Fewer Students & Less Tuition

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Kizmet, Jun 12, 2017.

Loading...
  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    I believe that people formerly known as male are now more likely to forego college than are people formerly known as female. That will of course result in less STEM on campus.
     
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    When people find acknowledgement of transgenderism so threatening that they refer to it even when it's not the topic at hand.
     
  4. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    Government coercion is what's threatening, Mr. Libertarian. Transgenderism is as real as mermaidism.
     
  5. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    I agree. They have had some success attracting females into the (less abstract and mathematical) biological sciences. But despite absolutely Herculean efforts, the percentage of females in physics hasn't risen a whole lot.

    The New York Times article places part of the blame for higher education's current struggles on declining enrollments and tuition revenues. Except that enrollments aren't small by historical standards, They are still hugely above university enrollments in the 1960's. Tuition has risen far faster than inflation. (I graduated from my MA program in 2000 and paid $4,200 for it, out of pocket. Today the same program is upwards of $15,000.)

    The article notes: "More than half of the $4.1 billion allocated for state universities and colleges in Illinois, for instance, now goes not to teaching or research, but to pay retirement costs, the Illinois Policy Institute says." So part of higher education's problem (like the US 'Wall Street' economy in general, perhaps) is that it is built on the unrealistic assumption of endless growth. That's allowed tremendous management indiscipline as labor unions basically controlled the universities, and debts were accrued with the blithe assumption that growth in future years would pay it all off.

    During the last generation, since the 1960's, one of the several things that's driven skyrocketing and ever-increasing university enrollments was female applicants. But that's a limited resource that's basically been tapped out. All the females who want to enroll in universities already are.

    Now what we are seeing is something new and extremely ugly, universities knowingly and intentionally making themselves into hostile and unwelcoming places for large segments of the population: males, Caucasians, heterosexuals, Christians and (especially) Republicans. Then they act surprised when enrollments plateau and start to drop. Gee, wonder why...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2017
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    So far I'm with you. If your point is that enforced speech when it comes to people's pronoun preferences is wrong, then we agree. If your point is that of all the problems higher education has that this sort of thing is what's significantly depressing people's interest in attending university, then I seriously doubt it, and it would take clear research to convince me otherwise.

    If it were only a psychological phenomenon then I would understand this position. But it's not, it's a physical neurological phenomenon.
     
  7. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    First sentence: Some children insist, from the moment they can speak, that they are not the gender indicated by their biological sex.

    Anyone buying that?
     
  8. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    There are more sentences that follow, which help to explain that claim.
     
  9. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    "Of course, behavior and experience shape brain anatomy, so it is impossible to say if these subtle differences are inborn."


    You believe that people can become the opposite gender?
     
  10. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    Talking about STEM

    Becoming an engineer is tough, and for that reason, there aren’t all that many skilled applicants out there to fill employers’ demand. Engineering jobs pay well and are pretty secure, and there are roughly 47,000 unfilled positions out there, according to estimates.
    In my experience the filed is 75% male dominated.

    In Health case we can see more female employees and less STEM.
    Administrators aren’t just needed in IT and computer roles — the health care field is also in clear need of additional levels of bureaucracy. Healthcare is a complicated field, and the sector requires many specialties and skill sets. If you’re interested, there are 52,000 open positions out there to gun for.
     
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Yessss. Hostile to heterosexuals. Specifically, regional campii of the University System of Georgia are hostile. To heterosexuals. That's plausible.

    Sometimes I feel like I'm back home reading garbage produced by Kremlin shills.
     
  12. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    As a father of daughters, I hope you have everything you deserve coming to you.

    As for females preferring life sciences: given that LS presents more realistic career paths than Physics does, it may mean that the female gender, as currently socialized, is more rational and sane. That's probably true. Further, maybe the only reason ladies are not recognized for our natural masters only due to the Hermione effect. Of course, far likelier explanation is that the STEM culture is not very welcoming to females (and it's not. Have you heard the "guinea pig" joke?).
     
  13. FTFaculty

    FTFaculty Well-Known Member

    My wife did her graduate (math) and undergraduate (math/physics) work in STEM disciplines and later taught mathematics at a Pac12 (her supervisor was also a woman). After that, she worked for an F500 in computer programming (again, boss was a woman). Felt nothing but acceptance and encouragement the whole way, and that's going back two to three decades ago. Maybe she danced between the raindrops, but I doubt it. The dean of the College of Science at the uni where I teach is female, as was the science dean at my previous college. Anecdotal, of course, but I tend to think the hostility to females in the STEM disciplines is overstated.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 13, 2017
  14. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    It's a male dominated field and so you have to be willing to play with the boys. My motto: If you shoot the first one the word gets around.
     
