Santorum is right; college is overrated

I was curious to see what would happen to Rick Santorum after being subjected to the harsh glare of the media spotlight, now that he's the Republican flavor of the week. It speaks highly of him that one of the worst things you can say about him is about a comment he made about college attendance.

On MSNBC Monday night, Ed Shultz expressed shock that Santorum would say that President Obama is a snob for insisting that everyone goes to college. The progressive media framed his comment like this:

"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob," Santorum said Saturday at the Americans for Prosperity Presidential Forum in Troy, Michigan.

At first glance, it seems odd that Santorum would think that Obama wanting people to be educated somehow makes him a snob. But here is his comment in context to some blue collar workers:

"There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college -- he wants to remake you in his image."

Santorum is saying that Obama is assuming that a worker doesn't have value if he doesn't possess a college degree.

I'd argue that people who go to college nowadays are often less useful to society than those who don't. The immigrant laborer who operates a Bobcat, drives a forklift, or digs trenches has more practical value to our nation than some college graduate who got his degree in communications or psychology or sociology or music or environmental science or education. The former's experience tethers him to reality; the latter is taught things that sever his ties to reality.

College is sort of an alternate universe--students go there without paying (up front, anyway), professors teach without having to worry about achieving results, and the money keeps flowing, thanks to generous government-backed loans.

When President Obama says that everyone needs to go to college, I start thinking about who is going to pay for that. Currently, it's the students, although they don't realize it yet. They can defer payments, but one day they wake up and realize they are $100,000 in debt and have no marketable skills.

Why does college cost so much more than it did a decade ago? Joe Biden said, "By the way, government subsidies have impacted upon rising tuition costs."

More people going to college means more people buried in debt, thanks to government subsidies. It might not be so bad if the students were learning something useful, but sadly, that's not the case.

I don't think college as a whole is overrated. I think it is overpriced through a system that financially supports academics in a life of leisure and luxury. It has been built so they can sit around and think "big things" instead of teach. My father was a college professor and was never popular with his peers because he loved to teach and didn't care about getting published.

There are also a lot of ways to blow a lot in tuition and not learn anything that will get you a job. How many English majors do we really need in this economy?

I use the things I learned in my engineering and math courses at my present job, even though it isn't an engineering and math job. As soon as there is a technical issue at work, I am the first person they call for help.

College is over-rated mainly in that the first two years of a 4 year degree is “general education” and only the last two years are for the “major”. And that it is very hard to guess what major will be in job demand upon graduation.

My first B.S. major was a waste as the field that was crying out for that subject area when I started, was glutted by the time I graduated. My sister’s English B.A. of course was a waste as it did not generate job offers, other than the Peace Corps.

I should have become a plumber or a politician as they get the big bucks for dealing in sleaze.

Newt defends Obama on ‘snob’ slam

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73371.html

By TIM MAK | 2/28/12 8:27 AM EST

Newt Gingrich on Tuesday defended President Barack Obama’s call for young Americans to get education beyond high school, which had prompted Rick Santorum to label the president “a snob.”

Gingrich said he had no problem with the president’s sentiment, which he called “entirely reasonable.”

“The total quote you just read straight to me seems entirely reasonable,” said Gingrich on NBC’s “Today Show.” “Everybody in America has to get re-educated all the time because jobs are going to change, technology is going to change. If we are going to compete with the world market, we both have to have the best equipment and the best training.”

“You have to ask Santorum why he said that,” he added. “I do think every American ought to be trained, but it doesn’t matter what your degrees are, it matters if you’re employable.”

The comments centered around a speech Obama gave in 2009 in which he said, “I ask every American to commit to one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever that training will be, every American will need more than a high school diploma.”

When posed a similar question later on Fox, Gingrich corrected the questioner, who had prefaced the question by saying the president had claimed “all kids should have the opportunity to go to college.”

“First of all, the president didn’t say precisely that. He also talked about other kinds of training,” said Gingrich.
“I’m for constant learning… I think earning a living is important and everybody ought to figure out the skills they need to earn a living and there’s a dignity in every kind of work,” he said, in answering the question.

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that people with college degrees in women’s studies, liberal arts, history, English, etc. end up working at Barnes and Noble or Target.

Nothing wrong with such jobs, but, they don’t require college degrees.

The media completely distorts what was said and what the subject here is, as usual. But we should have a national debate about college, and who should go to college, and what financial aid should be available. Too many degrees don’t translate into jobs or a career path.

It’s good to ask the question as to what you can do with certain degrees. For example, women’s studies may be fascinating as an academic field, but how many employers need people to study women after graduation? Philosophy may be fascinating, but how many employers recruit to find philosophers who majored in Philosophy?

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