Posted on 06/05/2016 3:55:45 PM PDT by RightGeek
Like others have said, it depends on what one is being educated in. A degree that has no real practical application and that does little than either extend adolescence or only exists to create ideological clones of aged hippie professors is worse than nothing. Such programs / colleges should just go away and stop wasting money.
And as another said, the bell curve is a reality and it helps no one but bloated college administrations to pretend otherwise. The country should go back to a two-track system of serious vocational training. Where I work currently the pay scale for electricians and mechanics was boosted across the board because they could not find enough applicants. When my son grows older, if he wants to go to college for a serious degree, fine. If instead he wants to stay out of debt and acquire some practical skills and become a master of his trade by the time he is in his mid-twenties and maybe even go into business for himself, then go for it. There is already a box of good American made tools for him when he is old enough. His great-grandfather, who died six years ago, had an eighth grade education but had picked up an obscure and mentally demanding trade that was in demand, and he worked into his 90’s because he liked what he did.
Industry is slowly wising up. Why is there the proliferation of certifications and exams these days? Because having a sheep skin from Whasta Mata U does not mean that one actually do anything anymore. Why go into crushing debt for a poor education and then become certified in something to get a job...why not cut out the middle man and go get certified in the first place? This is how things worked a hundred years ago when people in banking, finance, etc., studied at home and passed correspondence courses at night and then moved into the jobs they wanted.
Where robotics and technology will remove jobs will be in the lowest ranks—food service, agriculture, and manufacturing. Since America hardly manufactures anything anymore, that could help more than hurts. It could bring back some manufacturing (what labor advantage would China have then?), and there would need to be technicians and engineers to design, program and maintain those robots.
Skilled trades I really do not see being automated out of existence. A robot is going to diagnose a plumbing problem, figure out how to get under a house, find the drain, run a snake through it, etc? Fat chance. Robotics have advanced a lot...but it is on the peak of the hype curve, right where nano technology was a few years ago. It was nano this and nano that, and some nano stuff is good, but it was clearly over-hyped. It seems that it is always something unexpected that changes everything, something that all the smart people did not predict.
It is the skilled trades that are begging for people like plumbing, electrician, engine mechanic, AKA, Dirty Jobs of Mike Rowe fame.
They can’t be done just walking in off the street, but too many people went to college (often without even finishing a degree) assuming it will yield a high paying office job.
Even in a more high tech world, the people who monitor and repair robots will have jobs.
Six months of on the job orientation/training will reap more benefits than a 4 year degree except in the rarest and most “High-Techy” fields (like medicine/surgery, etc.).
What are you referring to with “defining people and their opportunities and creativity”?
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