 2001 proves that the Bush administration’s heavy-handed, high-security approach to fighting terrorism worked! But if we had suffered another attack, the same people would have been arguing that we need to surrender more of our civil liberties to the security state. Two sides. Same coin."

When the Benard Madoff ponzi scheme collapsed, congressman said we need MORE regulation to prevent this from occurring again. But in reality several complaints had been made to the FEC that something fishy was going on. They ignored some of the complaints and when they did bother to investigate, the FEC found nothing wrong and decided to trust the claims made by Madoff.

Because the American Primary education system is so dysfunctional, teacher unions and politicians say we need to spend MORE money “for the children”. In 2008, 23% of students failed to graduate rate from high school. But according to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools, with each country spending more than $11,000 (in U.S. currency) per student. Yet despite spending the most, U.S. public schools lag behind other developed countries in the areas of reading, math, and science. The Washington D.C. public school district spends $12,979 per student per year, third highest in the nation, but results rank lower than the national average.

For decades now, the US has been spending ever more on education with nothing to show for the extra expense. The “children” need better education, not a more costly one. As one blogger quipped, When congress discovers a successful way to run the schools in DC, THEN it can tell the rest of the nation what to to. But don’t export a losing system.

During the 2006–2007 school year, a private school in Chicago founded by Marva Collins charged $5,500 for tuition, and parents said that the school did a much better job than the Chicago public school system. At the same time Chicago public school officials claimed that a budget of $11,300 per student was not enough.

Imagine a car company that said, “We spend more than our competitors on making each and every car but we rank last in quality. So our solution is to hire more managers and to spend even more money on each car for the sake of our customers.” Such a company would go out of business (or would have except for recent government bailouts.)

Bottom Line

Don’t buy the line that government or public service needs to spend more money for your benefit. In New Jersey the new governor, Christie, is battling the Teacher Unions to control costs. He asked voters to reject any school plan where the teachers did NOT agree to a one-year wage freeze. In an historic election last week, many voters agreed with him and half the school budgets failed to pass. The governor is receiving death threats from teachers and commercials warn that he is endangering “the children”. Baloney!

A study by the Cato Institute in 1996 found that private schools provided superior education at $3,116, per child per year, half of then national average of $6,857. Free enterprise trumps government planning every time. With government, more is NOT better.

Music

"Twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion."-Scottish Proverb

Have you ever been in a foreign country and felt so lost because you don't understand the language? I feel that way with music. It seems that everyone in my church is an excellent singer and/or piano player. Our 10-year-old cub scouts play better than I. Years ago in grade school I spent one year learning the violin but gave it up for art class the following year.

So to make amends I've been commuting while listening to lectures on music by Robert Greenberg of The Teaching Company. Some lecture series I've liked more than others:

great: Listening To Great Music
not so great: Great Masters: Beethoven—His Life and Music (too much life and too little music)

One series I had high hopes for was How to Listen to and Understand Opera. Opera inspired so much that we take for granted today like instrumental symphonies and modern orchestral musical instruments. But alas, I did not not learn to appreciate listening to people contort their voice in foreign languages.

A series that pleasantly surprised me was The Concerto. Lots of music was played and much of it I recognized and enjoy like the Bach Brandenburg Concertos. I'd love to find an online radio station that plays mostly concertos.

Bottom Line

While attempting to find Concertos online I stumbled upon free music theory lessons by the Scottish educational system called "Learn Listening Online". It looks like fun and includes bagpipes!

Other resource I found is Classical Online Radio with 160 classical radio station on the Internet. The first station I checked was Iceberg Radio (Canadian) which has a Soloist Instrumental channel that is mostly Concertos.

It Pays to Be True to Your School

"The university's characteristic state may be summarized by the words of the lady who said, "I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something."-Hanna Holborn Gray

Wisebread.com has an excellent article entitled, It Pays to Be True to Your School: 5 Ways Your Alma Mater Can Save You Money

1. Insurance Discounts
   Many universities have worked out deals with auto, home, life, medical and even pet insurance companies to help their alumni get a discount. When I was unemployed I looked into this. Unfortunately the university insurer did not cover NY state. But if you live near your school and need insurance, check it out.


