As someone who most of their tertiary education in Australia, the idea of a common core for all majors in college sounds ridiculous. In Australia you pick your major from Year 1 and typically graduate in 3 years (4 if you're doing an Honours program) . American colleges are being asked to unfuck the problems of a shitty high school education.
There are a number of colleges starting up intended to break with the past in one way or another. One focused on developing self-reliant individuals prepared for real careers is Reliance College (https://reliancecollege.org/). Full disclosure: I serve on their Advisory Board.
The biggest money losers for both America and Australia seems to be the early childhood education degrees. I think they're completely unnecessary. I know every parent think their kid is the next Einstein but all I need from a school teacher is that they're literate and not a paedophile. Unless you're running a school for special needs or gifted students, you shouldn't need college educated people for schools and childcare centres.
One of the biggest reforms would enabling people to become doctors and lawyers after their bachelors instead of going through a masters process. In Australia you can do that. If you want to be a general practitioner you can do it after 3-4 years of a bachelors education. Even your hospital Internship is part of your degree.
While I am sure that a significant increase in graduates of a number of programs is possible, the ultimate limit is the number of students in the population with the requisite combination of intelligence and diligence. The great increase in college graduation over the last decades was accomplished by lowering standards. Fields that did not lower standards have to restrict themselves to the limited numbers of students (either local or foreign) who meet the bar. Even when I did my Ph.D. in engineering 40 years ago, most of my fellow graduate students were foreign born.
There are limits to collapsing course offerings. I can only speak with experience to Math and Physics at the university level, but I strongly suspect that the same is true of Chemistry and Biology. The course pseudo-titles are approximate:
Survey of College Mathematics Physics for Liberal Arts
Business Calculus
Calculus Physics (general STEM students)
Honors Calculus Honors Physics (majors, exceptional students stepping up a level)
The departmental honors course level is intended for majors heading for research / the professoriate - and is far more demanding. In math, the coursework is focused upon proofs, not utilization (which is why I switched from departmental honors in math and physics to departmental honors in physics alone after my first semester). In physics, the abstraction level is substantially higher. The higher level can only be offered in schools with a large population of highly gifted students, as such courses are only appropriate for such students. But if the school offers a major in math or physics, it will offer a more demanding course set for that program, as the service offerings for Engineering and Pre-Med generally have a different focus and associated expectations, and Business has its own focus issues and expectations.
My experience and my observations of my kids who recently graduated suggest that Engineering and some of the Business disciplines do not have a plethora of options, there is too much required and strongly recommended material to cover.
I actually the endowments are very distortionery for colleges. It biases the college's goals towards the interests of elite graduates and families (who tend to be very ideological) instead of median students and graduates.
Nurse practitioners should also be promoted for the youths. Hopefully in the future we replace general practitioners with nurse practitioners. Adoption of IoT and robotics will reduce the workload of current nurses enabling more of them to up skill.
As someone who most of their tertiary education in Australia, the idea of a common core for all majors in college sounds ridiculous. In Australia you pick your major from Year 1 and typically graduate in 3 years (4 if you're doing an Honours program) . American colleges are being asked to unfuck the problems of a shitty high school education.
Let's try to condense your comments. Six comments in 10 minutes is too much.
I broke them down into separate comments to make it easier for you to respond if you want. If you prefer one giant comment, that's fine with me.
There are a number of colleges starting up intended to break with the past in one way or another. One focused on developing self-reliant individuals prepared for real careers is Reliance College (https://reliancecollege.org/). Full disclosure: I serve on their Advisory Board.
Thanks for the comment, and good luck in your endeavors.
The biggest money losers for both America and Australia seems to be the early childhood education degrees. I think they're completely unnecessary. I know every parent think their kid is the next Einstein but all I need from a school teacher is that they're literate and not a paedophile. Unless you're running a school for special needs or gifted students, you shouldn't need college educated people for schools and childcare centres.
One of the biggest reforms would enabling people to become doctors and lawyers after their bachelors instead of going through a masters process. In Australia you can do that. If you want to be a general practitioner you can do it after 3-4 years of a bachelors education. Even your hospital Internship is part of your degree.
While I am sure that a significant increase in graduates of a number of programs is possible, the ultimate limit is the number of students in the population with the requisite combination of intelligence and diligence. The great increase in college graduation over the last decades was accomplished by lowering standards. Fields that did not lower standards have to restrict themselves to the limited numbers of students (either local or foreign) who meet the bar. Even when I did my Ph.D. in engineering 40 years ago, most of my fellow graduate students were foreign born.
There are limits to collapsing course offerings. I can only speak with experience to Math and Physics at the university level, but I strongly suspect that the same is true of Chemistry and Biology. The course pseudo-titles are approximate:
Survey of College Mathematics Physics for Liberal Arts
Business Calculus
Calculus Physics (general STEM students)
Honors Calculus Honors Physics (majors, exceptional students stepping up a level)
Departmental Honors Calculus Departmental Honors Physics (future researchers ...)
The departmental honors course level is intended for majors heading for research / the professoriate - and is far more demanding. In math, the coursework is focused upon proofs, not utilization (which is why I switched from departmental honors in math and physics to departmental honors in physics alone after my first semester). In physics, the abstraction level is substantially higher. The higher level can only be offered in schools with a large population of highly gifted students, as such courses are only appropriate for such students. But if the school offers a major in math or physics, it will offer a more demanding course set for that program, as the service offerings for Engineering and Pre-Med generally have a different focus and associated expectations, and Business has its own focus issues and expectations.
My experience and my observations of my kids who recently graduated suggest that Engineering and some of the Business disciplines do not have a plethora of options, there is too much required and strongly recommended material to cover.
I have said this before but replacing student loans with private income sharing agreements should be the future of higher education.
I actually the endowments are very distortionery for colleges. It biases the college's goals towards the interests of elite graduates and families (who tend to be very ideological) instead of median students and graduates.
Nurse practitioners should also be promoted for the youths. Hopefully in the future we replace general practitioners with nurse practitioners. Adoption of IoT and robotics will reduce the workload of current nurses enabling more of them to up skill.