Reply With Quotemy $.02...veterans have too much real life experience and can't stand the BS of college professors who think they know about the real world when in fact too many of them have hidden in academia for their careers and the veterans start tuning out.
Thousands of veterans failing in latest battlefield: college
What do you all think is the reason for this. Is it different skills required in the military? Is it too long a gap after high school? Is it stress or lack of study skills? I am curious to what everyone's thoughts are.Among the approximately 800,000 military veterans now attending U.S. colleges, an estimated 88 percent drop out of school during their first year and only 3 percent graduate, according a report forwarded by the University of Colorado Denver, citing the analysis by U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education and Labor and Pensions.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...e?ocid=twitter
my $.02...veterans have too much real life experience and can't stand the BS of college professors who think they know about the real world when in fact too many of them have hidden in academia for their careers and the veterans start tuning out.
Pretty much, most vets know enough about the "real world" to know the only special thing a degree does for you is get you into a career field. I've known officers in the Navy that fly, but the degrees they earned in college have VERY little to do with what they do in the Navy. It's just that time and dedication part that the Navy wants to see from their commissioned officers, that's all it really boils down to, train-ability. "hey nice job earning your bachelors in basket weaving, what do you say about going to OCS and flight school now? You have what it takes, some time and dedication."Originally Posted by homegrowncat
Also I know a few idiots who honestly only plan on using the post-9/11 GI bill to "skate" for a few years and just collect the BAH and not have to work... Which isn't really a plan, and doesn't quite work that way. But I could see a number of vets that do this falling into this "failing college" category quite easily.
I had to take some basic classes to catch up in collage. It had been 10 years since highschool.
When I got of the service in '78 I went straight to college but dropped out after a few months. It took two more tries before I went the distance. I had to become a civilian again before I could deal with college life.
^^^ What has been said.
Also not everyone is meant for college and with the current unemployment college may even look better than ever.
I kind of agree with homegrowncat......I started my university education in a 5 year program (to get a degree) before I was drafted into the army....and after I had a year or two under my belt, I felt that if I had of somehow gone from a couple years in college to the military and attempted to come back and finish my university schooling that I would never be able to finish it. Some people are different though, I know guys who went to college for a couple years, dropped out and went into the marines and to Vietnam and came back got right back into their university courses and graduated. Some people are cut from different cloth and can take the BS of college courses after military, some can't. Me I am glad I got my degree before I (got drafted) went into the army. Having beaten the dragon of the University...the rest seemed easier. (it took me a full 6 years to complete my 5 year course)
A little different with me....finished degrees while still on active duty going to school at nights and weekends. Not recommended. At first I fought to hard against the "civilians' and "educated elite". A retired SF officer at Ft Bragg, acting as the Campbell College on-post rep, jerked a knot in my butt. It helped that he had also been an interpreter in the same language as I in SE Asian. Specifically warned me away from attending courses on-campus. "Go here on post with mostly other military". He was a good mentor and got me started right. After about a year, I could handle it on my own pretty well. Graduated HS in '65....got a BS 13 years later in '78. Finished a MA in '81. Basically, for the most part, because a retired SF guy pushed me, made me feel like I would be letting him down if I quit, and assured me the "pukes" would always have it to hold over my head if I gave up.
The degrees were as much his as mine.
I think it takes certain skills to be an effective adviser and assist returning vets to go on to college, IF THAT IS WHAT THE VETS WANT TO DO!
And doesn't have to be just college....specific areas, healthcare; software; hardware, technical skills are just as valuable. My helicopter crew chiefs all wanted to go to flight school. I pushed a bunch of them to get their A&P and suggested they specialize in certain functions....avionics; armament; hydraulics;, etc. Some of them thanked me. Many still tried to go be pilots...........
Let’s make sure the data is correct first. These figures are pretty unbelievable… 88 percent? Only 2-3 percent graduating? Something is peculiar here. 2-3 precent of 8th graders can graduate from college.
I always suspect anti-military stats from the likes of MSNBC quoting a small sample of academia. I would feel better if a source was linked so the raw data could be examined. MSNBC's reporting is not reliable for much of anything, especially about the military.
