So can we just declare college a wash?

Let's review:

. tuition hyperinflation
. party culture
. "rape culture" debacle
. more money spent on sports and administration than academics
. campus "bubbles" divorced from the real world
. feel-good, infantilizing political correctness indoctrination
. the fact that a bachelor's degree alone won't get you a good job
. if you do get a well-paying job, it's probably as a desk-jockey in a life-sucking corporate environment

After all this nonsense, what exactly are we spending our time and money on? I don't know what the economy will be like in a generation, but if I had kids in high school now, I would tell them to consider a vocational school or simply enter the workforce, unless they wanted a very specific profession for which they needed a college degree.

I had a discussion on this subject with some of my more advanced students. In Korea, something like 90% of high school students today will go to college, despite the fact that most of them will not get jobs that require a degree. It's all about social status and the Confucian education ethic. We discussed how, in the US, with business heroes like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, who did not finish college, that one earns social status by producing things and becoming rich, that a symbolic degree is irrelevant. Is that true? I wish it were.

The workforce is now built around college. Your Associates Degree is now the new high school diploma.

While not a vocational role model (although I play one on television) please allow me to add my two cents:
I don't even have an Associates Degree. I have 61 (62 depending on how you measure, and relative barometric pressure) credit hours, which technically
meets the job description standard required by the Georgia Department Of Labor. It's all about the loopholes, kids!
Anywho the only actual college classes I ever went to were a few "no brainer" classes like psychology and creative writing and shit other than the technical training I got in
the military. I make more than I deserve trust me. Sadly I have taught countless kids who have advanced degrees but came into the military because....damn, you
need money to survive and prosper! That underwater basket-weaving degree won't put money in your pocket. Education (as in knowledge/skills) is awesome, don't get me wrong.
But I have cable and the internet - I can learn a lot of cool shit almost for free!

There are several 4 year degrees which will get you a good paying job.

And how many other graduates are you competing against for these jobs? Something to think about. Will these graduates work
cheaper than you? Better than you? Remember it's a global market.

Like what, for example?

You have to consider that Jobs and Zuckerberg are at the top of the pyramid. In their respective fields, There Can Be Only One. What you bring to the table, in whatever field you choose, is your armamentarium.

The Randroids will tell you all you need is a pair of bootstraps (I doubt 97% of them even know what those are). What you actually need is something to make you stand out from the herd. Not sure what your field is, but here's a story someone (I don't remember who; it was 40-odd years ago) told about Barbra Streisand on The Dick Cavett Show:

Auditions for Funny Girl were just about over. Director, producer, pianist, etc., had been in the otherwise empty theater all day and were about to pack up to leave. In stumbles this scrawny, wild-haired girl with a nose that said "Honey, first big paycheck...rhinoplasty." To this day, she hasn't.

She stumbles onstage, chewing a big wad of gum, wearing two different-color stockings on her stork legs. Drops her sheet music on the way to give it to the pianist and, before she sits on the stool on the bare stage under the work light, takes the gum out of her mouth and sticks it (Oh, the horror!) under the seat of the stool. Sits down, nods to the pianist, and proceeds to belt to the rafters in a voice no one in the theater had ever heard before.

Finishes, whispers her thank-yous to everyone, gathers the sheet music, stumbles offstage.

After she was gone, someone had the presence of mind to look under the seat of the stool. No gum. She'd faked the entire thing.

Needless to say, she got the role, and the rest, as they say...

What have you got to offer to make yourself that memorable?

This is true. More generally, I consider college to be a preparation for tasks like research, report writing, other communication skills that people do not just naturally have. Then again, we all know that somebody can have a degree in history but not be an historian. Therefore, I conclude that college is a waste for some, and that standards for what it means to be admitted and graduate should be higher.

Careful... that's the same logic Dayton uses to believe he's qualified to plan military exercises.

One of the nice things about geology is it is very location specific and so difficult to outsource.

