[Chaguito]

I'm a teacher in a private high school and have been shouting this truth since the first day I entered the hallowed halls. We are making a mockery of liberal education by insisting that "everybody" should go to a four-year university and at the same time increasing elitism by looking down our noses at vocational education.

Students come back to visit me, floundering around, knowing they would like to do something useful, but wasting their time on courses that add nothing to who they really are, nor to what they will eventually do for a living. Meanwhile they are losing all that money they could be earning doing something they enjoy.

Increased elitism -- the inevitable unintended consequence of every liberal education notion intended to decrease elitism.

[SBprone]

I googled for Murray’s new book without success, but I did find this WSJ piece by Murray and I thought you might like to read it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[LS]

I teach at a private, some-what upper tier university, and think that a good 50% of my students need to be somewhere else. And I tell them that. The first day I say, "I know many of you are here and really don't know why---your parents came here, your brother, your sister. It's the 'thing to do.' But you really probably don't want to be here."

Thing is, that was ME. I attended a big state U for four years and didn't learn much at all, because all I wanted to do was play rock music---which I did for several years after I got out. Once I decided I wanted something else, THEN I came back, got straight As, and got a Ph.D.

So there is some truth to the statement that you can do what you set your mind to, although I think it's silly for someone without the brain power to say, "I'm going to become a neurosurgeon," or someone without the physical genes to say, "I'm going to become and NBA star." Sorry, won't happen.