Last edited by Jacknola; 07-02-2012 at 09:02 PM.
I agree. So, I went hunting....
From what I can tell, this is the source report: http://harkin.senate.gov/documents/p...68d002ae0a.pdf and from its raw data MSNBC ran their own numbers.
While I cannot find the raw source data I suspect a couple things are going on here. One number that stood out to me was that traditional colleges and students see about a 30% graduation rate. While 3% is not good, its better in that respect.
To me the most bothersome thing about the summary here is that data is taken from both public and for profit institutions.
Frankly, for profit schools suck. They take anybody, they care more about marketing than teaching and they are not accredited (usually), so their degrees are worthless.
Public schools by comparison, have their money and funding and can focus a lot more on teaching. In addition, they can be selective and by being selective they end up with more motivated people who are ready to be students.
Its no surprise when you have a high ratio of people going to for profits schools that you get high dropout rates.
Last edited by subotai; 07-02-2012 at 10:53 PM.
One thing with that: "private" doesn't necessarily mean "for-profit". While all for-profit schools are privately-run, the good chunk of your private schools are still non-for-profit. These include your religious universities, as well as the "prestige-based" ones such as Harvard and MIT.
Other than that little quibble, your point somewhat stands.
One big problem with universities that contributes to this issue is the fact that, in many cases, there are no standards for lecturing. You have unenthusiastic professors shoved into teaching entry-level classes, the professor delegating (read: shoving) the responsibility to a graduate student, or simply the nearest person being hired to teach just because their spouse is a professor. An unenthusiastic or inexperienced instructor (not to mention a grad student, who is just learning to ropes for speaking English, trying to teach 20+ student a complex subject) makes for a poor instructor; this doesn't include the hired instructors who are just plain awful. And poor instructors leads to a greater chance of a person not passing a class; when you have much of the entry-level courses like that, there begins to be a problem. Add to that the fact that many of these class contain 70+ students, which creates a detached setting and is also detrimental to learning.
Of course, if you manage to make it past those couple years, usually the level of instruction goes way up due to enthusiasm and knowledge by the instructor, as well as smaller class sizes. But the key is that you actually do make it through that gauntlet, in which a good portion doesn't.
In the end though, this is unlikely to be reformed in the near future as there is no priority for school to improve their lecture standards. Schools want to get good ratings to get more funding, but when a school is rated, the focus is on the papers that are published and research that is done in general, not the quality of teaching that is going on.
A good program on the subject: http://americanradioworks.publicradi...rrows-college/
I am not standing up for the poor lecturers. One thing I advise a number of people to do is that if you are not sure about college and not sure if you can deal with the large classes that you have to in the first few couple of years, go to community college and get an AA degree. Your money will go farther, your classes will be smaller and more personal and often taught by people who care more (for the basic classes) and that degree in most state schools will get you out of all the general ed classes when you transfer to a 4 year school.
x2
In many cases, there will even be programs that allow you to go to community college for free so you can knock all those gen-eds out of the way before continuing at a four year school.
I'm also not saying that all entry-level lectures are bad. For me, I was blessed with a small department in an already-small school, which helped a lot for those first couple years.
There are also soldiers who never really flourished in an academic society, even before enlisting. So college doesn't really help. I have a friend whose cousin's husband is in the Canadian Forces for quite a while now...apparently he joined because he sucked at school, except for anything physical or related to sports. I'm not saying that soldiers are dumb, no not all, just that different people have different talents and different weaknesses.
has anyone watched the pbs frontline special that talked about for profit schools and veterans?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...gi-bill-money/
Jist was that these schools were specifically targeting veterans because of the quick and easy cash.
As for the critiques of the educators in this thread. Coming from a STEM background, you are shielded mostly from the liberal artsy flame in your pants kind of education. Its mostly filled with numbers, dry data, lack of personalities, and mind numbing lectures.
I'm going to assume that if you go for a degree in history, art, and english, that you'll see more of the liberal arts professor stereotypes. No?
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