On the value of college

Depending upon the college and class, having a professor throw out a controversial idea and then, by use of the Socratic method, having the students discuss it, I believe is the best way for a student to learn to think for one's self. Thinking for one's self necessarily and unavoidably involves incorporating the opinions of others. I can't begin to count the number of times I've modified my positions after hearing others discuss theirs. In that sense, learning never stops.... except for the hyper partisan, and there are way too many these days IMO.

 

Whether you steer anyone toward "occupations" or "degrees" its going to increase the supply of labor in that field, and therefor devalue their bargaining power. If we say more college eligible should go to trade school, you are going to have more trade school graduates, and more competition for jobs, which means lower wages in those fields as employers gain the upper hand with an abundant labor supply.

 

An educated workforce is a good thing. Republicans need to abandon their anti-intellectualist views.

 

Sometimes repetition is important in learning!

College graduates on average make twice as much money over their lifetimes than non-college participants. It is obviously not the only path to success but it sure worked for millions of Americans.

Agreed.

 

The fact that wealthy people committed crimes ("Varsity Blues") to get their underachieving kids into top schools seems to suggest that rich people think college > no college.

 

Its not a good thing for capital though, which is why rich people send their kids to college while they tell rubes book learning is for effete wussies.

 

The article says it pretty well in the second paragraph:

If you're going to college for a PoliSci or a Fine Arts degree, you're likely wasting your money. If you plan on going into the high tech (e.g., Engineering) or Professional (e.g., Medical, Law, etc) ranks then a college (and in most cases a graduate) degree is still an imperative. Pretty simple.

As far as the partisan crap it's bandying about, well the world needs ditch-diggers too.

 

Sure, there are all kinds of less desirable jobs i.e. “ditch-diggers” that are needed. My problem is the partisan divide over college that risen over the past decade or so. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of those claiming college is not the best way to get ahead will simultaneously push their own children toward college. No, I don’t any stats to back it up but based on my anecdotal experience even most non-college educated people I have met stress the importance of going to college to their kids. So where are these 63% of Republicans coming from that claim it’s not the best way to get ahead? And why are they putting their money or pushing their kids to get indebted if they don’t believe that if not for partisanship?

 

What is value? I think that's an important first question when discussing higher education. Because value is a complex subject and that word often gets thrown around a lot without really thinking about what the hell we're talking about.

So what is the value of higher education? First, there is societal value. The traditional western education model we are accustomed to today, in simplest terms, was developed by Wilhelm Von Humboldt at the University of Berlin in the early 1800's. Taking from a paper that discusses this topic that illustrates it simple: The Berlin model, or Humboldtian model, is important because it clearly asserted that research was an imperative. The reformers mixed a vision of education of the nation with a vision of the development of the individual through research, including scientific research: this is the historical strength of the model for our world. It is not founded on personal development through individual research but on broad based exchange of knowledge. Now, if you are interested, there are a number of books that talk about this amazing exchange of knowledge and how it allowed the lightning fast development of new ideas and technology across administrative, bureaucratic, industrial, and political landscapes, that outpaced anything the world had seen up to that point. The foundation of modern US dominance, is built upon this system of knowledge transfer. Given that, there is a lot of practical societal value in higher education. It may be the most important thing the US exports today besides weapons.

Second, there is value to the individual. I agree, that pursuing higher education is not for everyone, and indeed, is not even practical. We need people to grow and pick the crops, clean our messes, dig our ditches, pave our roads, serve our food, and generally do difficult manual labor and trade skills that do not require a higher education. The value added to a person in one of these professions who choose to pursue a degree in a field or subject that is not vocationally relevant to them, is honestly pointless outside of the exercise improving one's own knowledge - which can be accomplished much cheaper by buying and reading books. Say, for example, you live in Alachua, FL and you are a plumber. You maybe acquired that skill set through apprenticeship or trade school or both at little cost besides sweat and time. If you decide at some point that you want to learn more about the history of the war of 1812, you don't need to enter higher ed to get a history degree- you just need to read a book. Much more value added for you in that case. Conversely, if you are a plumber who is elbow deep in human excrement every day and you decide you are fascinated with the microbiological world and you want to work in a lab, you have options. You can go to some company like Medcerts, and pay a small amount of money (a few thousand) for a certificate as a lab tech, and you can go work 60 hours a week for low wages in labs in Alachua (there is a big set of them out there) growing cell lines, etc. as an entry level lab tech. But if you decide you want to be a person that guides the work in that area, well then yes, higher education is the better option and holds a lot more value for you. Conversely, you can be a plumber and decide to run your own plumbing company, and even though an MBA might help you do that, it is not necessary for you to be successful. It may have value, but again, not enough to make it worth stopping your business to go and get it. That's why people who start companies and sometimes hire OTHER people with MBA's to help them run it. Bottom line, the value of higher education will differ from person to person based on their life goals.

