The+Future+of+Higher+Education

In today’s society, I have often found that there is a large misunderstanding of college students and how their education is truly what is leading tomorrow. I think this is attributed to ideas of college as an icon to society promoted by movies that glorify the degenerate lifestyle of the typical poor, party ready, college student. Although here at Chico State, this image may not be too far from the truth, on a nationwide scale this is not the norm. The importance of a proper education and a degree is to provide a credential to a scholar who has educated him/herself in a specific field of study. One website, buzzle.com, defines the purpose of a college education as “a medium of pursuing dreams.” The author then goes on to say “the modern student is well informed and makes up his mind in school itself about the choice of subjects, he would like to pursue after school.” This means if a school is providing students with a degree and society places no value on it, the degree loses all inherent value, which discourages students from investing in education in the first place. It seems now that our society has lost its faith in college students and we need to get it back. I think one thing we need to work on harder is a more solid college/career internship bridge. If businesses understood our students potential and how much effort they put into becoming educated in a field, they would probably be more comfortable and understanding about integrating them into their business model. Also, I believe that the standards that we set for students should be made available to their prospective businesses that they work for, and that these standards should be tested to make sure that they are really providing students with worthwhile knowledge. I believe that if we make some fine adjustments, and try to bridge the gap between student and worker, more understanding about the effectiveness of the college will be expressed to the public.

http://www.buzzle.com/chapters/education-and-higher-learning.asp

-Chris Rimmele

Tyler Likins (Wikipost 1)

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This is a demographic projection of what the Higher Education system is supped to look like within the next 5 years. This link shows what college has looked like in the past, and what it is projected to be at around 2015. It also takes a look at specific ethnic groups, and economic situations that are causing who is able to go to college. The main message that I got out of this article is good news though, and that good news is "that demographic momentum ensures ever more students on campus between now and 2015, a substantial proportion of them minorities. We already know the population pool from which most college students will be drawn between now and 2015, and that pool is getting bigger every year." The article says that "About two-thirds of this growth in college-age young people will be concentrated in California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Texas," which is a comforting thought because it will not only help California's suffering economy, but it also paves the way for a brighter future since more people are supposed to be attending college. In the next 15 years there is supposed to be a 1.6 million student increase just in the traditional 18-24 years old age range. This doesn't include the nontraditional age range of above 25 years old. The one thing I like about this article though is that it is not some random person talking about what they think the higher education system is going to look like in the future. Both authors are highly qualified to make these assumptions and are talked about at the end of the article.

Tyler Likins (Wikipost 2)

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This is a short two page article that explains how students will be taking classes in the year 2014. This article explains that more and more students will be taking online courses are the years progress. The article states that currently around 12 million students will take some type of online classes throughout their college career, but this number is supposed to climb to 22 million students. The bar graph in the middle of the page is very significant because it shows the difference between students in the year 2009 and what will but the students of 2014. Students taking all their classes in a traditional classroom is going to drop from around 15 million all the way down to about 5 million while. On the contrary students taking some online classes will rise from around 11 million to about 19 million. Following the same trend students taking all online classes will jump from 1.25 million to about 3.5 million. Now I don't know how other people feel about online courses but from my personal experience I hate them. I believe that students should have a professor their teaching and helping them every step of the way, thats how, in my opinion, students learn the best. With online classes students are basically forced to teach themselves and I don't believe in this style of teaching at all. I personally am not going to college so that I can take online classes, to me online classes are a complete waste of time.

Daniel Nilson (wiki 2) http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/HIGHEREDDEMOECON.pdf After reading this article I believe that if, in the future, higher education stays the way that it is now then there is going to be an even worse economic downfall than what is already happening. In today’s society it is becoming more of a working norm for people to have a college degree just too even get considered as a candidate for a job. An example of this happens in my own life. My mom used to work for Bank of America for about twenty five years until she got laid off due to the horrible economy. My mom does not have a Bachelors degree and while she was applying for jobs she found it that some jobs, even desk jobs, did not hire you unless you did have you Bachelors degree. This just proves that a college degree means a lot more today than it did in the past. In the past, people barely needed a high school diploma to get a job and now a college degree is like a high school diploma in the sense that it is required for almost every job. The only problem is that in this economy that we are dealing with it is harder for college freshmen to get into college because of the budget cuts, the lack of professors, and the furlough days that are happening. In order to fix this economy and change the shape of higher education for the better we, the students and the professors, need to find a more effective ways to get this government to listen and help change higher education for the future before it is too late.

Lauren Ayres (wiki2) In America a college education is a standard for having a financially safe life. Most people who complete higher education programs move on to get better paying jobs than those which only require a GED. But with all of these budget cuts, students are losing precious instruction hours. Why do students ignore that they are paying for this education, and it would be a waste not to get the most out of it? Eighty three students at CSU San Francisco have vowed that, “Furlough days will not stop us from learning,” a group put together on the social networking site Facebook. The idea is to create a formal learning environment outside of the class room on furloughed days. I believe a something like this is a great idea to show our student’s education is worth investing in. By investing in our future, our society will have more educated people, working at better jobs, and contributing more to our capitalist society that everyone enjoys. Another thing I like about students organizing to better their situation is that it really shows that the future generation does care. It is a common misconception that college students are only here to party or because their parents expect it. It is unfair to limit what we can and cannot do when it comes to our education, but sooner or later it will be something that is out of reach for most people.

Wikipost #2 Kyle Garrett @http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_7GCgFUkJc This article is about the workers union fighting the government in court. Arnold says that furloughs will save a billion dollars. The workers are saying that he does not have the right to cut their hours. They believe that they have already had a 10 percent cut so they shouldn’t have to take days off since they are already being penalized. They judge said that Arnold did have the right though to do that because he was simply rescheduling their work days. They state workers have filed an appeal and are planning on fighting this to the end.

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The article named "Future of Higher education" helps define the problems affecting education today. It pinpoints challenges that are affecting higher education such as; creating a vision for achieving what the actual purpose of education is in the age of information without misleading its main core. Redesigning the lectured based system we have today to meet what today’s students need as well adjusting to the new learning paradigm created in the industrial age to meet unique learning requirements. Furthermore the article also mentions the competitiveness of K-12 and higher education, and how these systems are experiencing increasing costs. The Future of Higher Education and the K-12 education industries are in serious trouble. After years of poor performance and basically no improvements in productivity, the opportunity for profits in K-12 is now high enough that a number of for-profit corporations will invest sufficiently to promote quality education, therefore increasing competition and leading to a new industry. Lastly the article does propose options for higher education leaders in today’s world. Some of these involve creating a coalition in up to ten states willing to transform K-12 education. They could open a Community learning center on or near a college/university campus and use it as a national demonstration site, a site that their colleague’s children could attend. The site where this article is located has videos and many more discussion threads on this topic which are great for future reference. -Mario Chavarria