Do We Need — or Want — More Students in College?
Does the "Paper Chase" pay off, rewarding most college students with a large lifetime earnings premium?
Americans have been so busy fighting against President Obama’s great, Red Army-type offensives on health care “reform,” the federalization of big chunks of the economy, and spending that will bury us under an avalanche of debt that his educational plans have drawn relatively little attention. Since higher education is my main policy domain, I have been watching that front.
In February of last year, Obama announced that the nation was not doing well enough in getting young people into and through college. He told Americans that they’d be letting the country down if they stopped their education after high school and announced a national goal of having the highest percentage of college-educated workers in the world by 2020.
That sounds good. Having the best-educated workforce will certainly help to keep our economy strong in the face of international competition, won’t it?
Most people would probably nod in approval, but I see Obama’s higher education initiative as an economically harmful Trojan Horse meant to accomplish his real objectives: assisting one of his most loyal support groups, and luring more young Americans into the overwhelmingly leftist, collectivistic college environment, which tends to draw impressionable people towards the left end of the political spectrum.
What about the notion that the nation’s economy needs more college graduates? Those who want to justify an expansion of our higher education system (that is, subsidizing some students who wouldn’t otherwise have gone to college so that they will) often say that we’re falling behind other nations in our “educational attainment.” They say that unless we get more young Americans through college, for the first time we’ll have a generation that is “less well educated” than the previous generation. They say that college graduates enjoy a large lifetime earnings premium. And they say that nearly all good jobs now require a college degree.
All those arguments are either false or irrelevant.
I was recently in a debate at the National Press Club on the subject of the economics of expanding higher education. Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder and I argued against the idea that American economic strength will wane unless we manage to get more young people through college. You can watch the debate here. In total, it’s about an hour and a half, but I’ll summarize our demolition of the affirmative case for those of you who don’t have time for the whole thing.
First, we showed that the U.S. already has a large surplus of college graduates, many of them employed in jobs that don’t call for any academic training whatsoever. (I have little use for most federal statistics, but here the data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is very enlightening.)
We showed that for most people, there is very little connection between college coursework and the knowledge and skills needed for their jobs.
We showed that because we have so over-expanded higher education over the years, we have driven academic standards down to the point where many students enter college with weak skills and often graduate with no improvement in them.
Page 1 of 2 Next -> View as Single Page
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
Too many people go to college in this country as it is. People graduate knowing less than when they start, I have no doubt. To tell people they have a “right” to do that (as long as they believe leftist garbage, “hook-up” like mad fools and be totally dependent idiots) is inane.
Even if upping college graduates is a bad idea, on an individual basis it is still a good idea if it is required for application to inapplicable jobs. Also, the main reason it is a requirement is to show that the applicant can supposedly delay gratification and has discipline to complete a huge project when easier alternatives exist.
In the past this was usually a good bet on the employer’s part. Not so much now.
College has become nothing more than Communist indoctrination; it is even infecting the sciences in areas such as genetics research and climatology.
Frankly, if you are not planning on studying a profession (medicine/nursing, accounting/business, engineering, IT, etc.), it is probably better for your mind if you skip the whole college thing and learn a trade.
Colleges: most get federal and state funding.
College tuitions: gone up by twice the rate of inflation because government subsidizes it through guaranteed loans
Professors: most get tenured and end up writing books rather than teaching; then retiring on rich pensions
Students: many get loans which, under Obama, will become another large government agency like Freddie or Fannie.
Tertiary bottom line: more students equals more professors charging more money paid for and underwritten by the government.
Secondary bottom line: more students equals bigger government.
Primary bottom line: government is too big already. We don’t need more students.
Personally, when my A/C breaks in August on the Texas coast, I don’t care if the guy who comes to fix it has a college degree, or even a HS diploma. As long as he gets the job done.
We are falling behind greatly in the trades.
If the government subsidizes a thing we will get more of it than the market would otherwise produce. QED we have an oversupply of subsidized college graduates.
What we do need is to take our high schools and junior colleges and improve their capability to produce vocationally trained students. When I graduated from high school (back in the stone ages) I had been trained in auto mechanics, welding, surveying, heavy equipment operation and horticulture. And I was headed for university – and having those skills got me the summer jobs that made it possible for a guy whose father died when he was 12, to afford going to college.
Putting a bounty on illegal aliens (and the people who hire them) will open up the bottom end of the job market. In the middle market we need to be taking the shackles off American manufacturing be they financial, regulatory or “environmental.” Much of what we buy from overseas we can make for ourselves, and we don’t need trade barriers to make this happen. Ditto energy production.
Memo for pols next fall, as the “snakehead” once said – “Its the economy, stupid.”
There are real college degrees that teach valuable skills – Mathematics, Sciences, Engineering, Business / Accounting. These people actually have a chance to earn more than the average trade school grad within a decade.
Then there are Liberal Arts degrees (Art History, Political Science, etc…) which are of far less value unless the student plans to go on to a graduate school.
Finally there are pseudo degrees that are absolute nonsense – Sociology, Minority Studies – that literally strip students of the ability to use logic and reasoning.
I’m not sure it’s worth the $150k to send my kids to prestigious university. I could buy them a few business classes at a community college and a Dominos or Burger King franchise for the same money.
“Do we need more students in college? Clearly, no. Do we want more students in college? Just as clearly, no.”
