I just find this ridiculous. If you can do a trade fine. If you can run a successful business fine. But if you need a professional job even a secretary for a company they are going to require at least a bachelor’s Degree. And if you want a civil service job, you better have a Master’s Degree.
But only if you're smart and dedicated.
College is worth it for hard skills, e.g. accounting, brain surgery and engineering.
That’s about it.
“Engineering majors not only have higher quantitative SAT scores than English majors, they have higher verbal scores than engineering majors.”
Tell me how anyone could run a business without expertise in the following critical areas:
1. “The Phallus”
Occidental College. A seminar in critical theory and social justice, this class examines Sigmund Freud, phallologocentrism and the lesbian phallus.
2. “Queer Musicology”
UCLA. This course welcomes students from all disciplines to study what it calls an “unruly discourse” on the subject, understood through the works of Cole Porter, Pussy Tourette and John Cage.
3. “Taking Marx Seriously”
Amherst College. This advanced seminar for 15 students examines whether Karl Marx still matters despite the countless interpretations and applications of his ideas, or whether the world has entered a post-Marxist era.
4. “Adultery Novel”
University of Pennsylvania. Falling in the newly named “gender, culture and society” major, this course examines novels and films of adultery such as “Madame Bovary” and “The Graduate” through Marxist, Freudian and feminist lenses.
5. “Blackness”
Occidental College. Critical race theory and the idea of “post-blackness” are among the topics covered in this seminar course examining racial identity. A course on whiteness is a prerequisite.
6. “Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration”
University of Washington. This women studies department offering takes a new look at recent immigration debates in the U.S., integrating questions of race and gender while also looking at the role of the war on terror.
7. “Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism”
Mount Holyoke College. The educational studies department offers this first-year, writing-intensive seminar asking whether whiteness is “an identity, an ideology, a racialized social system,” and how it relates to racism.
8. “Native American Feminisms”
University of Michigan. The women’s studies and American culture departments offer this course on contemporary Native American feminism, including its development and its relation to struggles for land.
9. “’Mail Order Brides?’ Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context”
Johns Hopkins University. This history course — cross-listed with anthropology, political science and studies of women, gender and sexuality — is limited to 35 students and asks for an anthropology course as a prerequisite.
10. “Cyberfeminism”
Cornell University. Cornell’s art history department offers this seminar looking at art produced under the influence of feminism, post-feminism and the Internet.
11. “American Dreams/American Realities”
Duke University. Part of Duke’s Hart Leadership Program that prepares students for public service, this history course looks at American myths, from “city on the hill” to “foreign devil,” in shaping American history.
12. “Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism”
Swarthmore College. Swarthmore’s “peace and conflict studies” program offers this course that “will deconstruct ‘terrorism’ “ and “study the dynamics of cultural marginalization” while seeking alternatives to violence.
It depends on how you define “worth it”. Maybe in strictly economic terms, it’s not. However, if you’ve always dreamed of becoming, say, a lawyer (why anyone would dream of that is beyond me, but just for the sake of argument), you would certainly say that your college education was worth it, even if that’s not true in an economic sense.
Sure, you can make a decent, or even a good living economically without a college degree. However, does that really matter to you if all you’ve ever wanted to do is become a teacher, nurse, doctor, lawyer, or a scientist? College would obviously be worth it to those who dream of doing professions like those.
That's a bad year to compare since it is at the end of WW2. A better comparison would be to either before the war in 1941 or well after the war in 1949. Many who would have finished high school by 1945 fought instead.
Thus, Caplan states, “Engineering majors not only have higher quantitative SAT scores than English majors, they have higher verbal scores than engineering majors.” Caplan calls the difference in wages between college and high school graduates “the education premium” and finds that it varies widely between “soft” studies and harder disciplines. In other words, “the education premium ranges from 24% in education majors…whereas getting a bachelors’ degree will increase your earnings by about 60%,” Caplan explains.
Huh? Engineering majors have higher verbal SAT scores than engineering majors? And the last part of that paragraph looks like it missing something because it sounds like education majors don't get bachelors' degrees.
It has devolved into a very expensive welfare system for academics.
Skilled craftsmen all need apprenticeship training for Master’s Licenses for Electrial, Mechanical, Plumbing, Fire Suppression/Sprinkler Fitter and the like. Many intelligent kids who should be getting into those trades take a three to five year 75k detour through liberal arts colleges. Most could skip it and make 50 to 90k after journeyman status even before a Master’s License test.
People going into sales don’t need a BA, they need a 90 day course on Grooming and Decorum.
People going into many Healthcare supporting roles need Vo-
Tec type training.
Basic accounting, business forms, letter writing, HR basic, cost accounting and a payroll course could get most people ready for the business world in two semesters.
We need factories that make products for the U.S..(businessmen)
We need people to work in those factories.
(Blue collar workers)
We need people to be able to support and repair those machines.
(specialists and engineers)
And those factories will need other smaller establishments from parts suppliers to diners.
In the end, anyone that wants work will be able to get it.
We dont need more English, Art, Philosophy, Gender/Queer studies graduates, because they are becoming a net drain on the economy.
Betweeen engineering classes, homework and my work-study job, I was consistantly doing 110-120 hours/week. OTOH, the non-science Arts majors at my fraternity started the weekend on Thursday night.
This shaped how I view the MSM. Journalists used to be journalism majors. Thus they had a lot of extra time for protesting the cause-de-jour, art festivals, drinking and drugs. They are neither responsible or particularily bright people, but their profession gives them a whole lot of undeserved publicity.
All of this ink spilled and I have to be the first one to point out that a high school graduate of 70 years ago had to have the approximate math and writing skills of an average college graduate today?
Eh...whut?
College grads earning more does not mean that if EVERYONE goes to college everyone will earn more. Yet that is what has been pushed. Most smart people make more money. Most smart people go to college. But going to college alone neither makes people smart nor well paid.
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