Posted on 09/26/2008 4:27:48 PM PDT by thinkingIsPresuppositional
Higher (Priced) Education
By Burt Prelutsky
Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as a man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. It makes me wonder, were he alive today, if he would characterize us as a country of cynics or merely dismiss us as a nation of fools.
I mean, how is it that Americans who lived hardscrabble lives 150 years ago could read, write, do math problems, and quote at length from Shakespeare and the Bible, while today, in spite of “Sesame Street,” pre-school, Operation Head Start, computers, and mind-numbing hours of homework, millions of youngsters entering college can do none of those things?
It seems obvious to me that our education system, which costs us billions and billions of dollars, is a wreck. While not all of it is the fault of the teachers unions, affirmative action, bi-lingual education, and the emphasis on promoting self-esteem in the youngsters, a lot of it is. But if there was any one thing I would change tomorrow, it’s the loony notion that everyone should get a college degree.
It’s as if the nation’s water supply had been tampered with by one of those fairy tale witches who was always up to no good, poisoning apples, putting people into comas, locking them up in towers, and placing curses on newborn babies. One day, it seems, everybody in America woke up convinced that he or she was the parent of a young scholar. No matter what sacrifice they had to make for their budding Albert Einstein or Marie Curie, they would see to it that their young sprouts made it safely through the groves of academe.
As a result, the biggest con game, the slickest racket, in America is the co-called college education.
Now, please understand, I have nothing against education. My only objection is the way the whole thing works. Why, for instance, do you think students are required to devote four years to undergraduate studies? It’s simply because that’s how the colleges make their money. It’s like the movies. They don’t make their profit selling you a ticket, they clean up at the concession stand selling you popcorn and over-priced candy and sodas.
What they claim is that they want to turn out well-rounded individuals, but that is such an obvious lie, it’s a wonder that anyone believes it for a second. Hardly anyone in America has been all that well-rounded since Thomas Jefferson passed away. Aside from learning how to drink themselves into a stupor and smooth-talk members of the opposite sex, those first four years have no other purpose than to drain off thousands of dollars from mom and dad in order to pay exorbitant salaries to administrators, professors, and a gaggle of athletic coaches.
There is a solution to this madness, but it would require that we quit pretending that anyone should be devoting four years to listening to lazy left-wing professors nattering on about 20th century comic books, 19th century French poetry, the movies of Sam Fuller, the scribbling of Noam Chomsky, or the sex life of Henry Miller.
What I propose is that they turn colleges and universities into libraries, zoos, hospitals or, for all I care, parking lots or low-income housing. And in place of these ivory towers, I would institute an assortment of trade schools. But not just those traditional trade schools where high school graduates learn to be mechanics, plumbers, and carpenters, but trade schools for lawyers, doctors, accountants and architects.
Frankly, I don’t care if my doctor has ever read Baudelaire or my accountant can tell a Manet from a Monet, not that they could even if they’d wasted four years of their lives as undergrads. Thanks to computers and the local library, anybody can bone up on just about anything he’s interested in, and it doesn’t cost upwards of $100,000 to do it.
My system is far more efficient than what we have today, plus parents wouldn’t have to mortgage their homes just so Johnny and Susie can attend a school that has ivy on its walls or a Rose Bowl-bound football team.
In time, I believe, we could learn to accept that what we now refer to as a college education is just a pastime, except, of course, when it’s really just a joke.
A lot of good points here, but some caveats. College is basically an expensive weeding out process for professional schools (doctors, lawyers, etc.) as it is. Your application is generally half your standardized test score and half your college gpa.
In Britain they filter out kids early by ability and put them on different career paths.
In Germany there are a ton of trade schools as well and they filter out kids really early.
America really needs less people with “women’s-studies” degrees and the like.
Spoken like an illustration of what this article is all about.
When you are older you will begin to grasp the classic definition of the liberal arts: The skills needed by a free man to discern for himself what is the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Note it says "discern," not "decide."
There is nothing I learned in business college that I couldn’t have learned sitting at a computer. Every young person needs to get up in front of people and talk, though. And the text book scam is criminal!
I would tend to agree with you and Prelutsky. I don’t regret living certain experiences in college but MIchigan was awfully expensive and unless you’re going into pharmacy, medicine or engineering it’s just not worth it.
I remember dropping more than one class after discovering the political indoctrination that would occur.
I did have one wonderful professor who taught specialized in southeast Asia and also taught a Vietnam War course and actually said (at Berkeley Midwest!) that he felt the foreign policy of the US was usually oriented, even if awful mistakes or misapprehensions occurred, towards a positive ultimate goal.
However, I remember registering for a Japanese literature course and the professor was wearing all-black. NOt sure why, but I knew it was a signal. Then I read the syllabus and struggled to see where in all the queer, postcolonial and critical theory we were actually going to encounter JAPANESE LITERATURE. I dropped that immediately.
If you’re not in a field where your degree will provide instant entree into a profession, you probably paid too much.
Just read Money magazine and schools that had lagging enrollment RAISED tuition and INCREASED enrollment because now the fools have been convinced that it’s the cost that demonstrates the worth of the university.
A good friend of mine actually finished at U-M and his degree is essentially worthless compared to his time with management experience.
