Posted on 06/07/2012 4:31:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last month the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development released data showing that college graduates generally do not regret going to college, despite lots of criticism of the value of higher education. Today the center released a new report focusing on the depressing state of America’s recent high school graduates, who seem to agree about the importance of further education.
The study reported on a survey of high school graduates of the classes of 2006-11 who do not have college degrees and are not enrolled in school full time. This group overwhelmingly believes that additional education beyond a high school diploma is required to succeed:
Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers UniversityThe online survey was conducted between March 21 and April 2, and covered a nationally representative survey of 544 high school graduates from the classes of 2006-11 who did not have bachelor’s degrees and were not full-time students. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus five percentage points.Seven in 10 of these recent graduates said they would need more education if they were to have a successful career. Despite their belief in the value of post-secondary education, though, only 38 percent definitely planned to attend college to get more education in the next five years. Barriers included skyrocketing tuitions and family obligations.
(Excerpt) Read more at economix.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I did not go to college. I make six figures, people with advanced degrees report to me, some of my work is published, and I will retire very comfortably. Do I wish I had gone to college? You damn right I do. Life would have been much easier, I would have had more options and I probably would have done even better. I missed out on experiences and connections that I truly regret. Also, in todays environment it would be much more difficult for me to repeat my success without a degree, maybe impossible.
They ain't playin'.
The entire system is completely skrood up. Once upon a time, a college degree actually meant something...in fact, once upon a time, a high school diploma actually meant something.
In terms of knowledge, all kids do now is spend more time to get less knowledge than that possessed by the average 8th grader (former end of formal schooling) at the beginning of the 20th century. Education is now nothing but social shaping and control - and the progressivist Dewey regarded this as one of its primary purposes - and the things that kids are actually “learning” in college should have been learned long ago. We’ve gotten to the point where they are now doing basic ed in college.
The only difference is in the sciences, where there actually is learning taking place - but a lot of the young winners of science prizes are either home-schooled or kids who have been allowed to skip a lot of formal schooling and are motivated by someone in their family or even by their culture (I’m thinking of Indian and Asian Americans).
And in terms of paying for a really expensive college, all you are doing is making sure your kid makes contact with the kids of other families with money and connections, which could certainly be helpful in the future but has nothing to do with learning.
One of the reasons the school drop-out rate is so high among people who really need skills and knowledge is that even they know that they are not going to get them in the current system, and they don’t see much point in staying.
A college degree will get you a job with a company founded by a high school dropout.
—— They ain’t playin’.-—
Touche.
I have a master’s degree and I work with software development tools founded by a college dropout ( well, he no longer runs the company, but he’s still America’s richest man).
So, you--like so many others on FR--see college as job training, I gather.
College is totally worth it if you enjoy learning in a communal environment, you can afford it, and economically speaking, it puts you in a position where you can better your lot in life. College is completely not worth it if you cannot afford it and go into massive debt to attend it with no realistic prospects for repaying that debt.
College is a flat-out waste of time if all you end up doing is partying, which, let's face it, is one of the major draws of attending college for many people.
One thing we must do, however, is somehow remove the stigma these days on those who don't attend college. We were raised to believe "YOU GOTTA GO TO COLLEGE," so now if you don't, you feel like a failure, when that's simply not the case.
Very close but not exactly.
Most college is (or should be) entirely aimed towards ones life work, either advancing the sciences, building something, advancing the welfare of all mankind etc. These goals can only be reached if someone is willing to pay you for the knowledge you have acquired.
Almost all "made up" degrees (womens studies etc) are useless to almost everyone. No one is going to pay for a woman's studies graduate to use their degree. This knowledge, if one really desires to have it, should be acquired in one's spare time. No reason to spend thousands and remove yourself from the productive part of society.
A graduate with a "gay" studies degree (for example) is simply a welfare case waiting to happen. He has wasted all that time and money on trivia.
So you earn a little less money? How about a lot less money.
Most companies today require a 2 or 4 year degree for the decent jobs. My local electrical utility company requires a minimum of a 2 year technical associates degree in electronics-that is for everyone-including the entry level lineman.
