Are college educations killing the country?

Here is a short list of the things I enjoy the most:

1) a good meal
2) a solid brick home
3) a smooth road to drive on
4) a warm house in the winter and cool in the summer
5) comfortable clothes
6) a clean toilet
7) a hobby (my hobby is electronics and building things)
a reliable automobile
9) a comfortable bed with soft cotton sheets
10) an occasional movie at home on a large screen t.v.

The point is, that as I look around me and consider all the things I enjoy the most in life, all of those things can be provided just as well by people without college educations. I don't have a college education. Even in high school I only did enough to pass, and if I happened to do good on a test, then that just meant that I could skip doing some homework assignments. Anything above failing was just dandy. At one point I became interested in electronics so that I could add sophistication to my other projects. I bought a few books on c++ programming language, micro-controllers, and studied printed circuit board tutorials that were offered by the company which manufactures my PCB designs. In under a year I was building reliable electronic controllers similar to what you would find in your high tech home appliances. Personally, I don't even think that heart surgeons should need a college degree. I believe that on the job training in every occupation is perfectly acceptable. I think that college should be an option, if that is how someone wants to learn and that works best for them, but I do not believe that college should ever be a requirement to enter any occupation.

 

College educations are NOT killing the country.

Student loans are really bad, but edcuation is what brought us the moon shots, computers, and just about everything that made us exceptional for the last 30 years

 

College makes sense if your brilliant and will benefit, wealthy and use it for the connections or you are willing to pay for it yourself because you want to go but to go into debt with average aptitude. In 1900 a man graduating a fine school getting "gentlemen C's" still learned a lot and it led to a career just having a degree means you made it. And most state schools were widely affordable if you could get in with a summer job and some parental help and again you got in, earned a degree equaled a career. Now you get out and if unlucky get a job no degree rationally is needed for with low pay.

 

Gates dropped out.

 

You need an education beyond public high school. For some that is a 4 year degree, for others a trade school.

 

it also brought us massive individual debt, higher expectations for lower output and playgrounds for the extension of youth. our heyday was prior to that last 30 years and it was brought about by people building a nation, not just sitting there thinking about it. the last 30 years have been a series of boom and bust cycles, as the latest new thing became popular and then faded into obscurity.

face it, not everyone has the capacity to become a rocket scientist. where colleges were once the domain of the idle rich, who needed no real expertise and were merely making contacts, and those who were truly capable of great things, they are now just another excuse to not bother teaching anything of value to our younger students. that degree was waved over our heads like some magical golden ticket, but it has become worth less than a decent handkerchief.

 

Heart surgeon? Wouldn't take it that far, but I think you're point is well taken, that not everyone needs a college education to get want they want out life. In fact, I'd say the echo chamber saying "everyone needs" a college education is completely misguided and the social pressures kids face at home and from the schools is having a largely negative impact on a lot of kids. Not saying college is a bad route, but from what I'm seeing, a lot of kids just use college as a four year party and graduate without a clue of what they really want to do.
I might be off in left field, but growing up, I can't think of a single kid who didn't have a summer job and by the time they where out of HS most where already working doing something they were good at. I had a few friends go off to college, a couple on sports scholarships, one who ended up getting his medical degree and a few others, but most didn't and ended up being quite successful.
But, college seems to be thing to do these days, for whatever reason, so, if I was young man I'd be mastering a trade I love doing, because all those accountants and lawyers are going to need them.

 

Yes you don't need college for this.

My guess is an architect and structural engineer helped build it. That requires training usually at University


3) a smooth road to drive on

While a fire can keep you warm in Winter, air conditioning is the brain child of college education in many arenas.

Much of today's clothing are more comfortable then 100 years ago because of the results of laboratory developments on textiles. Quality for cost is the result of computer science.

Unless you can clean it simply with bleach, someone with a degree helped develop the chemicals you use and makes the safe.

Yes because no one needs a college education to build the components you use.

Apparently you have no idea how modern vehicles are designed and brought to market....I couldn't list the number of disciplines involved.

Again, computer technology has made this far more possible and comfortable as well as chemistry.

Seriously????????

So how did you invent the microchip?

 

Student loans for degrees with no market value are not doing the country any good.

A student loan for a degree in petrochemical engineering is probably beneficial for the individual and the country.

 

Gates didn't invent anything, other people who did graduate college did for him. He was just an innovative businessman

 

Why in Germany most students leave secondary education out of their well regarded apprenticeship system? A friends daughter at 19 is issuing loans to small businesses in a high tier apprenticeship a job here which would require a degree. And this is paid for by the state. To require one go into debt to enter a trade hurts the poor why can't they teach people these skills in two years of dedicated time in High School several decades ago this was an accepted part of education - vocational preparation for work.

 

You are confusing legal requirements with practical requirements. Yes, it is true that in many areas of the country you can't hardly take a (*)(*)(*)(*) without a college degree, but that doesn't mean that college degrees are necessary on a practical level. Most tradesmen pretty much ignore the engineers design specifics and do the job better by using their own experience. College educated engineers are notorious for writing waivers into their design work, exempting them from responsibility for their mistakes. It is those without college educations, the real working producers, which make the job right. The engineer is only hired as a legal technicality. On a practical basis, nothing you have listed would require a college degree to accomplish. Abolishing mandated college requirements would see advancements to all technologies come faster and at less cost.

