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Good article asking a very important question about College...
- Thread starter Sackalot
- Start date
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Every prospective student, every parent of a prospective student should read this article. Not because it's the last and only true word on the subject, but because it raises questions and makes a case that students and parents rarely hear.
Having said that, there is a problem as the article points out but fails to avoid itself of judging education on a totally materialistic, investment dollars scale. Personal note: I taught high school fifty years ago. I remember going in to the guidance counselor's office and complaining about a large poster he put up in the hall equating years of education with dollars earned over a lifetime. Such equivalencies are misleading at best and lies at worst. If education is only about dollars, only about buying power, only about my house/car/pedigree dog is worth more than yours, then you don't have a real education, you have spent four years becoming a keep up and surpass the Jones shopper.
There should be alternatives to the traditional college education. A few are mentioned in the article. Another alternative is to delay college for most students. Work experience and saving for something can make an education much more meaningful when it is entered into. But NOT the job hopping we see among so many young people. One minimum wage job after another does not teach responsibility or skills.
Here's an article and chart that appeared in the NYTs today related to this topic.
Go Here for Chart
Go Here for Chart
One statistic that stands out in the article is proof enough for me.From 1992 to 2008 Bachelor degrees went up by 50% but 60% of those people wree working jobs that traditionally didn't require a degree.That tells me that either a lot of people are getting useless degrees or they are poor students who got nothing from college but a piece of paper.I believe that we are sending a lot of marginal students down a path that is doing them no favors at all.The idea that a 4 year degree is the be all and end all to a great career and life is misleading at best.Other options should be readily available from a young age for those who want them.The idea that everyone is equal if they work hard and go to college is doing a disservice to society.Everyone can't be a doctor just by working hard and it's the same with other professions.Hopefully this thinking will change in the near future.
By and large, there are tens of thousands of folks with degrees; undergrad and grad working in fields that truly do not require it BUT for several decades, our HS education has plateaued or decreased, our pool of jobs for skilled workers has decreased, (~12 million manufacturing jobs to OTHER countries) while our pool of workers has increased; the solution? Get a degree.
Colleges can't justify the increadible increases in the cost of a degree; it's not only surpassed inflation, it's flat LAPPED it several times over.
The majority of those kids bellyaching about "debt saddlement" likely OVERPAID for their undergrad at a time of the Great Recession.
I guess I should feel sorry for them but it's tough to do so; IF you wish an Ivy League degree or 'near Ivy League' (Standford, Colgate, Rice, Duke, Northwestern, etc, etc, etc) than pay for it and consider yourself educated while you contemplate the lint in your navel...
Education for self improvement is a wonderful thing; it occurs over a lifetime, in all honesty, a college or professor need not be involved in it.
Education is also a tool. A tool to provide a better life for yourself, and your family; SOME feel that's determined by "wanton consumption" of stuff.
I consider money to be a matter of security. Money ALLOWS me the FREEDOM to pursue options. Money allows me the SECURITY to provide for myself and others; if I CHOOSE to consume, that's MY choice as well.
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I think this is very important statistical and supporting information about Colleges. I remember Dr. Moore saying when I was a Freshman, that 7 percent of all people in the United States will have degrees when you graduate. That number is not even close now...I have seen 3 different numbers out there, but the average of them says that approx. 15% now have 4 year college degrees (and lets be honest, that includes Univ. of Phoenix and those others BS schools too). It is this simple, when you double the number of "educated" people...well you are not going to have enough jobs to support that. Simple as that...
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Perhaps not too far off topic: "Does It Pay to Become a Teacher?"
It seems we Americans would just as soon ignore cross national comparisons of everything from infant mortality rates to vacation days (with the exception of the really, really important stuff, like number of medals won the in the Olympic Games). But I'll throw this article out for discussion because so many people seem to think teachers and artists are supposed to work for peanuts and pay the rent, food bill and car payment with something called "job satisfaction" and a pat on the head from students twenty years after they graduate and the public when they bother to go to a free concert in the park.
It seems we Americans would just as soon ignore cross national comparisons of everything from infant mortality rates to vacation days (with the exception of the really, really important stuff, like number of medals won the in the Olympic Games). But I'll throw this article out for discussion because so many people seem to think teachers and artists are supposed to work for peanuts and pay the rent, food bill and car payment with something called "job satisfaction" and a pat on the head from students twenty years after they graduate and the public when they bother to go to a free concert in the park.