Posted on 09/04/2014 6:57:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week, millions of young people head to college and universities, aiming for a four-year liberal arts degree. They assume that degree is the only gateway to the American middle class.
It shouldn’t be.
For one thing, a four-year liberal arts degree is hugely expensive. Too many young people graduate laden with debts that take years if not decades to pay off.
And too many of them can’t find good jobs when they graduate, in any event. So they have to settle for jobs that don’t require four years of college. They end up overqualified for the work they do, and underwhelmed by it.
Others drop out of college because they’re either unprepared or unsuited for a four-year liberal arts curriculum. When they leave, they feel like failures.
We need to open other gateways to the middle class.
Consider, for example, technician jobs. They don’t require a four-year degree. But they do require mastery over a domain of technical knowledge, which can usually be obtained in two years.
Technician jobs are growing in importance. As digital equipment replaces the jobs of routine workers and lower-level professionals, technicians are needed to install, monitor, repair, test, and upgrade all the equipment.
Hospital technicians are needed to monitor ever more complex equipment that now fills medical centers; office technicians, to fix the hardware and software responsible for much of the work that used to be done by secretaries and clerks.
Automobile technicians are in demand to repair the software that now powers our cars; manufacturing technicians, to upgrade the numerically controlled machines and 3-D printers that have replaced assembly lines; laboratory technicians, to install and test complex equipment for measuring results; telecommunications technicians, to install, upgrade, and repair the digital systems linking us to one another.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Yeah, we had to read one of his books when I was in college.
Right-and HE’S living proof!! :)
Cut taxpayer funding to colleges.
Fire the left-wing professors as they rarely measure up.
We need to do three simple acts:
1. Pursue a general graduation test for high schools, that allows a kid who has the knowledge level to graduate by the end of the 11th grade, and move on.
2. Develop a one-year college degree related strictly to craftsman skills, requiring no English or science classes.
3. Put responsible people into the state-level oversight position to explain why it would possibly cost $18,000 to attend a state college. Hold governor’s responsible for the screwed-up nature of college cost in their own state.
I have to agree with him. I am shocked. However, knowing where the man comes from as a hard core leftist, I can’t help being uncomfortable. I suspect that ultimately he would prefer that elitists such as himself be in control of who gets into college and who is assigned to trade schools. Eliminate freedom of choice in higher education.
Automobile technicians are in demand to repair the software that now powers our cars
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Alrighty then....
The title is wrong. He’s saying that a Liberal Arts degree is a waste of money, and he’s correct.
I would have done much better in college if I had enrolled there as a grownup.
He’s right, people with a liberal arts degree in most areas have few choices about work. But then, many are seeking the prestige of a college degree regardless of the marketability.
Wouldn’t English aptitude be needed in every field?
This dates me a little, but my family paid for four years when I was there with the same amount that will get you one year now.
If Robert Reich said the sky is blue, I’d have to go outside in disbelief and see for myself.
Do you care about your plumber or roofer’s knowledge of Shakespeare or his precise use of pronouns?
aiming for a four-year liberal arts degree
**********
The four-year period should be cut down to three years for a liberal arts degree IMO.
Isn’t this the guy that makes $300k teaching ONE class at Berkeley?
/johnny
I hate it when I have to agree with microman Reich...
College isn’t for everyone. Liberal arts degrees are not gateways to prosperity (although liberal arts education is an important part of classical education).
However, while I have not yet read the rest of his opinion here, I daresay he will espouse at least one remedy that is anathema to a merit-based society, where hard work and generated value mean higher income.
-— However, knowing where the man comes from as a hard core leftist, I can’t help being uncomfortable. -—
Rather than saying that white collar jobs shouldn’t be reserved to the college educated (see Jobs, Gates, Dell), Reich seeks to herd the proletariat into technician jobs. There’s nothing wrong with technical jobs, and it’s good general advice. What probably rankles you is the liberal tendency to want to control the lives of others —in this case, the “workforce.”
How about we stop subsidizing colleges with tax dollars coming from the hard-working mechanic down the street, and let the chips fall where they may?
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