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For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time
Wall Street Journal ^ | 13 August 2008 | charles Murray

Posted on 08/13/2008 6:42:34 AM PDT by shrinkermd

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes.

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: academia; charlesmurray; college; education; highereducation; worthwhile
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"...The merits of a CPA-like certification exam apply to any college major for which the BA is now used as a job qualification. To name just some of them: criminal justice, social work, public administration and the many separate majors under the headings of business, computer science and education. Such majors accounted for almost two-thirds of the bachelor's degrees conferred in 2005. For that matter, certification tests can be used for purely academic disciplines. Why not present graduate schools with certifications in microbiology or economics -- and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library?

Mr. Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book, "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality" (Crown Forum). He was the co-author of the Bell Curve


1 posted on 08/13/2008 6:44:01 AM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd

College is for drinking, partying and football...........And sleeping thru classes..........


2 posted on 08/13/2008 6:46:43 AM PDT by Red Badger (All that carbon in all that oil and coal was once in the atmosphere. We're just putting it back.....)
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To: Red Badger

Getting fing Laid!


3 posted on 08/13/2008 6:48:03 AM PDT by SShultz460 (If peace is the answer; it must be a stupid question.)
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To: shrinkermd

Especially as degreed tech industry jobs are offshored to India and the software product is smuggled tax free into the country via computer networks.


4 posted on 08/13/2008 6:50:06 AM PDT by weegee (Hi there.)
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To: Red Badger

"Seven years of college down the drain!! Might as well join the f***ing Peace Corps!!"

5 posted on 08/13/2008 6:50:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus (Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam)
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To: shrinkermd

College serves one very useful purpose.

It teaches kids who have grown beyond the socialist public schools system (where there are no repercussions for anything except political incorrectness), the habits which they will need to hold and keep jobs.

Waking up each morning ready to go, whether you feel like it or not - because of the wild fraternity/sorority bash the night before. Passing tests. Paying attention. Doing stuff you don’t really want to.

Those skills are pretty darn important in the real world.

College profs, are training for a boss.

You like some. You don’t like some. But you have to deal with that.

College classes are like work duties.

You like some. You don’t like some.

You deal with that too.


6 posted on 08/13/2008 6:54:41 AM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (CHEVY VOLT COUNTDOWN: V minus 100 Weeks. Waiting...)
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To: shrinkermd

a bachelor’s degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance.

That covers it pretty well. The BA keeps me sitting in an office drawing a fair salary and beats the heck out of blue collar. Never have done anything even remotely related with my PolySci.


7 posted on 08/13/2008 6:55:05 AM PDT by zek157
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To: shrinkermd

“...and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library?”

Dead ass, abysmally non-productive college professors living on the taxpayer nickel for one.


8 posted on 08/13/2008 6:56:06 AM PDT by EyeGuy
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To: shrinkermd
"He was the co-author of the Bell Curve"

Well ! We all know that curve thingy is sheer fiction!

Ol'Slick knew/spoke the truth--- Everyone that wants it should get a college education..../sarc

9 posted on 08/13/2008 6:56:08 AM PDT by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: Red Badger

College MANDATED classes not related to your major or useful are stupid. College should be 2 years long...not 4. It’s all about money.


10 posted on 08/13/2008 6:57:23 AM PDT by Sacajaweau (I'm planting corn...Have to feed my car...)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
It teaches kids who have grown beyond the socialist public schools system (where there are no repercussions for anything except political incorrectness), the habits which they will need to hold and keep jobs.

They should join the military instead and learn to love their country.

11 posted on 08/13/2008 6:58:15 AM PDT by Doohickey (Wingnut: A small, dense object that spins easily (See: Obama, Barack))
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To: zek157
perseverance

Mediocraty's way to success.....Who said dat? Ambrose Bierce? Mark Twain?

12 posted on 08/13/2008 6:58:19 AM PDT by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: Cincinatus

Fat, Dumb and Stupid is no way to go through life.


13 posted on 08/13/2008 6:58:40 AM PDT by Always Right (Obama: more arrogant than Bill Clinton, more naive than Jimmy Carter, and more liberal than LBJ.)
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To: shrinkermd

This is a tough one to respond to in a paragraph or so. Where we lived, the college had to admit any resident which applied for admission. The responded to the problems which this requirement (which allowed functionally illiterate persons to be admitted) by adding prerequisite requirements for classes. After all, how can one do algebra if one can’t read the problem? So the college, after a while, became the place where the defects of the county school system were remedied. But the unintended consequence was that the lever of intelligence of the average student nosedived. So after a while the standards for the college classes were effectively lowered. And so it goes. However, now anyone that wants to go to college can (and remain there for as long as they want).


14 posted on 08/13/2008 6:59:01 AM PDT by Citizen Tom Paine (Swift as the wind; Calmly majestic as a forest; Steady as the mountains.)
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To: shrinkermd

I think College has a purpose. The educational value is somewhat moot as my BBA taught me zilch about my current job but what is important is that you can muster the finances and the tenacity to actually get through it. If you can’t pass those rather low levels of achievement, unless you’re purely manual labor, you’re probably not a going to be a good employee.

As for physical trades like machinists, carpenters, plumbers, welders etc...you can learn more on the job in a few months than you’ll ever learn at a school. Again though, you have to have some ability and tenacity to not get booted.


15 posted on 08/13/2008 7:01:40 AM PDT by Malsua
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To: Sacajaweau

It’s all about money.............and always has been. The required classes are there for the money collected from the students so the college can pay the salaries of the tenured profs and high paid admin staff............


16 posted on 08/13/2008 7:01:52 AM PDT by Red Badger (All that carbon in all that oil and coal was once in the atmosphere. We're just putting it back.....)
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To: Doohickey

“They should join the military instead and learn to love their country.”

I know lots of non-vets who love the U.S. I’m one.


17 posted on 08/13/2008 7:03:05 AM PDT by gracesdad
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To: Doohickey

:)

Or that.

(somewhat embarrassed to admit being a civilian)


18 posted on 08/13/2008 7:03:22 AM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (CHEVY VOLT COUNTDOWN: V minus 100 Weeks. Waiting...)
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To: Always Right
Fat, DumbDrunk and Stupid is no way to go through life son.

I think that's the actual quote :).

19 posted on 08/13/2008 7:03:37 AM PDT by Malsua
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To: shrinkermd
a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance.

It also indicates that the applicant can read and write, which a high school diploma no longer does. If the employer wants someone who can think and write well--that's another story.

20 posted on 08/13/2008 7:03:50 AM PDT by DeFault User
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