Posted on 09/13/2023 5:14:18 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The woes plaguing our government-run K-12 schools now show themselves on the college level. Classes, many of which are useless and often come with a far-left slant, have led to sinking confidence in our formerly esteemed universities.
A recent Wall Street Journal-NORC poll reveals that most Americans don’t feel a college degree is worth the cost. The survey finds that 56% of Americans think earning a four-year degree is not worth the time and money involved, compared with just 42% who retain faith in the institution.
Most importantly, the strongest skepticism is found in men and women between ages 18 and 34 and people with college degrees. Their opinions have soured the most, which portends a major shift for higher education in the coming years.
College enrollment had risen for decades, peaking at 70.1% in 2009, but then it began to ebb. Between 2019 and 2022, there was an 8% decline, according to the Associated Press. “The slide in the college-going rate since 2018 is the steepest on record, especially for men.”
Also, a YPulse survey asserts that 55% of current Gen Z undergraduate students and 38% of Gen Z graduate students found their classes not relevant to their lives — in part “because college doesn’t teach practical skills…”
Similarly, a Gallup poll released in July finds that “Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior surveys in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).
In addition to their classes not being relevant to their lives, colleges are failing because of their blatant political bias. If you are right of center or apolitical, going to college can be a very disturbing experience. The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports that more than half of students (56%) “expressed worry about damaging their reputation because of someone misunderstanding what they have said or done, and just over a quarter of students (26%) reported that they feel pressure to avoid discussing controversial topics in their classes. Twenty percent reported that they often self-censor.”
Interestingly, FIRE finds that Harvard, America’s most prestigious university, is ranked dead last as the country’s most hostile school for free speech, having received a score of 0.000, though the real figure is “more than six standard deviations below the average.” This should not come as a surprise, however. As legal scholar Jonathan Turley reports, a Harvard Crimson study finds “most departments had effectively purged their ranks of conservatives. Only 1.46% of the faculty now self-identifies as ‘conservative,’ while 82.46% of faculty surveyed identify as ‘liberal’ or ‘very liberal.’ This, in a country that has split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats.”
And for the privilege of being indoctrinated at Harvard, a student’s family and the taxpayers have to shell out about $334,000 for a four-year stay.
But for young people who don’t want to incur life-long debt for being brainwashed and not learning any useful skills, there is help. In the past year, The Wall Street Journal notes that governors in Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia have “taken executive action to filter prospective employees by skills, not degrees. This reform opens paths to opportunity and helps states fill jobs.”
Also, companies such as Delta Air Lines and IBM have reduced educational requirements for certain positions, and shifted hiring to focus more on skills and experience. Walmart, the country’s largest private employer, said it values skills and knowledge gained through work experience, and that “75% of its U.S. salaried store management started their careers in hourly jobs.”
Skilled trade programs and apprenticeship programs are booming. The number of apprentices registered with the Department of Labor has surpassed 593,000, which represents a 65% increase from the level a decade ago. The Wall Street Journal details an example of a successful program. Students of the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) program – a mix of new high-school grads and older factory workers well into their careers – typically spend two days a week in class and three days on the factory floor, earning a part-time salary. “They learn to maintain and repair machinery; traditional subjects such as English, math and philosophy; and soft skills such as work ethic and teamwork. After earning an associate degree, most work full time for the factories that sponsored them.”
Also, high school graduates in California can take advantage of an apprenticeship program. CalMatters reports that registered apprenticeships “provide options for Californians to get paid while learning a trade — like carpentry or plumbing — from skilled industry professionals, and usually get a job afterward. California’s Department of Industrial Relations has traditionally offered apprenticeship programs in the building trades, such as bricklaying and carpentry, but also trains for careers in healthcare, technology, transportation and firefighting, among others.”
A nonprofit in Philadelphia has presented new opportunities for students. Launchpad, a three-year career and technical education program, is not only free but students get paid for their work.
In St. Louis, Next Prep, offered in two high schools, is “a pilot program that helps teens start early in figuring out what they might want to do after graduation. The class starts in ninth grade and begins with exploring each student’s strengths and talents. Later, the class dives into learning about careers by visiting employers and talking directly with professionals. Hands-on and personal, the course is meant to lay out the steppingstones from high school to a meaningful career.”
Not only are many students now getting an earlier start on a career, but they are not being saddled with the massive debt that frequently comes with a college education, which keeps getting more and more costly. Since 1992, tuition has more than doubled at four-year private colleges, even after adjusting for inflation.
