College is Worthless

[Lark]

Yeah they're pretty worthless, unfortunately most companies only hire those with degrees.

That is true, I've had good discussions with buddies who're in the accounts dept of my organisation, neither of us think that our degrees remain current or up to date compared with new graduates, although recruitment and human resources dont strictly see it that way and its all bits of paper at the end of the day which are needed. As the only careers advice I ever got goes "its easy carried once you have it".

 

[Lark]

Just read through the thread quickly and I'm feeling:

1) Hatred towards capitalism (money just ruins everything)
2) Pity towards US
3) Happiness that I'm somewhere else.

Here, in Finland, all education is practically free. My tuition fee for master's degree is around 95€ (~$120). This includes membership to student's union (discounts at various places, cheap food etc) and access to near free medical service (It costed me 3$ to have my wisdom's tooth pulled out). I also have gotten few opportunities to work in few experimental projects with Nokia and their devices. There are no sponsorship system here, students have to pass an initial examination test to get in (all though, prior excellency in grades might actually give you auto-pass, but you'd probably would have passed anyways).

What I think of higher education:

1) It should be free (or extremely cheap)
2) It should try to reach as many people as possible
3) Degrees should not be criteria for hiring people

You see, the democratic process is heavily dependent on people being sophisticated and highly educated.

I can't say much about the situation in the US as I have next to zero knowledge of the system there. But what I'm hearing from Obama, there's something seriously wrong with the system and he's having some good slogans ("No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don't have the money.") at least.

Do you mean tax funded? I dont think that education can be provided for free, that'd be advice or some other sort of exchange but I dont believe lecturers or universities will function without money.

Anyway, there is a problem I believe in saddling individuals or families with increasingly obscene amounts of debt, while it seems good for the banks now it will not be long term as these individuals become so called "ninjas", ie no investments, no jobs or assets, cant service debt and can not qualify for any other financial products. Especially in the UK were there is a heavy dependence upon finance as the basis of GDP.

So I do think that something other than loans and credit should exist to enable access to university education, in the UK given the lack of support for taxation to subsidise students they worked a very good reform of the system with the bonds which would mature at eighteen, permitting payments for those who wanted to go to university to spend it that way and payments for those who did not plan that use however they saw fit and therefore no begrudging of taxation. At least in theory. No one understood it. No one supported it. The conservatives wiped the entire thing out at the stroke of a pen and suggested it was all squanderous and unaffordable anyway. Stupid electorate bought the lies.

With unemployment and available work being exactly how it is at present in the UK they need people to go into education and training to take them off the books as unemployed or unemployable too. The universities have fufilled this function for a while without anyone being prepared to acknowledge it. In the seventies or earlier people could walk out of schools, possibly with little in the way of qualifications or academic ability, and have the option of three or four jobs for life in factories, industry and production, not now.

 

[WhoCares]

Back to the original topic of whether or not paying close to $100k for the 'opportunity' to one day get a job is a smart idea? I say no. Its too easy to get a high paying job without one to justify the expense. The world has been carefully conditioned into modern slavery. That being, get a job to pay the bank. As others so eloquently describe the condition or being in the system and having little opportunity to leave due to being 'frowned upon' and subsequently punished with being thrown out of the system (unemployment).

To my mind though employment is actually the riskiest strategy in life, your income is fixed within a limited range, your ability to get things in life will depend upon a banks opinion of you and if you are ever retrenched (common) then you discover you own very little as the bank moves in to repossess it from you. Trying for stable employment in a time when such a concept barely exists is very risky. Taking on a large amount of debt to do the same even more so.

In my experience the best skills in life include being good with money, being able to work in a team, having vision beyond what most people will espouse as being possible.

 

[Savitri]

I am under the impression that those who have a negative view of college are those who

1. Had high expectations for immediate returns.
2. Didn't do their homework before they signed dem' paperz.

 

[Grublet]

I plan to go to college for digital image processing and I wouldn't do it unless I could either get a scholarship or some sort of financial aid to cover it because I can't pay for it myself.

