Democrats, Republicans, and companies all seem to agree: college degrees aren't the future

LINK: Democrats, Republicans, and companies all seem to agree: college degrees aren't the future (msn.com)

Every time some liberal posted about how "Democrats were more educated and therefore smarter than Republicans" I'd tell them that a college degree doesn't mean that. That there are lots of people out there without degrees that are just as smart, they just went about getting their skills in a different way. A way that doesn't include college.

College is not the end all, be all if you want to not be poor that it was touted as being. It never was. In fact the emphasis so many pushed towards college has hurt our economy.

But it looks to me like some people are starting to wise up to this fact. And that is a good thing. Education is a great thing, and very much needed. But experience also matters. Just as much, if not more, than an official education. Because experience IS education. Just of a different nature. One more fundamental and practical.

Maybe we can start pushing for skills over all now. That would drive down costs of colleges. It might even make people think twice before getting some useless degree.

 

College should be far more than a fancy vocational school. That it's often rated these days by 'How much is your degree worth?' is to disregard its more important function. A well-educated person is one who is widely read and aware of his/her place in society as well as the history of that society. A person who is equally at home in the mindset of an historian and a physicist.

I wrote this back in the summer of 2008:

"A Way of Thinking

"A few years ago, a topic of after-dinner conversation was the concept of the two ‘cultures’ existing within the world of higher education: the liberal arts culture and the science culture.

"There were many pages written to define what was meant by ‘culture’ and to distinguish between these two particular types. One area which came under scrutiny was how each approached problems and solved them. Of all the explanations, I think none exceeded the following for simple charm as well as depth of insight.

"A college, it was said, wished to track incoming students to either the sciences or the liberal arts. To achieve this as quickly and efficiently as possible, the following two-step test was developed.

"Step A.

"A student to be tested is shown into a room. There is a sink with a cold water faucet [turned off], a gas stove [unlit], a table with a box of matches on it and, on the floor, an empty kettle. The student is asked to boil water.

"All of the students tested pick up the kettle, go to the sink, open the tap, put water in the kettle, turn off the tap and place the kettle on the stove. They then go to the table, get the matches, turn on and light the gas and wait until the water in the kettle boils.

"Step B

"A student who had completed Step A is again shown into the same room. Now, the kettle already contains water and is already in position on the stove. The stove is unlit and the box of matches is sitting on the table. The student is again asked to boil water.

"The students best suited to the liberal arts go to the table, get the matches, turn on and light the gas and wait until the water in the kettle boils.

"The students best suited to the sciences take the kettle from the stove, go to the sink, empty the kettle and place it on the floor.

"The science types solve the Step B problem by reducing it to the Step A problem, which they've already solved."

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

So the science guy fails B.

 

Hi, Cybred.

I think you missed the point [Ed.: Purposely, dude?] of the little piece.

'"A college, it was said, wished to track incoming students to either the sciences or the liberal arts. To achieve this as quickly and efficiently as possible, the following two-step test was developed.'

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

Are you saying that being uneducated IS the future?

There are many ways you can be educated today. A college degree is one of them. Today there are other alternatives.

And if you are referring to work opportunities, a college degree is less and less relevant to companies than training in the specific job you are hired for. But if you're talking about participating in a political forum, a broader educaiton is required. And you don't obtain that with on-the-job training.

So let's not confuse things. I don't know that Democrats are "smarter than Republicans". But educated people are in general capable of more meaningful insights related to political topics than uneducated people. This is not to mean that there are no exceptions or that education suffices. We've seen people in this forum who claim to have a university degree and even work in the area they studied, but whose criteria using the knowledge they acquired is pathetic.

 

I've always thought college was overrated even though I am a college graduate myself. My richest friend never went to college and just started fixing up and flipping houses at a young age. The 2nd richest guy I know is a plumber by trade. yet Joe's twisted administration wants to reward college goers that got into a loan they knew they couldn't manage and want to punish responsible blue collar workers not only by NOT giving THEM assistance but by making THEM pay for latte sipping snot nose college punks of the modern age.

DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I majored in accounting, but I did a lot more. I loved free electives. I took European history, psychology, political science, theater and a lot of economics courses. I asked if I could get a double major, but the school said no. In the end I had 27 of the 30 credit hours that it took for an economics degree. My economics courses included the history of economic thought and the planned economies. I think that every college student to be exposed to at least a macro economics course. It would open their eyes. One professor suggested that I apply to the Wharton School in Philadelphia, but the money wasn’t there.

Accounting earned me a living, but I had no interest in CPA work. I liked income tax law, and I was a cost accountant for several years, which give me insights into the supply side. Later I went back for an MBA. After that I worked for AT&T estimating the costs of long distance service.

