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Is it worth it?

The average college graduate owes $19,300 after four years. During this time, the average science student has performed hundreds of hours of indentured service for his professors' research. The average premed or prelaw student has done the same at her summer internships.

Four years later: down twenty grand. Hardly a fair system.

College has become increasingly expensive, and increasingly... long. Our service economy requires many students (education, law, medicine, business, finance) to enter graduate school as a prerequisite for employment. We live in a society where eighteen years of full time education are required to become a high school gym teacher.

It seems to me that America's universities are no longer serving the best interests of their students.

A Better Way?

Most students enter college so that they can be prepared to enter the work force. Many study a specific field so that they can work in that field.

With this in mind, I propose a new post-secondary education system: on the job training. Corporations such as General Electric hire recent graduates only from their internship base, as hiring these people is low risk and low cost. Imagine if GE could select talent directly out of high school and provide them with a free education as a member of the real workforce. This would be an incredibly efficient way for young people to learn a field, say physics. Working in GE's jet propulsion lab for four years would be an experience unmatched by today's universities.

This is surely a best case scenario, and of course, GE isn't ready to educate young people on physics 101, but corporations of this size could easily absorb these costs without a lot of the overhead required by a post-modern university (office of minority affairs, etc). In fact, many technical people in such a company could easily act as "professors of practice" and take on a few classes for pay.

The advantages:

• Free education for the student
• Low priced labor for the corporation
• Low end jobs wouldn't be outsourced to India
• Near guaranteed job placement for student
• Real world experience for the student
• Recruiting overhead for new hires down to zero for the employer
• Candidates who can begin adding value immediately for their employers
  

Devil's Advocate

Of course, there are some disadvantages. The university can never go away completely, but let's take a step back and consider that many, many people in today's universities are only there so that they will become employable. Middle and lower-middle class students get hit the hardest by college loans, and a plurality of them simply want a job. This would be a good solution for them.

Many would say that the compulsory liberal arts education many students receive is critical for good citizenship. I say that college students are paying customers. If they feel that $30,000 a year is worth it for a complete college experience, then they'll buy. If they'd rather participate in my system, who is to stop them? Further, the politicalization of today's liberal arts courses has become so intense that, in my mind, most people are better off reading the classics on their own time.

If you ask the average college student what he remembers about college, he'll probably say "not much." There is a critical social component to college life. Of course, this would still exist if a company such as GE had a large campus and dormitory system on which thousands of young people lived.

Will It Happen?

The college loan system is so far out of control right now that most colleges don't have to compete on price. But these loans aren't free. They put a serious pressure on our economy, and there is a breaking point for college tuition. Is it $50,000? Is it $60,000? At some point, colleges and other forms of education will begin to compete on price. When this happens, my plan is not too unrealistic.

Save Hubble

Leftmost: The Whirlpool Galaxy; The Eagle Nebula

Stunning images like these may soon be harder to acquire as the 15 year life of the Hubble Telescope winds down. Shuttle safety concerns have kept maintenance missions on the ground. The Register reports:

Engineers say it has enough power to keep going until 2008, but unless some kind of servicing mission can be mounted there will be no extra-atmospheric telescope until the 2011 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Letting the Hubble fall into disrepair would be a sin. If there is anything government is made to do, it's long term vertical research of the kind the Hubble facilitates.

Free Fuel

The Register reports:

Researchers at Penn State university have discovered a new way of stimulating bacteria to extract hydrogen from bio-matter. The technique can yield four times as much hydrogen as fermentation alone, and unlike traditional fermentation, is not limited to carbohydrate based biomass.

With hydrogen fuel cell devices on the horizon, this could be a very important discovery. This process could recover huge amounts of energy from waste water treatment facilities, landfills and the like.

Make Your Own Food Pyramid

The USDA's ridiculous new logo for MyPyramid.gov

The USDA has released a web-based dynamic food pyramid. It doesn't seem to ask enough questions, but it's simple enough to use, and provides you with a host of personalized documents.

I always thought the old food pyramid was confusing and possibly funded by Kelloggs.

Draining the Swamp

After 29 years, Syria has ended its military occupation of Lebanon paving the way for free, fair elections.

It seems the Middle East is less and less of an oppressor's playground every day.

