Is a college degree worth anything?
It makes you feel good about yourself.
Sooner or later the truth about the value of a college degree will get out. It is irrational to pay $100,000 for a degree that will get you a $25,000 a year job. The earning premium for a college degree isn’t evenly distributed - engineers, doctors and other professionals get most of the additional lifetime earnings attributed to holding a college degree. Many of these students will graduate with big debts, and not much in the way of prospects for a good job.
Unfortunately, the idiocy taught in our colleges has real life consequences. Students start life deeply in debt, besides being totally ignorant and naive. Four or five or even six years of their lives which could have been productively spent are lost. And the stupidity seems to be working its way down to the lower grades. Just to make things worse, Catholic schools, which were a beacon of light in a dark landscape, are closing just when they are needed most.
Also at Carnival of the Insanities.
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7 comments:
I didn't think my degree in 1968 was worth much, either, except that it cost a good deal less than it does now, and it was absolutely required for certain jobs, including the ones I wanted. When you gotta do it, you gotta do it. But, even now, they won't force you to major in gender studies or some other poppycock.
People keep encouraging their kids to "study what they love." Well, sure - but a degree in Womyn's Studies and 5$ will get you the cheapest McDonald's meal. Maybe, those prices are going up.
I haven't recouped the cost of my degree yet, either. Political Science isn't exactly Rocket Science.
Well, I went to college a long time ago, and I actually had to read Shakespeare and those other dead white males who've been dropped from the curriculum. It didn't benefit me financially, but I sort of enjoyed most of it. Except the science requirement.
afw: I believe womyn's studies and similar is easier than, for example, math. I guess that's why the average GPA is 3.9, instead of 2.00 as it was when I was in college.
I don't think it's because the students suddenly became brilliant.
I also enjoyed Shakespeare. Two semesters of it. Have they really dropped it? I heard while visiting Sacramento last week that the UCalifornia system no longer teaches Huckleberry Finn. They have substituted Uncle Tom's Cabin, instead. A winning tale, of course, but not in Twain's league. Literature meet propaganda.
You can probably find Shakespeare on the course list but perhaps no longer a requirement for an English major. There's a real cafeteria of courses out there--you can study comics, soap operas, game shows. You can probably write a PhD thesis on the works of Danielle Steel.
The "soft" majors are probably the worst: English, sociology, the arts, political "science," ethnic--i e black, hispanic, woman's studies. Etc.
It is truly a waste of time to send anyone to college to study any of these subjects.
I don't think any time spend on education is a waste of time. There is always something that we can take from it.
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