Somebody is obviously overlooking the cruel fact that Griggs vs. Duke Power remains the law of the land. This absurd and incredibly destructive 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision, on a practical level, forced employers to rely almost solely on credentials. Testing job applicants to determine their knowledge level opened the company to countless civil right lawsuits. Many blacks and other minorities could not pass the typical tests—and therefore the justices determined them to be too often biased and unfair. Employers were placed in the awkward position of proving their innocence. The deck was stacked against them. Countless Americans are presently forced to attend college to obtain a degree. Nothing will change until Griggs vs. Duke Power is reversed.
“the main reason it is a requirement is to show that the applicant can supposedly delay gratification”
In theory. In practice, it’s often just an excuse to delay adulthood and extend irresponsible adolescence for another four years or more.
Robert Heinlein saw this problem forty or fifty years ago. His interesting proposed solution was to forbid the admission of any student who hadn’t spent four or five years working full-time after high school.
If your goal is to have “well educated” grocery baggers, this is the way to accomplish it.
We need a non-college alternative to trades that focuses on practical learning and has none of the indoctrination.
Even if I could afford it, my son is not gonna get his college tuition paid by me unless he works part-time or gets a scholarship or gets it paid mostly by the military if he joins.
In the military, you learn some discipline, can get a degree and not have to pay $50k per year to get it. AND, you get to know how to use, clean, maintain weapons.
I hope the Marines though are not as politically correct as the Army, and that they still teach martial skills and not social awareness.
Unless you have a specialty degree like nursing, engineering, or similar, college is irrelevant. Most graduates end up doing a general office job unrelated to their degree that the employer had to train them for anyway. Of all the people I’ve met with psychology degrees, only one was working in the field. If that’s the end result, what’s the point? Let’s face it, most people go to college to get trained in a profession, not to become well rounded individuals.
We obviously need more engineers and more plumbers and less psychologists. You’ll make more as a plumber than you will with as liberal arts major handling office accounts.
One third of college students drop out. They either decided it wasn’t relevant to what they wanted to do in life or were pressured into going. We need to stop making college a life requirement and get more realistic about the skills this country needs. If the government needs to fund colleges at all, it should only be subsidizing what is needed.
our K-12 system is largely dysfunctional for poorer and minority children.
The lack of two parent families among this demographic is probably more to blame than the K-12 system. There’s not much a school can do if the support structure at home is weak or non-existent.
As one who recently left corporate America after twenty years to chase of dream of becoming a doctor, I have come to this startling conclusion after receiving four different degrees, with fields spanning engineering, to chemistry, to MBA, to biology.
Beatle Juice in #5 is absolutely correct. There is nothing more overrated than higher education, and come this summer I would happily trade one of my “high powered” degrees to better understand how to fix my air conditioner.
Why go to med school and becoming a family practice doc with the hassle of Medicare looming, when the plumber makes more and works better hours?
It is pretty simple.
Obamaland is trying dutifully to completely take over the college loan business.
More students in college mean more loans are taken out.
More loans mean more interest money coming in to the Bank of ObamaLand.
See. It is simple.
And a plumber can work for cash or barter when taxes go up even higher.
More trade schools are needed. Not just post high school but in high schools also.
It would also help if employers didn’t demand 4 year degrees to be a low level entry position like a secretary.
When I went through my undergrad degree program through an adult college program (one night a week for a year), I sat next to the “Bong Sisters”. Nice ladies, and I applaud their wanting to improve their life and be able to get better employment, but both of them were performing at an elementary school level, and since the emphasis was on teaming, we had to drag them along all year. They graduated and earned the same degree I did.(that made me think about how much the degree was actually worth)- They will never be able to perform at any level requiring any degree of analysis, independant operations or leadership, which is what I thought college was all about. If everyone can get to college and earn an undergrad degree, then soon, it will be as meaningless as a high school diploma. Then the graduate degree will be the discriminator. Let’s do something hard and put standards back in education and make the degrees mean something.
I wish I had the power to expel every student that saunters in late to my classroom without his book. This is mostly what we get at community colleges, on our dime.
IMHO we need a general moratorium on tax payer money going to subsidize 99% of liberal arts degrees -Until we have a near term (8 year) study of which degrees are actually paying for themselves.
All of that money can be shifted to math, science, engineering or towards people getting real world certifications, i.e. CCNA, MCSE, Red Hat etc.
It think it’s great that people want to get creative writing and philosophy degrees, I just know for a fact that 99% of them do not pay for themselves over the near or long term.
announced a national goal of having the highest percentage of college-educated workers in the world by 2020.
Didn’t we just try to do that with home ownership?
I think higher education is over-rated. I’m an English major who would prefer more classes on writing skills over learning about some dead author from the Victorian Era and what their stories mean to us 100+ years later. I’m irritated by the fact that in order to prove I’m smart and capable, I have to go spend thousands of dollars to get a piece of paper that everyone has to get, and because of that, degrees are pretty worthless, in my opinion. But, I’m also one of those people who don’t test very well, so maybe I’m just biased.
what we human thought divide as a sign will do 100 years after construction of pyramid of Egypt will do as they think became failure because the creator came to those people and ordered them they have sacrificed to design it but obedient is better that what they thought it will do was triangle symbol will do it.The creator ordered them that 500 years coming they will use divide sign to do the initial thing they desired triangle will do when they were admonished and corrected immediately he answered them 100 years back when he visited them.