Cheaper Flights

I recently purchased a ticket through Travelocity, and though I very much like the site, I noticed a $5 booking fee in the ticket price breakdown. This troubled me, so when I was shopping for a flight to Miami recently, I decided to do a little comparison.

First I searched for the cheapest flight I could find on Travelocity (it happened to be with American Airlines), then I went to that airline's website and found the exact same flight. This was easy enough because Travelocity gives you the flight numbers before you purchase the ticket. The flight on aa.com was net $30 cheaper than on Travelocity, and I got 1,000 frequent flyer miles for using their website to book the ticket.

I have had some friends do this since, and they have saved between $10-$50 on domestic flights, though they still needed travel planning sites to compare fares between airlines easily.

So it seems the airlines are trying to cut the aggregators' profit out of their top line. Sounds great to me, but it may lead to a situation where the comparison sites have to find a different way to create revenue or a situation where fewer airlines release their fares to these aggregators. Some notable airlines absent from any of the travel planning sites are JetBlue, Southwest, Independence Air and Song.

Neither would be good for consumers, but use the loophole while it lasts!

Race Research

Thomas Sowell writes about his research into the disparity between blacks and whites in his most recent column. His findings about culture and its effect on blacks and whites alike are in some cases quite the contrary of commonly held beliefs on race issues. A preview:

The redneck culture proved to be a major handicap for both whites and blacks who absorbed it. Today, the last remnants of that culture can still be found in the worst of the black ghettos, whether in the North or the South, for the ghettos of the North were settled by blacks from the South. The counterproductive and self-destructive culture of black rednecks in today's ghettos is regarded by many as the only "authentic" black culture--and, for that reason, something not to be tampered with. Their talk, their attitudes, and their behavior are regarded as sacrosanct.

Proliferation

Republicans have yet again pulled the wool over the public's eyes.

The most recent ploy in Dr. Frist's snake oil sales tour has branded Democrats' threatened response to changing Senate rules--to bring legislation to a standstill--the "nuclear option". The term "nuclear option" was coined by arch-conservative Trent Lott (R-MS), and it means eliminating the filibuster, not the response. Lott said so himself on Stephanopolous Sunday when Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called him out.

Somehow this change in terminology, which has only happened in the last few weeks, and only in Republican rhetoric, has tricked several mainstream media outlets and commentators. Seems like the media lately is more gullible than liberal.

The Toe!

Herm Edwards celebrating his 2005 draft.

Herm Edwards strikes again drafting a kicker with his first pick in the 2005 draft.

Wow.

Listen, this guy is good. He was Ohio State's MVP last year and set 22 school records.

But the Jets already have a decent kicker. Sure, he missed a big one last year, but every player has predictable limits, and distance is Dough Brien's. He's never been able to hit long field goals and Herm knew this when he sat on the ball during a game in which his team had all the momentum.

Now the circle of scapegoating is complete: last year we fired our defensive coordinator, this year we fired our offensive coordinator and drafted a kicker in the first round. Watch the Jets' mismanagement continue this year under Radio.

Vietnam Whitewash

This is a little dated, but David Horowitz's most recent piece is something worth reading. A preview:

Four months after the Democrats cut off aid to Cambodia and Vietnam in January 1975, both regimes fell to the Communist armies. Within three years the Communist victors had slaughtered two-and-a-half million peasants in the Indochinese peninsula, paving the way for their socialist paradise.

I'm a fairly well-educated guy, but this little tidbit of knowledge was withheld from my high school and college history classes. I wonder why?

Fat ass, long life?

A new study by scientists at the Center for Disease Control concluded that overweight people have higher life expectancies than the rest of us. This comes on the heels of another CDC study that claimed 400,000 deaths were caused annually by obesity. The new study shows that being obese or extremely obese (as defined by body mass index) is still bad for your health, but that being slightly overweight is good for you, especially in old age. So, essentially, if you're in good enough shape to make it to 70, you're better off than someone of a slimmer build. Two observations spring to mind:

1. Since the concepts of "overweight", "normal", and "obese" were based on the arbitrarily defined BMI labels, the "surprising findings" of the new study would just mean we need to revise the BMI scale. Maybe "normal" is heavier than we previously thought;

2. Overweight people might live longer, but I still look better than them naked.

Aristocracy Now!

Republican lawmakers' push to build an American aristocracy has made a significant step toward solidifying a titled gentry. The House of Representatives voted to repeal the estate tax yesterday.

