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Forums - General - Teachers and leaders of American Society need to stop telling our kids to go to College!

Mr Khan on 24 September 2012
Augen said:
One thing I notice, and it pops up in this thread, is the attitude of viewing labor in a negative light.

"You don't want to be flipping burgers, do you?" Is repeated over and over to put fear into young people. No, they say, I don't want to have to work hard (and trust me, fast food work is laborious) I want to live the good life (what ever that is). So, go to University and avoid the toil of "flipping burgers". Ah.

Then something happened. Those degrees were no longer the ticket aware from "flipping burgers". In fact, my generation found that viewing University having value by the single metric of no burger flipping was becoming less and less true. Why is this?

University costs more than it did a generation ago regardless of how you quantify it, yet more people are going because it is their golden ticket. For me, I went to a solid public university I could afford, with job and scholarship I graduated with zero debt. My peers? Not so much. They believed they'd make 50K right out at 22-23 and their 20, 40, 60K worth of debt be gone in few years. That did not happen. They needed money now and had no leverage due to debt collectors.

Yet, these "entitled" youth did not want to work flipping burgers. Can you blame them? Their whole life they were told it was beneath them and degree would avoid such a fate...yet here they were. Many had to flip burgers next to people who were actually better off financially due to lack of debt. Their parents viewed them as failures, and they felt like ones.

My point? There does need to be a re-assessment of quantifying education's value solely along earnings benefit. If you think simply having a degree is magic ticket to middle class assurance....those days are not here, and likely are gone. However, if you view that from a University setting you can benefit as a human being the equation changes. What value does being informed have? Having critical thinking have? Being exposed to various view points? How about financial planning?

I have done all right for myself, and I can say there was no direct correlation between my degree and my occupation. However, the tangential learning and skills I gained proved invaluable. Also, I never dismissed getting dirty and doing work myself (fixing a machine is not glamorous) when needed, I was never "above" doing anything and do not expect to be. I am grateful for my University days that improved my mind and made me a more complex individual. I will consent that young people now should have reasonable expectations of the world and plan accordingly (big thing, avoid as much debt as possible!)

Appreciate the thoughtful debate here, as to me this is the topic of my generation.

This is a good post on the matter.

there's nothing wrong with manual labor, and also the only value of an education is not in earning potential. I may be severely bitter at the job market right now, but i'm still glad i went to college for the things i learned.



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xwan on 24 September 2012

Yah i agree with need everything ok, not disregarding english majors or "international studies" but you know some of these majors you do not need to spend 4 years studying..like international studies....and i was a psych minor, by the end of the 2nd semester I didn't even hear anything new... it's Erik Erison, Freud, Jung, Pavlov everyday...i can't imagine some of my class mates did 4 yrs of it. But again that is just my personal opinion as i am now relatively successful starting from biology major and work my way up to medicine.

 

So everything I am posting, i am speaking from personal experience. Here is a list of what my friends are doing:

Psych major ended up inheriting father's jewelry shop.

Business major now going back to school to be an accountant (trying to take CPA)

Accounting major now working at CPA firm (80k a yr, driving a company Porsche on lease. she's doing well)

Econ major working in online stock trade earning 48k a year, just got lay off bc the firm died, now looking again

Computer Science major, then Comp Sci MASTERS, working as a Tester (not sure why, he's not motivated he said).

Bio major now works with a biotech company as manager making decent money

Chem major working at another biotech company, making decent money

Electric Engineer workign at Ciscos, making good money..

 

Those are some of my college friends.

 

My high school friend that never went to college:

Dropped out of college midway, got addicted to substance, now working at Warehouse

Another who never went to college, inhertied father's sushi restaurant

Never went to college, went overseas, got married to some chick, started some small business together (not sure if he's well off)

Another frd is now finishing his college at USC (he dropped out of HS,  then went to adult school, work for a few yrs then went back to colelge, alot of time wasted in between)



mrstickball on 25 September 2012

The core problem is that cheap, subsidized college loans given by the government are creating an education bubble, which hurts everyone.

It hurts everyone because tuition goes up, as the demand of college outstrips the supply. From the 60s through the 80s, the number of people getting bachelors was on a steady increase, but jumped 200-300% when the government began to push more subsidized loans.

Because of the glut of degrees, it waters down all fields, leading to a weaker environment in which people get hired in. A degree isn't worth what it used to be, as there are many people with them.

It also hurts the "Dirty Job" trades, which are being more and more handled by immigrants. That isn't a problem, per-se, but there are a ton of good trade skill based jobs with few people working on them. People don't want to take part in a hard day's labor for a good day's pay. I have a friend that is a president of a machine shop. He can't get anyone to work for him, because the work is 50hrs a week, and pays about $35,000 a year - and he's willing to train anyone that wants to work for him. He keeps telling me that everyone views manual labor as "bad", leading to an adverse effect on the industry.

