A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Dustin, Sep 6, 2021.

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  1. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    If they are insistent, this is a worthwhile institution:
     
  2. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    My daughters are 8 and 11. Thank you for keeping spots open for them.
     
  3. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I don't have any rigorous data, but know several families where brothers underperformed or screwed up, compared to sisters. Theory: the boys grew up in an environment where they could get away with behaviours that won't be tolerated in girls. In other words, parents conditioned their sons for the world with much more male privilege than the current slowly-dwindling supply.

    P. S. my own family had different sorts of issues, so this doesn't apply as much. My sister was an athlete in college, and by all accounts did fine.
     
  4. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    OK, arguing that credit transfer is bad on THIS forum looks off-brand:emoji_nerd:
     
    Dustin likes this.
  5. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I can think of several explanations why a considerable majority of new college students are women but I'll admit I didn't have "male privilege" on that particular bingo card.
     
  6. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    It's kind of ironic that a school that is promising rigor packs dozens of fallacies into 3 minutes while promising students the ability to think critically (but apparently not about the school itself.)
     
  7. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    My mother-in-law had read abridged versions of reading assignments to her son when he was an equivalent of a high school senior (the boy didn't feel like reading). She didn't do anything like that for her daughter. Let me know if this can explain subsequent achievement gap, or help predict which child gets in trouble with the law.
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2021
  8. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    How about arguing for academic rigor and an actually education? That bad too?
     
  9. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Arguing that allowing credit transfer and having electives in a degree plan equals lack of "actually rigor" is not "bad". It's just a non sequitur. And as Dustin noted, this is ironic in an ad hawking "rigor".
    One of the most consistent themes in this forum, for decades, is discussing degree programs for working adults. To the point of coining the "Big Three" moniker for the trio of colleges with fewest limitations on transfer. Fully online, too. And don't get me started on alternative credit! So yeah, hearing these kinds of arguments on THIS forum remains off-brand.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Setting aside for a moment that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", I suppose if you only consider the elephant's tail, sure, you might think that an elephant is like a rope. But if you consider factors like that educational issues don't start in grade 12, but much earlier, and that most primary schools require long periods of sitting still and paying attention that on balance are easier for girls than boys, then one could argue that it's a systemic disadvantage to boys that your mother-in-law was doing her best to correct.

    Interestingly, you're illustrating here what we're discussing in the other thread, because the suggestion that a disparity in outcome that is highly adverse to men must some way, somehow be the consequence of a systemic advantage to men is so upside down that it highlights how CRT-derived ideas like "male privilege" are articles of faith.

    Does that mean that systemic disadvantage to certain groups doesn't exist? No, of course not. But it does mean that using it as an a priori explanation for every sociological phenomenon isn't any more scientific than the nonsense the right comes up with.
     
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  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    He also didn't have to do the dishes of make his bed because "his wife will be doing it for him". Also, the guy is not illiterate.

    Didn't try to make a scientific claim. However, in this case? Yeah, a profound pro-male bias harmed outcomes for this, one, isolated male. Can't learn about consequences if never exposed to any. Also, at least one other guy who grew up in a family with nigh-identical biases ended up essentially the same. Still not data, but I go with what I see.

    Also, I'm pretty sure the idea of male privilege predates CRT by a healthy interval. Not easy to see for some. It reminds me of the time Toronto mayor John Tory said he doesn't know if white privilege exists (John Tory Jr. is a son of a lawyer and executive who palled around with founders of both Rogers and Thomson empires; literal aristocracy given how Thomson was made hereditary peer. Talk about privileged background).
     
  12. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    If an institution chooses not to receive transfer credit because it views other programs/institutions as not possessing sufficient rigor, that is their prerogative and I applaud that institution for it. Evidently all institutions are not equal in terms of rigor regardless of the accreditation standards they meet.
     
  13. SpoonyNix

    SpoonyNix Active Member

    Maybe. With what they're telling me now about the kind of work they'd like to do as adults, I don't think traditional college is going to look very appealing to them. Time will tell.
     
  14. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    First, one would have to determine if this is truly a bad outcome. Should the focus be on employment rates, labor participation rates, earnings, and/or education? If we're just looking at earnings, men earning fewer degrees isn't leading to them having lower earnings than women. One might even argue that the fact that women usually earn a degree to move up socioeconomic classes is an example of a disadvantage for women and girls because men can earn the same amount of money without going to college for four years.
     
  15. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    The differences in child-rearing between the sexes is true for Black families. There's a saying that Black mothers raise their daughters and love their sons. Black parents tend to have higher expectations for their daughters and will hold them to higher standards. Black parents think the entire world is against Black boys and men, so they'll try to shield and coddle them. This has the opposite effect parents think it will have. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Black boys are less often held accountable and are given less structure, they end up performing poorly in adulthood because of the coddling in childhood, and future parents will continue to coddle their boys because they see the negative outcomes but will attribute them to racism directed specifically at Black men.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6615888/

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41531100_Do_African_American_Mothers_Really_Love_Their_Sons_and_Raise_Their_Daughters
     
  16. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

    Well, it was kind of an antithetical premise: A liberal arts education that encourages you to think....but presented within the already limited paradigm of a "Christian worldview". :confused:
     
  17. There's another component. There are people going to college for the "college experience" that simply don't belong in college. A lot of college programs (just about any "studies" field) are simply there to separate you from your money (or the govt's money). People with useless degrees (60% of student loan debt is female) then get non-degree related jobs. AOC is an example of this, after graduating, she worked 7 years as a waitress.
     
  18. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    AOC has a degree in international relations and economics. You really need at least a master's degree to do something in economics, which is the case for most social science fields.

    There are so few "studies" degrees awarded each year, they're brought up much more than warranted. These programs are not popular at all. There are so few of these degrees awarded that getting rid of them wouldn't even make a dent in the student loan debt problem.
     
  19. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    AOC is a terrible example of this. In addition to not actually have a "studies" degree, she used these 7 years engaging in activism that got her into Congress, as well as brought her a ton of rent-free real estate in minds of millions of conservatives. Oh, and a biopicumentory on Netflix. How many people trying to put her down as a "waitress" had anything approaching her success?
     
  20. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    This... is... uncanny. Exactly what I saw in decidedly non-Black Eastern European families.
    So yeah, Steve: here's your data. I'll continue guessing, though, and say that different demographics likely have subtler but still present biases like these as well. I would need extraordinary evidence to believe White families raise boys and girls in exactly. the. same. way. That's just not credible.
     

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