Just about any hard science will do but geology, chemistry, and physics are particularly good. Most geologists these days with 0-2 years of experience are starting out north of $80k. A omputer science or engineering degree will get you more, much more, depending on your speciality.

http://geology.com/articles/geologist-salary.shtml

You say that now, but just wait until we start outsourcing preCambrian strata to India.

DAMN! Great point! Some things you just can't outsource. They can't outsource my job because I have a specific skill based on
specific equipment. Equipment that nobody but a select few have exposure to. If you have a degree/skill in something some Asian kid can learn
and will work for less.....you're fucked like chuck. Again, great point.

The starting salaries for people with mining degrees are higher than starting salaries for Harvard degrees. My house used to be full of nothing but geology majors. They not only party all through school, evil oil and mining companies pay them to get their masters degrees. One of them went to North Dakota and says his job consists of reading the newspaper in a trailer all week, except on the days when they bring him a sample, which distracts him for half an hour. They pay for his flights back and forth to Colorado to see his girlfriend, and he's making over $80K.

Lifehacker explains how to get a higher paying job with "only" an Associates Degree

See, this is what I mean. High school diploma? Your 12 years of schooling amount to less than shit. You need two more if we want to look at you, four if you want us to consider you. Also, you're going to have to accept pay as if you had a high school diploma.

Life is not fair, what can I say? Miners do things. They produce a product (or a service) that puts money in pockets today.

My college didn't/doesn't have degrees in mining, mostly just the classical history, literature, chemistry, mathematics routes - really not preparing students to do anything besides go to grad school.

Maybe I should've done things differently, but I got a good job with a good company right out of college that still has the philosophy that employers have to train their workforce to do the jobs they need done. It's worked out great for all involved, and I don't pity the companies whining about how there's no 'talent' out there for them to hire.

I think it depends on the field.

For what I do (communications), a BS/BA is pretty much the cost of entry. For what my wife does (IT) no one gives a shit. By the time stuff makes it's way into the (university) classroom, it's already obsolete. Certs and what you do when you get the job take you farther than any degree.

Unless you want to go into management. Then you need something.

Hey, look at that libertarian unregulated free market correcting itself. Yet another example of how relying on the good nature of people making money never ever works. Oh wait, I am sure some good buisiness person will recognize the need for a cheapo college education and create a great institution that is respected in the job market despite the reality it would be considered a walmart degree by the people who paid for an overpriced college education.

That was the case way back in the day also, so I do not see that as part of the real problem. What you are really getting at is lowering the standards for party kids and not failing them out simply because they are customers and you employ customer service reps instead of deans. This is the first step in learning that if you whine and yell enough they will simply give you what you want despite not earning it.

How does this actually effect education since it has been around forever, and really does not apply to just colleges?

One of the biggest problems, though the two should be separate issues given their reasons and effects. The reality should be kids are there to learn, but the most important thing ends up being sports and catering to the lackwits and mental retards in them.

How can you actually be in the real world when you never had a job or supported yourself? That is more of a modern day parenting problem where they allow their children to think they deserve money for sitting on their asses and things just come to them. I will get to the effect of this later.

That is a conservative myth. Political correctness is not the term to be used. Being polite and recognizing how to respect others is not the problem. The real problem is when the world of supposed academics who do not actually do their job becomes the world to which the students become accustomed to. The real world expects results, and no one expects results from professors. Most college professors are there because they do not need to set goals and accomplish them. If you do not get to everything in the syllabus you made you can just forget about it and pass the kids on the stuff you were able to get to. Most of your kids fail, and it is their fault not the professors with tenure. Professors at college are so coddled and secure in their positions they do not care if they teach a kid a single thing. That has nothing to do with political correctness, but it sure does set a kid up with a terrible idea of the world especially when they have not been employed.