Its very sad, because I saw a kid complain about not being able to find work, while he was around my friend. My friend offered him a job on the spot. The kid turned it down, because it was "too many hours".. Instead, the kid would rather work in fast food or at Wal-Mart, because he wants a lot of free time for other things.

College isn't bad, or wrong. However, it shouldn't be subsidized, nor pushed as the fix-all for an economy's woes or viewed as insurance on having a good job.



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outlawauron on 25 September 2012
mrstickball said:
It also hurts the "Dirty Job" trades, which are being more and more handled by immigrants. That isn't a problem, per-se, but there are a ton of good trade skill based jobs with few people working on them. People don't want to take part in a hard day's labor for a good day's pay. I have a friend that is a president of a machine shop. He can't get anyone to work for him, because the work is 50hrs a week, and pays about $35,000 a year - and he's willing to train anyone that wants to work for him. He keeps telling me that everyone views manual labor as "bad", leading to an adverse effect on the industry.

Its very sad, because I saw a kid complain about not being able to find work, while he was around my friend. My friend offered him a job on the spot. The kid turned it down, because it was "too many hours".. Instead, the kid would rather work in fast food or at Wal-Mart, because he wants a lot of free time for other things.

This is really the core of the issue. There are plenty of jobs out there waiting to be filled, you either are too lazy or arrogant to do the work or refuse to move to where jobs are available.



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Ail on 25 September 2012
mrstickball said:
The core problem is that cheap, subsidized college loans given by the government are creating an education bubble, which hurts everyone.

It hurts everyone because tuition goes up, as the demand of college outstrips the supply. From the 60s through the 80s, the number of people getting bachelors was on a steady increase, but jumped 200-300% when the government began to push more subsidized loans.

Because of the glut of degrees, it waters down all fields, leading to a weaker environment in which people get hired in. A degree isn't worth what it used to be, as there are many people with them.

It also hurts the "Dirty Job" trades, which are being more and more handled by immigrants. That isn't a problem, per-se, but there are a ton of good trade skill based jobs with few people working on them. People don't want to take part in a hard day's labor for a good day's pay. I have a friend that is a president of a machine shop. He can't get anyone to work for him, because the work is 50hrs a week, and pays about $35,000 a year - and he's willing to train anyone that wants to work for him. He keeps telling me that everyone views manual labor as "bad", leading to an adverse effect on the industry.

Its very sad, because I saw a kid complain about not being able to find work, while he was around my friend. My friend offered him a job on the spot. The kid turned it down, because it was "too many hours".. Instead, the kid would rather work in fast food or at Wal-Mart, because he wants a lot of free time for other things.

College isn't bad, or wrong. However, it shouldn't be subsidized, nor pushed as the fix-all for an economy's woes or viewed as insurance on having a good job.

So only the rich should get to go to college ?

Money shouldn't be the factor in who gets the good degree, skills of the students should be...



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mrstickball on 25 September 2012
Ail said:
mrstickball said:
The core problem is that cheap, subsidized college loans given by the government are creating an education bubble, which hurts everyone.

It hurts everyone because tuition goes up, as the demand of college outstrips the supply. From the 60s through the 80s, the number of people getting bachelors was on a steady increase, but jumped 200-300% when the government began to push more subsidized loans.

Because of the glut of degrees, it waters down all fields, leading to a weaker environment in which people get hired in. A degree isn't worth what it used to be, as there are many people with them.

It also hurts the "Dirty Job" trades, which are being more and more handled by immigrants. That isn't a problem, per-se, but there are a ton of good trade skill based jobs with few people working on them. People don't want to take part in a hard day's labor for a good day's pay. I have a friend that is a president of a machine shop. He can't get anyone to work for him, because the work is 50hrs a week, and pays about $35,000 a year - and he's willing to train anyone that wants to work for him. He keeps telling me that everyone views manual labor as "bad", leading to an adverse effect on the industry.

Its very sad, because I saw a kid complain about not being able to find work, while he was around my friend. My friend offered him a job on the spot. The kid turned it down, because it was "too many hours".. Instead, the kid would rather work in fast food or at Wal-Mart, because he wants a lot of free time for other things.

College isn't bad, or wrong. However, it shouldn't be subsidized, nor pushed as the fix-all for an economy's woes or viewed as insurance on having a good job.

So only the rich should get to go to college ?

Money shouldn't be the factor in who gets the good degree, skills of the students should be...

What about..........Scholarships? Don't those exist anymore?

