Posted on 02/06/2007 7:52:15 AM PST by Aquinasfan
Students, parents and taxpayers are paying for high-priced professors to teach so many non-educational courses.
They are paying for a lot of needless things, however. Our faculty has had to hire a number of unneccesary staff to insure compliance to outcomes-based assessments. The cost of security is extremely high. Liability (especially when victimization is taught) is high. The cost of fancy dorms is unbelievable, but that's where many parents want their Johnny to live. Those are just the things that come immediately to mind.
My son is in college and it's strange that I can't call up the school and see how he's doing in his classes. But also, when we go give blood, they won't tell me his answers to all those personal/sex questions they ask. I don't think it's an effort to separate kids from parents, I think it's an acknowledgment, and a legal issue, that kids over 18 years old are adults.
If your kid wants to major in art therapy, don't send him to college. If he wants to be an engineer, send him to college. Don't send your money to institutions promoting things you don't approve of, and it'll all work out.
Just saying "skip college entirely" is sort of counterproductive.
But I do think there are people (someone on this thread used the term "professional manipulator", which I love) who see a sensible situation like that and decide to milk it for all it's worth and brainwash college kids -- all the while declaring that this is no business of the parents (who pay the bills) because, you know, people over 18 are adults ...
That's a bait and switch.
Woooooooow...
Let's put it this way. A true education is worth its weight in gold.
That's why I generally recommend skipping college.
Possibly, as long as you don't want to become a doctor or nurse, lawyer, engineer of any stripe, chemist, botanist, physicist, etcetera. There are certain professions that would be unwieldy to learn by apprenticeship. It would be hard for, say, a civil engineer wannabe to apprentice himself to another engineer. What if that engineer only builds bridges? When the apprentice is done, all he can build is bridges. And the master is hardly likely to have time to teach him the theory behind all the principles he needs. Or the calculus, integration, vectors, fluid dynamics, heat transfer equations, material strengths, whatever else specialized knowledge base engineering requires.
Encourage kids to study something like that, or go flip burgers til they're ready to. Without bored liberal arts or feminist theory majors hanging around, a lot of these stupid university shenannigans will cease. But unlike the k12 education system, the college system is not broken beyond repair.
>>>Rules are starting points for negotiations.<<<
Does this apply to the college rules or only to the rules the parents have?
So the rules on underage drinking can be negotiated
Yes your son is considered an adult. Tell the university you won't pay for your son's education since he is an adult and see how they flip the argument.
Actually, I don't pay for his education. He got academic scholarships, and he pays a minimal amount himself.
I went to engineering school, so I know that there's some truth to what you're saying. As a confused and angry 18-year-old, I purposely avoided liberal arts colleges and took refuge in engineering school where I knew that "no one is going to tell me that 1 + 1 = 3." In that respect, it was a good decision. It probably saved my sanity.
Nevertheless, as an engineering school graduate, I'm not overly impressed with engineering degrees. I've seen engineering school from the inside.
I'm more impressed with someone who can pass the P.E. test, rather than someone who can get a B.S. in engineering. And there's no reason why a person can't prepare himself for the P.E. test without going through engineering school. I learned very little in lectures.
You're right that liberal arts colleges are a joke. But that's not because the liberal arts are worthless. A mediocre classical education is superior to a superb education in the natural sciences, because knowledge of theology, philosophy, and language is superior to knowledge of the natural sciences; first, because the natural sciences are defined and encompassed by the superior sciences; and secondly, because the superior sciences prepare man for eternity, while the natural sciences generally prepare man for his brief life in this world.
As it turned out, I spent two weeks working as an engineer. I'm an artist by nature, a fact which I finally faced after colliding with the reality of the working world. I'm self-taught and doing fine. I have no regrets about skipping art school. I've also spent a lot of my post-schooling time teaching myself philosophy and theology. Everything important that I've learned I've learned since leaving school.
Thanks giving us "insider information" on this thread.
Everyone is biased toward his own perspective. My speciality is computer science - more specifically, software engineering. I could have learned programming on my own or from a mentor. Could probably even have gotten a decent job without the sheepskin. CS is the only engineering field that you can say that about. But I could not have become a software engineer without either years of hard labor, learning things as I went, and reading books, or courses designed to distill all those principles and give them to me fast. It's the difference between being able to use a tool, and being able to really create.
All very well to get your mediocre education in theology and philosophy but someone's got to put bread on the table. Men especially are failing their Godly role as providers if their children are not fed, or kept by the government. I also don't agree that philosphy or theology are inherently more worthwhile than natural sciences. God did not command that we sit around and think about Him; he commanded us to fill the Earth and subdue it.
Philippians 4:8Nothing is more noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy than God and His Word. "Theology is the queen of the sciences and philosophy is her handmaid."Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
...he commanded us to fill the Earth and subdue it.
You can do that without a college degree.
I simply don't see schooling and education as synonymous. Today, they're more often antithetical.
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