This woman is SOOOOOOOOOOO correct. A few things:
1) The whole college industry is a sham and should be investigated by Congress for being a monopoly and price gouging (will never happen). There is no way it should cost an average of $20K to attend college. And these stupid federal loans just subsidize colleges, thus allowing them to raise tuition! Subsidies artificially raise prices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) College should be no more than (2) years, except for perhaps engineers or serious science students. No more gay studies, no more minority / women's oppression classes, etc. And get rid of the professors who teach this junk.
Some kids are ready for college at 18. Many are not.
I recommend that high school seniors consider enlisting in one of our military branches. They'll get some time to grow up, and get some great college benefits when they're done.
I dropped out of college in my sophomore year (1965), then joined the USAF. Four years later, I was actually ready to return to school. I did quite well, and the experience has served me well through the years.
Beyond that, it would help ease any enlistment shortages in the military.
It's my advice to young folks who don't have a clear idea of what they want to do.
60% of all students are on some form of "assistance" or student aid.
There is still a premium in lifetime pay for a college grad over a high school degree, but it has declined steadily in the last 10 years. On the other hand, the premium for an advanced degree has increased slightly.
The biggest premium is on a high school degree over no high school degree. While it is not true that you "can't make it" without a college degree, it is very nearly accurate to say you can't make it without a high school degree. For someone who goes to work right out of high school, the lifetime earnings compared with a college grad's aren't that different.
That said, SINCE WHEN ARE UNIVERSITIES TO "TRAIN" YOU FOR LIFE? The purpose of a university was to train the mind and to expand knowledge, not to teach you to be a plumber or journalist or computer programmer. We have increasingly gotten to having a university education be focused on a job. If that's the only purpose, on-line universities do as good a job as a 4-year college.
Well, Amanda, for starters, the phrase is creme de la creme. And college isn't supposed to prepare you for life; it's supposed to prepare you to make a living. Life is the only thing that prepares you for life. And by time you get it right, you're dead.
“Concerning the advancement of learning, I do subscribe to the opinion… that, for grammar schools, there are already too many… the great number of schools which are in your Highness’s realm doth cause a want, and likewise an overthrow [surfeit] – both of them inconvenient and one of them dangerous; for by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry and of apprentices for trade; and on the other side there being more Scholars bred than the State can prefer and employ… it must needs fall out that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations and unprofitable for that in which they were bred up, which will fill the realm full of indigent, idle and wanton people…” Francis Bacon, 1611 letter to James I.
I knew a Harvard lib arts guy in the late 80s who knew nothing about computers but was hired anyway as a marketing rep by MS. Since MS likes Harvard grads, he got some of the last open options and a few years later he was a millionaire.
Good headline. Here is another: WATER IS WET.
If your parents can afford it, or you are willing to borrow for it, college at its best is about enhancing the quality of your life overall, and not about occupational training. It is about educating one in the liberal arts, in the broadest sense. God created graduate schools for a reason. That is where one goes to get licensed to count beans, or sue folks, or cut them open, etc.
I'm conflicted.
I don't know whether to say "duh", or "amen".
This is so good. It verbalizes many of my thoughts and adds some! Thank you for posting it.
Let's face it: This author uses the phrase "Let's face it" too much.
Bump for later read
To some extent college does prepare people, as long as the student picks a worthwhile major and learns to commit himself/herself to the discipline of a working lifestyle.
BM