generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

http://i60.tinypic.com/10z2ttd.png

Alan Singer's article is mostly nonsense. The share price uncertainly is more a reflection of concern that the educational materials sector is never going to be as profitable in established markets as it was three or four years ago. It isn't linked to a belief that the company is "overextended" - something he doesn't really provide any evidence of. Some factual errors and lots of speculation too - particularly relating to the idea that the spread of online education (in which it is only one player of many) will lead to the closure of thousands of colleges. The idea that tests are actively being made harder to generate more money is an absurdity.

It's frustrating as there is definitely a good article waiting to be written about the company and the potential conflicts between service provision and active participation in policy making but I get the sense that nobody really has enough of an overview or enough expertise to write it without a hell of a lot more research and consideration than Singer. The attacks are coming from people with an axe to grind where a scalpal would be more effective.

http://www.roughtype.com/?p=4464

Those millions aren’t enough, apparently, to pay translators to help the company extend its online courses, or MOOCs, into foreign markets. Instead, Coursera is taking the digital sharecropping route. It announced this week that it is recruiting skilled translators and asking them to donate their work to the company for free. What the volunteers receive, in lieu of income, is the satisfaction of being a member of Coursera’s “community.” Translation, says the company, is “much more than a means to an end. By joining the GTC [Global Translator Community], you’ll become a member of a tight-knit community of committed individuals and organizations.”

jesus did they pick that up at awesomeness fest

That's a bizarre use of the word "sharecropping." Also, no one's gonna fucking do that.

it is much more than a means to an end. to you. to us, it is a means to an end. the end of not paying you.

http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/images/lmphoto_tom1.jpg

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/ed33eb6bd1cb3a74ded14c1733617d7d/tumblr_n5hd5t1VFO1qz7k76o1_500.png

rage

facebook actually did that 'hey can u guys translate this for us thanks' thing back in the day

http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/26/facebook-files-for-patent-on-crowdsourced-translations/

xxxp

That's a fucking bummer

arrrrrgh that coursera stuff makes me so fucking mad

a milli a milli a milli

*Typical Financial Profile
nah just playing there are literally only about 12 millenials like this

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Miseducation-of-America/147227/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/magazine/its-official-the-boomerang-kids-wont-leave.html

More than that, they represent a much larger anxiety-provoking but also potentially thrilling economic evolution that is affecting all of us.

They must be firing editors.

or hiring sixth graders to write thinkpieces

feel like it's one step away from: "no, you can't find security, but the opposite of security is risk, and risk has higher rewards, so this is an OPPORTUNITY FOR HIGH REWARDS DO U SEE?!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/technology/workplace-surveillance-sees-good-and-bad.html?smid=tw-share

will any of these employers pay me to curl up in a ball on my bed and claw my way up from catatonia because i can do that real efficiently

i mean jesus

The idiocy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/upshot/the-reality-of-student-debt-is-different-from-the-cliches.html

The response:
http://www.theawl.com/2014/06/that-big-study-about-how-the-student-debt-nightmare-is-in-your-head-its-garbage

The rebuttal seems sound, although my grasp of stats and sampling is weak at best. But I appreciated the point in the first article about students who don't graduate and are STILL carrying debt--because students who don't graduate often don't graduate for family and financial reasons, so there's a high correlation with ppl who won't be able to pay back the loans they took out, esp without that degree.

Right, there is that and also some other good substantive points in the times article, but the way they slice it up and present it winds up as "student debt is way overblown and nbd"

nice to see someone calling bullshit on that terrible brookings study

Love the headshots http://i.imgur.com/NpnxD7i.png

matthew chingos more like matthew chingados, pinche cabron

They look like smug fraternal twins doing a smug mind-meld.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/fashion/the-millennials-are-generation-nice.html

holy shit http://chronicle.com/blogs/letters/is-that-whining-adjunct-someone-we-want-teaching-our-young/

I can only say that I have had full-time employment with benefits both inside and outside working in academia for over 30 years. I made choices.

I started out in a completely different era and everything worked out for me, so all you whining children who are starting out in today's world must not know shit about life. QED.

As one of my friends might say, “Time to put on your big-girl panties!”

"As one of my friends might say, if I had friends"

Courses taught: Google Applications; Social Networking for Business, Office Supervision, Business Communications, MS Office applications 2010 (and earlier), Introduction to Management, Voice recognition, Office Orientation, Keyboarding, etc.

(and earlier) <---- how you know she's a true expert in her field

office orientation: shld u point yr desk THIS way or THIS WAY? an ethnomethodological approach

She's written "definately" multiple times in the comments section

http://morton.edu/OMT/

Today’s administrative professional handles a variety of duties and need skills in many facets of office procedures and technology including: Internet/Intranet communication, problem-solving, cloud computing, project management, Microsoft Office applications, mobile technology, social media, electronic record keeping, web conferencing, organization, and customer service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsT-_ITj8xE

I was researching the for-profit college industry today at work, and it occurred to me that the Obama admin actually has done quite a lot of cracking down on the scammy operators in that field, and have genuinely wounded the industry, possibly mortally. Something genuinely good the admin has don.

really? any good articles about that?

It wasn't something I found in one place but I found a lot of different things that added up to that picture for me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/business/international/in-europe-fake-jobs-can-have-real-benefits.html

i promise you

you must read this

Spooky.

How long till we finally admit that expecting there to be a job for everyone is ridiculous and just start giving people $40k a year or so for life by default?

there's always a semblance of an out provided by the existence of unfilled jobs and the insinuation that the people who aren't filling them are somehow above them, not trying, etc.

ts: unpaid internships at real companies v dole money working at a fake company

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/man-stabbed-in-face-during-argument-over-whether-college-is-worth-it/101003

Here’s one more reason to avoid the onerous debate over whether college is worth the cost: to keep from getting stabbed.

Police say an argument Friday about the “worth and importance of a college education” resulted in one man slashing another in the face with a pocket knife. The Arlington, Va., news outlet ARLNow reports the victim was cut from the corner of the mouth to the ear after the other man became angry during the argument. The victim received 60 stitches at George Washington University Hospital.

The investigation into the crime is continuing, the police say, and the suspect was described as a Hispanic man, 6 feet 3 inches tall, and weighing about 220 pounds.

The crime report did not detail whether the suspect supported the value of a college education or thought it was a waste of money.

with what i have gleaned from my expensive liberal arts education, i will surmise that the argument was about something more than that.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/07/helicopter_parenting_is_increasingly_correlated_with_college_age_depression.html?wpsrc=fol_fb

One kid’s father threatened to divorce her mother if the daughter didn’t major in economics. It took this student seven years to finish instead of the usual four, and along the way the father micromanaged his daughter’s every move, including requiring her to study off campus at her uncle’s every weekend. At her father’s insistence, the daughter went to see one of her econ professors during office hours one weekday. She forgot to call her father to report on how that went, and when she returned to her dorm later that evening her uncle was in the dorm lobby looking visibly uncomfortable about having to “force” her to call her dad to update him. Later this student told me, “I pretty much had a panic attack from the lack of control in my life.” But an economics major she was indeed. And the parents got divorced anyway.

Yet more "oh my god your kids are in danger because you're DOING PARENTING WRONG." Kids are resilient and can handle a wide range of parenting styles. Parents should chill out about whether they're "helicopter parents" or not and they should certainly not freak out that they're dooming their kids to a life of depression because they're "overparenting."

I mean, you should also not threaten to get a divorce if your kid majors in the wrong thing, but that seems like kind of an outlier.