D in the ix magazine about "programming today"

[Don]

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message 
> news:hhgac3$1vcm$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> "retard" <re at tard.com.invalid> wrote in message 
>> news:hhg67l$1ljq$2 at digitalmars.com...
>>> Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:13:07 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Sean Kelly" <sean at invisibleduck.org> wrote in message
>>>> news:hhetss$26er$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>>> Intro courses in the sciences are often intended to weed out the people
>>>> There's a *lot* of things wrong with the way schools work. Deliberate
>>>> "weeding out" is a clear red flag that a school cares more about their
>>>> own statistics (graduation ratio, etc)
>>> In fact many schools have made the courses much easier nowadays to get
>>> better statistics. The graduation ratio doesn't matter that much if it's
>>> a public school - they get funding based on the amount of people who have
>>> graduated. I think this model is much more common in Europe, at least.
>> It all depends on things like what metric they're going for and how they 
>> expect things to work, but it almost always (if not always) boils down to 
>> being insincere or otherwise disrespectful to the students. A few 
>> examples:
>>
>> 1. Public colleges these days, at least in the US, ...
>> So, if they weed out students in introductory classes, they hope that those 
>> students (who are likely to be "undecided" majors anyway), will be pushed 
>> towards the areas they can sail through the easiest (not necessarily what 
>> they would actually like the most or be best served by), which maximizes 
>> the throughput of their revolving-doors.
> 
> This also allows them to get by easier with mediocre teachers.

It is different elsewhere.
In Australia, all universities are public, except one private university 
which is named after Australia's most notorious corporate criminal. 
Really bizarre - it's kind of like getting an Aviation degree from Bin 
Laden Flying School. I'm not sure that I would have gone to university 
if I'd lived in the US, and I'm certain my wife could not have -- it 
seems like you need rich parents. Our tertiary education was virtually free.

Australian universities get their money by having astronomical fees for 
overseas (Asian) students. There's a lot of pressure on academic staff 
to get them to graduate, no matter how poorly they perform.