Posted on 09/15/2008 10:51:54 AM PDT by bs9021
Reality Check on College
by: Lance Nation, September 15, 2008
Does everyone need a college education? According to Charles Murray, “No, too many people are going to college. A Bachelor of Arts in and of itself tells you nothing. We have exalted a meaningless document.”
Murray, a W. H. Brady Scholar at American Enterprise Institute (AEI), does not argue that people should not be educated. “Everyone deserves a liberal education. However, they do not need to attend a four-year college or university to obtain it,” he said recently at AEI.
Murray discussed his new book. Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing American Education Back to Reality. The first truth is that “ability varies. Too many people are being told they can do something they cannot.” Murray believes that a recent SAT study proves exactly this. “According to a recent SAT study, only student who score above an 1180 are prepared for college. When calculated, this is only 10% of high school seniors. Yet, guidance councilors tell 90% of their students to go to college.”
Murray does not argue against the monetary statistics that show a person’s income is higher with Bachelor degrees than without it; however, he argues that this is due to public perception. “What does a Bachelor in Sociology, Political Science, History, Psychology, Philosophy, or Business Administration show? Nothing. A student could have coasted through by choosing the easiest classes, with the easiest professors, and not have opened a single book. However, if you don’t have this piece of paper, you can’t even get a decent job interview . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
Murray does not argue against the monetary statistics that show a person’s income is higher with Bachelor degrees than without it; however, he argues that this is due to public perception. “What does a Bachelor in Sociology, Political Science, History, Psychology, Philosophy, or Business Administration show? Nothing. A student could have coasted through by choosing the easiest classes, with the easiest professors, and not have opened a single book. However, if you don’t have this piece of paper, you can’t even get a decent job interview
murray’s book is really a fun read.
If college is the answer, i would hate to know what the question is.
The easy way out is certifications. There are already certifications for the IT field that have served as a good baseline for new candidates. A similar approach could be used for almost any field.
A bachelor’s degree in history or philosophy is actually a fine education. Unfortunately its value has been watered down by students who have no real interest in history or the great philosophers but instead are looking for something to carry them to law school.
I totally agree, but at the present that doesn’t work, except maybe in IT. My husband is a manager of an IT department and he hires according to experience and IT certification or degree. But the bottom line is, no matter what your degree or certification, he gives those he interviews a test. You’d be surprised at the amount of people with perfect certs (even CCIE holders) who can’t pass a practical test. Some people have the ability to get certs but not apply them in a work environment. Same problem you run into with degrees being a useless measure of how valuable an employee will be.
No doubt. I’m an old school CCIE #2024 with 20+ years IT experience and 12 yrs as a CCIE so I have seen my share of paper certs that could not perform. But I have also seen the creation or alteration of computer science programs to the point that may now teach to the IT certifications (A+, CCNA, Microsoft, etc). They do so because employers are demanding that candidates hold these certifications first, before they take up time and resources of the hiring effort.
My point was that in order to slow or hopefully prevent the slide into irrelevance for college degrees, an industry accepted certification can go a long way to force colleges to shape up. But it requires employers to say ... pass this certification and we will talk to you. If you don’t pass ... we will call you back.
Agree.
I will pose the question in a different way. Do most people need post secondary education/training?
The answer to this question is a resounding yes, not just after high school but continuing in their adult life. The question is how to provide in a cost efficient manner a level of training/education matched with individual interests and skills. Which is the better vehicle to provide post secondary education/training: heavily subsidized university education or the private sector?
The enormous subsidies to higher education are restricting mores cost effective and dynamic solutions that the private sector could deliver. Private universities are not much different than public universities either. Removal of subsidies and a mindset change are needed. The idea that every state needs a highly subsidized locally run university system is outdated. Here are some principles for a new system of post secondary education/training.
- Standardize the product using standard testing and performance criteria
- Commoditize development and delivery of the product. If textbooks can be commoditized, why cannot entire courses and programs of study?
- Unbundle services by providing a wide range of choices for the educational experience. The typical university experience forces students to pay for a wide range of services that may never be needed.
- Use computer and communication technology to deliver the product as much as possible
- Provide subsidies to individuals (vouchers) rather than subsidies to service providers
Current higher education provides the opposite of these principles. The product is not standardized, not commoditized, and not unbundled. Computer and communication technologies are certainly used but their usage increases, not decreases because nothing is displaced by their usage.
As a one time recruiter for IT (for an 8 billion dollar a year organization), certs are fine, but not usually enough. The 4 year degree is still quite desirable, if you want to move beyond a senior position into a lead position.
At 50 years old, I can state without fear of contradiction, that my BA in Philosophy has served me (and my family) quite well. I got a masters 20 years later because I could, not because I needed it.
The poster up thread who stated that learning is a life long endeavor is the wise one.
We really do need more mid-tier schools in the US along with better testing. In Britain, they basically asign people to different tracks based on testing during the early teenage years. In Germany, there are a lot of vocational and trade schools.
Seriously, a women’s studies or art history degree from a state university might as well be toilet paper. All these excess college degrees do is create liberals who think their degree makes them smarter than everybody else.
Yea, I really want the state to choose my career path for me, based on my testing scores. NOT!
And how funny is it that the European model is being touted as a good thing on FreeRepublic.
Is this upside down day and nobody told me?
I attribute this to a strong work ethic (from the military) and a drive to do what it takes to be at the top of my industry. Once I got there, I then went “wide” with my skills. A different approach than most but it has been successful for me.
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