Higher Education

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I would submit that for the vast majority of people a college degree is a waste of time, and a way to put off real life. Go thru a college catalog sometime and check out the plethora of degrees. How many really lead to meaningful employment? Seriously, how many job openings are there compared to graduates, for people with degrees in Woman's studies, Chicano studies, and the like? Heck, even technical stuff like sound engineering have a limited job market.

Part of the problem (as I see it) lies in the whole federal subsidy/student loan structure. The main reason many college students have any kind of job at all is for extra spending money; the actual cost of their education is either deferred or non-existent. I believe the old adage that when you actually earn something, you appreciate it more.

I do believe Community Colleges are a good thing. It can give people the opportunity to learn how to do things they didn't learn in High School; like how to read, write, and fill out welfare forms.

X-posted to my journal.

Comments

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The problem as I see it is everybody's child is a unique special snowflake that is obviously above average and needs to go to college to reach their potential.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

How awful to think of one's children as anything other than a commodity.

This grossly over estimates how much support students receive.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

For example, my wife is getting her accounting degree and has been working her brains out every night for the last two years at our community college to do so while also working full time, and is going right back to the University for another one.

Tell her how easy she has it and how useless CC's are, but be sure you're wearing something that can stop a .45.

[fire-81.livejournal.com]

+1

[fire-81.livejournal.com]

Higher education usually does not give certain profession
But most important what it gives: wider view to the world and things in it, and trains your mind to work with information.

Having a degree means you are developed enough to start mature life and be a well equipped representative of civilization.

Finding a job is completely another story.
Do you want automatically be employed just beacause you got your degree???
WTF?

The world is globalizing now
There world is overpopulated now
Resources are shrinking
Inflation is speeding up

It is simply mathematically impossible to afford high income for every graduate in the world.

You have to struggle and rip your ass to get a good hi-income job.
It was always like that, and will always be.
Whatever investment strategy governments choose.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

"Having a degree means you are developed enough to start mature life and be a well equipped representative of civilization."

It can.

"Do you want automatically be employed just beacause you got your degree???"

Actually that is not what I was implying, I have found that, that is what many college grads feel, and it has to be well paying.

"It is simply mathematically impossible to afford high income for every graduate in the world."

Absolutely, and that was the point I was making in a discussion the other day (which partially provoked my post)

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

College has nothing to do with education.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Gee, someone got it right off the bat.....of course it would be you :D

[okmewriting.livejournal.com]

In the UK there is a big thing about degrees at the moment because the government has increased tuition fees to up to £9K. At the same time as reducing the amount they give to universities which means the majority will charge £9K. You get a loan and if you don't earn a certain amount you won't pay anything, then it gets written off after 30 years or something. This is actually something of an improvement as certain students who couldn't access it before can.

Personally I think it's a good thing because finally people will start to question if they really need to go to university. There has been an increase in students going to university (previous government had a target of 50%) but I have yet to see an increase in real graduate jobs. Admin jobs that ten years ago anyone could apply for now say degree desirable or essential. The work hasn't changed. There was a survey that said around a 1/3 of graduates were doing low paid unskilled work after graduation - if they were working at all.

I don't know that I would say University is a waste of time for most of the people who go there but I would say a good proportion - if there intention is to go there to increase job prospects. If all they want to do is to learn then I don't think that is a waste of time.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

I agree. We should stop studying women and brown-skinned people.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Still in Texas?

(my non-sequiters are not as good as yours, but I'm trying)

Actually my new goal in life to become the wit you are....I figure I'm half way there ;)

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

This friday I'll be writing my long overdue Interprovincial Plumbing ticket (IP) for plumbing/gas. It's my license to be really dangerous.

There are way too many University grads, and certainly not enough jobs. It seems a Bachelors degree is about as useful as that High School diploma. Both were coveted by our parents generation, but they are now so common they've lost any prestige.