 

[AOA]

Isn't everything.

 

[Venom]

I am under the impression that those who have a negative view of college are those who

1. Had high expectations for immediate returns.
2. Didn't do their homework before they signed dem' paperz.

I'll never be one of those people who idolizes my college experience. My expectations were high because thats how adults had alway talked about it...I guess I'm just cynical about the whole process. It could be so much better IMO.

Here's how it should be: they should force people to delay college until 2 years post highschool. During this time people could travel, work entry level jobs or internships. When they finally do go to college they'd be a lot more motivated and prepared for what "their real life" might feel like outside of the highschool bubble. They'd pick better majors and actually take school seriously as either a) a way out of whatever shit job they endured or b) they'd be excited from how much they liked their initial real exposure to the day to day job! Even people forced to minimum wage jobs would still benefit. They'd be motivated to work their ass off to get out.

18 is just wayyyyyyy to young to decide your major/life/career etc. how does anyone really know what it's like to sit in a cubicle accounting/programming/selling until they do it? How does anyone know what being a lab bench guy or a doctor feels??? People need more internship or entry level jobs BEFORE college. It's just to much blind guesswork without that. Unfortunately, our economy doesn't have enough jobs for POST grads for us to enact this for our PRE entrants....

 

[Savitri]

I'll never be one of those people who idolizes my college experience. My expectations were high because thats how adults had alway talked about it...I guess I'm just cynical about the whole process. It could be so much better IMO.

Here's how it should be: they should force people to delay college until 2 years post highschool. During this time people could travel, work entry level jobs or internships. When they finally do go to college they'd be a lot more motivated and prepared for what "their real life" might feel like outside of the highschool bubble. They'd pick better majors and actually take school seriously as either a) a way out of whatever shit job they endured or b) they'd be excited from how much they liked their initial real exposure to the day to day job! Even people forced to minimum wage jobs would still benefit. They'd be motivated to work their ass off to get out.

18 is just wayyyyyyy to young to decide your major/life/career etc. how does anyone really know what it's like to sit in a cubicle accounting/programming/selling until they do it? How does anyone know what being a lab bench guy or a doctor feels??? People need more internship or entry level jobs BEFORE college. It's just to much blind guesswork without that. Unfortunately, our economy doesn't have enough jobs for POST grads for us to enact this for our PRE entrants....

I agree with the bold. More experiences help narrow the scope. The 2 years could be used for that. Narrowing the scope helps focus specific concepts/education which would broaden their portfolio in that specific industry. It prevents a Jane/jack of all trades scenario where all of a sudden you're doing everyone's work and growing horizontally instead of vertically.

The only criticism is that experiences are always happening to an individual and one can never really know which of those experiences can change one's perspective. For instance, I had a plan and did my fair share of travel/internships/collecting knowledge but it wasn't until I met a little girl in a community meeting I had to attend to introduce a new smart-growth development did I realize I needed to shift my focus to policy instead of pure design/management. So, you never know.

lastly, I didn't have any expectations because I never really expect anything to be given to me. My family and culture looks upon a degree as both respectable and a way to individual success. Increasing knowledge was a priority in my family so college was mandatory. And although I agreed with them that the acquisition of knowledge was important, I didn't think success would be automatic. I saw it like a computer. It was an opportunity to become exposed to resources that I would not have had I not bought it. Sure, I can get this exposure else where, but the diversity of resources concentrated in one location is what drew me in.

 

[Icarus]

I think that student loans are a problem. There used to be a time when you could go to school and work simultaneously, and pay your way through college fairly easily. This was common in my father's generation. At some point, though, they started to open up Federal student loans to students in a bid to get more people educated. This actually had a bunch of unanticipated side-effects: the cost of tuition, for example, skyrocketed because students were insulated against the immediate costs of college. It also increased the number of degrees, thus devaluing each degree.

The US higher education system is really excellent. 11 of the top 15 universities in the world are in the US. The only problem is that easy student loans changed the economic decision-making involved in going to college.