No apology necessary. Fair rant.
My daughter would totally agree, particularly with the emphasis on an advance degree and taking more than four years to complete. We have really skewed the system a bit too much...
Two Words: Home Schooling
I can't remember now who wrote it, or on which thread they posted it, but someone here at SWC a few weeks ago said that the best way to learn was to get a bunch of good books and just read them yourself. While there are some real limitations to that way of learning, it is still one of the best, and one of the few that anyone can do on their own initiative and without having to attend classes of some sort or formal schooling and the like.
Without adding the experiences of my own academic career to the Parade of Higher Education Horrors already recounted, I simply have to say that I largely concurr. The gross over-expansion of Higher Education over the last generation or so in response to the "demand" for degrees in order to pursue careers has led to institutionalized mediocrity throughout much of that system. The pressure to recruit, "educate", and accredit more students, create new programs/departments/faculties, etc., and to increase the prestige and "reputation" (amongst other things) of colleges, universities, faculties, and individual faculty members, has resulted in a general lowering of academic standards and integrity throughout. Much of the function of colleges and univerisities has been reduced to that of degree mills, instead of as places of learning. There is a disturbing consistency to such observations across North American institutions of higher learning such that it forms a discernable pattern; it is long past being just a trend.
When Higher Education is turning out far more people with degrees than can ever hope to gain employment "commensurate" with the "educations" that they have supposedly received, a growing loss of confidence in the worth of higher education is a long-term consequence. When people think of (as they have been raised to believe - and as employers demand) a university education as a path to a career, then when the "supply" of such "educated" carreer-aspirants far exceeds what the workforce seeks, people feel cheated - and all the more so when they have played by the rules that were laid out for them with the "promise" of a career at the end. This is potentially lethal consequence Number 1.
Now, when the "education" that many of these people receive is in many cases little more than a contrivance in order to create more programs for more degrees for more "careers", never mind those that are simply ideological tripe passing for learning, those students who really are looking for an intellectual challenge are quite likely to feel disappointed - or worse. Even more so than the "career-aspirants", these people who have a genuine love of learning may find themselves either stulted or simply turned-off by the often rote, unimaginative, and just plain lame curriculae they may find themselves presented with. Few things turn-off bright and keen students than a professor or curriculum that is just going through the motions. When such sharp, eager young minds encounter this - and remember, they are often still quite idealistic at this stage - , it is all too easy for them to conclude that Higher Education has been dumbed-down. The result is frequently that they settle for doing just the minimum to get decent marks, their degree, and then get out and never look back, except for having a poor opinion of Higher Education. Potentially lethal consequence No. 2.
Take these 2 Potentially Lethal Consequences, and you have a simple, and increasingly widespread lack of confidence in Higher Education. When the same people are faced with making great financial sacrifices in order to send their own children to college or university, and when considering that they themselves may have insufficiently benefitted by it, parents increasingly may find themselves simply unwilling to do so, even if they are financially able. A general loss of confidence in the usefulness (never mind worthiness) of higher education by the public at large may develop into a real problem in the future.
If it does, then someone a couple generations down the road may find themselves in the same shoes as Senator Cassiodorus in the early 6th Century, when, having founded a monastery far from the ruined and depopulated cities of Barbarian-occupied Italy, he found himself having to write a book of basic grammar for his monks to help him teach them how to read and write, since literacy had nearly evaporated in the years preceding the collapse of the Western Empire. Furthermore, Cassiodorus assembled a basic educational curriculum of seven subjects that he intended to serve as a basis for which to keep the flame of learning lit until such time as civilization could be restored. Of course, thus it was from Cassiodorus himself that we directly received the Seven Liberal Arts, from which our own system of education ultimately derives.
The day may be not too far off that it may be a very good idea to build one's own library stocked with the materials necessary for a solid basic level of education - at home.
The World Doesn't Owe Anyone a Living
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
To be frank, I wanted to [] scream, "No one promised you anything but an opportunity. Just get over the whiny sense of entitlement."
If the sole reason for pursuing higher education is employability, a kid should go to a tech school. This reminds me of a story I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education a few years ago. It interviewed a number of people who had gone through Duke's new Ph.D. program in--and I'm not making this up--Queer Studies. Then they were complaining because after all the work they'd put in, for some strange reason they couldn't find jobs. Moral of the story: adults accept responsibility for their own decisions including bad ones.
Dang, when did I become my grandfather?
Excellent post Steve. There is simply too much taken for granted, and (most of) the younger generation has never really had to face harsh adversity. Two full generations, and a third underway, have mostly grown up without having to overcome the real, grinding hardships, rejection, and consequences of failure that even our grandparents had to. Even for them, in some cases it was still do-or-die.
My maternal grandparents survived the Great Depression living in a log shack in the forest (literally), my grandfather taking jobs as they came available until WWII and he joined the Air Force. My paternal grandfather likewise worked odd jobs until WWII, joined the Army, and survived (barely) a German POW camp in Bavaria- and was ever grateful to the US Army for liberating him. When the GIs, shocked by the condition they found him and the other POWs in, asked how they survived, my grandfather told them about the horse's head a farmer gave them to put in their soup. That's how they survived. It ain't like that now, not for a long time. People take much too much for granted now, and are encouraged wherever they turn in such expectations.
skiguy and selil make excellent points too, and about the real purpose of Higher Education, namely, to educate, not train/indoctrinate/prepare-for-a-career, etc., but to learn, and to learn how to learn. It is not enough to say that this is to encourage creativity and to develop critical thinking; it is rather that the purpose of higher education is to develop proper judgement, and this is not only universally applicable, but universally necessary. No number of "school-trained" businessmen gathered around the executive conference table can make the proper decision about economic trends and where to make investments if all they have are school solutions - the recurring losses of huge corporations over and over, often in the stupidest ways, are blunt testimony to the dearth of good judgement in the corporate/financial worlds.
The expectation that colleges and universities exist to prepare people for jobs and careers is a false one, and it is an abuse of the purpose of higher education. Unfortunately, it is encouraged by institutions of higher education themselves, and parents and their children can hardly turn on the TV or open a newspaper without being exhorted to go to university so they can get a job or a career. When far too many people are going to university with these manufactured expectations in mind, and uncomfortably many are coming out and never even approaching their expectations in job or career, a problem is brewing, and not just a small one. It is going to grow over time, and if it isn't dealt with properly, it may become a societal one in due time.
I would have to add the qualification though that here in Canada, there is quite an overabundance of people with degrees and a quite a dearth of employment opportunities for them; I suspect that in the U.S. the situation is perhaps a little more encouraging - in Canada it is certainly developing into a problem - I believe marc mentioned something along these lines on this or another thread some time ago.