In the end, I had my own business selling collector coins. All of my college work helped. I could keep my own books, which saved me a ton of money, and I used my marketing and writing skills.

College gives you a change to get some basic knowledge in a diverse array disciplines. It does enrich your life, but it’s not for everyone. If you don’t like to study, it’s probably not for you. It takes work to do well, and intellectual interests in you major is a huge plus.

Going into debt big time is a huge negative, especially if you end up without marketable skill. Sometimes people end up in different occupations that have nothing to do with their major. One of my nephews has a degree in astronomy and is doing medical statistics. Another has a degree in Journalism and is managing a retail store.

 

Yes, Biden’s college loan forgiveness program stinks. It’s buying votes with public money. If you went to a state school, you already got a subsidy for college. It says to people who paid their loans, “You were a fool. You should have milked the system.”

 

republican voucher programs will cost the tax payers much more then Biden’s college loan forgiveness program

Republicans want to give parents $7,500 per year, per child, to parents that send their child to a Christian school

 

as for degrees, if it's a degree in a job that can be outsourced overseas or replaced with AI .... corps will sell you out - be careful

and of course, many degrees are for the rich, bragging rights only, not to earn a living from

 

I majored in accounting, but I did a lot more. I loved free electives. I took European history, psychology, political science, theater and a lot of economics courses. I asked if I could get a double major, but the school said no. In the end I had 27 of the 30 credit hours that it took for an economics degree. My economics courses included the history of economic thought and the planned economies. I think that every college student to be exposed to at least a macro economics course. It would open their eyes. One professor suggested that I apply to the Wharton School in Philadelphia, but the money wasn’t there.

Accounting earned me a living, but I had no interest in CPA work. I liked income tax law, and I was a cost accountant for several years, which give me insights into the supply side. Later I went back for an MBA.

College gives you a change to get some basic knowledge in a diverse array disciplines. It does enrich your life, but it’s not for everyone. If you don’t like to study, it’s probably not for you. It takes work to do well, and intellectual interests in you major is a huge plus. Going into a lot of debt to go to some very high priced private college makes no sense.

 

No, they want to give parents the option of getting out failing public schools. Having had to graduate from a unaccredited public high school, which limited my options for college admissions, I am very sensitive to this.

Did you know that not one student in the 8th grade in the Baltimore public school system is proficient in reading and math? Since most of these are minority students, I would think that a progressive would be concerned about that.

 

nope, they want to fund their religious schools

I am fine with giving them a tax cut for the money they pay in taxes, not paying them to go to a religious school

 

A tax cut does not help poor people, who are hunt the most by failing schools. Those kids have no options.

Let’s cut to the chase. You won’t support school vouchers because you need to support the teachers’ unions, which are prime contributors with money and votes to the Democrat Party.

 

What??? He's buying votes by benefitting people and promoting education? How dare he! Didn't he get the memo? He's supposed to use public money to benefit the donor class ONLY. Like Republicans do.

Oh! The humanity!

 

I definitely wouldn't trade my college experiences for anything, some of the best years of my life. That being said, it would've been nice to have some warning about all the debt and loans we needed to pay off after you graduate.

 

'Educated' is no more or less relative than 'intelligent' or 'skilled.' Task a doctor with fixing your car, or a mechanic with diagnosing your back pain, or ask either of them what caused WW1 to find out what Im talking about.

 

All of that is subjective to your doctor or mechanic, though. They actually might know those other 2 things.

 

It is not a one or the other choice. College education is very beneficial for some individuals in many different fields. It is not necessarily beneficial for many others also in many fields. It does not assure success in any field though it is a ticket to get in the door at many places. You are correct it is not an end all. The problem we re having today is the government made it very easy to go to college many years ago and lots of people jumped on the ship because they thought it cool and then graduated without any real skills.

 

"Educated" is pretty much as objective as "skilled", but way more objective than "intelligent"

Actually no. It doesn't. If the doctor knows how to diagnose my back pain he is educated. If the mechanic can fix my car, he is skilled.

You are making the binary assumption that an educated person should know EVERYTHING. Most educated people (regardless of their profession) will likely know or have known to what specific event the start of World War 1 is usually attributed to (what started it is way more complex than that, and many educated people won't know... only us world war-buffs would likely retain it). You can be pretty sure that an uneducated person will NOT and that they NEVER knew.

 

so you want to give them free money?

 

I actually do not advocate for college anymore at all. I believe it is a woke system, not an educational system so I will not send my kid to college unless I can find one that is affordable that only teaches educational programs. If they have a class that is segregated it’s a hard no right off the bat. If they have graduations per race it is a hard no. If they have clubs that are designed as a social class it is a hard no. If they have teachers that are advocates it’s a hard no.