Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Let's Drop the College-For-Everyone Crusade
RCM ^ | 05/29/2012 | Robert Samuelson

Posted on 05/29/2012 4:08:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: PGR88

Jackson community college now has dorms.


21 posted on 05/29/2012 6:07:52 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
From Cracked.com

5 Infuriating Things Nobody Tells You About College

22 posted on 05/29/2012 6:25:13 AM PDT by CtBigPat (Free Republic - The grown-ups table of the internet.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

We need to bring back manufacturing.

We also need to stop pretending you can change IQ with schooling.


23 posted on 05/29/2012 7:04:14 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

You are absolutely correct. For the last 9-1/2 years, I have driven to and from work along the same route. There is a steel fabricting plant on the way that has had the same sign out front for that entire time “Now Hiring - Welders.” We don’t need more art history majors, English majors, etc. We need plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, welders, etc.


24 posted on 05/29/2012 7:15:40 AM PDT by BruceS (If you refuse to support the lesser of two evils, then you are supporting the greater of two evils.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: BruceS

Probably the single best speech I’ve seen on what America really needs came from Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs”. We don’t need butts at desks, we need diggers, drillers, drivers, and builders.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2650612/posts


25 posted on 05/29/2012 7:20:46 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Less college, more vocational training and more apprenticeships. There is good money to be made in plumbing, electrical work, welding, etc.


26 posted on 05/29/2012 7:34:22 AM PDT by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

Well, that’s an issue right there.

Many middle class parents push their kids to go to college, because they want to see them work in an office with a computer. They don’t want to see them do any sort of manual labor, even if some of those laboring jobs pay more than the desk job with a computer.

There’s anecdotal evidence that many of the “dirty” jobs in this country are now being done by people who were not born in this country. It seems a paradox that we have millions of ghetto youth and other low skilled people, who allegedly can’t get jobs. Yet we import millions to do various low skilled but needed jobs.


27 posted on 05/29/2012 7:38:18 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

No. 50% of the population has an IQ of 100 or less.


28 posted on 05/29/2012 7:41:26 AM PDT by Chickensoup (STOP The Great O-ppression)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego

There’s anecdotal evidence that many of the “dirty” jobs in this country are now being done by people who were not born in this country. It seems a paradox that we have millions of ghetto youth and other low skilled people, who allegedly can’t get jobs. Yet we import millions to do various low skilled but needed jobs.
______________________

I beleive that is some of the regulation and PC is cut back, companies will take the time to train the kids they need. But who is going to give a black kid a chance if they cannot fire him if he doesnt work out.


29 posted on 05/29/2012 7:44:18 AM PDT by Chickensoup (STOP The Great O-ppression)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: redgolum
We also need to stop pretending you can change IQ with schooling.

That was basically what The Bell Curve was about. We may, by truly massive early intervention, be able to raise IQ by 2 to 4 points, but not more.

The intervention required to make even this minor difference is not really practical to accomplish, even leaving its cost out of the issue.

This issue of what do we do with the "less than bright" is at the root core of most of our social problems. Yet 15 years after TBC we still insist on pretending the issue doesn't exist.

30 posted on 05/29/2012 7:44:53 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego
There’s anecdotal evidence that many of the “dirty” jobs in this country are now being done by people who were not born in this country.

True enough. Many of the farms I worked on 30 years ago now hire illegals because the local kids won't do it. Back then they paid us $5 an hour under the table and that was a whole hell of a lot better than the $3.35 minimum wage.
31 posted on 05/29/2012 7:54:18 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Chickensoup

I don’t believe that’s exactly correct either.

Since 100 is in the center of the bell curve, by definition, it will be the most common score.

Therefore 100 or less will be something more than exactly 50%, just as 100 and above will be. May 51% or 53%.

But I really do think this is nitpicking.

Recently read an article about how in the next decade probably millions of jobs as drivers (bus, truck, cab, etc.) will permanently disappear. The article was upbeat, pointing out that the displaced drivers could get jobs creating apps for Iphone and Ipad.

Studiously ignoring the rather glaring fact that someone with an IQ of 80 or 90 can function quite well as a driver, but is probably quite incapable of the creativity necessary to write apps.


32 posted on 05/29/2012 8:09:26 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: mountainlion
There are already lots of college students who don't belong in college--can't perform at high school level and still expect a good grade in the course. And administrators put pressure on professors not to give too many D's and F's...they don't want the enrollment to drop. At least at the less expensive public universities--maybe the situation is better at the more selective private colleges and universities or at "flagship" public universities.

