One thing is for sure...
The Gov't, not to mention the economy, is no longer gonna pay for kids to party for 4 years and then exit with no tangible gain in productivity over their high school degree (at least that cannot be explained by maturation).
Our richest, most sucessful people in the Western World have largely been those w/o a college degree. Some, like Dave Thomas (Wendy's) didn't even have a high school degree. While there is some correlation between smarts / ambition and a college degree, it is by no means a direct connection.
Don't get me wrong, I've got a BA from a great college plus a 90-semester-hour Master's degree, and I'm considering going for the JD soon. However, I also know that my computer training has put me into a middle-class lifestyle, which is something that doesn't at all require classes in dead Greek poets.
The biggest hurdle, as I've said here before, is that the customer (whether the student, or the parent, or, even stretching it, corporate America that places value in college degrees) has no control over the product. Parents or students can pressure Trustees, but as soon as they pressure presidents who in turn try to reform faculty procedures, the faculty screams "tyranny" and "freedom of speech," and they back off.
Worse, 60% of my students get some sort of financial aid. This allows universities to jack up the prices, I think by 50% or more. It's like one of those jewelry stores at the mall: "Huge sale---50% off!" But they have already raised prices 60%. Until we can get rid of financial aid, and tie the produce to the consumer, there is no hope for reforming universities as they now exist.
How would you sanction a student's learning equivalent? The college degree, with all its faults, provides some guarantee that the student has, indeed, learned something.
A couple of generations ago being a university man (or woman) carried status in society or the market place. A degree was a lifetime free pass to the middle class. All that is gone now. The university up the road has 2 females to every 1 male students. Definitely a holding tank for post-adolescents. Thoughtful parents might hesitate at paying the hundred thousand or more for a degree in Women's Studies or Social Work. The more intelligent parents I know, (mostly Asian), are sending their sons to high quality technical and vocational schools.
At least 90% of college administrations and faculties are left liberal lunatics. So if you spend $20,000 to $40,000 a year to send the kid to college, you can be sure they will receive non-stop propaganda with a few basic themes: hate Bush and Republicans; worship at the altar of Clinton, Kennedy & Co.; socialism is good and capitalism is evil; terrorists are misunderstood freedom fighters, but our troops are murderers, Israel threatens world peace, etc. Your student leaves with no understanding of the evils of Stalin, Marxism, Leninism, Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, and his or her brain has been washed to believe that the history of the United States is something to be ashamed of. Students graduate with little understanding of how our economy works. All of this is subsidized by the Federal government, your tax money. The universities and their staffs are obsolete, overpriced, anti-capitalist, profoundly "stuck on stupid", and even subversive.
"College education" in America is a reward to junior for not burning the house down, and to keep little missy under her family's wing for another four years. Ask your average spender of other people's money what they are actually doing with this time and most responses equal the blank stare.
Ssshhh. Nobody tell China and India. They seem real big on formal education. Well, we'll have the last laugh when we stop wasting money on college educations.
Well IMHO, Drucker is off target on this one.
True, there will likely be some change driven by the need for competitive efficiency. But classroom education isn't the only valuable experience that traditional colleges provide. For most students, it is their first opportunity to live away from home "on their own". (LOL! Yeah, I know... but it is a transition period to adulthood nevertheless) And in addition to the serious work of education, students will always need extracurricular diversions (such as sports) to recharge their batteries. Drucker's economic efficiency will never displace the old adage "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
My prediction: competition of students in the marketplace will drive out some of the waste "fluff" courses, and perhaps summer breaks. More students will be attending year 'round, and looking for more substantive course content. But the ivy covered buildings will remain in use.
My sainted mother, who just died last week, did that very thing. I was born when she was 29, a high school dropout, and she started as a freshman the next month. She pursuaded the local college to let her take a GED (back when it was a "veterans" bennifit, not meant for others). She finished her 4 year degree in 2 1/2 years, mainly because the college charged by the semester, not the class, so she took as many classes as possible, did correspondence work, and sometimes got permission to take more classes than allowed. By the time I was 12, she finished her PhD.
She was the most "successful" person I've ever met that pulled herself up by the bootstraps from abject poverty. And she succeded because she didn't start college until 29.
You mean technical schools have value? No say it ain't so! (Major Sarcasm!)
Could it possibly mean that the market is telling us how wealth is really created?
In all sincerity, technical schools must train it's student how to articulate what they know and how they know it effectively. The reason the technical trades have lost ground is because the argument for their value to society has not been promoted properly. The schooled econ majors have made for instance a case against the value of manufacturing. It is in my opinion a crime, but none the less they have made an eloquent argument that sounds good enough to have hoodwinked an entire nation in thinking so.
Engineers and technical people cannot sit quietly in there cubicles' and expect others to realize their value, a little spin (marketing) on their part would go along way.
I am by no means digging other proffesions, we need doctors, pilots, MBA's, teachers, as well as plumbers, electricains and other trades people.
A bicycle wheel needs all of it's spokes for strength, not just a few.
College as we know it is definitely going the way of the dinosaurs.
There's no need to spend that kind of time and money for something a kid can accomplish otherwise. And that doesn't even begin to address the adverse effects of the typical college Spring Break-all-the-time environment.
The only reason college as we know it has survived this long is that this generation's parents came up with the view that it's very important to go to a name school, to get an advanced degree right away, etc.
None of that is true. I can't tell you the number of kids we know whose parents spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on their educations and who then went on to get the same job and the same career path they could have gotten if they'd gone a much cheaper, faster route.
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High schools should go away for the same reasons.
They already are that.
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
All the money spent on getting the degree could be better invested into starting ones own company. The $20-$40K/yr would go a long way to funding a startup company with the right idea.