Congrats

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I am your parents generation :D

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

personally I think people should go to college because it shows an individual a more realistic picture of the outside world. Yeah yeah I know BUSINESS world isn't like ACADEMIA but there's a lot more to college than academia just as there's more to the grown-up world than business.

I don't think we need to be harping on how vital college education is to each and every person... I also think we need to get back to the notion that college is for broadening your education and thinking skills. People need to understand the purpose of college is to learn, not get job skills. Some employment positions are better for learned people, plenty aren't. These days, its nearly a non-connection.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

How absurd to claim that something may be of value, despite the fact that it is not easily monetized. You must be a communist.

[paft.livejournal.com]

You're assuming here that the sole purpose of getting a college degree is professional training. It isn't. A college degree, even in a field like ethnic studies or history, requires training in discipline, research, and communication. It often leaves the student with an intellectual rigor and an understanding of how ideas are communicated and defended. Those are valuable skills.

I have a BA in English and a graduate degree in creative writing. All my adult life I've been hearing jokes about the uselessness of studying English, but you know what? I've not spent my working life flipping burgers.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, the market for simple declarative sentences is at least partially governed by the basic principles of supply and demand. So I'm not sure there has ever been a better time, economically speaking, to be a competent writer.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

the funniest part is you thinking a person can be on welfare while going to community college. Newsflash; if you're in college you will not be approved for "free money" social programs. Including disability.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Uh no, that tag was a snark comment based on the observation that so many people can not fill out a simple form correctly.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Nice chip. Can I make some cookies?

Seriously?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

The strange thing is that I honestly thought I would get less than 20 comments on this. It was more of a set up for a post airiefairie suggested I make. My second thoughts have become third or fouth thoughts now :D

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to imagine modern capitalism without the system of credentials and associations which work to ensure that your doctor isn't pouring mercury into your veins.

Hmm...

No, I'll take the over-bloated academia any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

See, I want to work in mental health in some capacity. So how do I go about doing that? Well, I need to learn about mental health. So I go to the local University and say, "Please can I has education?" And they say, "Ok!" And then I go to this building, and in this building is a collection of books, and in these books are the experiences, knowledges and wisdoms of mental health practitioners throughout the ages. And I read these books full of knolwedges and wisdoms, and I say, "Now I know a little more than I did before!" And the professor says, "YAY! HAS A COOKIE!" And then some years pass and I go to another building with sick people and I say, "Can I has job?" And they say, "You go college?" And I say, "WHY YES!" And they say, "Ok, you go jail?" And I say, "NO! NEVER!" And they say, "AWESOME!"

It's really a complicated thing.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Will your clinical techniques with patients include making fun of things they will say to you?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A college education is not meant to be Vo-tech or a little business-man factory churning out the jackets. A liberal education (lol that sounds so bad now but the term comes from the Middle Ages and Latin which meant "free" versus artes illiberales which were studies undertaken specifically for job related / economic reasons) was meant to broaden your horizons beyond the mere constraints of any specific job.

[College] education is a liberal education — that is, an education conducted in a spirit of free inquiry undertaken without concern for topical relevance or vocational utility. This kind of learning is not only one of the enrichments of existence; it is one of the achievements of civilization. It heightens students' awareness of the human and natural worlds they inhabit. It makes them more reflective about their beliefs and choices, more self-conscious and critical of their presuppositions and motivations, more creative in their problem-solving, more perceptive of the world around them, and more able to inform themselves about the issues that arise in their lives, personally, professionally, and socially. College is an opportunity to learn and reflect in an environment free from most of the constraints on time and energy that operate in the rest of life.

A liberal education is also a preparation for the rest of life. The subjects that undergraduates study and, as importantly, the skills and habits of mind they acquire in the process, shape the lives they will lead after they leave the academy. Some of our students will go on to become academics; many will become physicians, lawyers, and businesspeople. All of them will be citizens, whether of the United States or another country, and as such will be helping to make decisions that may affect the lives of others. All of them will engage with forces of change — cultural, religious, political, demographic, technological, planetary. All of them will have to assess empirical claims, interpret cultural expressions, and confront ethical dilemmas in their personal and professional lives. A liberal education gives students the tools to face these challenges in an informed and thoughtful way.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I have no problems at all with this ;) (I should have just said a liberal arts education to begin with and saved myself a lot of grief)

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I know, weird huh!!!
I would have been better served spending the morning working in my yard or reading a good book (or even a bad one).
It's a good thing I'm not as thin skinned as you are3 or I would be really depressed about now ;)

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Personally, I didn't get much from my college experience. I consider it a waste of time and money. I was already ahead of the curve in my field of study, and could have gotten a good job without my degree. I also think many smaller colleges, which are for-profit, do the bare minimum to meet accreditation standards and consider education to be secondary. Again, that's just my experience.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

A college degree is almost necessary for any job that earns you a living wage in the United States. This is what the employers have decided, because why settle for high school graduates or GEDs when there are PLENTY of college graduates lining up to take your job?

This is not going to change. It's only going to get worse and worse, as more people expect kids to receive more education. So, I would call it a necessity of life.

That said, the current private college model is corrupt. The student loan industry is a complete rip-off, I would put it on the scale of mortgages to people who clearly can't afford them. I don't think the level of education has gotten worse per se, but it certainly feels that students are getting less for more.

My solution would be to do what other countries have done: Nationalize it! The government already funds primary education; they should fund secondary as well. College shouldn't be a privilege that can only be afforded by the rich and people willing to put themselves into mountains of debt, or those that actually go that extra mile and work a job while in school (these people are heroes, but they shouldn't be the norm. Hell, I would call this slave labor).

Other counties have declared education, as well as health care, as a right. They have managed to reduce costs for everyone across the board, and their educational facilities are still fantastic.

It's a FACT that you need a college degree to earn a living wage in this country. There are exceptions, but they do not make the rule. The for-profit model has failed us, let's try something that's demonstratively proven to work in other countries.

I know a woman...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... who gets paid $200 for each hair cut she does. I also know some plumbers who take home more than lawyers. The need for a college degree for a living wage is overblown.

The folks who promote equity...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

One of the things that we have to deal with in secondary education is the mindset that every child should have the opportunity to go to college. A healthy economy requires people in a variety of roles that do not require a college degree. America has become much like Iraq or Egypt with a boatload of unemployed college grads. If more of those people pursued a technical education instead of an academic one, we would probably all be better off.

Re: The folks who promote equity...

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

And this is where Community Colleges ARE a necessity, and Adult Education centers even moreso.

[jaye-elle.livejournal.com]

I agree with the OP - it is way too hard to get a job in Australia with a grad degree. The only guaranteed jobs are teaching/nursing. I've got an undergrad degree and I still work at my local hospital in admin because its a safe job. It sucks but it's a reliable, steady income. I don't want to risk losing it.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

1. Universities are not intended to be vocational schools. The traditional ideal of a university education has been to develop people that are educated in the old-fashioned sense of the term: i.e. skills in critical thinking, independence of thought, confidence in confronting new problems, ability to acquire new knowledge as needed, general knowledge about the world, etc.

2. This isn't to say that this idea of a "liberal" education is irrelevant to vocational training. Having an arts degree is often the ideal background for getting jobs in middle management and the public service. It's also the ideal background for getting into the trades dominated by professional schools, most notably law and medicine.

3. The "plethora of degrees" you mention hasn't arisen through this distinction between vocational and liberal education, but rather because (i) education has become a commodity, and this is a way to market the commodity to more people, and (ii) classes have become so overcrowded that there's a lot to be gained from shuffling people out of the core classes of a general arts curriculum and into more specialized courses.

Between the demands for vocational training and the demands for education to be a commodity, the original ideal of a liberal education gets squeezed out, and you can see this in the much publicized death of things like "great books" and "humanities" programs.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!

[usekh.livejournal.com]

The problem is that folks like you do not seem to value learning for its own sake. To be fair this seems to have become societies default position, that a degree is useless unless it leads directly to a job.