Trying to increase the number of students who attend college just inflates the number who don't really belong there--no aptitude for real learning and not interested in studying.

33 posted on 05/29/2012 10:16:05 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Verginius Rufus
I wonder if they are still flunking out Veterans for taking the place they think should be filled by liberal trash? Lots of anti war “professors” flunked out veterans to make a place for a draft deferment.
34 posted on 05/29/2012 12:34:48 PM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Venturer

“They want Socialism ,and kids who think the way their Socialist Professors do.”

First & foremost, they want customers to buy a product that is falling in value as the jobs go overseas anyway. Any job that can command a decent salary is already being re-worked so that you can either send it to Asia or bring Asians here to do it.

College today is for suckers, unless you really know why you are going.


35 posted on 05/29/2012 2:28:28 PM PDT by kearnyirish2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek
Colleges need to be fewer, farther between, and privately funded. If anything, we need more trade schools and apprenticeship programs. College should be for those who can pay or can get the grades to win privately funded scholarships.

I agree. The college for all mentality was briefly abandoned in my state in the 1970's for encouraging VOC/Tech courses. Then in stepped the every ones going to college policy makers and added college bound courses.

There are some students who simply are NEVER going to grasp subjects like Algebra or Geometry. It doesn't mean they are dumb or stupid it means they learn differently in a more practical way. I was one of those students.

In my senior year I did not attend high school. I was working for a company at 40 plus hours per week. That is the way it should be. I'm not knocking college. If a person has the tallent GOD love them go for it. But the everyone goes to college policies are bankrupting school systems and taxpayers. It is also have a huge negative affect on ones who could better spend the time wasted in advanced courses learning several trades. I encourage any kid today not going too college to learn several different trades. It will serve you well to do so.

This drives home my point about advanced classes and the everyone goes to college policy. I took a VOC/TECH course after my Navy service actually it was my second one. Yet again in came the advanced Math push even in those classes. The Math instructor insisted I had to have a pencil and paper on the job to be able to properly position an extension ladder aaginst a structure and he was dead serious. I looked at him and said here is what I will do. I position it at the tip of my feet on a sure and stable footing. I extend my arms straight out holding the sides of the ladder. If I can do that then the ladder is properly and safely placed. If I take out a pencil and paper to set a ladder I would be fired. I could not get him to grasp that simple time and industry honored concept anymore than he could get me to grasp advanced math.

36 posted on 05/29/2012 3:20:45 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Recently read an article about how in the next decade probably millions of jobs as drivers (bus, truck, cab, etc.) will permanently disappear. The article was upbeat, pointing out that the displaced drivers could get jobs creating apps for Iphone and Ipad.

Those jobs are secure for decades too come. Our nation is no where close to developing any type of system to replace them. Having the technology does not mean something is economically practical. Rails as far as local mass transportation are only functional in larger cities or heavilly populated areas and then are very limited at that. Trucks? LOL I see no rail tracks going down each road. Everthing we buy ships on a truck. Trucking is the quickest way short of airlift to move products point to point at desired destination even transporting coast to coast. The technology and the upfront R&D cost of a driverless nation will be cost prohibitive for decades to come.

Back in my early childhood {late 1950's-1960's} the "thinkers" believed that by the turn of the century {the year 2000} personal air travel vehicles or personal vessels would be the way people got to wherever they wanted to go.

The writer of that article obviously lives in Libbyland where common sense is the pennies a person uses to pay sales tax LOL.

BTW what did the Philosophy Doctorate Graduate say to his professor four years after graduation?
"Would you like Fries and a large drink with that"?

37 posted on 05/29/2012 4:15:31 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: DH

ok that’s important but if you don’t have people that can think straight, you have a mell of a hess.


38 posted on 05/29/2012 6:55:28 PM PDT by yldstrk ( My heroes have always been cowboys)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: DH
Today, college is only about money.

If that were so our nation would not be in the trouble we are today. The Origins of Political Correctness A very revealing essay by Bill Lind about what has happened in our colleges & universities as well as embedded into our government.

39 posted on 05/29/2012 8:04:21 PM PDT by cva66snipe (Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: cva66snipe

Thanks for the link.

Everyone should read that article.


40 posted on 05/30/2012 4:23:35 AM PDT by DH (Once the tainted finger of government touches anything the rot begins)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson