Seven years down the drain!
Posted on 06/22/2014 9:58:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The more we insist everyone must attend college, the less colleges will offer what students need.
About a month ago, I came across a pair of letters online. The first, simply signed “Alumnus,” is an angry retort to his alma mater’s request for a donation. He is irritated that his degrees and the time and money spent on them have left him $40,000 in debt and unemployed for two years-plus after graduation.
The second, signed “A Dedicated Professor,” is an attempt to take Alumnus to task for his lack of understanding about the significance of a true education—something he accuses Alumnus of lacking despite his earned degrees. According to Dedicated Professor, an education is not about economic potential, but about far loftier concerns of intellectual edification and opening the human mind.
Though seemingly at odds, the two complaints complement each other, for each proceeds from the way our culture views a college education—a way that is no longer tenable. College has both an internal heritage of intellectual edification and an external reputation for upward economic mobility.
Dedicated Professor, however, repeatedly indicates that these two goals can often be at odds, contrasting “superficial gains” with “the meaning of being human” and disconnecting “success” from material production. The consequence of this tension is that the more we perceive college as the only appropriate one-size-fits-all destination for every American, the more colleges have to try to pursue both ideals, and the less they succeed at either. This is borne out by the fact that Alumnus now recognizes the blatant falsehood of promises of upward mobility and Dedicated Professor recognizes the severe disconnect between the achievement of a degree and the kind of education he extols.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
I strongly disagree.
However we MUST break the lock, the left has on higher education in America.
That is critical. We don’t even try. We choose to basically ignore, that the opposition has a complete lock on the entire system of higher education in America.
That is a very important battle, which we are not even involved in.
This “Dedicated Professor” is full of $hit. Paying 40k and spending years of ones life in order to find the “meaning of being human” is an out and out fraud.
With a very few subject matter fields excepted (engineering, sciences, etc.), I am forced to conclude that nowadays in general, college not only doesn’t get you a job, but it actually makes you stupider.
You are right that only engineering, math, the sciences are worth paying for a college degree.
Literature, art, music and any of the liberal arts can be studied by an individual reading and taking a few classes.
Being immersed in most of the studies now being offered only exposes the student to lefty professors and leaves him/her saddled with debt and working in a coffee shop. Or maybe becoming some kind of angry agitator or OWS person
” college not only doesn’t get you a job, but it actually makes you stupider.”
There’s no guarantee you will receive a job after graduation but it always depends on your character and which degree you attain in the end. Now if your degree was in the norm of something idiotic and useless such as “Women’s Studies”, then you deserve to be unemployed.
They used to say, “Even if you flunk out, get the education,” meaning there were things learned at college that were not taught in the classroom that were still important in and of themselves. But you’d still have to ask at “what price” does the learning come? Most of a college education today, even in some areas of the hard sciences (global warming), is miseducation, also called lying or deception. I agree, the left has a lock on education - a hugh influence for evil. I’m hoping that technology can somehow disrupt the hierarchical structure to allow other models where conservatives can regain influence.
I agree, we need to change the culture in colleges. This huge charge for education that is made up of gender studies and occult ancient religious studies to the exclusion of literature, math, real science, business ethics etc. is a total waste of time and resources. Not everyone should have a college education, only the best and the brightest should even be admitted.
“Big Education”
One of the most effective funding streams for liberals.
Unfortunately courses in those subjects (other than music, which does involve a very technical course of study) are useless because, as you say, they have been so politicized.
“There’s no guarantee you will receive a job after graduation but it always depends on your character and which degree you attain in the end. Now if your degree was in the norm of something idiotic and useless such as “Women’s Studies”, then you deserve to be unemployed.”
I know an F-15 Pilot who’s degree is in zoology. That said, there’s more than character that goes into it. It’s also who you know. “Networking” is a big thing in getting a job these days, which is going to pose as a problem for me when I leave the military next year. I’m not a sociable individual or one who has a lot of connections because I don’t like dealing with the drama and bullshit that people fill their lives with, usually over minor issues. I’m taking up a trade this time because my paper degree is worthless, I made that mistake and paid it off in Afghanistan. This time is will be a trade. As far as networking, I’ll be unemployed and in school for a while, so volunteering and church.
Seven years down the drain!
“Women’s Studies” is a resume stain.
Every year you get a lower quality product that costs more.
...The fact that 80% of students believe in God when they enter but very few believe when they graduate proves college has become an indoctrination of liberalism not of learning...
Have to agree. Stupid in, stupid out!
The bedrock of junk science is the mistake that correlation is causation. People with degrees tend to earn more money because of their brain cells. Club Ed doesn't hand those out, only kills a few each day.
“...a hugh influence for evil”,
Yes it is, but are you series? :-)
Exception....if someone is in a financial situation where their parents can pay for that college education, they should do it. That's the way of the world.
I can solve the entire problem of College Education with a simple, one sentence rule:
No person under the age of 45 may teach at any college or university.
You would be surprised how the perspective and focus changes between going out and having to earn a living in the real world for 20 years, and someone that has lived their entire life in academia.
(I have a sister that the latter applies to!)
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