Communism, American-style. In other countries, they throw you into re-education camps… at their own expense. Here, we get you you to pay for it. It’s like the Chinese billing the family for the bullet. We do it full-out, $60k+ debt. America Rulz!
#20 baal – Creative writing courses are valuable. Writers create valuable products. It would be nice if people took them, just so they could be better even at writing… oh, I don’t know… software manuals? Of course, most great writers just write. They are not schooled. Heinlein was one. It is nice to have some training in the formatting and styles, though.
#19 Mary Grabar – You do have that power. Let them know they get a failing grade for being late and having no book. They’ll leave on their own.
#22 Cliff – You are an English major. You don’t test well. That was redundant. Just sayin’. However, you’re right that they should spend more time on technique than on “the meaning”.
#14 Tex Taylor – Don’t become a doctor. Become a medical researcher. Sounds like you have all the right mix of skills – a wide variety of knowledge and disciplines will enable you to reach solutions that others more specialized will miss.
Overall, I think we need to subsidize college, but only for the wealth-creating fields. That rule alone will kill every humanities course. How do you define it? Easy. 85% of grads don’t work in their fields of study. Those fields which have a different result get the funding. (If you study engineering, you generally end up working as an engineer.)
Side note: if 85% of grads don’t work in their fields, but engineers, et al… do, then that means the number is even worse for the humanities. What kind of job do Black Studies grads do? No jobs? Welfare offices? (I know, I know… RAAAACISSST!)
Every psych major I’ve ever known was some messed up kid wanting to help others in some I’m-not-the-one-with-the-problem thinking.
When you wipe out the worthless degrees, then college becomes meaningful, and the deadwood will all drop out.
Just a bunch of random thoughts. Sorry. Not enough sleep.
Colleges have been taking credit for the intelligence of their students. The very intelligent will earn above avreage incomes with or without a BA. Those who seek to expand access to higher education beyond its already inflated enrollments are engaging in the fallacy that higher education makes people smarter. Charles M
Colleges have been taking credit for the intelligence of their students. The very intelligent will earn above avreage incomes with or without a BA. Those who seek to expand access to higher education beyond its already inflated enrollments are engaging in the fallacy that higher education makes people smarter. Charles M
24. The humanities departments will survive, but that will be because the Universities will subsidize them with tuition paid by science and engineering departments. As for the Black Studies major, the only place to get a job in Black Studies is that same University (first as a teaching assistant, then as a professor).
Colleges have been taking credit for the intelligence of their students. The very intelligent will earn above avreage incomes with or without a BA. Those who seek to expand access to higher education beyond its already inflated enrollments are engaging in the fallacy that higher education makes people smarter. Charles Murray of the AEI has addressed this issue in detail. He argues that no more than 20%, and probably closer to 10% of the population can really make use of a higher education.
I was one of those college grads who could have found the jobs I worked without ever going to college. I am encouraging my children to consider careers in trades for the same reasons that so many have mentioned. I would also rather invest money into a business they would own rather than college tution. The only winners I see in this current system are the colleges and those who benefit from the increase in students paying tution.
We now have such a wide net of community colleges, and online studies are becoming increasingly available. Students who aren’t sure about college or don’t know what they want to do should be able to work after high school, knowing that there are open doors for them when they feel a need for more education. This could be career related or it could simply be an area they later discover an interest in. Someone who gets turned on to Greek history from reading VDH columns can now pursue that interest without having to quit a job and enroll in a top-tier university. A carpenter may want to learn mor about architectural history and will likely be a more critical student than the average 20 year old. With today’s options, it makes no sense to insist that one size must fit all.
The push for college degrees is nonsense. The improvement needs to be in lower education. Of what value is a high school diploma? The liberal education system have devalued a HS diploma to the point one needs to attend an undergraduate school to get a high school education. A high school diploma should be an indication that one is educable. Anymore, it’s not. It’s barely an indication that an individual has consistent attendance. The sad thing is that those students who work hard and take their high school education seriously are simply lumped in with the dolts that are merely passing time. On occasion, I’ve had to opportunity to work with individuals having education levels varying from GEDs to PhDs. Often the guy with the GED came up with a more competent solution to a problem than the guy with the PhD. Far too often intelligence is equated with education. It’s simply not. Intelligence and common sense are traits one is born with. It doesn’t always require an advance degree to make use of them. There’s too many people who have yet to learn that and obviously their leader temporarily resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C.
Yeah, articles like this really help to debunk the popular conception of conservatives as being anti-education and anti-intellectual. A college diploma is almost as essential today as a high school diploma was 40 years ago, but because you don’t like the perceived political slant of the higher education system, you suggest that more people should simply blow off college, so they can instead acquire gainful employment as trash collectors, fast food restaurant assistant managers, resentful conservative bloggers, and other illustrious careers that are open to those lacking at least a BA. Is it true that some people can do quite well for themselves without a college education? Of course, but it’s equally as true that some people can do quite well for themselves without even graduating from high school. Does that mean it’s recommendable that college (or high school) is avoided? Of course not, for any rational person. Why would you want to risk being unable to find a good job by refusing to attend a simple four years of college just to make an anti-establishment, anti-intellectual political statement? And what’s more, a good education at a state university is becoming increasingly more affordable over time, so not only are you putting yourself at a disadvantage in the job market, but you’re only saving a fairly small amount of money in the long term. What I find especially incredible about your article is that you could write it, while openly conceding within that many employers do demand at least a bachelor’s degree to even consider granting employment.
