College counseling increases

[cathleeninnh]

http://www.comcast.net/news/national/index.jsp?cat=DOMESTIC&fn=/2006/12/18/544089.html

And it is on our dime. If tuition covered all costs, no one would care if these kids declared majors or took classes forever.

Cathleen

[aries]

I can't see that article.

I'm a poli sci major but I'm being tempted to switch to Math or psychology

[Minsk]

Even without government support I'd expect colleges to try and push students through. There are voluntary funding sources (donations, industrial deals, etc) that have nothing to do with the number of active students, and a lot to do with the quantity of bodies you can run through a program they will do well in. Even beyond that, an uninterested student dawdling through a bunch of random programs makes for a very poor recommendation of a university.

I'd like to see competent career counseling and mentoring done when people are in their mid-teens, but that would require an educational system far different from the one in North America today.

[Michael Fisher]

Even without government support I'd expect colleges to try and push students through. There are voluntary funding sources (donations, industrial deals, etc) that have nothing to do with the number of active students, and a lot to do with the quantity of bodies you can run through a program they will do well in. Even beyond that, an uninterested student dawdling through a bunch of random programs makes for a very poor recommendation of a university.

I'd like to see competent career counseling and mentoring done when people are in their mid-teens, but that would require an educational system far different from the one in North America today.

Yep. I'm doing a research paper on that right now, hopefully to be submitted for publishing by summer.

My conclusion at this point is that public universities are incapable of the community collaboration necessary to provide a meaningful educational experience. Such a collaboration strategy would include early counseling. Public universities have no incentive to even consider such strategies, or, for that matter, any real strategy other than picking the pockets of taxpayers in their communities.