But to get access to those jobs you either stay in the SAME PLACE for a decade or two or you show off your fancy degree and make all the knowledgeable underlings hate you. :)
I don't know either, but it could be because so many students get either a free ride, or low-cost, taxpayer-subsidized tuition so they don't see the true price. The increase in price has far outstripped the actual cost, and the rate of inflation.
A little competition would help, but the major accrediting agencies have a monopoly these days. And like any monopoly, price will not be controlled.
“Aside from learning how to drink themselves into a stupor and smooth-talk members of the opposite sex, those first four years have no other purpose than to drain off thousands of dollars from mom and dad in order to pay exorbitant salaries to administrators, professors, and a gaggle of athletic coaches.”
I agree. I want a nation of young workers who have never studied any economic theory or finance, or any history beyond the high-school stuff, and never had any logic classes or even got a glancing familiarity with any of the classics of Western civilization like the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks. And a trade school system will not have hard-drinking late-adolescents looking to get laid, or professors and administrators, and won’t drain off thousands of mom and dad’s dollars sleeping late and skipping classes. The students will be serious and get the job done, because they will finally generally realize that they have to work for a living and get a job after college. They don’t do that now.
With an education like this, our tough American workers can compete with any 21-century educated worker in the world. The fundamental approach to life that we had in 1858 was good enough for our great-great-great-grandparents. It should be good enough for us.
Seriously I see a boom in demand for farriers, since driving is so frickin’ expensive.
Be kind Doctor. I'm a paper salesman.
Hillsdale is an excellent institution but oh so spendy.
Any idea what her bent is? That could help to determine where she should focus. I have a huge list of possibilities and considerations if you want to email me.
As you know, Lizzie’s doing bible college (online) and community college on campus - sophomore year. She’s going for an AA in Theology and her EMT for starters. From there she may get her degree in paramedicine. It’s a wait and see thing right now.
The first year or two of college is teaching kids what kids 30 years ago already knew before the finished high school. They had to or they would not graduate.
For undergrad I went to a large public university. Fortunately, it is one of the most conservative universities in the United States. Oddly enough, I entered as a seventeen year old Democrat and left a conservative Republican.
Unlike the standard tale of the children of conservatives attending colleges and universities dominated by left wing radicals and becoming leftists themselves, I entered as a Democrat and was (thankfully) shown the light by a conservative faculty in my major (yes, economics).
Anyways, I’ve been able to support myself since undergrad without having to work for tips, so I feel good about how things have turned out.
The wonder of these United States is that we have some of the best colleges and universities in the world, while we also have one of the worst K-12 educational systems in the industrialized world.
Might, just might, it have to do something with the fact that there is a robust (yet infected) number of private colleges and universities, as well as profound private donations to public universities?
One of the biggest values of going to college is the business and social network you build while there.
It’s a larger “fraud” than the mortage crises. At least there are 2x4’s and foundations left from the housing disaster, vs, brain dead illiterate zombies with the right to vote.
Colleges exist to make jobs for men who can’t make a living with their hands or their heads.
I’m sure it will all work out. We pray about it and I trust the money will show up. We’ll have our van paid off by next summer and we have no more debt other than that. We’re going to try to pay for it with cash. I want her to get an education. The cost is intimidating. She’s thinking of physical or occupational therapy. She’s really smart too, so pray for scholarships to be delivered.
It seems Mr. Prelutsky’s main complaint is the cost of college, not necessarily the hard work or the 4 years involved in learning a subject..This is just the usual blarney about the uselessness of a college education from someone who probably never attended college, or maybe had 1 or 2 years of college...
He fails to appreciate the good jobs these millions of college grads do in our society even though they may have low to medium salaries and yet still do an excellent job..Without these intelligent skilled workers our economy would come to a stop...
As for trade skills, fine..But not everybody is cut out for a trade job either...
As diverse as our society is there will always be a need for workers at all levels of education...the more diversified the education is, the better society is....
He is right about one thing: the level of learning at the pre-college level is appalling, the result of young people lacking the discipline to put in the proper study time, the lack of good teaching materials and accurate textbooks, the poor incentives students have to excel, and the quest for instant gratification by the young, instead of delaying that while they get their education, military, or trade school out of the way, to be a properly prepared citizen...
The tuition’s NOT free, it’s paid by Taxpayers.
The costs are rising thanks to labor unions. Faculty at public colleges belong to AFT, for example, a branch of AFL-CIO. Administrators (Deans) belong to Teamsters. Classified employees at colleges are in another union. So are cafeteria workers, college/university plant-facilities workers, etc., etc.
So a BIG ‘Thanks,’ labor cartels, for driving up the costs of education - both for the student & their families, AND for taxpayers.
Corrupt bass turds...
Most private colleges I have looked show a total annual price tag of around $46K to $48K including housing and meals. Many state schools come in at about half that range for in-state tuition. Also, costs at private institutions don’t seem to correlate with prestige or selectivity all that much.
I don’t doubt that every penny of the tuition and fees is spoken for on some line item of the institution’s budget. But that doesn’t mean that cost plus is a sustainable business model for most of higher education. Something has got to give.
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