What is frustrating though, given both of these points, but especially point 1, is that any attack on western higher education is essentially a misguided attack at the foundation of what makes the west so dominant. It serves no purpose but to rile up an already lathered up base of voters that are now being convinced that higher education holds no "value", when clearly it does... and what is frustrating is the people making these claims about it having no value have pursued it themselves, and they know very well how valuable it is.

 

Outstanding take!!! My complements.

 

I think a better question is what happened in 2016 to starkly change the Republican view of a college education?

The Growing Partisan Divide in Views of Higher Education

 

My undergrad degree is in History. One of those degrees everyone says is worthless. Can't tell you how many times someone asked me in college, "What are you going to do with your degree? Teach? Work in a museum?"

I ended up doing neither. I took my research skills and got a job in Market Research. Turned that into a 20+ year in Marketing now. My degree in History didn't open doors to jobs, but also kept many open that would have likely closed if I didn't have any degree.

Every degree, even those in fine arts and social sciences, help hone skills that are valuable in our society. There are no useless degrees. And I can tell you, I would have never graduated with a degree in hard science, and never would have survived trying to learn a trade. But I make a decent living with my degree in History. (Just to add to the story, current job paid full tuition for my MBA in Marketing, and I graduated 2 years ago)

My daughter is a senior in high school, and I've told her there are no guarantees in life. But if you want to increase your odds of success, go to college and graduate. She's narrowed her choices down to U of Arizona and U of Washington. She loves the Seattle area and UW is an amazing school with an amazing campus, but unless she gets huge scholarships, will likely end up in Tucson. She's inherited her father's pragmatic side. A UW education is 4X the cost out of state versus UA in state. The education value isn't anywhere near 4X better.

 

It was not directed towards you but you don’t have to read too far before the wiseass comments start showing up.

And yes I agree on the value of a higher education for the most part. Both my kids went to college and one has graduated. But there has been a stigma for far to long that if you don’t go it’s a disappointment. And the cost of going to college seems to have outpaced the value of some degrees. It’s a much different financial burden now versus 30+ years ago.

 

Honestly, I think a lot of it has to do with general concern on the right about the breakdowns of social hierarchies. As people have pointed out, many of the educated people on the right will still want their kids to go to college, while they complain about too many people going to college. This is often presented from the lens of hypocrisy. But I tend to think of it more from the lens of social hierarchies, where they essentially view their kids as the social better of those other kids. If their kids have to compete with too many upwardly mobile college students, they may not succeed to the same level. So they would prefer a world where their kids have less competition for those advanced positions.

 

That's assuming an awful lot. You're actually suggesting that one side of the political divide is gaslighting the other with the purpose of reducing college admissions competition? Seems like a bridge to far... to the point of needing a tinfoil hat.

 

IMO, the problem with higher education now is the for profit drive to keep about 50% of the universities open. If we went back to a funding model where the government supported these institutions, and had stricter guidelines for the for-profit education space, we wouldn't have nearly as many useless degrees floating around. That is what has opened the door to some criticism of value.

 

You dont think people who are generally against egalitarianism in all forms wouldn't want their kids to be at the top of the food chain, part of the elite or inheriting their family businesses, find lucrative work, etc.? Class interests arent a big conspiracy. As I said earlier, these answers are about other people should do, not what they think they or their children should do.

 

It was beyond ridiculous

 

This is basically true, we've unleashed market forces in higher education with pretty predictable results

 

This is a country of 330 million people. There are anecdotes that show examples of everything and anything. High school dropouts who were incredibly successful. College grads who died penniless in alleyways ...
But you have to look at trends and averages. And the bottom line is that college graduates tend to make more money, are less likely to be unemployed, live healthier lives, live longer, have longer-lasting marriages, are less likely to be incarcerated ... and I'm sure there's a bunch more.