President Bush called the elimination "a matter of basic fairness." Fairness!? Is it fair that a lucky few inherit Daddy's millions? He went on to say,

The death tax results in the double taxation of many family assets while hurting the source of most new jobs in this country -- America's small business and farms.

In reality, no farms have been closed or repossessed due to the state tax in years. And even small businesses are normally formed as LLCs, so their assets are not held in a person's name. The fact is, only 2.1% of estates qualified for the tax in 2001--because the minimum estate size qualifying for tax is $1.5 million for an individual and $3 million for a couple. Not content with a phaseout plan of gradual increases in this minimum (it was set to increase to $7 million for a couple by 2010), the House did away with it entirely.

The President can save his talk about farms and small business. This tax is about wealthy bankers, CEOs, and the old money establishment. Once again, while we have increasing budget pressure and Republicans cry that the country's social programs are going bankrupt, they repealed a tax that applies exclusively to the rich and brought $23 billion into the Treasury last year. Over the next decade, it would have collected $290 billion. And I repeat, the estate tax applied only to the rich. Unless you have more than $7 million in personal assets and plan on dying in the next 5 years, you wouldn't have paid any estate tax to begin with. And if you were the heir to such an estate, don't cry to me about how unfair it is that you inherit $10 million instead of $13 million.

Poor, poor millionaires and their unfair tax. I for one will be sleeping easier at night because our country's elite can stick a fatter silver spoon in their childrens' mouths. I hear tuition at Andover will soon be tax-deductible.

I wouldn't mind sticking that silver spoon somewhere else.

Pills, pills, pills

The FDA today asked Pfizer to take its painkiller Bextra off the market as a result of its ongoing investigation of Cox-2 inhibitor drugs. Bextra, Celebrex, and Vioxx have all been investigated by regulators for increasing risks of heart attack, gastrointestinal problems, and skin rashes. Dr. Steven K. Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said,

Today's actions protect and advance the health of millions of Americans who rely on these drugs every day.

Now, I am not normally a defender of big pharma, but Dr. Galson's comment contain the elements of the obvious and powerful counterargument: millions of Americans rely on these painkilling and anti-inflammatory drugs to live functional lives. This is not aspartame or ephedrine; Bextra is an important drug that improves the quality of life for millions. It's terrible that a small number of people suffer debilitating or fatal side effects, but many, many more are alleviated of suffering.

Jonas Salk's vaccine for polio caused 149 cases of the disease the year it was licensed (1955), leading to 10 deaths. Yet I think there is little doubt that the effect of that vaccine has been immensely beneficial, as the polio rate in the United States dropped 90% in the three years after it became available, and since the 1970s the infection rate has been less than one in a million. Would today's FDA have recommended Salk take his vaccine off the market?

The doctors who prescribe our drugs take an oath to do no harm, but the FDA shouldn't handcuff them to the point they can do no good.

Current Players in Halls of Fame

The recent shrining of active coaches Boeheim and Calhoun has led many sports analysts including New York's Mike and Mike in the Morning to discuss inducting active players into Halls of Fame.

For me, the question starts here: what is the purpose of a Hall of Fame?

If a Hall is a place to honor numbers devoid of a personal connection, then certainly Berry Bonds should already be in Cooperstown. In this case, we should probably just set certain statistical thresholds, once broken granting access to a Hall.

But if a Hall of Fame is a place to preserve the history, human and statistical, of a sport-- which I think it is-- then granting active players this honor is a huge mistake.

• Imagine a Hall of Fame featuring a bust of Pete Rose the day his gambling scandal was broken.
• Imagine a Hall of Fame featuring Mark McGwire the day of the Congressional steroid hearings.
  

Inducting a player to your sport's Hall of Fame is a serious thing. I think the decision should be made with the clarity of hindsight.

Harvard comes to its senses?

A Harvard librarian's discrimination lawsuit was rejected by a federal court today. Desiree Goodman, a black woman, claimed she was passed over for promotion because of her race and good looks. An interesting--and it seems to me, seriously misguided--argument against an institution that champions affirmative action admissions and employment policies. Ms. Goodman should read Harvard's brief from the Supreme Court cases two years ago, in which the Harvard brass defended its policies that specifically benefit people in her position.