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Apple's Developer Academy Faces Funding and Outcome Questions

allpar said:
I think the big problem with comparisons to traditional programs is that traditional programs get relatively wealthy, mainly white or Asian students, who are set up to succeed from the start. I'm not saying there's no real work involved, or that it's like Yale and if you get an MBA you have a job with your dad's friends, but it's easier. I say that as a white guy whose father was a university professor - albeit a “self-made” one (“scholarship kid”) who would have had much more trouble getting from dirt-poor to middle-class today.

What I am saying is that if you're a black kid from what is usually called a poor school system, whose parents were most likely very poor and who has no real family connections in IT, getting outcomes comparable to "similar programs" is amazingly good. (I'm reading a lot into this article, I admit, and I am assuming they are targeting local Detroiters who have had the deck stacked against them from birth.)

This is just the reality of community colleges as such. Students from “nontraditional” backgrounds and under-represented minorities—anyone targeted as "DEI"—tend to fare more poorly because of the headwinds they face. They have to work much harder to get to the same point.



Apple’s putting in an awful lot of their own money, and everyone benefits from opportunities for people who otherwise have very few legal ways to move forward.

It's darned cheap for the state, in terms of avoided costs.

You could consider community colleges to mostly help businesses, too, right? Supplying qualified employees? But Apple’s putting in an awful lot more cash than most companies do.

It reminds me of the old Chrysler Institute of Engineering, the first automotive university run as a public/private partnership (mostly private in the old days, but phased into public as Chrysler and the program slowly wound down).
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While I would have to double read deeper some of what you say (only 1% of said white and/or asian kids would be that… only 1%, the rest of the whites or Asian kids aren’t in Yale or equivalent Ivy League either).

I do agree, as a whole, so many have to battle with strong headwinds to get the same outcome and these programs are ultimately a positive thing.

What is driving me nuts is that so many here in the chat would rather this doesn’t exist in its current form, either in their hypothetical way or nothing. Unfair and evil.
 
From reading the article, the main complaining seemed to come from someone that dropped out of law school to take the course and now is heading back into a law degree, while another person who sounded more in actual need of a hand getting started was quoted as saying “It changed my life”, so, as usual, you get different views from people at different stations in life.

The most telling paragraph starts out with "But the academy being open to all can complicate instruction and how to measure success", which raises the issue that if you are trying to run a program that helps people get ahead... do you first limit to only those that are the farthest behind?

It is hard to please everyone, but harder to please those that already have, versus those that are in need. It sounds like this program is at least attempting to give an opportunity to those that might otherwise not have had that kind of opportunity. The ones that sounded the most grateful were likely the ones that were most in need. Life is like that.
 
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Its more like $70k per student that got a job.
Do they still have that job?

Seems like a lot of fraud and waste going on in the world lately.
 
artifex said:
Why do we subsidize sports stadiums? Supposedly for the public economic benefit that accrues from having them around.
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We shouldn't subsidize sports stadiums at all.

It's not that I don't think it's not worth it, it's that it's rounding error for Apple. Why should we all be paying for people to get better at their products, specifically?
 
IJustWannaTalk said:
Are they one of the world's most successful companies?
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No, but like Apple they are donating to this school, and this school is what is getting the taxpayer funding. If you donate so much to a school that they name a building after you, do you then think you are getting taxpayer funding because the school gets government grants?
 
allpar said:
I think the big problem with comparisons to traditional programs is that traditional programs get relatively wealthy, mainly white or Asian students, who are set up to succeed from the start. I'm not saying there's no real work involved, or that it's like Yale and if you get an MBA you have a job with your dad's friends, but it's easier. I say that as a white guy whose father was a university professor - albeit a “self-made” one (“scholarship kid”) who would have had much more trouble getting from dirt-poor to middle-class today.

What I am saying is that if you're a black kid from what is usually called a poor school system, whose parents were most likely very poor and who has no real family connections in IT, getting outcomes comparable to "similar programs" is amazingly good. (I'm reading a lot into this article, I admit, and I am assuming they are targeting local Detroiters who have had the deck stacked against them from birth.)

This is just the reality of community colleges as such. Students from “nontraditional” backgrounds and under-represented minorities—anyone targeted as "DEI"—tend to fare more poorly because of the headwinds they face. They have to work much harder to get to the same point.



Apple’s putting in an awful lot of their own money, and everyone benefits from opportunities for people who otherwise have very few legal ways to move forward.

It's darned cheap for the state, in terms of avoided costs.

You could consider community colleges to mostly help businesses, too, right? Supplying qualified employees? But Apple’s putting in an awful lot more cash than most companies do.

It reminds me of the old Chrysler Institute of Engineering, the first automotive university run as a public/private partnership (mostly private in the old days, but phased into public as Chrysler and the program slowly wound down).
Click to expand...
A yes, the victim attitude. It’s always something else’s fault. It’s always because of an external factors. It’s always because someone else had it easier. It’s because someone else was more gifted and that’s unfair because everything must be equal and we are all the same.

Ok. Good luck achieving anything.
 
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