Posted on 10/05/2015 9:11:08 AM PDT by Borges
Two years ago, my nephew was set to graduate from Maryland’s Towson University with a degree in political science. After six long years, both he and his parents were ready to breathe a sigh of relief—he had made it to the finish line. He had never been excited about school, and his parents had worried about his lack of enthusiasm, wishing he could be engaged in something that ignited his curiosity and provided him more of a motivation to focus, something more hands-on and practical. But they also knew that without a bachelor’s degree, my nephew’s ability to move into a rewarding career, earn a middle-class salary, and enjoy some economic security would be very limited. And they worried that if he didn’t complete that degree before he turned 25, he likely never would (a reasonable concern, given national statistics on college completion). Determined to launch him into adulthood with the strongest possible foundation they could, they persuaded him to go to college and crossed their fingers.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Definitely words to the wise. Unfortunately, I fall into that group of parents who must lament, as did the old Yiddish philosopher: "Too soon old and too late schmart..." As baby boomers, we followed the path prescribed by our own parents: go to college, work with your head and not your hands. Sending our own kids down the path was not good due to the lack of passion.
The community college where my wife works has recently decided that a BA is the minimum for pretty much everything above janitor. They’re trying to squeeze out the non-BA holders, which includes her. But given the pace that place moves she should hit her 80 points and be able to retire before it hits crisis.
When I was an undergraduate, a BS in political science meant you were pre-law.
Go to college only if you’re pursuing your passion. Parents, let your kids pursue what they love.
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Amen to that! A friend of mine’s son was expected to go to college. Automobiles were his passion & he wanted to go to a special technical school for auto mechanics. She swallowed her disappointment & said ‘ok’. He was so happy in that school, did really well, & has had great jobs making lots of money every since. Another friend’s brother barely made it out of high school - marginal grades, but wanted to go to college. His parents wisely knew it was not for the academics so they told him he could live at home & take a full schedule at the local community college - they would pay for it as long as he made a “B” or higher. As they suspected, he didn’t do so well - ended up going to a cooking school for a year or two program & is very happy with cooking jobs around town ..... and they didn’t blow $20K or more on a freshman year of college where he partied all the time & failed his classes. I firmly believe a lot of kids that go to college because their parents expect them to (back in “the day”, a college diploma was a prized accomplishment that not everybody could get) would be much better off in the trades/technical school, etc.
All of my nieces/nephews to date have gone to college, got “good” degrees and are well employed. One niece who graduated in May is following her passion & got into a PA program this fall - she’s loving it. It’s worked for them, but they were in tough programs (finance, accounting, sciences), unlike “underwater basket weaving” (that’s an old high school joke for a ridiculous, easy class) programs that result in a diploma & low employment prospects.
For what the heck kind of private sector employment does a poli-sci degree qualify him? Guess he wants to live on the government dime, with all of us paying.
“Even 30 years ago my BS in biology was worthless except as a ticket into grad school.”
Also largely true of mine 45 years ago - except for research tech and medical product sales jobs (I did both).
If I was just starting out today, I would not go to college but would get training online, on the job, and through apprenticeships and internships. It doesn’t make sense to go in hock five or six figures and have a degree that is near-worthless in psychology, political science, sociology, communications, gender studies, black studies, brown studies, ad nauseum. I got an engineering degree from UCLA in 1971 and it got me regular work for 30 years, but after a couple of layoffs, it was evident that the credential had become obsolete and I had to “re-invent myself” for the jobs that were available. Many people I knew kept trying to sell their degrees past the expiration date - they wanted a job with “benefits” that were rapidly going away. Some are still trying.
“America Needs to Let Go of Its Reverence for the Bachelor’s Degree”
yes and no.
yes: any degree that’s not a hard science or math related degree.
no: any degree that’s a hard science or math related degree.
Hmmm....
Wait...what?
WHAT?
Is he kidding?
If I had stayed one more year in undergrad, I could have gotten a BS degree in Political Science.
But keep in mind that this was while I was already acquiring a BS in Chemistry, and was minoring in political science, taking senior level classes as a sophomore and getting batter grades than the senior polisci majors.
The problem is lack of meaningful SUBSTANCE at ALL grade levels, BEFORE entering college.
Quit with the social indoctrination, bloated administrations, and Roman Palace architecture, and you’ll discover more than enough budget to teach the essentials necessary to create a productive citizenry.