College is not supposed to get you a damned job. Here is one of the biggest and most stupid ideas ever. There is a lot more to a job than memorizing some facts so you can pass a test. That is why where education is important they also have requirements like internships to go along with things because it helps weed out the morons who cannot work. This is why working is actually more important than fucking around in a classroom for 4 more years. Unfortunately everyone is sold on the idea that with a college education you will get a job, and it simply is not true. You are going to start at the bottom even with a good education because no one knows if you can actually do work. College is not work no matter how hard it was to wake up for an 8 AM class and twiddle your thumbs through class. When you get done with college and have absolutely no work history you advertise to every single employer you are lazy and worthless. This is because most employers have seen ambitious people work 40 hours a week and get their college education. You do not want some kid who finds 15 hours of class time to be hard, nor do you want some flippant douchebag with parents who pay fopr everything leaving you after 6 months of training because they need to go find themselves on some backpacking trip across europe. Even working at McDonalds while you are going through college shows you can work, and begins to get that entry level crap out of the way.

That brings me to my second point. College does not teach you how to do a job. Almost every job you get you will need to go through training and learning how things in that specific workplace happen. Your college education gives you information to which you can contribute to employment, but it does not show you how to work in that specific job. Again, that is where employment comes in. It gives yopu references, and shows you were at least capable of learning simple procedures in some workplace. If you want college to get you a job you should start looking into some sort of networking that might help you get in someplace through the people you have met.

You must be a teenager with that attitude. That is what most jobs are, and some of those life sucking cubicle jobs get you things you want. You are not getting into the workforce to find yourself. You are exchanging your time for cash. This is why a degree in philosophy is full of shit when you are looking for a job. Employment is not there to full fill your life, or to be what you want it to be, and even jobs you like can suck your soul as you put it. Grow the fuck up. If you want to make money prepare to have your soul sucked. If you want to live in your parents house with your soul keep thinking that college should provide you with magical money from the sky.

Get a job either way. College is not going to get one for you. The reality is that you are going to spend some time in an entry level position in a job almost anyone can do. If it takes you an extra couple of years to finish the high level degree for a upper level job who cares? You are going to be spending time on the bottom rung unless you are considerably lucky. The difference is that money can get you out of debt, or keep you from it. I have known tons of people who went to work and then got their job to help pay for that expensive college. Not only did they come out much better, but while they were pissing away time in the general education classes they got to see the work force and were able to find a job they preferred while also being able to focus their higher level college courses to focus on what was needed for that job.

Do not look to those people because they are either really lucky or much smarter than your average kid. Probably a lot of both. Of course, knowing you are a teacher puts a lot more of this in perspective. Those who can do, and those who can't teach. The best advice you could give your students is not to look at you unless they want to be teachers.

You don't necessarily need a college degree to find a good job, but most of the good jobs will require some kind of higher education. Even a degree in a totally different field can open doors for you.

College costs money. If you're thinking of college as a means to employment, you have to weigh that cost against your expected gain. It may not be worth it to rack up the debt if jobs in your chosen field don't pay well. If you could get a job for $42,000/year without a college degree and one for $54,000/year with, it may not make sense to go $120,000/debt to attain the latter. Remember that as you're choosing between law and medieval French poetry as majors.

Apart from that, the education you get from a decent college benefits you in non-monetary ways, too. But you need to give sober consideration to what you're paying for what you're getting. If you choose wrong, it's your fault.

Remember that as you're choosing between law and medieval French poetry as majors.

"The first thing we do.....is kill all the midievel French poetry graduates."

It's not that most jobs require any kind of higher education, they just use a degree as a proxy when hiring. A proxy for what? Being able to 1) think critically, 2) read/listen and comprehend, 3) write/speak (communicate) effectively, 4) get things done, and 5) learn from your mistakes. There are probably other things. It's not that nobody has these skills without going to college, but going to college (and trying at least halfway to graduate) will at least let you know whether you should pursue jobs in which these skills are necessary.