  15. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Did we or did we not just see two men expressing a stereotype against women in STEM on this very thread (the one that was not even about women, or STEM)? There is more than one way to express a hostility, or just bias. People get deterred.

    A few anecdotes of my own: an instructor teaching me first two semesters of Programming was a woman; so was a senior full Professor teaching Numerical Methods. This fact did not stop at least three professors entertaining us with a hilarious joke comparing woman programmers/mathematicians/physicists with a guinea pig (a guinea pig, as you know, is not a pig, and is not found in any of the countries named Guinea). To my shame, I probably repeated this joke at least once in my youth. No, the professors were not hostile; just patronizing. Granted, that's in a visibly more backwards country, but it's not as if a sentiment is not found here (again, just scroll up this very page).

    Also, in my career, I met a few rather brilliant woman programmers. I also met some spectacularly dumb men who nevertheless got to have careers in software development. I did not meet even one sub-par female programmer. It's almost as if it's easier for you if you're a man.
     
  16. FTFaculty

    FTFaculty Well-Known Member

    A harmful stereotype would be "Women aren't into engineering or mathematics in large numbers because they lack logical reasoning skills", a correct observation is "There is a higher percentage of women involved in the health care professions than engineering." The former is the sort of thing that deters and is nonsense, the latter shouldn't deter anyone, it's just the truth.

    Maybe you read between the lines too much so you don't get what's actually being said; maybe I didn't read carefully enough and missed something above; maybe it's a combo of the two--I don't know.

    In any event, I married a woman who'd qualify for Mensa if she were into that silliness and did PhD studies in pure mathematics--she didn't just take Calculus, she taught it. My oldest daughter started college in accounting two years early, got the high A in several classes including calc-based physics, and as a senior with a 3.97, is laying waste to every single man in her accounting class (and she just LOVES to beat men), she's set to graduate 1st or 2nd in class out of about 500 in her biz school later this year. Ivy League grad school material. My second oldest daughter wants to be a doctor and is 4.0 starting her sophomore year, she started college one year early. On the other hand, I am a plodder, a B+ student, an average mind with no STEM talent whatsoever, so it's not like you're dealing with someone here who's all that into man power. I see the brilliance of women in the hard sciences or heavy duty logic every day, just have to take a look at three women in my life, and I sincerely doubt either wife or daughters would let a stupid joke about a rodent deter them--in fact, they tell jokes about the cluelessness of men all the time, and I don't begrudge them that because I pretty much prove the point every day.
     
  17. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    [​IMG]
     
  18. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    So, what do you think that I "have coming to me", for pointing out the fact that in 2006, females earned 47.9% of all doctorates awarded in the biological sciences, but despite tremendous efforts to attract females into physics, women earned only 16.6% of all doctorates in physics.

    The ultimate source for those numbers is National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, 2008, Science and Engineering Degrees: 1966-2006
     
  19. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I guess you can take an utterance "They have had some success attracting females into the (less abstract and mathematical) biological sciences. But despite absolutely Herculean efforts, the percentage of females in physics hasn't risen a whole lot" - and try to parse it in a way that doesn't promote negative stereotype. But for what end? It's not like it's the only data point in mild misogyny. It's just harder to be a female in most workspaces, and for sure in tech. There's simply no point denying it.

    My compliments, sir, and your stock just rose several notches in my book. However, honestly, Mensa material is, by definition, at least, 98th percentile. How representative are your observations based on THAT? And yeah, pure maths is way more impressive than any IQ test. Technically, I qualify to teach Calculus as well, although will need a heck of a refresher; nevertheless, I didn't (alas) do any doctoral-level work in maths and would certainly not qualify for Mensa (yeah, it's not worth the effort to find out).
    Unfortunately, for mere bright mortals, rodent jokes (I hope I never repeated that as a younger brogrammer, although can't be sure: it was ubiquitous, and my close friends both repeated it and subscribe to the worldview it implies) have an effect. Especially when this stuff is broadcast by persons in authority - including parents.

    My wife is very bright, and had better grades than me both in HS and college (her Management degree included high-level Engineering courses that would look challenging even in my Applied Math program). She has enormous trouble acknowledging her own successes - I have to constantly remind her that, eg., getting Accounting degree by correspondence, in your second language, and then blowing past CPA exams, by comfortable margins, on her first try, as a person who allegedly "doesn't test well", is quite a feat. So is taking and passing University of London classes while heavily pregnant. I just didn't have a lot of this stuff to struggle with as a male. Also, one gets an Y-chromosome bonus in people taking your points seriously in many, many settings - without having to be Mensa material. It's just a constant thing one (of either gender) tends not to notice.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 13, 2017
  20. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    For implying that it has to do with how "abstract and mathematical" the material is? I do not know, but karma/universe will figure it out. Just wait and see.

    (I normally do not believe in karma, but it would be neat, wouldn't it?)
     

Share This Page