What is going to happen when the rest of us get too old to do it anymore, and we have to hand America over to today’s college students, tomorrow’s simpletons?
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Campus Reform asked students at George Washington University–is there anyone in history who has more embarrassing stuff named after him?–if they thought it would be a good thing to protect illegal aliens by allowing the university to be a “sanctuary campus,” where America’s immigration laws are routinely disobeyed ( http://www.thelibertyeagle.com/students-want-sanctuary-from-student-loans-final-exams/ ).
Oh, yes, they thought that was a swell idea! But they would also like their campus to be a sanctuary from… final exams, repayment of student loans, and laws against underage drinking. A place where you can just do anything you want and never experience any pressure, any disapproval: as one airhead put it, “a safe space for everybody.” Unless you voted for Trump.
Wow, no exams. Everybody just hangs out at college for a while, without having to pay for it, and then when you finally feel like leaving, they hand you a degree.
It’s come to this: college eats your brain. America needs to be saved from its university system. I hope it’s not too late.
The colleges have engineered their own demise. Meaningless degrees have devalued the meaning of a degree, leading to the phenomena of the burger flipper with a four year degree. Already, Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) are seen as the preferred degrees to pursue and I think it’ll get worse for the worthless degree crowd as time goes on.
When my parents were in their prime, a high school diploma was considered a sign of a good education. When I got out of high school I never imagined needing a college degree, unless I wanted to go into medicine, law, or become a CPA. Nowadays, everyone has a college degree and it has less meaning in our day than a high school diploma did fifty years ago: much less.
Are you suggesting that a bachelor’s degree in Gender Studies is not your key to fortune and success?
If you want to wear a paper hat and ask “do you want fries with that?” it’s the hot ticket. 🙂
I’ve had a couple of those paper hat jobs, right after I got out of college: Phi Beta Kappa, Political Science degree, and Red Barn hamburgers, graveyard shift.
Needless to say, I was a trifle disappointed.
Red Barn rocked! I miss that chain. When I got out of high school there was a 69 cent salad bar at Red Barn, which, combined with a side of onion rings made for a darn good meal.
Your point is well taken, but I think that your prospects for a future of gainful employment were much better than that of the average Millenial. A lot of these kids are unlikely to ever go anywhere unless a) the economy improves drastically and b) they find a way to gain useful skills, as opposed to the useless dreck they learned when they got their degree in social justice with a minor in diversity.
If that wasn’t bad enough, a lot of these poor millenials will decide to double-down and take on the enormous added debt of an Master’s. The truly gullible will roll the dice again and wrack up near home-mortgage levels of debt on a doctorate. One can buy a book from a Barnes & Nobles cashier with a PHD, and I suspect that there are a lot of PHDs around that still live under their mother’s roof.
Education is good, but the colleges strike me as no longer being in that business. As I see it, they are in the prestige business, papering walls with sheepskin and indoctrinating their customers (carefully chosen word) with a bunch of politically correct nonsense.
“Higher education” has become an end in itself. By and large, it has absolutely no practical value. Back in 1971, the only thing I could have done with my Poli Sci degree was to get a higher degree, and then a Ph. D. so I could help create more people with Poli Sci degrees. Which is all right, which is time-honored–if you happen to be a scholar who is passionately interested in the theory of politics. That description applies to very, very few people.
College ought to be a place for scholars. It isn’t. I dunno what you’d call it anymore, except maybe a holding area for people with whom nothing else can be done.
Our university system must be put out of its misery, and euthanized.
Besides, that’ll give us a chance to see how sincere the lefties are in their support for euthanasia.
I recently took a look at my job prospects in govenrnment service. I’m the head of an IT department and specialize in data communications, sending voice and data over various types of lines between buildings, locations, etc.
When I looked for similar jobs with the Feds their website said that they wanted to see my Master’s and to have a solid estimate of when I’d be finishing up my doctorate. If I already had a doctorate they wanted to know what I had been doing academically since receiving my doctorate. I thought that’s they were hiring tech people, not college professors.
I’ve supervised people with advanced degrees and, frankly, I was quite unimpressed with their technical prowess. The schools were teaching them something, but whatever they had learned didn’t seem to be of much value when troubleshooting a data comm problem.
So I agree, “higher education” has become and end in itself and our college system is no longer cutting the mustard. If I had to find a quick replacement for my right hand man I would drive directly to some nearby tech schools (teaching mechanical trades), ask the instructors who among their students possessed some electrical savvy. I would then invite those students to apply. A good mechanic or HVAC tech could transition into my field without much trouble at all. OTOH, I’ve seen PHDs that don’t possess one shred of real-world understanding of the field.
My uncle Ferdie, an inventor with several dozen patents to his name, worked for RCA.
He never spent a day in any college.
I had an uncle that was an industrial engineer and did so with no post-secondary education. I’m not certain that he even finished high school, but he setup the assembly line my Ford pickup was built on.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole educational house of cards collapses soon, under its own weight. When these know-nothing snowflakes can’t hack actual work in the real world, experience will become much more valuable than any degree. I’ve already seen it happening in some aspects of data comm.