Furthermore, I never said loans should be unavailable. They just shouldn't be subsidized and given out to anyone for any reason under the sun. If a student excells, and is a good candidate for earning a return on their education, I'd imagine that most loaners would give them the money. However, when a student is going to school to simply "Discover themselves", its a drain on the education system.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

thranx on 25 September 2012
xwan said:
pokoko said:
xwan said:
Going to college is more than just getting a degree or earning a "useless major"; compare someone who only went to high school versus someone who went to college, the level of critical thinking is very different. And again, compare someone who went to college and someone who went to grad school there is yet another gap. There are materials you learn from your mentor, professors, and college level course you do not get in "trade" school.

Do you want a job, or do you want a career? Being an electrician is a job, being a successful entrepreneur is a career.

I, myself, have gone through 4 years of University with a biology major, then 4 years of medical school, and 3 years of internal medicine residency. That's 11 more years of schooling than people who did not go to college. The level of thinking, reasoning, degree of religious/political tolerance is totally different. I had plenty of friends who dropped out of high school, or finished high school and did not pursue college they seem to be stuck where they were 11 years ago when I hang out with them (nothing wrong with that i guess...).

And I hang out with my college friends, even though our discussions are more sophisticated, they are still less thoughtful than with my "doctor"-friends; I have to definitely adjust my conversation with my HS friends vs my college friends vs my medical school friends.

Education is never bad, if you don't think so that's because you haven't discover the wisdom in the books yet; most of u guys are young and probably in ur late teenage years. My only advice to you is keep reading, and keep your play time apart from your study time. I grew up as a gamer, didn't have the best grades in school. But hey, the only way to "level up" yourself is to study! There is no way around it.

Bullcrap and sophistry.  You do not automatically have better reasoning skills and religious/political tolerance (seriously?) because you went to college.  It also does not mean that you do not read as much as anyone in higher education.

I, myself, have owned two successful store-front businesses, which I sold for a profit after 3 and 5 years respectively.  That was before I went back to get my Associates degree.  Most of my classmates who went to college were puffing on joints and taking classes they did not care about while I was earning real-world experience dealing with customers, vendors, and employees.  Yes, college can be a good thing, but it certainly does not mean a person is more intelligent or capable than someone who did not go.


I am afraid you are wrong, it has been consistently shown that higher education leads to higher IQ and better critical thinking skills. Of course IQ is not be-all; end all to intelligence, there are other aspects such as EQ. Who knows, if you have a PhD in business maybe you are now owner of more than 2 store front business, maybe you have a company that is much bigger because you realize you had better ways to monetize it.

How do you expect Albert Einstein to build the atomic bomb without reading all the books, learning all the theories first? How do you expect me to come up with a list of 15 differential diagnosis of common cold without having to first memorize the 15 things first and then be able to utilize it later on and apply it in real life.

If you think you are learning a bunch of things you don't use, you are wrong; you use it everyday. Eventhough most of us learned calculus in high school do not end up using it in your professional life, i certainly hope you know what "are under the curve" measn when people are talking to you in both business and math terms. You have already gained the knowledge and you are already using it in an abstract way without realizing it.

You guys take things for granted, you have the concept of bacteria, virus, cells, and molecules because you learned this from your high school and college course, even though you are now a business man it doesn't mean these biology concepts are useless to you. If you have cancer and I tell you the results, you can at least appreciate it from an abstract level that it is some abnormal cell in the body.If you are in some third world country that you never went to school, you will probably seek out a Witch Doctor to try to cure your "cancer" by some stupid "chant".

All you guys do not even realize the value of education, and you walk into any major University lab and you walk into any major Teaching hospital; all the good doctors and pHds all speak with an foreign accent. How far have we fallen behind as a country. This country needs to encourage people to go to college and beyond. Leave the burger flipping jobs for those who doesn't want to go thru college, it's their choice and thats what they are content with, sooner or later there will be robots taking those jobs as well and you will find urself obsolete

excuse for various typos, did it kind of fast.

Oh please. Get off your high horse. I know many graduates from college and they are just as "smart" as they were in highschool. College is a business now. Real world experience is a must, thats why so many good jobs require actual experience in your field, not just a degree that many people can get now. Its too easy for stupid people to get degrees now. Pile that with massive student debt and you will find that a lot of college grads are being passed by people who put time into the companies they work for. Whats happened with the push for college is that a college degree no longer means much, its more a show of comintment than of knowledge. At least in the US it is.



HappySqurriel on 25 September 2012
Ail said:

So only the rich should get to go to college ?

Money shouldn't be the factor in who gets the good degree, skills of the students should be...


If it wasn't for the government's interference in higher education to make it more affordable, education would be far more affordable for everyone ...

