Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Why I Am In Favor Of College, Big-Time, Pt.2

A college degree is an elaborate and self-perpetuating workplace hazing ritual. Those who are already in got spanked. They already took their licks, and they now have first-hand knowledge of how pointless it was. BUT! They're going to be gosh-darned if the up-and-comers don't have to get their stripes as well!

But I am sincere about loving academia. I love learning for its own sake, and I love those who make that quest theirs. I just don't believe for a second that a tenth of one percent of high school graduates going straight into college are doing so to accumulate a store of knowledge for its own sake. YEAH RIGHT.

They're doing it because it's the respectable next step to life, or to postpone real life another 4 years, or to sprout wings away from the home environment, or to party (or all of the above). But MOST of them are also doing it to get a degree that they believe will help them get a better job.

And yes, on average, it will. THAT'S THE SCAM. Because it shouldn't. It shouldn't help. It only helps because a false value is being put upon it. In the overwhelming majority of instances, the actual education that that degree represents will be almost wholly irrelevant to the workplace.

If that degree were truly looked at in terms of applicability to the workplace, for most jobs that degree should be worthless. And yes, admittedly a few sneaky career-seekers do get in over the wall, but it's a huge setback not to have that scrip from the ivory tower. It offends my sense of fairness that something as generally irrelevant as a college degree is elevated to the status of gatekeeper to the promised land of white-collar wage slavery. White-collar wage slavery should be wide open to ANYONE WHO CAN HACK IT!

Which...admittedly, not everyone can. Nor would everyone be sane to want to.

16 comments:

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dogimo said...

>The whole point of a college degree is to instill a desire for lifelong learning in you.

A bit circular. If that were the whole point of going, admissions would be limited to those who already possessed that yearn to learn.

That's not why the bulk of students go. Let's take a hypothetical: suppose a college degree had ZERO impact on being able to secure a job. Would all those students still spend tens of grands on that degree?

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dogimo said...

I agree that no education is wasted, but I also believe in value for money. The education people get isn't worth near the $$$ that they lay out, but they play along because the education's not what they're paying for.

Business gets an easy and lazy criteria to apply while screening applicants, but they don't get anything that actually makes the grad applicant better at the job than the non-grad. Students get a document that will bump them up ahead of non-grad job seekers, but they don't get an education that really applies to the job.

Obviously if you're going into a career in physics, chemistry, medicine...academia...some of these technical fields actually get some applicable nitty-gritty know-how to go with the degree. But for the job force in general...not so.

>Don't you think some schools are a little more "selective?" ... Any?... One?

Sure they are, but they're still offering basically the same product.

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dogimo said...

>I hate to say this but you know that's not true.
Of course it's true. What good is high-quality irrelevance? The type of education being offered - no matter its quality - is simply non-relevant to the vast majority of the workplace.

And as to quality, a determined person can get a 1st rate education from a 5th rate school. A determined person can get a 1st rate education from the public library. Whereas a person who RIGHTLY and CORRECTLY doesn't care about the completely irrelevant liberal arts courseload - as long as they get the degree - will probably end up with a 5th rate education even from a 1st rate school.

And that's fine. Because the education isn't relevant anyway. They're attending for the degree.

And then you may say: a better school's degree is worth more on the job market. Well of course it is! That's why they can charge more for it. But it isn't worth more because the education is better, it's worth more because the school has better built-in brand value.

dogimo said...

If you want to continue with the "more selective" argument re: better schools, that's still arguing my point for me. The education is still an irrelevant part of the picture. Businesses don't care if the applicant can quote Chaucer.

With a premium-brand college degree, the product being offered to business is a not better-educated candidate, but a better-screened and theoretically smarter candidate.

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dogimo said...

>Education isn't about subject matter; it's about learning to think critically, communicate effectively, and the acquisition of knowledge, general or specific. Those skills are always relevant.

Sure they are! But: college doesn't have a magical monopoly on these sterling virtues, or on the imparting of them. And: college regularly churns out graduates who have zero interest in 2 out of 3 of those (if not 3 out of 3) – graduates who, frankly, will be no less qualified for their jobs for that lack.

And since the subject matter college has to offer is largely irrelevant, why can't a person learn to think critically and communicate effectively and while acquiring knowledge that is more directly applicable? Surely you could learn to think critically, communicate effectively and acquire knowledge without taking on decades' worth of debt.

And of course you could. You could learn these sterling virtues elsewhere. But that's beside the point, because it wouldn't satisfy the main reason most people go to college: to get a degree that will help them land a better job.

That's all I'm saying. Most people don't go to college for any other reason than the degree. They are gambling that the better job they hope to get will be worth that investment. The actual education is usually totally irrelevant to the workplace – job applicants and industry both know it, but both play along for various reasons.

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dogimo said...

Even if the case could be made that the education most college attendees receive is irrelevant to the careers they will end up in, we shouldn’t base our thinking on the pessimism of the lowest common denominator! Just because the majority of unexceptional young people coast through is no reason to fault the system. At least they have been offered a chance to excel.

Our best and brightest young people - the ones who will go on to become leaders and innovators - many of these will fully seize upon the opportunity their college years offer. They will use that time to shape themselves into the exceptional people they will become. Their lives (and our nation) would be far poorer if they didn’t have that dedicated time in that dedicated academic environment – time to incubate, to educate, and ultimately to self-determine. The time to ponder options, and to choose greatness.

The fact is that if the institutions of academia fell by the wayside, our nation would suffer irreparable harm. And those who choose greatness will never make up a significant fraction of the student body. The lifeblood that keeps these institutions running will always be the constant flow of those who choose mediocrity.

So even if the vast majority attends for no reason but the “get a degree or get stuck with a shit job” compunction, even if the vast majority simply coasts through and receives an education that will be totally irrelevant to the workplace, there is consolation in the fact that this compunction (while arguably unjust at the individual level) does serve a greater good.

How’s that!

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dogimo said...

Yep, any time I'm called upon to reverse course and argue the other side, my go-to argument is the ol' "the theoretical greater good outweighs the specific individual good" argument!

It's a pretty good go-to. Persuasive. Seductive.