It’s a good article, and upside down BAs are a good idea. Another good idea would be post-High School aptitude testing. Employers require BAs because they are filters or sieves. Having a BA, in whatever field, demonstrates that the holder has a certain level of intelligence, can manage time to some degree, can take instruction etc., all of which are valuable to employers. This is why employers might require a BA to work in a call center or to be a clerk pushing mortgage paperwork. But it is wasteful to require that someone spend $120k in a four year college in order to demonstrate aptitude for employment. Instead, we ought to be looking to aptitude testing, something similar to the test batteries used by the military, to determine aptitude out of high school. Here’s an interesting interview on the subject.
“If I had it to do over again, I would skip college and go into the trades. Better life, and more money.”
Millions of the illegal invaders couldn’t all be wrong.
BSME - Bachelor of Science Mechanical Engineering
BSEE - Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering
BSCE - Bachelor of Science Civil Engineering
MSChE - Master of Science Chemical Engineering
BSNE - Bachelor of Science Nuclear Engineering
BSPetE - Bachelor of Science Petroleum Engineering
Mathematics and Sciences are good degrees to obtain. Education degrees are now useless as schools no longer give a grade just Pass, fail, excellence and Average.
I have a degree in ad nauseum. Took me six years to get it and it was worth every beer I drank, man!
I think it's pretty clear by now that there's not of a correlation between Rs and patriots.
On OAN today, a couple who won’t have paid-off their school loans until he is 72.
When we were told to work 8 hrs extra per week for no additional money all of my BS peers saluted and did so. I didn't. I was eventually "let go" and that was such a happy day.
There’s a quick way to fix this “problem.” Tie student loan interest rates (and Pell Grant awards)to the demand for the particular job or career associated with a specific degree or technical training program.
Using that approach, someone majoring in accounting, engineering or IT (and maintaining at least a C average) would get a low-or-no interest loan, and immediate forgiveness upon graduation (with at least a 3.7 GPA), or a few years down the road if they maintain employment in their field and attain professional certifications. The same rules would apply to students in high demand technical programs ranging from mechatronics to welding.
At the other end of the spectrum, someone wanting to major in a discipline with minimal employment prospects (gender studies, African-American studies, art history, psychology, etc) would pay double-digit interest on their loans, with no possibility of forgiveness unless they join the military and qualify for one of the armed forces repayment programs.
The taxpayer should not be subsidizing worthless degrees or vocational programs. Any student who took the same econ course twice (and supposedly didn’t realize it) is not worthy of the title “college graduate.” No wonder it took him six years to earn a bachelor’s in poly sci.
The title doesn’t match the article perfectly.
The article is interesting and worth a read. Batchelor’s degrees as per the stats in the article still make a huge difference salary-wise eventually. The article is more about changing the bachelor’s degree format, allowing trades and specializations (interests) to be learned first so the student can start work, and then finishing up with two years of general Ed that by that time the student may actually be interested in learning.
Not sure I agree with that.
We may need something more radical. Certainly, university degrees are expensive and don’t always pay off. The professors are nearly all of a kind outside of the science and tech courses. Maybe we do need internship scholars for the four years after high school. Pick a profession and learn it on the job half days while learning the appropriate book stuff the other half. It just seems wiser, and would be cheaper. Let the successful earn a bit from the government for following along with the curriculum with their apprenticeships, let the apprentice earn a low wage, and pay much less for the part time studies.
As with cancer, as with any moneymaking industry, the convention is to NEVER CHANGE lest the gravy stops flowing. But as with cancer, we can do better.
The very bottom line, IMHO, for the American education system is it no longer meets the needs of the students; it does, however, meet very well the needs of the teachers at all levels.
In 2010 there was a critically acclaimed movie “Waiting for Superman” that took a real hard look at what the American education system has become - it wasn’t a very pretty picture. One of the many things that caught my attention was the changes to the American society that our education system ignores.
The education system is based on America immediately following World War II. Since then how many industrial jobs, heavy and light, have gone overseas? That was where a bulk of our high school graduates were headed. Those in the middle were headed for mid-level management jobs. Guess where they went when the manufacturing jobs moved overseas? The upper 10-15% were college bound destined to be upper management and inventors developing new industries and the jobs to go with them. We have all heard politicians of various strips talk about the loss of jobs overseas but no one understood the impact.
So, what was the education system’s solution? Well, since al of the educators graduated college and got reasonable jobs the obvious solution was everyone goes to college. I will not address the impact that has had because there isn’t enough room to list even the basic impacts.
Where are we going with this? I can easily foresee menial jobs requiring a Masters Degree because the educators say so.
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