Posted on 09/14/2008 10:32:38 PM PDT by Kaslin
Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as a man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. It makes me wonder, were he alive today, if he would characterize us as a country of cynics or merely dismiss us as a nation of fools.
I mean, how is it that Americans who lived hard scrabble lives 150 years ago could read, write, do math problems and quote at length from Shakespeare and the Bible, while today, in spite of “Sesame Street,” pre-school, Operation Head Start, computers and mind-numbing hours of homework, millions of youngsters entering college can do none of those things?
It seems obvious to me that our education system, which costs us billions and billions of dollars, is a wreck. While not all of it is the fault of the teachers unions, affirmative action, bi-lingual education and the emphasis on promoting self-esteem in the youngsters, a lot of it is. But if there was any one thing I would change tomorrow, it’s the loony notion that everyone should get a college degree.
It’s as if the nation’s water supply had been tampered with by one of those fairy tale witches who was always up to no good, poisoning apples, putting people into comas, locking them up in towers and placing curses on newborn babies. One day, it seems, everybody in America woke up convinced that he or she was the parent of a young scholar. No matter what sacrifice they had to make for their budding Albert Einstein or Marie Curie, they would see to it that their young sprouts made it safely through the groves of academe.
As a result, the biggest con game, the slickest racket, in America is the co-called college education.
Now, please understand, I have nothing against education. My only objection is the way the whole thing works. Why, for instance, do you think students are required to devote four years to undergraduate studies? It’s simply because that’s how the colleges make their money. It’s like the movies. They don’t make their profit selling you a ticket, they clean up at the concession stand selling you popcorn and over-priced candy and sodas.
What they claim is that they want to turn out well-rounded individuals, but that is such an obvious lie, it’s a wonder that anyone believes it for a second. Hardly anyone in America has been all that well-rounded since Thomas Jefferson passed away. Aside from learning how to drink themselves into a stupor and smooth-talk members of the opposite sex, those first four years have no other purpose than to drain off thousands of dollars from mom and dad in order to pay exorbitant salaries to administrators, professors and a gaggle of athletic coaches.
There is a solution to this madness, but it would require that we quit pretending that anyone should be devoting four years to listening to lazy left-wing professors nattering on about 20th century comic books, 19th century French poetry, the movies of Sam Fuller, the scribbling of Noam Chomsky or the sex life of Henry Miller.
What I propose is that they turn colleges and universities into libraries, zoos, hospitals or, for all I care, parking lots or low income housing. And in place of these ivory towers, I would institute an assortment of trade schools. But not just those traditional trade schools where high school graduates learn to be mechanics, plumbers and carpenters, but trade schools for lawyers, doctors, accountants and architects.
Frankly, I don’t care if my doctor has ever read Baudelaire or my accountant can tell a Manet from a Monet, not that they could even if they’d wasted four years of their lives as undergrads. Thanks to computers and the local library, anybody can bone up on just about anything he’s interested in, and it doesn’t cost upwards of $100,000 to do it.
My system is far more efficient than what we have today, plus parents wouldn’t have to mortgage their homes just so Johnny and Susie can attend a school that has ivy on its walls or a Rose Bowl-bound football team.
In time, I believe, we could learn to accept that what we now refer to as a college education is just a pastime, except, of course, when it’s really just a joke
I COMPLETELY agree. The universities and the financial aid companies are selling diplomas to people foolish enough to mortgage their futures for it.
Turn on the voyeuristic financial help shows and you'll constantly see people in dire straits with high 5 and some 6 figure student loans. And they aren't evening making 6 figures for the privilege.
Add on top of the financial quagmire, the actual education is lackadaisical.
I'm hoping for a revolution before my little ones hit road.
if she goes to Vandy as a junior next year it goes up to around Fiddy
and masters at Vandy is only 65K
all so she can get educated, work a few years , meet her husband (victim), have children and work part time at most
ain't America great?
Husband better be able to keep up with my financial contributions or I'll be expected to hire him or help him...lol
folks should examine this saga with all the gals in Med school and law school and then examine their billed hours after a few kids are born
Practices, schools and firms don't know what to do...get sued?
it is a strange world...spend a fortune to educate the heck out of yer spawn, pray they don't get indoctrinated by the left and then after all that if the daughter marries well she goes back and becomes like mom...my wife who did more or less the same thing except it cost 10% of today and no graduate program (me either for that matter)
boys are excepted to carry the full load down the road and be subordinate donor husbands
girls who don't marry have to fend for themselves...is that fair?
/rant off.....I could go on and on ...we just had a two hour talk with one of our sitters over this very subject.
did I mention private school in an urban area?...shucks that;s only another 10-20K per child..., that or send them to “white kid's nightmare public school”
So, why are you doing it?
