Useless Degrees, An Analysis

American Thinker ^ | 01/09/2024 | A. Welderson

[SeekAndFind]

For a long time now, the debate has raged as to whether it’s worth going to college anymore. The libertarian view on this question has typically been along the lines of… if people are foolish enough to waste money on worthless degrees, the world will soon enough teach them another lesson.

While valid, that view ran aground on the Democrat vote-buying scheme to insulate those with useless degrees from the consequences of their poor choices and indebtedness, with our tax money.

The cynical motives behind this ploy aside, I very much doubt many students enroll in college with the intention of eventually being bailed out by their fellow citizens. These bright, young minds have simply bought into the hype that a college degree, any degree, is the ticket to prosperity. That might have been mostly true, back in the day when the people who ran higher education actually focused on educating.

In the past, a degree could give someone who was willing to work hard a leg up on competition. Somewhere along the road, we lost sight of the fact that hard work was the not-so-secret essential ingredient, not that scrap of paper with the fancy calligraphy on it. Through greed and cowardly moral blindness, grifters who run our colleges have transformed these venerable institutions into the educational equivalent of shady time-shares.

Although the rot is extensive and accelerating, there are still college degrees which might be worth the time and money thrown at them—medicine, science, engineering, and a few others. Better learn fast though. These disciplines remain only relatively uncorrupted because they’re harder to infiltrate. In the spirit of the hard sciences, it’s informative to analyze which college degrees are the more useless, and why. Rational analysis, scorned as patriarchal, racist, and colonialist, comes in handy when exposing scams.

[SeekAndFind]

Upon reflection, it appears that “useless” degrees share one or more common traits:

• Lack of Job Market (outside of academia or government subsidies)

• Not Data-Driven

• Demands Post Grad Degrees

• General Lack of Scholarly Rigor

• Rampant Groupthink and Plagiarism

Look upon these features as red flags.  The more of these red flags a field of “study” flies, the higher the likelihood recipients of these degrees will wind up as a burden on society.  More bluntly, a burden on you.  Below is a table of arbitrarily-chosen college degrees, rated on the scale described above.

Image created by the author.

Some may quibble with the labels or applicability of the red-flag traits, or the number of flags assigned to certain degrees.  But the overall method of analysis is valid.  This can serve as a road map of sheepskins to avoid.  The more of these boxes are checked, the more money colleges will scam out of you, and the less likely you are to ever earn it back.

[hinckley buzzard]

Nice work. I agree with you about psychology, my field. And it is trending toward a “lack of rigor” flag and even a “not data driven” flag. I’m not sure current psychology departments even identify themselves as a science anymore.

[Leaning Right]

Colleges themselves play a big part here. They will lie to naive students, just to boost the numbers.

Naive student: I’m thinking about getting a degree in poetry.

What the Literature Department advisor should say:
Be aware there are no jobs in that field. None.

What the Literature Department advisor does say:
Good choice. You will learn how to express yourself and organize your thoughts. Companies look for that.

[FrankRizzo890]

The daughter of a well to do friend recently graduated with a degree in some BS with a minor in “arts and letters”. So, post grad what’s she’s doing? Working a minimum wage job. What else?

[CodeToad]

“Lack of Job Market (outside of academia or government subsidies)
Not Data-Driven
Demands Post Grad Degrees
General Lack of Scholarly Rigor
Rampant Groupthink and Plagiarism”

I think that a a good list. When those things are present, there isn’t an education of any kind.

[Grampa Dave]

“For a long time now, the debate has raged as to whether it’s worth going to college anymore. The libertarian view on this question has typically been along the lines of… if people are foolish enough to waste money on worthless degrees, the world will soon enough teach them another lesson.”

Our 50 something age wise adult offspring and nieces and nephews cracked this code, decades ago.

They labeled the worthless degrees as IUD’s aka Instant Unemployment Degrees.

Many which have become engineers or RN’s did enter the good degrees programs and got good jobs before and after they were graduated.

The other younger family members did a 1-3 year trade school and have kept being employed on a regular basis.

[hanamizu]

I majored in psych at a ‘rat-runner’ psych department. It was science. In fact the same department styles itself ‘brain science’ instead of psychology.

And I question the ‘lack of job market’ when it comes to education. There are lots of teacher jobs available. With todays kids and their attitudes, there will continue to be lots of teacher jobs open.

[subterfuge]

So my calligraphy degree is worthless? My college advisor said I would get a great job cause I would right good. Lol.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

I’m not sure why EDUCATION degree is on this list. If no one majors in this, then who will be able to teach school (K-12)?