For the record (and I say this as someone with an advanced degree), I don't think everyone needs to go to college, but I also don't think "I don't wanna, it costs money" is a good reason not to go, without additional evidence that you have these skills that will let you do well in the world. Personally, I found the whole experience of undergrad great, I learned a lot, and I got to try out a whole lot of different things in an environment that was conducive to this. Your mileage may vary.

Recognition of the wider world and what it has to offer (in terms of art, literature, culture, history, differing opinions, etc.) is also something you can get in college that you may not get if you stick around where you grew up and go straight to work after high school, depending on where that is, how outgoing you are, and how driven you are to keep learning.

The last paragraph is probably one of the last reasons anyone goes to college these days. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are kids that go to school that genuinely love to learn, but I don't think it's worth getting into thousands of dollars of debt for that reason.

@Paladin is right that not all majors are created equal, and I've met plenty of people with degrees and not able to get any work with it, because everyone's been brainwashed into thinking any degreee is better than none at all. Try telling that to the guy still eating ramen a year out of college. This is also where better school guidance councelors come into play, but they're usually the first ones to go in a budget crists, after music and art and the school nurse.

I read somewhere that A students will work for C students, while B students work for the government. The reason being that A students pride themselves on praise and having the gold star on their homework and generally aren't risk takers, while a good number of C students can do better at homework, but decide their time is better spent on some other activity than proving they know the work. I had classes with plenty of those types that do enough homework to keep a C, then blow out the test with the highest score in the class. And the B students like middle-of-the-road stability that the government used to provide, but hell even the military is no longer a sure thing.

But I have seen more people coming to the same conclusion that college is not for everyone and that it's not worth drowning in debt for a piece of paper. In our society producers are still more valued than mere academics. In some ideal world, both would be one and the same, but that day is a long ways off.

You're teaching in Korea?

I don’t think most jobs are as I described, especially vocational ones where one works with his hands, or some of the STEM jobs that people mentioned where one might be out in the field doing research and tests. It’s sad that you’re apparently resigned to selling your soul for money, and that you think that’s how life has to be, because I really don’t. I’m not saying that everyone should expect to be in love with their jobs, but there are plenty of ways to do better than a Dilbert-esque cubicle forest.

Your dumbshit maxim, in context, would suggest that I teach English because I don’t speak it well. Spare me your ad-hominem drivel.

I don’t know why you’re even attacking me, since little of what you said actually contradicts the sentiment in my OP.

Great idea Anna. It reminds me of something one of our very senior officers (levels above us) said one time addressing our company sized unit.
He said when he was in college a lot of his classmates were busting their humps to get good grades, to be among the best.
He just wanted to party and get a degree - to just "accomplish the mission" I guess you could say. He figured if they got A's and he got C's
it didn't matter, because as long as you graduate you get the same degree. The "block is checked" just the same.
How fucking cool is that? And the guy was a damn Colonel but laid back and chill - no doubt a work hard/play hard guy.
I'm guessing half the crew he graduated with dropped dead of heart attacks or other stress related afflictions and he's making the big money
not giving a royal fuck because he's the real deal. Just sayin'

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Berkeley, a few more. Seriously, if you don't get a degree from a top school or graduate at the very top of your class from a school at the next level, you're gonna need a fuckton of luck to get a good paying job.

There's definitely something to that. Sounds like you're referring to this book.

http://markmanson.net/school

Three things that school teaches us, and therefore, three things that categorize people who excel at school:

1. Success comes from the approval of others
2. Failure is a source of shame
3. Dependence on authority

None of which will make one a successful entrepreneur or innovator.

A friend of mine also suggests that college majors should be priced according to economic prospects graduates are likely to find. That is, they should be market-oriented. And I agree.

If you go $100,000 into debt but become an M.D., that's probably okay. Your future earning potential can justify that.

If you go $30,000 into debt to get a Forestry Sciences degree, it may take many, many years before that "investment" pays off.