In fact, Americans owed $1.75 trillion in student debt in 2022, according to StudentLoanHero. A typical graduate in the class of 2021 left campus with an average of $29,100 in student debt. All told, 45.3 million Americans hold outstanding student loans as of fiscal year 2022.
All the while, the feds ironically keep trying to pass this debt along to American taxpayers, many of whom decided that a college career was not worth the cost.
When I went to college in the late 1960s, it was the thing to do. Just about everyone in my middle-class community did the same. But today, things are different. Unless a young person is planning to pursue a profession that demands a college degree, it’s time to take a different path. They and the nation’s workforce will be much better off for it.
Colleges have become indoctrination centers.
Exactly.
read the article
the times are changing
even Ibm is back to the seventies with no degree needed.
CHICENSOUP predicts the return of
Bank school
IBM school
Law internships in place of school
Medical internships with flexibility instead of school
Accounting school
All run by the companies that need these skills
Unless you want to be a doctor or lawyer, all a college education shows a perspective employer is that you started something and saw it through to completion.
There was a time when college education meant the acquisition of skills necessary for independent critical thinking and judgment; the liberal arts, in effect, which enabled one to discern for himself what is good, true, and beautiful. Those days of course are long gone, and with them any claim to legitimacy by the institutions, now derelict in their mission.
While STEM departments continue to serve a useful role there is really no need for their students to have to enroll in undergraduate indoctrination classes.
I went to college in the second half of the 60s ‘cause I wanted to be an electrical engineer. I also was forced to take a three-course liberal arts “penetration”…I chose history. Was also “forced” to take English.
As a result, I graduated with a useful degree, skill set and a strong understanding of how our culture developed. Also three battle stars for fighting three riots as a Guardsman on my own damned campus!
I went back for an MBA, five-years later to develop interpersonal and communications skills in order to enhance my engineering skills.
The most useless class I had was Psychology! I only got a C because I took the professor to task in the lecture for joking about electro-shock treatments.
We’re already there.
They're probably 75% correct. It absolutely depends upon the courses the student chooses. Gender studies. Women's studies. African American history. Yeah, it's money in the toilet.
Medicine. Engineering. Those can yield a positive return.
Yup. STEM-B or don’t bother.
Science
Technology
Engineering
Mathematics (maybe)
And Business.
Or certified in trades.
“Plastics!”
My friends it’s the market influenced by public opinion. Depression era adults pushed it to get ahead. I parked my ass in lecture halls for 4 years. Paid for by the GI Bill-didn’t want to work.
Today it’s the EV’s. People that buy them think they’re being virtuous. It really isn’t the market until you throw in the public opinion factor. I believe that someday EV’s could be the answer but a real market would include a real ‘show me’ attitude first.
We're from the same era. I graduated high school in 1971. That summer, I enrolled in college. The draft ended in '73. We withdrew from SV in '75.
I ended up with three degrees. The first two served me well. The last was a business degree with accounting major. I thought I would retire and open a CPA firm. I spent a season giving income tax assistance to low income wage earners.
I discovered that I had no interest in dealing with the brand of human beings currently populating earf. I never opened a CPA firm.
📌
LOL
You have to be ‘old’ to get that reference...
Certification tests from CompTia requires you enter demographic information before it gives your scores!
I often wondered if if I put i. Different demographics if I would get a different score.
Is there a good program for Project Manager certification you would recommend? My grandson needs to find a less physical job...
I interview potential hires for high level coding work at least twice a year. I get 25 or more resumes for every open position. Most are senior level positions requiring 5 or more years of experience. Most of he resumes meet that requirement, but for some odd reason I always get some resumes from kids fresh out of college with little or no practical experience who think that because they went to Harvard or another Ivy League school they qualify for positions far above their talent and experience deserve. If I see an Ivy League school on a resume it immediately gets marked PASS. I am more likely to hire a community college graduate with 5 years practical experience than an Ivy League graduate. (I have tried to get our recruiters to filter out these unqualified applicants, but for some strange reason they seem to think an Ivy League graduate is special.
When I was a PM this was the gold standard.
Plumbers and welders and such often earn more money. Especially compared to worthless degrees like psychology or sociology.
A friend owns an engineering firm in Provo, Utah. He won’t hire an engineer with a GPA over 3.5. Says they are people who can memorize for tests but can’t actually apply what they “learned.” Interesting.
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