College education: Do we overemphasize and spend too much on it?

The founders didn't see education as only a jobs program. They saw it as a way to create a more informed society that makes better decisions collectively which prevents things like installing a fascist wannabe.

This country need a much larger percentage of people who read really dry and dense material and writing about what they read in an analytical manner for 4 years. This country is falling apart because of misinformation and the inability of the average American having the patience and literacy skills to read dry nuanced articles while falling for simplistic memes and click bait.

A more informed society would ignore John Stossel. That by itself makes it worthwhile.

If you want to discuss cost, that's a near universal agreement. It's too expensive and the barrier for entry in terms of cost is detrimental to society. Society would benefit if all forms of higher education was free. People shouldn't need to spend money to improve their education. Society should want that without a capitalist incentive.

 

Sure, we are over "colleged" in this country, but we just need to reform higher education and not necessarily toss the baby out with the bath water. We have the best collection of public universities (and private) in the world and it's a large reason why modern America has been so successful.

We just need update and reform the hierarchy of higher education and skills training.

 

I think there is a misplaced emphasis on college education but not too much of an emphasis. The emphasis should be on college making more informed and well-rounded individuals and not a job training program as far as its main purpose. Employers should want to hire more informed well-rounded individuals.

 

Go to college for something useful like business, engineering, economics, etc. Don't go for some impractical degree like liberal arts or you're just wasting your time and money.

 

It's not a waste of time. I have an engineering degree and see the value in a liberal arts degree.

Someone who didn't skate through their lib arts degree and took it seriously is less prone to misinformation. Because think about what they did for four years... Read really dry and dense literature and write analytical papers on what they read organizing their thoughts and practicing introspection. More people with that training in society would make a better society.

 

I'm speaking from a financial point of view, if you're currently using that engineering degree you know the monetary difference between the two.

 

too many people going to college and leaving with a useless degree and a mountain of debt

financial aptitude, money management, and investing 101 should be mandatory college courses

half the students aren’t reading any of those poems, random books, or whatever…least they could do is leave college with some idea of how to financially plan for their future

 

2 Step Program to Fix Higher Ed

Step 1: Fire @B-Bob
Step 2: You're done. It's fixed.

 

A lot of people treat college as a 4 year party and a delay to adulthood instead of the place to attain a higher level of thinking. I gained a lot more from my liberal arts classes than my STEM classes in the grand scheme.

 

Let’s be honest here - if someone really wants to make a lot of money, their best bet is to go to a school that maximizes their opportunities to network with other rich people. The degree is largely irrelevant.

Of course, it’s also true (as fchowd0311 noted) that their are other worthy benefits to a well-rounded education. And while perhaps it should be emphasized that it’s not a good idea to blow 6 figures on a private university education if you’re not pursuing a high income career, that doesn’t mean the degree is useless if acquired at a more reasonably priced state university.

Finally, I have to laugh when someone suggest economics as a superior degree to the liberal arts. It’s just one of the social sciences, and it doesn’t offer any broader preparation for the work world as any of the others (unless you’re going into an economics field, but of course the same goes for an art history looking to be a curator or an English major going into publishing, and so on).

 

This X 1000. College has become an expectation for a higher paying job. A bachelors degree now is what a HS diploma was 30 years ago. It wasn’t intended for that.

And as usual we have the “you should only go to college for STEM or you’re wasting your time derp.” in this thread.

If everyone went to school to be an engineer there would be a whole lot of engineers working as baristas because there wouldn’t be enough jobs for them.

 

College dropouts who failed art history
End up being non contributing citizens

@Os Trigonum

 

We should have a more rigorous high school education which would render any sort of generalized benefit from a college education irrelevant. The founders were pretty much universally well educated in "classics". They could read Latin and knew the most celebrated works of people like Plato and Aristotle. That should be a minimum requirement to graduate high school (along with things like personal finance). Something like the class depicted in The Emperors Club.

 

Yes.

 

Agree upon?

 

This is a Gross oversimplification and lumps different groups together.

If you’re smart and motivated, college good idea

if your family is rich and can afford it, generally speaking college good idea

if you’re family is rich and you’re smart, go to the most prestigious college you can.

if you’re a doorknob, college bad idea

if you’re lazy, college bad idea

if you’re poor but smart and motivated, college good idea but go for value unless you have financial aid or grants.

 

You hit a point on useless degrees
like political science

 

I largely agree with Stossel and Bryan Caplan.

If you take a look around the OECD, the American system is not the norm. Yes, college is largely "free" in many OECD countries, as those on the left like to point out, they just tend to ignore the uglier part - there is stricter gatekeeping. Your ability to attend college and what you will be allowed to study is largely predicated upon testing done between 14-16 or so and then, if you're found worthy, society will heavily subsidize your education. They don't tell you that. The illusion that is conjured up is that our system would remain exactly the same except everything would just *poof* become free. It's nonsense.