It’s is good choice for moms - can contribute significant value to family bank account, while still taking care of her children who can go with her to work each day.

[Starboard]

Rational analysis, scorned

*************

Indeed it is. Emotions, tribalism and self-interest rule the day. Facts, logic and the lessons of history are unwanted distractions.

Eventually something will break down in a spectacular way. There's always a price to be paid for stupidity and the longer it takes for the bill to arrive the worse it will be.

[Joe 6-pack]

I have degrees in art history and history. I wouldn't disagree with the scores and conclusions in your post; however, I would offer one caveat with regards to art history.

In those excruciatingly rare instances and programs where it is taught properly, it is perhaps the most comprehensive of the liberal arts, encompassing aspects of anatomy, chemistry, engineering, literature, mythology, historical methods, social psychology, politics, etc. It demands scrupulous observation and the ability to communicate and defend one's analyses and conclusions.

Honestly, in the 30 years since I left college, I've not once had to identify a sculpture or date a painting in advancement of my professional life, but the research, writing and communication skills I developed in the discipline have been put to use virtually every single day.

Again, I do agree with the primary assertion of your post in that it ranks among the useless degrees out there; I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be, and frankly the responsibility for that is primarily on the academics in the field.

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

Definitely not surprised by the placement of "Education" at the top, but it seems we all conveniently forget that educators played a significant role in all our lives. If they had all been a net drain on society, then what does that say about each and every one of us? How did we manage to become rational, reasoning adults without at least a modicum of guidance from someone in our educational past?

Contrary to popular belief, many teachers enter the field to do their small part to try to "right the ship", so to speak. I've met many conservative teachers during my time behind the desk, and I can say we all have the same objective --- to reach the students we can and free them from the allure of groupthink.

[Starboard]

Most of the affluent people I know have children with soft degrees of dubious value and jobs that don’t pay much. The parents still subsidize the kids and seem to be content to let them live with the illusion that they are independent.

When mommy and daddy always provide a comforting safety net it destroys motivation and ambition. I’ve seen this countless times.

[SaxxonWoods]

I got a ‘useless’ Sociology degree in ‘75. Never worked in the field but was able to apply some of what I learned to real estate (statistics and mass movements in society) so it all worked out. The diploma itself never mattered at all.

[Leaning Right]

> And I question the ‘lack of job market’ when it comes to education. There are lots of teacher jobs available. <

In most places it depends on the field. There is a huge surplus of social studies and physical education teachers. At job fairs many school districts will not even interview those folks.

Ah, but get certified to teach special education, math, or science (but not biology, excess there too) and you’ve got a real shot. Just stay out of urban schools! It’s not worth it.

Side point: I’m a retired teacher. And I firmly believe that education degrees should be abolished. As seen in SeekAndFind‘s chart, those degrees lack rigor. Better yet, they have no rigor at all. Just parrot back whatever the latest teaching fad is.

So if you want to teach, say, chemistry first get a degree in chemistry. Then apprentice under a master chemistry teacher. That’s what I did, by the way.

[Borges]

THe same with English.

[Bikkuri]

I had The History of Art as an elective. It was the most BORING class I have had in my life.
The teacher was monotone (like the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), and all he did was show pictures of all of the European sites he had visited, (monotone and slow) “this me me standing next to the Greek Pillars, and this is me in Rome looking at~”.

Within 5 minutes of class start 99% of us were snoring (I don’t think any of us made above a C :^/ ).

History was one of my favorite courses, and the teacher was excellent. I chose him for 2 semesters.

[Vermont Lt]

There will be a lot of comments on this thread (and on the original) from people making judgements about the value of a particular degree.

I am going to point out that degrees simply tell me that someone has “studied” a particular field. In most cases, what they learn is not applicable to every day work in a specific job. I would argue that most of what any of us “learned” in college 30 years ago stopped being “useful” many years ago.

Here is what I DO know: I had a great career as a CATV Executive, Banking Executive, and small business owner. With the exception of Statistics and some business tax classes, very little of what I learned in college mattered. Throughout my careers I was self taught or sent to specialty training.

I worked hard, studied my craft hard, and was able to apply external information to a situation.

My point is that the person is key, not the degree. If you can find your “place” in the world and you are motivated, the “degree” is not relevant.

These kinds of studies/stories are examples of the types of writing at places like American Thinker that employ no editors or editorial discretion.

[Deplorable American1776]

Useless degrees: 1) Transgender Underwater Basketweaving!

2)LGBTQ Business History

3)LGBTQ Sanitization engineering 🤓