EPIC Obama FAIL:

[xocet]

Last edited Wed Jan 25, 2012, 12:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Education is critical for a democratic society.

This country needs to stop seeing education as a matter of a personal investment. It is not. Education is an investment in the country's future: for example, with an adequately educated populace, there would be no policy debate on whether global climate change is real.

This country needs to adopt a policy that allows all to go to school up through the Ph.D. level at virtually no cost.

This is the sort of competition that this country faces:

The iEconomy
How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work
By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 21, 2012
...
Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

In China, it took 15 days.

Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ref=general&src=me

Elaboration On Edit:

Work-study is a time drain. It takes away from study time. If a person is committed to his or her field of study, that is all that one is in school to do. The fundamental point is that education needs to be funded so that students can get in to universities, apply themselves fully to their various fields of study, get their degrees at whatever level they can accomplish, and get out without the burden of debt. Innovation seldom occurs without freedom, and debt is the antithesis of freedom.

It is possible to provide stipends that cover the cost of living to students: Germany, for example, provides money to students while they are in school to defray the cost of living. Their system while not totally free of loans (http://www.bmbf.de/en/892.php) would seem to provide an excellent example of what can be achieved, but, for whatever reason, our policies are continually misdirected. Unless someone in power (say...a president...maybe) has the vision to articulate and fight for a better policy, there will be no meaningful change. Sadly, the policy of calling for more work-study is not that far distant in spirit from turning teenage students into janitors.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. OBAMA BAAADDDD!! He can't develop the iPhone! HE BAD, BAD, BAD!!!

[Skittles]

2. you COMPLETELY missed the point

[riderinthestorm]

6. Honestly, I don't care. The point is valid. No more student loans. We need to reward excellence, not

load them down with student debt. It's a national shift in our mindset, that talent needs to be nurtured at a national level and subsidized. That our best and brightest can dream without thinking "oh crap, I'm going to be $100k in debt by the time I'm 24"

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

25. Exactly. Grad school has put me closer to $130 in debt. It's NOT an epic fail.

People need to get a clue about how the real world works.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

24. No, I'm playing along with this tripe. I know exactly what's going on. Thanks, though. ;)

[Bjorn Against]

4. Work study jobs are a good thing.

My work study job that helped cover my expenses through college. I agree we should provide free college education, but even with free tuition students will still have expenses and a work study job helps them to pay their rent and food expenses.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Looks like you found a flea on a Great Dane's coat!

Congrats! Good work!
Hope you get a reward for that hard work!
He didn't provide you with all of the fucking answers
exactly how you wanted them served, unlike
every other fucking Presidents there ever was!

[SaintPete]

7. This is hardly an epic fail

you may think him wrong, but an "Epic Fail"???

Really?

[graywarrior]

8. Work study is getting me through college

[ForgoTheConsequence]

11. Same here.

And he was right on. I like having a little extra money and knowing that my tuition will be largely paid off when I graduate.

[graywarrior]

14. Me, too.

Especially at my age. I appreciate the opportunity more than anyone could every realize.

[DevonRex]

9. Hahaha. Nt

[SunsetDreams]

10. EPIC Op Fail Work Study helps

with College education. Some need it to go to school.

[liberal N proud]

12. Work study programs arenot free labor

Companies participating are pumping money into education while giving young people a glimpse of the real world.

Since we don't use apprenticeships to teach new workers, work study helps bridge that gap.

[uppityperson]

13. Work study helps students get college educated at a lower cost so it is...bad?

"This country needs to adopt a policy that allows all to go to school up through the Ph.D. level at virtually no cost."

Since more work study programs help achieve this, how is it wrong? Not sure what your problem here is. Please clarify.

[FarLeftFist]

15. Dude, you can't just go tossing EPIC FAILS around like that.

[X_Digger]

16. I would have killed for a work-study job

Instead I had to hold down two part-time jobs- one putting building trusses together, and another clerking at a hardware store.

Shitty hours that never quite worked with my school schedule, for less money than tuition deferment would have saved me via work study.

[bluestateguy]

17. Not everybody can or should go to college or graduate school.

And we already have a huge glut of Ph.D's who can't find jobs. Bad idea all around.

[yellowcanine]

23. Work study is for undergraduates. Got nothing to do with producing Ph.D's And providing work study

jobs doesn't mean everyone needs to go to college. It just helps people who are already in college. Nothing wrong with that.

[frazzled]

18. Work study as a form of financial aid is what you choose to rail about?

A lot of these engineering students here depend on work study to either help pay for tuition or supplement their living costs. We all had work-study jobs in college.

Jeebus. We all -- especially the president, who has talked about it repeatedly -- agree that the US needs to train more engineers, as in India and China. But you are really off the deep end trying to make some sort of issue of work-study aid here.

[Skittles]

29. do you not understand?

THERE ARE PLENTY OF TRAINED ENGINEERS IN AMERICA - employers CLAIM they cannot "FIND" any so they can turn around and hire CHEAP FUCKS in India and China. IT IS A FUCKING SCAM.

[yellowcanine]

19. Work study is a great program. Many students can work in areas they are interested in related to

their course of study. For example a chemistry student works in a chemistry lab helping a professor with his research. How is this a bad thing?

[FarLeftFist]

20. This thread is so dumb I might Tweet it for a laugh.

[DevonRex]

21. Good idea!

It is tweetiliciously funny.

[ddeclue]

22. this is nonsense.. there are plenty of skilled workers in this country at all levels.

this is just an excuse not to hire them because Chinese workers work for 50 cents a day.

[Honeycombe8]

26. If you read the rest of that article, it's mid-level engineers (not even degreed) that are needed...

China TRAINS people to do engineering tasks, but they don't need a traditional education. In America, engineers have to have a four year degree. What Apple needed most were mid-level engineers to watch equipment, record things, and other minor tasks.

China also built dormitories and required their workers to live on site.

We can't compete with neo-slavery and countries that don't value education, but merely train robots. America isn't that kind of country and doesn't want to be.

But I'll grant you that we should be producing more degreed engineers. Starts in elementary school with math and science. Excellence and interest in learning and elementary school studies require a good home life and parents that participate in their children's education, see they do homework, check on grades, spend time with their kids, make them feel worthy and qualified to make good grades, etc.

But many think that a solid home life has nothing to do with anything. It all starts there, IMO. In China, you won't find many broken families. And you'll find many people who won't complain about having to "work hard," meaning work 40 hours a week, like I've heard complaints about here.

[Bluerthanblue]

27. sorry- I strongly disagree. Many people who deny the reality of climate change are college

educated. And many who are acutely aware of its reality haven't been to college or hold advanced degrees.

"Education" happens in and out of school. "Work-study" jobs are important, and shouldn't be looked down upon. Not everyone is cut out to be PhD level.

I agree that we need to adequately fund education- but to ignore the place of 'work-study' or belittle those involved with is foolishness.

[EC]

28. Huh?

I paid my way through college on Work Study. It helped me get a job in the library administration which was a good advantage for me also. I think Work Study did more for me than taking a loan would have. It also provided good networking sources and references once I graduated. If I had just accepted the Pell Grants by themselves, those contacts wouldn't have materialized.

[ellisonz]

30. Work study is great.

I did grounds crew...