We study things to understand society, or at least we should. Not because we get a fat paycheque at the end of the week.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

I sort of agree with you, and I am someone that is taking out loans for graduate school at the moment.

However, I think I agree for different reasons than you give. There is now the expectation that four-year universities should be primarily job training. I would argue the exact opposite, that a BA / BS should give you a broad-based background as a thinker and give you the ability to learn later in life. Reducing undergraduate higher education to job training robs it of its real value. The reason that it is a waste of time for most people is not that it doesn't translate directly into the job market, but that so many people expect that it does, and try to make it do so, and thereby lose some of the intangible but important value of the experience.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That seemed to me to be what he was saying, actually.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Under communism, there was a proverb here:

"Ma says go study, my child, so you don't go working".

:-)

Things have changed a bit since then...

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Going to college isn't about getting a specific job; it's about learning the skills you need to do any job.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

and anti-intellectualism is really depressing.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

I do believe Community Colleges are a good thing. It can give people the opportunity to learn how to do things they didn't learn in High School; like how to read, write, and fill out welfare forms.
Gee, you really know a lot about college, don't you? Have you ever attended one for any length of time?

Believe it or not, a lot of people go to community colleges for the first two years because they can't afford all four years of college elsewhere. They take courses that can be transferred to a four year college and then complete their degree at one. And most people work while they're attending college, so it's not as though they're not also a part of "the real world," gaining the same working experience they'd gain if they didn't attend college.

Aside from the fact that a college degree adds up to almost twice as much money in the course of one's lifetime than a high school diploma, it also says a lot about who you are as a person. It shows employers that you have the discipline to make a plan and follow through with it, that you believe in improving yourself, and that you have the ambition and the will to improve yourself. Time in the military is also valued for showing discipline and follow-through, but is more valued when it also includes a college education.

In today's economy, where it's clearly an employer's market, I guarantee you that if a person with only a high school diploma goes up against someone with a college degree, both people having the same working skills and experience, the person with the college degree will get the job nine times out of 10 for just these reasons. And that includes construction.

College offers further value in that it exposes one to different ideas and ways of thinking, so that one has a far greater range of choices to make about how he or she sees the world and approaches it, rather than blindly following the beliefs of their parents. And yes, this does include political beliefs and no, college is not an indoctrination center for the left wing. If it were, the right wing would not have nearly as much power and influence as it has in government on all levels, business, and the judiciary. Obviously, despite exposure to so many evil liberals, quite a few people make the choice to be conservative.

College also teaches one to explore a variety of media for information, rather than simply relying on Fox News, which in polls has consistently proved to produce the most misinformed people in the populace.

Now the right wing would prefer that people not attend college, because it does open you up to different possibilities in life, and the last thing they want is for hardworking Americans to realize just how much they're being screwed over by the true elite: the wealthy who own and run the corporations and buy the politicians. That's why they're so clever in playing on the fears and bigotries of the uneducated. They know that if they do so, they can easily get them to vote against their own best interests and in favor of the rich.

How else to you think the GOP got so many working Americans worked up over taxes on people who earn $250K+, an annual income none of them will ever make in their lifetimes? Because those people chose to be uneducated and ill-informed.

[737-700.livejournal.com]

"I do believe Community Colleges are a good thing. It can give people the opportunity to learn how to do things they didn't learn in High School; like how to read, write, and fill out welfare forms."

Or to become a nurse, paramedic, welder, electrician, plumbing, and many other trades.

Some of the offerings at the local community colleges I have attended.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I realy need an editor, that really should have been not just two separate sentences, but two separate thoughts.
I went to Jr. college, all three of my boys went to Jr College (they home schooled) The oldest and Youngest went so they could get into a 4 year college. My middle son only went one semester, to facilitate getting his contractors license.
There is an awesome adult school which is (I believe) part of one of the "local" JCs that offers every trade you can think of.
Thru out this post I have offered apologies, I'm thinking this is the last one :D