Frank Abagnale passed the Louisiana Bar exam after just a few weeks of study, which would make him a practical attorney at law. It was only the legal technicality that he didn't actually attend Harvard University that prevented him from being a “legal” attorney of law.

 

There are many good paying jobs where a college degree is not necessary but if you intend on climbing that Corporate Latter....you need a degree.

Now some people really need a college education and others are smart enough to garnish the needed knowledge to do a job all on their own but the fact remains...without that diploma....you are limited.

AboveAlpha

 

This is my point of contention. Let the people who can do it … do it ... regardless of some stupid diploma.

 

I would agree...but unfortunately this is all tied into academia profitability.

AboveAlpha

 

I believe one type of college is leading to the demise of many and that is the proliferation of for-profit "universities". They are ripping off so many students who are trying to obtain a degree on the cheap and are going deeply into debt to obtain a worthless piece of paper, even if they do complete their programs.

 

Didn't his 'big break' come when he sold IBM on the mediocre dos operating system?

 

Radical leftwing college professors are spending more time pushing their radical leftwing agenda rather than teaching their given subject. No wonder many college grads remain ignorant.

 

Yeah it did, and the DOS system was invented by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Products, who graduated Magna Cum Laude fro the University of Washington.

The strongest demographic for the GOP and Fox News is white men over 50, without college degrees, who attend church once a week. It's no wonder the GOP/Fox takes advantage of the inferiority complex many of those guys must have.

 

I agree for the most part, though I am not ready to dismiss all for-profits as I am not familiar with all for-profits in the US. I suspect the trade school for-profits that allow for student loans probably are not as worthless as the programs that try to offer comparable degrees to established universities.

The easy access to student loans is part of the problem. I would like to see states do a two-tiered university program--if you complete your associates at a community college, then you get to complete your next two years at the state universities for free. I would also like to see the states do more Bachelor programs at community colleges at community college prices. Perhaps one could not get some niche diploma like Astronomy there, but there is no practical reason people should not be able to complete most of your mainstream degrees like business, english, history, etc at a community college.

 

DOS mediocre??? Actually it was far better than any other operating system at the time. It championed the explosion of the PC.

 

How many people are really able to climb a corporate ladder my niece advanced only by marrying a woman with serious family influence, money and power into the NYC Prosecutors Office and she wants to be a judge someday. The family can help her big time. Some Joe out of a state law school couldn't move ahead over ones with connections. Its very often who you know not ability. If your born say into the Hershey family and want to work for Hershey my bet would be they would move up just due to who they are and ability won't matter as much if they are just competent.

And school is not free for the student after High School in many cases ,trade schools maybe more affordable and you can learn many trades say in the military, but in the end the money matters even state schools are expensive to many. And getting out will not assure you a career like it did in say 1900-1940. Seriously you earned a degree in Philosophy say in 1920 a company or government agency would hire you, train you as needed and you had a career for life. Now that is far from the case. And if this person attended a state school at the time it was usually a matter of no debt earning the degree you could afford to go on a summer job and family help or a scholarship which might be modest in amount.

I still would argue job training for at least those not college bound due to ability should be in High School you could teach many trades at least at a helper level in two years of dedicated time. Is there something wrong with a young person leaving High School a barber or a ACF certified working cook? At least they could go right to work and make money not having debts to train.

 

New question, someone who graduates college and paid tuition with a student loan, why should they earn more money than those who just started working after high school?

Think about what is actually happening: the person going to college needs food, shelter, transportation, gas/electricity, and the teachers need the same. It is the rest of society which is providing these things while the student attends college. The fact is that the guy flipping hamburgers earns less because he has to support the college student and the teachers; the value of the money he earns as wages is diluted by the amount of the student loan weighed against the total money supply in the economy. Since the guy flipping hamburgers is actually helping finance the education of the college student, shouldn't he get a cut of the positive results. Or, shouldn't there at least be a specific tax on college degrees so that the costs cannot be passed to those who did not attend college.

 

This is an individual accomplishment. You cannot prove that Tim Patterson would not have invented the DOS system had he never attended college. Most college graduates never do anything spectacular at all, and many technological advancements are made by people who didn't attend college. So you are trying to build a connection between college education and technological advancements which simply doesn't exist.

My daughter graduated college, and at her job, the co-workers without college educations had to teach her how to do her job. She earned more money than her co-workers while they trained her. Doesn't that seem a little unfair to you?

 

But odds are that she could move up faster than those same people who will be training new employees 5 or 10 years from now. I personally think that every company employee should get hands on knowledge of the day to day operations, so your scenario would be a common by-product of that. It sometimes also depends on the nature of the work. If your daughter were an experienced welder, I would expect her experience would count more than her degree. If your daughter were working at Macy's, her degree would probably be perceived as more valuable to the company in the long term so they will pay her a premium to keep her there longer--the extra they pay on the front side may be offset by a little less on the backside by turning her into a company gal.