So what. Getting an education is a good thing. Please don’t tell me that FREEPERS are anti- college education now all of a sudden.
Of course. One person posts one article so that means all of Free Republic is "anti-college".
I think we made a mistake in insisting that college was the only way to correctly enter the workforce, in any career.
I do believe we neglected the other paths.
But if it's the education you're really looking for and you don't care about the paper, you can generally get that at the public library.
RE: Please don’t tell me that FREEPERS are anti- college education now all of a sudden.
I don’t think FReepers are anti-college per se, many however are questioning whether some degrees and courses offered have ANY RELEVANCE to finding a job at all and if it is even WORTH paying or going into debt to the tune of $30,000 or more tuition every year to study such courses.
Some are asking whether there are better alternatives...
> So what. Getting an education is a good thing. Please don’t tell me that FREEPERS are anti- college education now all of a sudden.
Not anti-college education, but there needs to be some common sense applied.
Case in point: A friend’s daughter recently graduated from a university with a 4 year degree in performing arts and $211,000 in loans over her 5 year term of learning.
She currently earns $13/hr. How will she ever pay this off?
Answer. She won’t. In a year or two, she will default on these loans and we will pick up the tab in higher fees and taxes.
“So what. Getting an education is a good thing. Please don’t tell me that FREEPERS are anti- college education now all of a sudden.”
Training and education are critical but the current higher education model is broken. We can no longer afford the current approach, a cottage industry with high costs and low efficiency. A large part of higher education can be remade with commoditization of the product, standardization of evaluation, and unbundling of services. This approach will not work for clinical and lab intensive areas but most higher education do not involve these aspects. Even the first two years of medical school could fit within this model. The goal should be to drive down costs for a large part of higher education to perhaps $50 per credit hour.
Beyond remaking higher education, students are getting poor advice about college in middle and high school. I am combatting this misinformation with my daughters. Basically, they are being told that anyone who does not go to college is a loser. I have told them that their teachers and counselors live in a sheltered environment in which each degree confers additional compensation (input oriented compensation). I have told them that many students are now leaving school with very large debts and poor job prospects. I have told them that many students move back with their parents after finishing college. I have also told them that foreign competition and government imposed employment costs are reducing demand for skilled labor here and reducing compensation. I have told them that they should be prepared to start their own business.
The emphasis should be on careers not higher education. Students should focus on identifying careers with reasonable employment prospects along with the training and education necessary to gain entry into these careers. They should be given a realistic assessment about the changing dynamics of employment and careers not cheerleading about higher education. Pursuing higher education without career aspirations is a losing game.
The only people who “get an education” in college are the people who actually learn something while they attend.
Most just get dumber and dumber.
Usually when I point out that the more educated someone is, the less likely they are to be a creationist; the long knives against education come out!
It is all just liberal indoctrination, donchaknow? /s
A lot of Freepers are anti-college, especially those who haven’t a college degree and are suspicious of those they think are over-educated.
The truth is that half a century ago a high school diploma indicated that someone had the knowledge and skills people only have today after they have earned a bachelor’s degree or perhaps even a master’s degree. Only the best and the brightest went on to college and/or grad school. If we could get our high schools back, all of our kids wouldn’t have to go to college. But the way things are, kids graduate from high school with such overwhelming ignorance that they need some college just to learn some rudiments.
If you’re treating college like a trade school, to be able to get a well-paying job, you might be wasting your money. You might do better to go to a real trade schoo. But if you’re going to college to learn about Western civilization and the life of the mind, to learn how to use your mind, to write and think in ways you haven’t before, to get exposed to the greatest brains of human history, then going to college or university is a good option.
Yes. But people also have to find a means of employment. Employment today requires credentials and you can spend your credentialing time getting a high value credential or "getting an education". Understandably many people choose the former over the latter. Unless they're coming into a trust fund after school or their family is loaded.