Congressman Proposes “Indenture Program” for College Students

Distressed by the high cost of college and the high unemployment of college graduates, Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) recommended “a major revision of how we educate people for the public good. I have heard so many stories of graduates facing crushing debt loads and no prospects of a job that I think it’s time we remake the whole system.”

“First of all, why should a student have to pay for college?” Rangel asked. “We don’t make them pay for elementary or high school. If a college degree is needed for the role a person is to play in our society it is society’s obligation to bear the cost of providing it.”

“A second aspect of the problem is the inapt choice of what to study,” Rangel went on. “Why do we expect 18- year-olds to wisely choose the kinds of knowledge and skills that our society needs? Most of the 18-year-olds I know have no idea on what skills will get them jobs.”

“What we need to do is have experts determine what types of education are needed and get capable students to study subjects that will prepare them to fill the jobs society needs done,” Rangel suggested. “Wiser heads would inventory the youth of the nation, send those deemed able to colleges to study appropriate courses, and assign graduates to fill posts for the good of the country.”

The Congressman said fitting this new idea into his annual effort to reinstate the military draft “would signify a seamless transition from our anarchic ‘every man for himself’ way of doing things to a more cohesive collective effort to do what’s best for the whole. If those who aren’t college material can be drafted into the Army and assigned to defend the nation, why can’t those who are suited to college be drafted for other positions that would best serve our national interest?”

if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at...

Today’s 18 year olds do not know what to study to get jobs....That is true
I graduated hs in 1957, and most of us knew exactly where we were headed & what we had aptitudes for.

We actually had aptitude TESTING while still in hs, and we were told the results. Those tests were banned some short years later when the NAACP & ACLU decided that ‘it wasn’t fair to the darker skinned students in the USA high schools.

I say it was MORE than fair—we were given serious clues about what we had talent for & what we did NOT have talent for.

Rangel is nuts. The blacks are already living a free life in this country—until one of their own shoots or beats them down.

One way to cut down on the cost of college is to stop requiring students to take general education classes that have nothing to do with their majors.

Example: why should a non-science major (such as Criminal Justice or Broadcasting) have to take algebra and biology, which he/she will never use in a criminal justice or broadcasting career? Why should anyone but English majors have to take English literature classes? Why should anyone but History majors have to take Western Civilization?

The bullsh*t reasoning of "those classes help develop students into well-rounded citizens" is why college costs so much.

The answer the question of why college is so expensive is that it's expensive to hire all those professors to teach useless, bullsh*t classes which most students will never in their lives use after they graduate.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

“One way to cut down on the cost of college is to stop requiring students to take general education classes that have nothing to do with their majors.

The bullsh*t reasoning of “those classes help develop students into well-rounded citizens” is why college costs so much.

The answer the question of why college is so expensive is that it’s expensive to hire all those professors to teach useless, bullsh*t classes which most students will never in their lives use after they graduate”

Can I disagree with you on this. The reason those courses appear worthless to you is that they are taught by people sophist (Post-Modernist) You do not defeat sophistry by ignoring it. Education is more than about getting a job.

There is a place for an accountant or engineer to know both national and world history. There is a place in all professions for a basic understanding of ethics, philosophy, economic, psychology, music, aesthetics and literature.

Yes, everyone should understand algebra and calculus because these two types of mathematics explain motion, limits, derivatives and functions. In short, they explain why the universe works the way it does. Additionally algebra and calculus provide the language for developing abstract thought. The issue is that people should have come to an understanding of these in high school.

Why can the democrats count on the vote of so many uneducated people? Because those people do not know how to think for themselves. If you want to see the US become the “Land of the free and home of the Brave” once again then get a job as an adjunct at a community college and teach history. That is how the left has subverted the nations. They taught lies as truth and nobody challenged them.

All of that does not mean that there are not plenty of degree programs that are rather worthless, but getting rid of “X studies” and the like would not significantly lower the cost.

Having people that only understand very narrow field is the sure and fast route to a society of slaves.

It is appropriate in this day and age for conservative to wear the badge of an “Anti-Intellectual” in the sense that we stand against the prevailing memes and doctrines espoused by the leftist intelligentsia. Yes, I am proudly and defiantly anti-intellectual in that sense and I offer my students a truer, better, nobler and more enlightened path; but that is not the same as non-intellectual and to say that broadening course should be simply dropped is a non-intellectual response and there is no place for that in modern conservatism. We are not afraid of the truth.

"Yes, everyone should understand algebra and calculus because these two types of mathematics explain motion, limits, derivatives and functions. In short, they explain why the universe works the way it does."

In my 15 years in the news biz, I've never once had to use algebra or calculus. If I did a story on math, science or engineering, I interviewed a mathematician, scientist or engineer. In the 11 years spent in the US Army, I never once had to use biology. My job was to find the enemy and end his life, rather than study how it evolved. In my 48 years on Earth, I have never had the occasion to quote from Silas Marner, Madame Bovary or any of the other bullsh*t books I had to read in English Lit. Though I found Western Civ to be extremely interesting, I have had no occasion in my life to use it at all, except to maybe try to impress women with my grasp of useless knowledge. I'm still single, so obviously, Western Civ hasn't done me much good, either.

I have, however, spent thousands of dollars on tuition, fees and books for those worthless classes; money that would better have been spent on things I do need. It really warms my heart that the thousands I've spent, as well as the thousands spent over the years by millions of college students, has helped provide jobs for legions of English, Humanities, Sociology, and Psychology professors, who otherwise would be baristas at Starbucks.

"Why can the democrats count on the vote of so many uneducated people? Because those people do not know how to think for themselves."

College is not the place to teach kids how to think. Before even getting close to graduating high school, kids should be able to think critically, analyze information, and formulate an effective argument. Maybe if our schools were more concerned with teaching, rather than indoctrinating, that would be the case. "Critical thinking" is nothing but a BS excuse to have people spend thousands of dollars to keep otherwise non-skilled people in jobs. Furthermore, there are ways to teach "critical thinking" that are more related to a student's major, rather than forcing him to take an algebra class he'll never use in the real world.

Yes, you've done a very eloquent job of repeating the same load of crap I've been hearing since I first went to college, 30 years ago. That very reasoning is why college is so expensive.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

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