I believe that there is an evolution going on in college education. Between liberal-leaning curriculum, costs and the over-rated Ivy league schools, I truly think that families will reconsider what post-secondary education will mean. I think community colleges, business schools and vocational technical schools will see a booming interest. American colleges and universities that wish to thrive will need to listen to it’s potential students and their families. Cut back on sports programs and offer only academic courses that offer real value to a graduate. Stop creating ridiculous courses just to give busy work to tenured professors.
Let’s stipulate some facts – while many college and university faculty are left-leaning, and some are radical, it is not a universal trait. There are also schools that are rather conservative in their overall outlook – most of the Christian colleges, former all-military academies such as Texas A&M, etc. So let’s not paint with too broad a brush.
Here’s another fact – most newly graduating students will have several careers during their working life, and probably a dozen different jobs. The odds are that job they will be doing ten years from now does not exist today.
Educator David Warlick notes, “We are the first generation in history who knows that we have to prepare our students for a world that we know we cannot imagine.” Yes, we’ll need plumbers and electricians. But we’ll also need scientists and engineers to find solutions to problems that don’t exist yet, and that we can’t predict. In doing so, they will interact with colleagues from around the world.
And that is why the liberal arts so denigrated by some posters here are so vitally important. They teach students about human nature, about human society, about human creativity. They teach students how to learn actively, to think critically and logically, how to use information resources wisely, how to communicate effectively, and how to work with people from all sorts of different backgrounds.
You won’t learn those 21st-century in a trade school.
I say these not as some high-minded theorist. I’m the son of an engineer. I studied engineering at an R1 university until the bottom dropped out of the industry I was preparing to join. I finished my degree in Education because it was the fastest route out. I went back for my Master’s because it was a ticket to something beyond the local school district. Even then I had a very mechanistic view of the educational process. I laughed at the “social constructivist” folks. But the information revolution changed my thinking. Wikipedia is Exhibit A in support of the notion of “socially generated and negotiated knowledge.”
I work at a community college, teaching the faculty how to effectively use technology to teach better and more effectively. The specific technology skills are transient, because there will always be something new coming along. What’s really important is becoming a lifelong learner.
Some people are natural learners. Most, I suspect, have the natural human drive to learn crushed by our K12 school system and its overreliance on standardized tests. College – especially community college – teaches them that they can indeed succeed at learning – and that opens the door to success in life.
What a warped article. I suppose the argument makes sense if you believe abandoning higher ed to the Commies is the right way to go, if you have an anti-intellectual streak and believe that education is only necessary if it leads to a job and money. I have problems with all three arguments.
First, you get what you deserve when you withdrawal from any social arena, because then you allow the people you oppose to take over. It’s amazing what has happened to Amnesty International, for example, because people aren’t interested or don’t want to get involved. It used to mean something, but now it’s just morally crashing and betraying the ideals it once stood for. You know, universities were founded by people with ideals who valued “book learning”, often by Christian organizations, here and throughout Europe.
As for the anti-intellectualism that says if you don’t need it for your job, you don’t need to know it, I have to say I resent the idea that I should have no intellectual life, no interests, beyond some job that requires no thinking or training. A person is more than their d*** job. Besides being an insult, in families like mine, illiteracy was considered an ideal for women, so is that what you want to go back to? As a woman, I feel privileged to be in one of the rare places and times in world history where I can cultivate my mind and have such opportunities. What a shame if you don’t value the ones you take for granted.
The only reason I’m not working in a job related to my major is because I had a professor/department who took it upon themselves to train us as if we would never use the degree after graduation, and my fellow students and I had no idea that was what they planned and genuinely hoped to work in the field. After graduation, we were left to flounder with no guidance or university accountability.
So please reconsider your position.
God Bless the writer of this article, there are many jobs out there I know I can do but am never given a chance because I don’t have a college degree. I chose not to go to college, instead I joined the military and served honorably for 4 years, it seems to me that ought to count for as much or more than a B.A. in Liberal Arts.
Standard distribution of IQ in our population shows that 50% of people have IQs below 100, and 50% at 100 or above.
It takes an IQ of between 110-115 to successfully complete a rigorous college degree program that has any real meat in it – that requires thought, analysis, competency and hard work.
Thus at most only about the top 25% – 30% max of high school students should even be attempting college; the others are set to fail or to get a meaningless “degree’ as they get passed along from course to course – and they likely were passed along in elementary and secondary schools up to that point.
Anything greater than these numbers is meaningless social engineering that sets up students to fail, destroys and depletes the resources of families and society in the futile quest for the degree, and leaves these students poorer and embittered – whether or not they obtain the degree.
Vocational training, competency tests (banned by 1971 Duke case), and other solutions that match people to jobs and career fields where they can succeed would be far more benficial to society in the long run, even if not politically correct.
Personally I think the High schools need to be updated to the point where the final year is 2 tracks prep for Collage if you intend to go or Prep for life if yu dont , meaning how to maintain your credit, pay your bills , interveiw for a job and find the job or trade you want and training to help get you there. Banking,home finances, things we all deal with and what most of us really screw up at first.in other words training for real life.
Mr_B;
You sound like a guy who thinks everyone should go to college, regardless of their ability. I hope you’re making plans to deal with your own trash when that day comes.
There’s a good speech done by the Mike Rowe (the Dirty Jobs guy) at some conference. He points out we have declining infrastructure and declining vocational school enrollments and wonders if there’s a connection.
People are told they’re stupid if they don’t go to college. People like Mr. Leef’s opponents probably feel that people that don’t are beneath them. More people should go! More people should shell out lots and lots of money!
Yeah, but then who the heck builds roads, wires houses, keeps our infrastructure in good condition, does basic plumbing etc.? I know that shipyard unions are starting to really worry because their members are averaging age 50 and they can’t new people to do the job. Despite the fact apprentices start at something like $18 an hour. And an experienced certified welder can get declared ‘rich’ by the current administration.
Here’s another example. Kid at my mom’s high school did his regular work in the morning and then went off to the local VoTech to learn to be an electrician. A few days after graduating high school he was with the local union making $25 an hour. That’s about as much as I, a couple years out of college, make. And I have a pile of debt. To the “everybody should go to college!!!” crowd that kid’s a loser. Somehow. Because he doesn’t have a BS/BA.
Pretty sure he’s smarter than me.
Ok, I generally love this site, but the comments here are a joke. Yes, we send too many students to college. Yes, that is the result of degree inflation. However, the reasoning I’m seeing here is terrible.
First off, humanities has a very important place. (Disclosure I’m a Spanish Professor) It is humanities that teach students how to reason and think, that provides the background knowledge to understand the world around them and how to speak and write well.
Now, it is clear there is a left wing bias in the university, but it is not communist (let’s be accurate) and it is LESS so than in previous years. As the 60’s radicals retire the academy is moving to the right. Furthermore, it is the humanities that forges the ideas that create the world we live in. Where do you think we get the post-structuralist world in which we live? Thank Derrida and friends.
The trades are vital and most students are happy there, but there is value in understanding the world beyond the medical field etc.
I agree that the root problem is a K-12 system that rewards participation and doesn’t demand performance. We find ourselves teaching kids that can’t write a decent paragraph, know no history and are unprepared for life. The other big problem is that we encourage everyone to go to college. There are plenty of students who would do better with a technical teaching and off you go. Not everyone needs to be able to discuss Shakespeare, but saying it is of no value is foolish and leads to a lack of perspective and understanding of humanity that is dangerous for the long term prosperity of our nation.
I’m seeing plenty of comments referring to the value of a STEM-related (science, technology, engineering, math) degree. Meanwhile, the Americans who have pursued these degrees and provided value to the technology sector are now getting kicked to the curb in favor of cheaper and more pliable H1B and L1 visa holders. And our legislators condone it all.
Toady: everybody who can should go to college, absolutely. Even if it turns out that you didn’t really need a degree after all, what have you lost? 4 years? How many people find a great job that they want to make a long-term career out of before they turn 23? And what’s the alternative, if you skip college and can’t find a good job without a degree? You are then at a huge disadvantage in the job market. Is that the kind of risk you’d tell your high school senior child to take? Refusing to attend college is as dangerous a proposition today as dropping out of high school is.
TeacherTeacher,
You have expanded very nicely on what I was trying to say. The problem today seems to be that getting a degree is emphasized to the detriment of learning. Not all high school grads are ready for college, but that doesn’t mean they should be put into some sort of box for the rest of their lives. Nor should their drive to learn be crushed by subjecting them to college curricula aimed more at degree production than education.
I also agree with your defense of the liberal arts. They shouldn’t be confused with “easy major,” although I fear this is sometimes the case.
I’m the product of a vocational high school from thirty years ago and currently work in State Government next to a guy who has a Bachelor’s Degree and a gal who has a GED and guess what? We all make nearly the same amount of money! Higher education is definitely overrated.
“It is humanities that teach students how to reason and think, that provides the background knowledge to understand the world around them and how to speak and write well.”
Nonsense.
I went to a Math and Science HS and started out as a MechE major. I decided I didn’t much care for that and switched to History. BA in that and am almost done with a MA. I learned far more about how to think critically in math and engineering classes than my humanities classes. If you can’t think critically and reason then you sure aren’t going to make it in an upper level chem class. If you can’t do that though, you can probably BS your way through a history class.
And it is really really easy to BS your way through just about any liberal arts class. I’m thankful for that though. Gave me lots of free time to drink beer and get a degree.
TeacherTeacher wrote:
“You won’t learn those 21st-century in a trade school.”
Unfortunately you won’t often learn those in the 21st-century humanities departments either.
Ideally, a liberal arts education should FINISH making a well-rounded citizen. But that’s not what’s happening anymore, partly because few at the preceding levels STARTED the process. Or worse, someone stomped on creativity and enthusiasm in the name of conformity. As they make more exceptions to let more people to attend college, we end up making more remedial classes and lowering standards. These students don’t generally have a goal. They are just killing time until they are forced to make some sort of decision. And so we get well-rounded barristas.
The hard sciences, engineering and health professions are focused on results. In addition many of the associated professions have external checks (licenses, etc.). They are teaching skills designed for a career. Liberal arts are less definite and it’s harder to measure results. Is it worth $120,000 to become more well-rounded? Or more precisely, should I be paying $30,000 a year if my son or daughter is “undecided” about their major? Won’t making them get a job or join the military help them find themselves as well?
This isn’t a conspiracy; it’s the amalgam of several facets of human nature. In some classes true critical thinking is praised in word and punished in deed, but echoing the party line never is. Especially for an adjunct, dealing with cheating can become a legalistic nightmare, so it’s easier to just give the student a mulligan. Thus parroting back the professor’s wacky views and cheating become cost effective for the student. You get what you reward.
As university faculty in a hard science, I prefer teaching night classes because you get more returning students who are serious about their work. Professors will rage and howl over the University of Phoenix, but ignore two things: 1) Their own school is pushing the “earn more money” mantra just as hard and 2) UofP found a big niche that wasn’t being served. Their biggest demographic is the older student who already has a job. And they aren’t philosophy majors. The latest numbers I saw had about 88% of their students saying they would attend Phoenix if they had to start over.
There are over 4000 colleges in the US. It’s more than we need, and we fill students’ heads with the false statement that everyone should go to college no matter what they want to do. If all you are doing is punching a ticket, then go cheap. If you need to study for a specific vocation then by all means work towards your goal at a college. But you will have to force yourself to work hard because nobody else will.
I work in higher ed, and the Big Fear is the decline in h.s. graduations and hence college admissions. We simply cannot lower the standards any further for freshmen without taking people who are absolutely incapable of college work. Among college students even today, the graduation rate for minorities mirrors the graduation rate in h.s. It’s not good.
The real profit center in higher ed is General Ed. If kids were not forced to take these classes, the classes would die out for lack of interest and professors in many liberal arts disciplines would be out of work.
So yes, it’s money to Obama supporters and little else. What this country really needs is to revalue the trades. Oh for a competent handyman!
One of the most convincing arguments that there are too many people in college who don’t belong there are the after-game riots, where students vandalize and riot when their team has won a game. It’s bad enough to riot and vandalize because your team lost, but when the WIN?
There are numerous instances of thuggish behavior on and around campuses that are not confined to the human stables known as athlete’s dorms, but to other branches of the student population as well. It’s a disgrace.
I think we should revive and expand the apprentice system, where people can learn useful trades and skills, many of which can be very well-paying, and can even lead to owning one’s own business.
Cj wrote: “They [sciences etc] are teaching skills designed for a career. Liberal arts are less definite and it’s harder to measure results.”
1) Right. And liberal arts are teaching skills designed for life.
2) Hurray that you think it’s harder to measure results! The results are much longer term. That is the point. Liberal Arts equips for life, not immediate gratification. But, that does not stop the powers that be from trying to measure the unmeasurable. It’s the tyranny of the social sciences. As someone employed ostensibly to teach (and no, many universities do NOT employ professors just to wile away time researching anymore as those of us who have been employed at Level II institutions for the last 20 years know) I can tell you that teaching is the least time-consuming part of my job. We are all administrators now. We assess. What do we assess? Our degree of conformity. The degree to which we can turn out like-minded, herd oriented, narrow thinking, intellectual (or not so intellectual) doppelgangers. Accreditating agencies have their hands into everything. This is one of the major things that has strangled higher education. And this is one of the things that is driving good people away from higher ed.
I think we mislead a lot of young people when we say that “everyone should get a college education”. That type of generalization sets up a lot of people with unrealistic expectations, and forces a lot of young people with average intellect into mediocre (or worse) degree mills that lead to neither enlightenment nor good career prospects. I think a capable young person could pursue a college degree for a couple of positive reasons – to prepare for a rewarding career, or to seek knowledge of the arts for personal enrichment. One problem with the liberal arts curriculum is that it is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator in lower tier colleges in order to push people through to degrees, and in the higher tier colleges it can be enriching, but unless the student is independently wealthy he or she will need to pursue graduate degrees in some professional field to assure a reasonable income.
As to critical thinking and problem solving, in my 40 year career in major corporations I never encountered a liberal arts major who was superior in that regard to engineers, scientists, financiers, etc. That includes a lot of people who were graduates of Harvard, Yale, etc. They were very bright, but no more so than people from M.I.T., Purdue, Georgia Tech, etc. Also, to gain employment outside Academia or Government, they pursued professional graduate degrees. I believe there is personal value to a study of History, Music, Art, etc. – but not a value to the individual who is pursuing an effective and lucrative career – unless they are so talented as to be able to rival Horowitz, etc.
To push average I.Q. High School Graduates into intensively competitive schools is to do them and the school a disservice. To prepare them with the basic skills necessary to continue learning and adaptation for a lifetime is much more valuable. We don’t need yesterdays trades – we need people who can adapt to the world as it changes. College doesn’t address that very well.
I have led college recruiting for three major corporations. In each case, we looked for top third graduates of premier, difficult schools. We emphasized intellect, degree/training, work experience and flexibility. Those programs were effective for the corporation and average graduates of average schools were not remotely able to compete. Young people who stuggle to complete degrees for which there is little market demand are in for major disappointment.
Mr_B;
There are four people in the department next to mine. Two have college degrees and two do not. They all do the same (desk) job, have the same seniority, and get paid the same. One of the college educated told me if he had to do it again, he would have skipped college.
I know numerous college graduates who found their degrees useless, got a certificate in something useful, and received a better paying job along with non-degreed certificate holders. And no, the ones with the degrees didn’t get more money. They could have just skipped the whole college nonsense and gone right for the certificate.
It is not just a loss of “4 years” – it is the taking on of massive debt for questionable reasons.
