[SeekAndFind]

This article was in response to an article written in NATIONAL REVIEW Entitled : Send More Students to College

We had an interesting exchange at FR here

[EyeGuy]

Higher education, in its gross inefficiency, soaring costs and wired-in lack of market forces rigor, is poorly designed for almost EVERYONE.

[dfwgator]

"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too."

[ClearCase_guy]

We ought to re-think our approach to education and careers. I really like vocational education or apprentice programs. Yes, there are some things which are best learned by sitting in classrooms, or spending hours at the library. But most people don't get (and would not want) that kind of job.

[STONEWALLS]

....time was a person with no college could get a good paying blue collar job...there’s just not as many of those any more.

[pnh102]

I don’t think that inner city charter schools themselves are what is causing better student performance. For the most part, the families with children who choose charter schools are already the types of people who value an education, and the charter school provides a good education without the distractions present in inner city public schools.

[Jmouse007]

Send fewer kids to college... RIGHT that’s the ticket... NOT! Translation = Obamessiah and his evil OVERLORDS need millions of new “slaves” to labor their lives away as SERFS within the new Amerikka they are building. While they themselves live and rule over us as kings and queens.

[Nosterrex]

I have two earned doctorates, so I have nothing against higher education; however, I see college kids go to college more as a right of passage than to obtain an education. The vast majority of these students major in subjects in which there is no demand in the “real world.” Not only that, but many of them assume huge indebtedness. It would be far, far better for most of these students to go to a vocational school and learn a trade of some sorts. If you can read and use the Internet, you can learn just about anything you want without ever having to enroll in a university. Higher education for the majority of students is a terrible waste of time and money.

[Lou L]

why, even before the economy crashed, were 25 percent of college graduates in their 20s working at jobs that didn’t require degrees?

What kinds of degrees did those 25% of college grads have? English Literature? Women's Studies? Urban Studies? Most other liberal arts majors?

Academia needs to stop glamorizing and legitimizing degrees like these, and they need to start focusing on degrees that will make us stronger and more competitive from an economic sense.

I'm not saying that all liberal arts classes are worthless; many of them should be kept, as they have their purpose. If a student has the desire and financial resources to take a lot of these liberal arts classes however, that's up to the student. Don't pursue a degree in Medieval French, and then expect to be overwhelmed with six-figure job offers when you enter the jopb market.

[Jeff Chandler]

[cranked]

Colleges and Universities have become profit driven, hence, why they continually seek to enroll as many students as they can, even if it means lowering or fudging admission requirements.

Furthermore, with the increased enrollments comes increased drop-out rates (hence why colleges and universities have increasingly created and/or utilized retention departments or agencies) and those who extend their graduation times past the 4-year mark.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Many colleges are the wrong choice for everyone.
The problem is the junk thought presented by many professors.
Just consider the current occupant of the White House certified by Columbia and Harvard Law.
Or is that certifiable?

The Fabian Socialist, Alinskyite, and Frankfurt School revolution currently
being waged from the White House upon Americans was certified
by the pseudo-elitism of the universities claiming Olympic status for American education.

That is a problem that will not be going away any time soon.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

I was 38 when I entered college. One of my English lit instructors was also a friend. She told me that about 30% of her English 101 students were reading at a grade school level. It doesn’t make sense!

[GingisK]

Higher education isn’t all about “job skills”. It is also strongly related to producing a “whole man”. (OK, OK, whole woman too.) Isn’t it better for society in general to have an educated population? Isn’t a good education better than a blank stare at a party?

[WOSG]

“A big part of the reason is that “college-educated workers” are not interchangeable. The college wage premium, and fluctuations therein, vary substantially by field of study. In other words, the economy doesn’t need more generic college graduates — and in fact refuses to hire many of them. Rather, it needs highly capable people in certain fields. It would probably be better to encourage students acquiring useless majors to switch to these lucrative fields than to send more kids to college across the board.”

Very good point.

The major matters more than the school.

The College wage premium varies.

Not every student is ready for College. One way to find out is to try to take the ‘core courses’ through some other way.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Winters argues that in addition to being able to get more kids into college, we need to. Why? Because, he says, our economy has a strong, unmet demand for educated workers.

But these would be fake educated workers. Employers are seeing too many of those coming out of college already.

[redgolum]

For many, college is a waste of time. The costs are such that financially getting a degree is a less, and less attractive investment.

[maryz]

He uses as evidence the fact that the “college wage premium”(. . .) has increased over the past few decades.

I read an article years ago that argued that the "college wage premium" was highly misleading, since the really high-earning college grads were those with graduate or professional degrees. Yes, they're college grads, but I don't think anyone studied the wage difference between those who had only up to high school and those who had nothing beyond a Bachelor's.