You old Boomers should have not made college for everyone lol.
Don’t disagree in general, but it depends on how those 4 years are used. My buddy’s daughter just graduated and after an internship will be a Physicians Assistant, which pays well and will allow her to live and work anywhere she chooses. Total time in college was 5 years in a combined accellerated program. She worked hard, now will reap the rewards, as it should be.
Going back in tine, to the Late 1800s?
The world needs ditch diggers, too.
No more apprenticeships. No more on the job training. Business should not be burdened with training people who fail to get an education. Either you learn the trade on you own dime, by your own initiative, or you can dig ditches, flip burgers, and continue to live in your parents basement.
Why should companies be required to train people when a college education is available to virtually anyone, and will be paid for at taxpayer expense.
And why would any corporation hire anyone when they can import low cost labor from all over the world, or send the work to a multitude of low labor cost countries?
This goes against the entire concept of free trade, shareholder value, and capitalism in general.
Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) is all over this concerning manual skill occupations.
If you don’ think those jobs are important, call a Poly Sci or Gender Studies grad when your toilet overflow some night and you don’t know what the hell to do.
As college is simply an extension of high school now, it has become the new high school diploma required for application for even the most mundane of jobs. Want to be a gardener and legally in the United States? You will need to show a horticulture degree. An office clerk should have a communications degree, a ditch digger should have at least an associates degree.
Business has discarded the mechanisms of teaching employees basic skills and instead focuses on narrow education targeted specifically at their job, as too many hours are being spent on sexual discrimination training, racial discrimination training, team building, homosexual acceptance, workplace anger issues, etc, etc, etc.
To the tune of 120 hours a year spent on training not related to a job performance skill, and failure to pass these brain washing courses will result in termination at the next performance review.
Business also has little reason to discard the current system; when they do hire on college graduates, they don’t have to worry much about the employee failing those critical re-education courses, as most often, those graduates could teach them by rote. One friend’s daughter was hired as part of a team of new college hires to replace half the staff at a midwest location.
She looked on in horror as the recently indoctrinated were instructed to immediately report any leftover employees for any speech or actions which could possibly be construed as being against company policies (no, not theft or job performance, they were looking for comments disparaging a guy in a dress.)
One of the more ‘difficult’ tasks assigned to her that utilized her vast college education was to put up posters all around the office declaring the space to be a ‘safe space’ with rainbows, and to politely request the removal of any photos which showed nuclear families (unless they were interracial.)
The afternoon task was to patrol the parking lot looking for any ‘graphics or designs’ on employee cars which might disparage any group, to take photos of those offending bumper stickers and decals. On the list were ‘traditional religious designs excluding minority religions’, ‘non-inclusive political messages’ and of course, the dreaded battle flag.
Offenders were handed a printed reprimand with a photo of the vehicle as well as a photo of the employee, dismissed without pay for the rest of the day, and told to either correct the issue with the vehicle or it would no longer be permitted on property and the employee dismissed for violating company policies.
After 8 weeks, the fresh faced students who learned little of what the company actually does were sent off to fix the next office. She declined the transfer and was dismissed and has since found out that she’s banned from employment with any associated company. Permanently.
You are sort of right. College is not worth it. And much of what is taught is not even valuable. Its often old or is freely available. Professors are not the smartest, best people. While they tend to be smart. The smartest leave college. Professors are basically a bunch of sort of smart bureaucrats. Anyone with a little gumption is not teaching Chemistry 101.
College has only one value. You get to spend four years with your peers. Of course you get to spend another 30 years with your peers as you get into the workforce.
I suggest you go as far as you can on KhanAcademy.com. And then go as far as you can on Codecademy.com Then go get a programming job. You will be $100,000 better off. And you will learn the work force. Later you can take whatever classes you need. But those classes are likely to be free on the web.
If you can’t handle programming. Get into Plumbing, or be an electrician or even a truck driver.
Completely disagree with this statement. Institutions of higher education have helped educate some of the most effective leaders in our history. Many of the Founders, military commanders, scientists, religious leaders, and businessmen were trained through public, private, and military institutions of higher education.
Training, planning, discovery, research, and teaching helped the US gain independence, defeat the AXIS powers, land on the moon, create vaccines, and build profitable businesses. It's trendy to say, throw out the entire system and give money to smart young people to go do great things. Can that be effective, sure it can...Peter Thiel and Rowe are doing this now. There is still a place for labs, experimentation, learning, and research at the collegiate level.
Does higher education need to change? I could get on board with that, but to say it's been a failure by any standard is just completely wrong!
I think we should bring back slavery myself : )
Lets see we have had blacks, Chines, the Irish so who is next?
Canadians. Too many in this country in the acting profession.
Lets put them to work digging ditches and putting up posters for safe places.