 

 

To make a rough guess, I would say that without government intervention the average 4 year degree would cost between $30,000 and $40,000

 

What essentially happened is what happened when used car loans were introduced; a 5 year old used car jumped from being worth a few thousand dollars to being worth tens of thousands of dollars because everyone who used to be able to save up $2,500 to buy a 5 year old car now qualified for a $10,000+ loan on a used car. The car they were buying didn't change, they just paid more because they could afford to and the people who sold them the car made more money.



xwan on 25 September 2012
thranx said:
xwan said:
pokoko said:
xwan said:
Going to college is more than just getting a degree or earning a "useless major"; compare someone who only went to high school versus someone who went to college, the level of critical thinking is very different. And again, compare someone who went to college and someone who went to grad school there is yet another gap. There are materials you learn from your mentor, professors, and college level course you do not get in "trade" school.

Do you want a job, or do you want a career? Being an electrician is a job, being a successful entrepreneur is a career.

I, myself, have gone through 4 years of University with a biology major, then 4 years of medical school, and 3 years of internal medicine residency. That's 11 more years of schooling than people who did not go to college. The level of thinking, reasoning, degree of religious/political tolerance is totally different. I had plenty of friends who dropped out of high school, or finished high school and did not pursue college they seem to be stuck where they were 11 years ago when I hang out with them (nothing wrong with that i guess...).

And I hang out with my college friends, even though our discussions are more sophisticated, they are still less thoughtful than with my "doctor"-friends; I have to definitely adjust my conversation with my HS friends vs my college friends vs my medical school friends.

Education is never bad, if you don't think so that's because you haven't discover the wisdom in the books yet; most of u guys are young and probably in ur late teenage years. My only advice to you is keep reading, and keep your play time apart from your study time. I grew up as a gamer, didn't have the best grades in school. But hey, the only way to "level up" yourself is to study! There is no way around it.

Bullcrap and sophistry.  You do not automatically have better reasoning skills and religious/political tolerance (seriously?) because you went to college.  It also does not mean that you do not read as much as anyone in higher education.

I, myself, have owned two successful store-front businesses, which I sold for a profit after 3 and 5 years respectively.  That was before I went back to get my Associates degree.  Most of my classmates who went to college were puffing on joints and taking classes they did not care about while I was earning real-world experience dealing with customers, vendors, and employees.  Yes, college can be a good thing, but it certainly does not mean a person is more intelligent or capable than someone who did not go.


I am afraid you are wrong, it has been consistently shown that higher education leads to higher IQ and better critical thinking skills. Of course IQ is not be-all; end all to intelligence, there are other aspects such as EQ. Who knows, if you have a PhD in business maybe you are now owner of more than 2 store front business, maybe you have a company that is much bigger because you realize you had better ways to monetize it.

How do you expect Albert Einstein to build the atomic bomb without reading all the books, learning all the theories first? How do you expect me to come up with a list of 15 differential diagnosis of common cold without having to first memorize the 15 things first and then be able to utilize it later on and apply it in real life.

If you think you are learning a bunch of things you don't use, you are wrong; you use it everyday. Eventhough most of us learned calculus in high school do not end up using it in your professional life, i certainly hope you know what "are under the curve" measn when people are talking to you in both business and math terms. You have already gained the knowledge and you are already using it in an abstract way without realizing it.

You guys take things for granted, you have the concept of bacteria, virus, cells, and molecules because you learned this from your high school and college course, even though you are now a business man it doesn't mean these biology concepts are useless to you. If you have cancer and I tell you the results, you can at least appreciate it from an abstract level that it is some abnormal cell in the body.If you are in some third world country that you never went to school, you will probably seek out a Witch Doctor to try to cure your "cancer" by some stupid "chant".

All you guys do not even realize the value of education, and you walk into any major University lab and you walk into any major Teaching hospital; all the good doctors and pHds all speak with an foreign accent. How far have we fallen behind as a country. This country needs to encourage people to go to college and beyond. Leave the burger flipping jobs for those who doesn't want to go thru college, it's their choice and thats what they are content with, sooner or later there will be robots taking those jobs as well and you will find urself obsolete

excuse for various typos, did it kind of fast.

Oh please. Get off your high horse. I know many graduates from college and they are just as "smart" as they were in highschool. College is a business now. Real world experience is a must, thats why so many good jobs require actual experience in your field, not just a degree that many people can get now. Its too easy for stupid people to get degrees now. Pile that with massive student debt and you will find that a lot of college grads are being passed by people who put time into the companies they work for. Whats happened with the push for college is that a college degree no longer means much, its more a show of comintment than of knowledge. At least in the US it is.


Good luck trying to to even get face time for interview without a degree



deskpro2k3 on 25 September 2012

in other countries, universities are free for students. i think they would even pay for you to go over seas.

edit. some friends of mine leave out their college degree from their resume just to get employed lmao