Now if you want to major in something unmarketable for the sake of knowledge, then go ahead. As a member of the middle class, I cannot afford to do that. College is simply too expensive unless I’m going to get good employment out of it.
Refusing to attend college is as dangerous a proposition today as dropping out of high school is
This statement is just silly, sorry.
TRUE Liberal arts are fantastic to have an individual join and understand our Western Civilization. Well, done, you learn how to think, write and read well, and probably won’t get snookered by an Obama figure. What we have as liberal art in colleges are just leftist indoctrination.
And yes, teh main culprit here is k-12, with it’ unions, low expectaions and even lower requirements.
For my kids, they are getting the ORIGINAL liberalis arts, a rigourous education that makes them think, so when they reach their mid teens, they can continue with a hard subject, go into a trade or into business.
http://www.classicalliberalarts.com provides a kick a&& education in the k-12 years.
Abu Infidel: There are millions of college graduates and your personal acquaintances make up a statistically insignificant portion of them. What may be true for your co-workers is by no means necessarily true for the majority of other college graduates. Perhaps the fact that your college-graduated colleagues are not earning more than their non-grad co-workers reflects poorly on them and not college itself?
And college does not have to be expensive. Instead of attending exclusive, private liberal arts schools, perhaps prospective students could consider state universities instead? The cost difference can be enormous, especially if they are in-state residents, and many public universities are well-funded, quality institutions of higher learning.
I don’t see what you find so silly about my statement. It might be a slight exaggeration, but if the 4-year college degree is the new high school diploma then I think it stands to reason that lacking one could be as detrimental to future job prospects as lacking a high school diploma is.
I wish the professor had taken a look at the University of the District of Colombia. In the past it has offered many remedial courses. I don’t know if it continues to do so but I think it is probably typical of the ‘colleges’ many people will attend.
The United States needs many blue color qualified individuals who will work at a normal salary…not the inflated union wage. It’s hard to find a skilled plumber, electrician, or mechanic. The skilled generation is dying off and there are no replacements.
goodbye
It’s pretty clear that we need more and better education. That should not be confused with going to college. As with most problems, there are many causes and it will take many solutions to help solve the problems. Many people have a vested interest in continuing the problems. Life-time tenure seems to me to be one of the problems. It creates inflexibility in the university. Whatever the original arguments where for it don’t outweigh the negative factors. We should require that university professors (at least the teachers v the researchers) speak English. It sound rather rudimentary to me, but many, I’m sure brilliant, professors who teach undergrad classes in math and sciences to not speak English well enough to be understood by many students. Financial aid has created huge distortions in education. College costs have soared because they can raise the prices without having to improve the product. And, it defies common sense to think that we should teach remedial reading and writing at the college level while over-subsidizing disfunctional public grade schools. I believe that fact that many nversities As
JaneG wrote:
“1) Right. And liberal arts are teaching skills designed for life.
“2) Hurray that you think it’s harder to measure results! The results are much longer term. That is the point.”
You are correct. But difficult is not impossible. The problem is, what if the school isn’t living up to its part of the bargain and don’t competently teach you those skills? What if your professors are incompetent? The results are long term, but the student should be able to demonstrate the skills at the end of his or her degree program. How ridiculous would it be to assert that after driver’s ed you don’t need to be able to drive a car, but that comes later as you mature?
Once the tuitions get to the size they are, it’s no longer ok to wait and see and then blame the student if he doesn’t do well. A person spending some $30,000 a year for four (or five!) years has a right to some assurance that he or she is getting their money’s worth.
The main problem is the schools are selling a higher paycheck (see their ads) but every time someone questions the value of their program defenders talk about quality of life and intellectual pursuits. And those people who are hiring graduates are telling us many aren’t demonstrating jobs skills OR intellectual dexterity.
No and no.
MR B
Perhaps the fact that your college-graduated colleagues are not earning more than their non-grad co-workers reflects poorly on them and not college itself?
Or rather it reflects the fact that college is not really needed for a great number of jobs and it is the ability to do the work that counts.
I currently teach a grandiloquently and fraudulently titled “Freshman Seminar” at a college in the Northeast.It’s a thinly disguised remedial reading course, peopled mostly,by semiliterate cretins lacking even 8th grade -level reading skills,and worse,devoid of any recognizable work ethic. Most are on some kind of state-provided scholarship,and my job is to pretend to remediate them so that they can perform marginally,and keep them attending as long as possible, so that the college can continue to collect tuition and pay faculty salaries. This school is a microcosm of the wider fraud and oxymoron called American Higher Education. I will be resigning in June.
deguello:
I currently teach a grandiloquently and fraudulently titled “Freshman Seminar” at a college in the Northeast.It’s a thinly disguised remedial reading course, peopled mostly,by semiliterate cretins lacking even 8th grade -level reading skills,and worse,devoid of any recognizable work ethic.
——–
They are what they are, you are what you are, and obviously it is not a good mix, but that is not to say that the right person could not make the experience more meaningful for both parties. You are sharing a room with a group of people for a number of hours a week. Better things could be done; it just that you won’t or are incapable of doing them. Once you have them in the classroom, it is what YOU MAKE IT. Doesn’t mean that it’s easy, but you have more power than you know.