Even blue collar jobs such as plumbers, HVAC techs are now requiring a minimum of a 2 year associates degree in a related field.
I would not want to be stuck with a $10-12 hour job for the rest of my life...
——Education is now nothing but social shaping and control - and the progressivist Dewey regarded this as one of its primary purposes ——
Behaviorism dominates teacher colleges today, as it has for 100 years. The “hard” form completely ignores the mind, only accepting external behaviors, or “outcomes,” as valid data for scientific investigation.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/
Not surprisingly, people are termed “human animals” in the literature.
IOW, children are treated like laboratory rats. And we’re surprised by the outcome.
Yes, a science that ignores the intellect dominates modern “education.”
Oh bull.
I just graduated 5 years ago and there was no indoctrination at my university-57K students. I even took some political science classes for BER and none of the teachers crammed liberal ideology down our throats. Matter of fact they encourages students with liberal and conservative viewpoints to debate civilly in class.
See my post #32
Since your accent is on the “sciences” why don’t we just drop the pretense of higher education for people who want to be engineers and scientists and form institutes that teach those subjects and only those subjects? We could have an Institute for Civil Engineering, an Institute for Physics, etc.
Think of the savings of time and money once we eliminate all those extraneous courses in English, Western Civiiliztion, and the like and concentrate on what you think is important: advanced job training. Darn, I bet we could cut the training time down to at least half.
And then we could concentrate higher education toward those studies that really comprise higher education. And, no, I’m not in favor of crap majors such as black, gay and women’s studies. I’m thinking more along the lines of development of a person versed in his cultural background (i.e., knowledge of western civilization), one who knows English composition and literature, a person who learns to appreciate the arts, you know, what we used to call an “educated person.” Leave the technical training to those by whom you think society is better served.
This is a course at Portland Community College.
The Illumination Project (IP) is Portland Community College’s innovative student leadership and education program designed to foster a climate of equality, compassion, justice, and respect for all people in the PCC academic community and the community-at-large.
The Illumination Project uses interactive social justice theater as a venue for Student Educators and audience members to join together to rehearse ways of solving problems. Interactive theater, with its capacity to engage diverse learning styles and members of a community, is an ideal way to challenge racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of oppression. In performances audience members enter a scene and dynamically change its outcome. In this way, the Illumination Project challenges the viewpoints of both the audience and the actors/Student Educators in a performance.
The Illumination Project is a program of the Sylvania Women’s Resource Center and finds additional support from the Sylvania Campus President’s Office, Multicultural Center, Sociology and Theater Departments.
Current Topic and Events
Winter Term 2012, the Illumination Project will focus on racism, immigration and cultural pluralism and Spring Term 2012 we will be focusing on issues of classism. Our goal is to create a campus community that values people of all backgrounds. Our plays will focus on the challenges faced by people of color, immigrants and poor and working class people within the PCC community and will reflect the desire for all individuals to be respected and included.
http://www.pcc.edu/resources/illumination/
I wonder what sort of job this qualifies you for?
Oops, I really do know how to spell “civilization.”
Ask computer programmers. No college degree required yet they hold the top 7 careeer incomes of the top 10 careers, even over doctors and lawyers.
Ask plumbers, welders, oilmen, and the like. No degree required yet they can earn $100k no problem.
Ask small business owners. They, too, can earn 100k, no degree required.
The vast majority of college graduates do not perform within the industry or career path their degree is within.
I will trade you straight up (except family situation of course) right now. You didn’t miss anything and wouldn’t have done better, probably worse.
LOL at life would have been easier. If that were even true it wouldn’t have been worth it.
Colleges already have become nothing but extremely expensive trade schools. Strip away the black and women studies and you’ll find the remaining courses simply teach the job, sometimes, often they teach nothing. Most courses are also superficial at best. Even PhD programs are a joke. I have read countless papers and found little new theory or discovery is any of them. Many papers are rewrites or “studies” of previous papers, yet, that makes for a PhD these days.
An institution is necessary is some cases, like medical sciences, but the majority of knowledge isn’t ever found in a college.
EEOC Czar or a position in the HR department.
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