Fascinating read. Reminds me of why I went to grad school in the first place. http://chronicle.com/article/The-Slow-Death-of-the/228991/
The humanities didn't die, it committed suicide after it went insane. Meanwhile, many universities have been merging their hospitality schools with their business/MBA programs to turn out highly competent pimps.
I would think (coming from an outsiders view since I have no degree) that since college is not free by any stretch in the US I can't imagine why anyone except rich kids would attend college just for the intellectual experience. Trying to pay back many thousands of dollars in student debt while working at Best Buy with your 12th Century French Poetry degree must be a real ass-kicker.
There used to be the expectation that anybody who reached a certain level of education had acquired a core set of ideas, so they could speak the same language and each would know where the other was coming from, even if they disagreed. Yes, they were mostly "rich kids." But for so long we've promoted college as the way to climb the socio-economic ladder that we may have lost sight of the reason it's a good idea to be educated in the first place.
Well, perhaps much about universities needs to be rethought, and it seems the people who work in them are too invested in the current model to see beyond it. For example, why is a university in the apartment business (dorms)? Back when only one or two percent of kids went on to a university, it made a lot of sense to provide special housing for them, just like a monastery or military barracks for trainees. Each university might draw select people from all across the country, so very few would be locals. But as we started sending everyone to a university, and universities keep expanding to include almost every conceivable major (a uniform product), they become more like a high school, where each one could just admit every local high school graduate. But if that's the case, why should the university provide food and lodging when none of the high schools did? Just put the same kids on another bus run and use the same routes they rode when they were high school seniors. Dorms and meal plans should be obsolete.
Personally I'd like to go back to only a few going to get university degrees, but I don't see how - a lot of employers are the driving force behind a university degree a requirement to get something outside of restaurant or retail business.
Given how many people today have come of age during this recession, I wouldn't be surprised to see a reversal of this trend in the future. They would have to if they wanted to hire enough people to stay in business.
Because for the vast majority of people it isn't really needed, at least not a 4-year degree. How much of the student loan bubble is from people who basically go to a 4-year school because they think it's just what they're supposed to do and it ends up being 13th grade for them? Then a lot of them have a lot of debt to pay off from a degree that might not even help them get a job to do so. And that helps drive up the cost for others, so say someone getting a teaching degree now has to pay more to enter a field that honestly doesn't pay all that well.
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780) A liberal arts education is a luxury. Getting tech and trade schools fully funded should be our highest educational priority. Only then should we be funding (and I include subsidies such as loan guarantees) such luxuries. And I say that as someone who wouldn't trade my 4 years in college for anything. But my degree doesn't directly translate into my job. My military training (Propaganda -> Communications) and my volunteer work (blogging, social media, public speaking, boothing -> Communications) did much more. International Political Economics... eh... I did take a course in International Relations. I think I brought it up in my interview in terms of having a theoretical background in cross-cultural communications, however my example of using it was being an Army NCO attached to a Marine Special Operations Team, working out of a Italian base (we were the only Americans) along with an Afghan Kandak with a mission of working with the locals to both build local governance and train a local police force.
he said, having previously received the best liberal education available to an elite of Colonial America. Seriously, I don't disagree with you about funding priorities, etc. Obviously the traditional college experience is no longer serving the purpose for which it was intended. But the problem is certainly not that students are coming out of it too darn well-rounded and broad-thinking.
Which purpose? Producing a well educated, well rounded individual? Producing more college grads than the Soviets? Producing individuals that have at least a minimum level of education and have proof they can be taught skills on the job (think High School 30 years ago)?
Army NCO attached to a Marine Special Operations Team, working out of a Italian base (we were the only Americans) along with an Afghan Kandak with a mission of working with the locals to both build local governance and train a local police force. You should pitch this idea to Hollywood - it would make a good comedy! Imagine the crazy mixups and situations!
A few random thoughts: 1. While education is a good thing in itself--you're objectively better off knowing more things than fewer--it has to be, like all goods in life, weighed against its costs. A $50,000 debt takes a long time to pay off, especially if you don't have a high salary. Bear this in mind when choosing between law and gender studies as a major. 2. Like it or not, we live in a competitive economic order that rewards initiative, ambition, talent, and practicality. An education with no practical focus may be personally fulfilling, but it may not set you up very well for (economic) prosperity. Yes, any college degree will give you an advantage over an otherwise equally situated person without one, but a person who has practical skills and no degree may be more desirable employment-wise than someone with just an unrelated degree. 3. When more people in society have college degrees, a college degree becomes worth less because those who have them are less scarce. A degree is not a competitive edge if everyone has one. We're seeing the devaluing of college degrees now just as we saw the devaluing of high school diplomas in the past. 4. If the educational system produces X number of college graduates, it cannot be taken for granted that the quality of graduates will be the same if it produces 10X. It's difficult for a chef to delicately season 500 gallons of soup.
Some degrees can be worse less than nothing, such as various "studies" degrees in popular varieties of social activism, which signals employers that your only skill sets are: Making the lives of those around you unbearable. Stirring up trouble. Causing workplace divisiveness and resentment. Filing endless discrimination or civil rights lawsuits against whatever employer was dumb enough to hire you.
Why, the first of course. The latter two treat students as a resource to be farmed for the benefit of society, not even considering that society could benefit more from people trained in independent thought and critical reasoning.
Yes, but don't choose the "there's more to life than money" path and then grumble later about not having any money. If you *really* feel compelled to go study Art History, knock yourself out. But do it with the understanding a degree in that field is going to open up very few doors outside of academia.
Why would it not be needed? The world is more and more complex. There was a time when hardly anybody bothered with school past eighth grade; today, most of the people who grouse about college being unnecessary would find THAT unthinkable.
What exactly does a race or gender warrior bring to the smooth operation of a print shop, trucking company, pizza chain, or financial services firm? It would be like a mining company hiring a communist agitator/propagandist. The people who had been working together as a well-oiled machine will end up spending most of their days either at each other's throats or forced to waste their days sitting in endless sensitivity training where they're beaten down into useless husks, as fear and suspicion takes over their workplace.
Although I used "you" in the preceding post, I meant "any reader of this" not you specifically. If you are content with/take responsibility for your choices, great.
Yes there is! And if you are 50,000 dollars in debt, you might soon get to put theory into practice. Maybe you can ruminate over the finer points of 8th Century erotic woodworking by candle light because you can't pay your power bill.
Gee, I don't know. What could a person with a basic sense of justice and ethics possibly bring to a workplace?
