Two collapse education articles today, one from the Ed PoV, the other from the Job PoV.

1st, from Ed

https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/an-academic-transformation-takes-on-the-math-department

This one is about cuts to the only Ph.D. level Math program in WV, which granted is a poor and backward state, but still I think this is representative of a nationwide trend.  The great expansion of higher education which began with the baby boomers graduating many Ph.D.s who needed jobs teaching math had to go do it our at satellite university far from the core of the main schoolss like MIT they learned at.  MIT has only so many tenure track math professors of course, and they're the creme de la creme.  So your more average Ph.D got his tenure at Podunk University.

Problem is, out in Podunk there weren't many students to teach high level math to, so they did research, published some papers and farmed out teaching the beginner classes to adjuncts.  In this WV school, in 35 years the dept head has had 3 Ph.D. students.

So, all the teachers who really know math are either leaving of their own volition or their jobs are being cut.  Leaving a Land of One Eyed Kings, teaching the Blind.

Historically, tenured professors didn't need to worry too much about student evaluations, because their jobs were secure. Teaching faculty don't have this luxury. "Now we have math courses that are basically sixth-grade math," Pantea said. "Pre-algebra."

This was the situation I was in when teaching High School.  I was remediating what I had learned in elementary school.  It was impossible to actually teach Algebra, much less trigonometry or calculus.  Now college teachers are teaching elementary school math.  Nobody this ill prepared in math can possibly take a job in banking or insurance or medical billing.

Which leads us to the Jobs article:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/nov/24/reports-find-colleges-no-longer-produce-ideal-job-/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAQu4i5mYXI3v_NARi0rbXN4cy1yJcBKioIACIQXBEbMEZz5y5Gid_4CzfDmioUCAoiEFwRGzBGc-cuRonf-As3w5o&utm_content=rundown

Of course they don't, because for the types of jobs they are talking about, you need to do better than 6th grade math.  But that is all most colleges teach now, because they don't have enough students coming in who already know 6th grade math.  They have been socially promoted and graduated HS without knowing HS level math.  Happens all the time.

So now, college has become basically obsolete, not enough teaching jobs of real college level material; not enough students capable of learning it.  What these companies want now is some kind of Online Certificate which says you know how to use an Excel Spreadsheet.  That's what they are hiring you to do, they don't need anything else.

It will not be long before the only places to get a Ph.D in Math will be at the Elite Universities.  The only people getting such a degree will be coming from the Elite class, nobody else will bother with a full 4 year degree.  Hell, even Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard.  He didn't need a Harvard degree, just the computer science he learned in the first couple of years he was there to get Microsoft going.

I shudder to think what it must be like trying to teach math at the average Community College today.  What a fucking nightmare.  In the  words of the Chairman of the WV University Math dept:

Goldwasser won't be here: he's one of the senior faculty who volunteered to go...
 "My decision was selfish," he said, finally. "I wouldn't want to work in the kind of department that's going to be left."

This also brings us back around to our Depopulation discussion and why it is happening.  You could look at it as occuring because there aren't enough smart people being born for the smart teachers from prior generations to teach.  Only after the current population of smart people dies off will we start to come into balance with the number of stupid people we have left to teach.  Right now the ratio of smart people to stupid people is too high.  The current surplus of math Ph.D.s will need to forget about doing research and teaching and go work on Wall St instead.

RE