#62 DWIGHT: Thanks for the patronizing refusal to accept reality.Your brainless optimism is what perpetuates educational fraud. People lacking a work ethic,and even minimal literacy skills,SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN COLLEGE PERIOD!That they are, is due to a coruupt educational establishment that wants to flatter them, take their money, and let them graduate to a lifetime of failure.Better things,as you say,could be done:like teaching reading,writing, and math effectively,at the grammar and high school levels, but that won’t happen, because it’s easier to exploit and control an illiterate,mob of slackers,than it is to manipulate educated citizens.You have no IDEA of what I do in the classroom,but one thing I won’t do, is compromise standards and pretend that they are learning,or even trying to learn, when they aren’t.BTW: I’m dying to know your ideas on how to turn pig’s ears into silk purse.
The US Govt has wrecked the engineering trades with imported H1B visa holders, whom they claim have a specialized talent. Pure nonsense. I can teach practically anyone to do the work the H1Bs are doing. We have so many govt polices that contradict themselves. They pay out money for people to get trained in college, then undercut them by giving out work visas to immigrants to take their jobs. This Country is so lost, I don’t know when or if it can get better.
deguello wrote: I’m dying to know your ideas on how to turn pig’s ears into silk purse.
Silk purse? You take kids from where they are, to being a little or a lot better. You were evidently hired to do remediation, but seem depressed/discouraged that the kids actually need it. You also resent that they aren’t motivated. Welcome to the real world.
Hey, I can’t say whether or not your personality and ability are a good match for the job, in fact your muttering, moaning, and cursing probably indicates otherwise. I take it that you would like to do more advanced stuff, which I can certainly understand; In my job, I had to do both, and maybe I would have gone nuts…or quit…if I had ONLY the slow and/or lazy ones; but I had a mix and that that I could handle. Hell, when I was your age, I had kids answering multiple choice questions and short essays from Reader’s Digest articles, which I selected. It may have been boring and tedious at times, but I tried to pick interesting articles. I wanted to see their real work or lack thereof, not what they had to pretend to do when I gave more predictable assignments. It doesn’t matter specifically what it is you do, but you have to get to the solid ground of what they know and don’t know.. Can do and.can’t do…and go from there.
Or you can curse the system and quit
Remediation in a college course that’s suppossed to be a seminar? Give me a braek!How do you know how old I am ? I was hired under false pretences,and will leave simply because I won’t be party to a farce.My students need to be told the truth: that they need to engage in very basic remediatio, which they could get in a good vocational school.
I don’t know how old you are, but you could use a little growing up. Let’s suppose that were were in a private sector job outside of education and you were hired to sell services to people who didn’t actually need exactly those services, but were willing to pay your company to receive them. You and your company were selling at what the market would bear.
Of course I do know that the wild card here is that a teacher actually shares a room and part of his/her life with a group of fellow, usually younger human beings for a period of time and all the human factors intervene, for better, or for worse.
In your mind, you have some concept, maybe even ideal of what “college” should be. However, it is what it is, as you are finding out. Hey, maybe a “better” college with “better” freshmen will hire you, but right now the market has put you where you are.
#67 DWIGHT So I,” could use a little growing up”? Let’s examine your definition of maturity shall we? “Selling services to people who don’t exactly need those services”,constitutes fraud,despite what you or the market say.I realize that, in your mind ,having an ideal of what college,not to mention business should be constitute for you “immature” expectations,but you see Dwight ,accepting corruption fraud and deception,by repeating the nihilistic bromide:” it is what it is”,and ignoring ideals, is aquiescing to the aforementioned corruption fraud and deceit. It’s like the realtor telling the couple making 40k/year that they can afford a 5000sq ft home with a welfare mortage, and when the home gets foreclosed, and the economy collapses, walking away. Similarly ,the abomination of allowing unmotivated youngsters with barely 5th grade reading levels,and egos inflated by the self esteem mania(another fraud),into college,has turned American colleges into laughing stocks. It is, what it is:another FRAUD perpetrated on parents, students, and teachers.I am ,fortunately, not at the mercy of market forces,and only teach part-time,having other employment that does not involve scamming people.I realize this might constitute immature behavior by your standards, but “It is what it is”.Some of us just can’t seem to “grow up”and tolerate corruption.
It’s clear that you could not go into sales because of your rather strict construction of “fraud.” Actually, I sympathize, I think, with this particular instinct of yours, but only point out that you and the market are at odds.
Oddly enough, what is also at odds is your writing style. If you are a person ostensibly judging and grading student writing, it does not show in your prose. Take the basic rule of two spaces after periods and other end punctuation and one space after commas and semi-colons. I’m sure this sounds snarky, but since you are a person decrying the lack of ability and motivation in your students, I can’t resist pointing out how much you write like an undisciplined student. Misspelled words (or uncorrected typos, who can tell?)
But let me get this straight; you are holding out for a world in which you deal only with people who have earned whatever they have. What does Jake say to Brett at the end of “The Sun Also Rises,” when she says that they could have made things work out?
Is that all you’ve got Dwight? Pedantic-pissant complaints,about commas not properly spaced ? You don’t sound snarky,just pedantic and pompous.You are simply unwilling to concede any merit to my contention that people with grade level literacy skills should not be admitted to college. You excuse that particular fraud,by attacking those who condemn it as suffering from an exaggeratedly strict “construction of fraud”.It seems that you not only accept a world without intellectual standards, but that you actually relish it;however,a society that allows the market to undermine educational standards is a corrupt and degraded one.Have fun pointing out improperly spaced commas; It’s easier than confronting unpleasant realities.