2. Gym Membership
   If you live near your school you may be able to use the university pool and gym. Some universities have worked out deals with popular national fitness centers for discounted rates.


3. Career Counseling
   Most schools will have a job board and job fairs. Some will also offer counseling to alumni. Earlier this year a student sued her college for being unable to find a job. She claimed the college had not prepared her adequately to be employed.


4. Travel Discounts
   In addition to alumni trip packages, some schools have partnered with travel agencies, airlines, and/or cruise lines to get discounts for their alum.


5. Local and National Coupons
   Most universities have worked out deals for discounts at locally run businesses from restaurants to dry cleaners to pet stores and more. Many schools also have deals with national companies; Costco is popular.

Bottom Line

You paid a lot for college - get some of that money back.

Also, don't lose touch with college friends and college connections. Use facebook, linkedin and other social networks to find lost friends.

Listening to Great Music

“Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man” - E. M. Forster

My latest commuting CD lecture series has been, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, by Robert Greenberg and the Teaching Company. In the span of 48 CDs the instructor explains Western Music from Ancient Greece to the 1920’s. It was fun listening to Gregorian Chants and Madrigals – these forms are rarely performed today. Then Baroque (Bach), Classical (Mozart), Romantics (Beethoven), and Modern (Debussy, Mahler). While enjoyable, I wish there was more music and less of the instructor’s opinions – his comments, while amusing, were all too frequent. I also suspect that the Teaching Company had to pay a licensing fee for each musical piece used. So the same song snippets (like the opening of Beethoven’s 5th) were used over and over again to reduce the total number of licenses paid.

One of the instructor’s best lessons was comparing symphony music to baseball. There’s a lot we take for granted when we watch baseball. There will be 9 innings (usually), each inning has both teams at bat, they stay at bat until three outs, and an out can be 3 strikes, tagged at base or a caught ball.

Likewise true Classical music (from the Classic era, 1750 to 1825) has a structure, as do the pieces from the older Baroque period. The Romantic composers like Beethoven expressed their individuality by modifying and playing games with the “official” structure. Modern composers go even further and compose anything they want with little regard to "rules".

For example, the Symphony began as the Overture to Italian Operas. The Germans/Austrians standardized it in the 18th and 19th centuries as a performance in four parts:

1. An opening fast piece (Allegro), usually in sonata form.
2. A slow movement (Andante or Largo)
3. A dance movement like a slow 3-beat Minuet and trio; later changed to a fast 3-beat (Scherzo) by Beethoven
4. A faster finale in sonata–rondo form

A sonata form is like a mini-opera: there is an optional introduction (Overture), then two themes are introduced in the Exposition (Act 1), the themes battle and change in the Development section (Act 2), and there is a final resolution of the themes in the Recapitulation (Act 3). There is also typically a finale called the Coda.

Likewise there are rules for Minuet and trio, Rondo and everything else.

Bottom Line

If you find Classical Music confusing, then I highly recommend this lecture series. It will teach you what to listen for and what to expect in symphony music. The cost is $95 to download the audio or $180 for DVDs you can watch on TV. My cost was zero as I borrowed these from our local library system.

Expensive Colleges

“A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.” - John Ciardi

I thought college was expensive nearly 30 years ago when I attended. I also learned then that there is an “education inflation rate” that is always higher than national inflation rate. Back in the 80’s the rate of educational inflation was 10%. So it should come as no surprise that rates today are outrageous. With tuition hikes outpacing the growth of household incomes year after year. student borrowing has doubled in the past decade.

Here are the most expensive colleges by total cost for the 2009-2010 school year from CampusGrotto.com

Total Cost = Tuition + Room and Board
1. Sarah Lawrence College, $54,410
2. New York University, $51,991
3. The George Washington University, $51,730
4. Bates College, $51,300
5. Skidmore College, $51,196
6. Johns Hopkins University, $51,190
7. Georgetown University, $51,122
8. Connecticut College, $51,115
9. Harvey Mudd College, $51,037
10. Vassar College, $50,875

The lowest total cost in the top 100 most expensive schools was $46,860 for just a single year of study.

Bottom Line

See The Rising Cost of Education for more information and what to do.

See also my post on Student Loans