The latest scam this side of Nigeria is to misinform the unsuspecting undergraduates about their course requirements so that they end up having to go five years just to get their worthless four-year degree.
...forest...trees, Burt. Rich folks on average are getting to be more ignorant and wanting to be so. Being ignorant is a way to temporarily avoid feeling guilty. Just watch the big show over the next few years. ;-)
I just think that everybody has to break out of this “obligation” mentality that ultimately only feeds a monster (big education).
Isn't it just amazing that the majority of professors who are socialists want to put price controls on everything EXCEPT college education?
Those self serving, hypocritical, narcissistic, idiotic socialist bastards (and those are their good points) have been gang raping the wallets of middle class Americans for decades. I just want to see everybody wake up to it. It's the ultimate rip off.
well, you can’t just send them out the door to work at Wal Mart or Waffle House, especially if they grown up expecting a secondary education
this is just my view but particularly with girls we may be overeducating (training) them because we think we have to to give them financial independence or to validate them
because men are either irresponsible now or women don’t want to be dependent on them anyhow even though so many do later
yet...where I live almost every woman with kids either does not work or works part time or at home including pediatricians, lawyers, CPAs you name it.
a lot of these very bright and educated women...like my wife...a former near 6 figures at the time Cracker Barrel exec...give that up or reduce it markedly to raise kids at home....which is great, but the difference is that in my mom’s day or even my own day, they didn’t need a 200,000 dollar education to get there.
it’s the big paradox today....you’re kinda swept along with it and in my case she’s the first one.
don’t get me wrong, I think a college degree is something of a gift regardless and gives a leg up but for boys it’s a lot less ambiguous
the big difference is so many more folks go to college now and it’s therefore probably on average 8-10 times more costly in adjusted dollars than when I went...Ole Miss was 500/semester when I went...76-80
well, you can’t just send them out the door to work at Wal Mart or Waffle House, especially if they grown up expecting a secondary education
this is just my view but particularly with girls we may be overeducating (training) them because we think we have to to give them financial independence or to validate them
because men are either irresponsible now or women don’t want to be dependent on them anyhow even though so many do later
yet...where I live almost every woman with kids either does not work or works part time or at home including pediatricians, lawyers, CPAs you name it.
a lot of these very bright and educated women...like my wife...a former near 6 figures at the time Cracker Barrel exec...give that up or reduce it markedly to raise kids at home....which is great, but the difference is that in my mom’s day or even my own day, they didn’t need a 200,000 dollar education to get there.
it’s the big paradox today....you’re kinda swept along with it and in my case she’s the first one.
don’t get me wrong, I think a college degree is something of a gift regardless and gives a leg up but for boys it’s a lot less ambiguous
the big difference is so many more folks go to college now and it’s therefore probably on average 8-10 times more costly in adjusted dollars than when I went...Ole Miss was 500/semester when I went...76-80
yes...I would help her buy a home but no, anything beyond bachelor’s and she will have to find more loans which is easy in some specialties
She is borrowing 5k/year
FR is dropping off my server like crazy....anybody else getting that..hence my doubles
The simple fact is, a college or graduate school degree is worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of extra dollars in income over a lifetime. Degrees from certain schools open a lot of doors in life.
The simple fact is, Harvard can require its students to pay for 4 years and require them to live in university housing during that time because a Harvard degree gets your resume to the top of the pile.
Now I agree there are some schools out there that simply aren’t worth the money. Sending your kids to an expensive mediocre private school makes little sense to me.
But the idea that the top tier schools are ever going to change the way they do business in a world where they get many applications for each spot in a freshman class is a pipe dream.
“Giant retailer Wal-Mart Stores, with 1.8 million employees, tops the first published list of the world’s 500 largest corporate employers.”
Most women have jobs, not careers.
This whole topic just gets me mad. Here we are, the financial sector is falling apart, economic types are telling people to “get out of debt” and yet, if you want to give your children a boost in life and send them to college, watch out, you just might be saddling them with a lifetime of debt. NUTS TO THAT!!
Add to it, here in California, as my homeschooled daughter is navigating the waters from high school to college, the reality is that the education system IS NOT ABOUT EDUCATION AT ALL!!! There are so many twists and turns, don’t take too much AP classes, can’t test out of too many classes you know. It just makes me sick. The lefties have made themselves a monopoly of education. To the hurt of this country. They are just evil.
women who are not of the privileged class do indeed just have JOBS...good point
what do you think they would prefer if they had the chance?
I ashamedly forget sometimes....what it’s like by what you say.....I was raised lower middle class till around 15
no AC in Mississippi, faded gentry that had lost everything 100 years before, wrong side of town and all that
then when I was in college, things took off for my Dad and it’s been stewardship now passed off to me ever since
thanks for gibving me a reality check...I deserved it
Lots of women would prefer to be homemakers.
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