
For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time - epi0Bauqu
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular
======
ojbyrne
The column seems to be entirely from the point of view of an employer looking
to screen potential employees. Like it or not, college is about more than job
training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first
part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about
intellectual exploration (answering the question - what exactly do I want to
be when I grow up?). Perhaps none of that is worth the lost time, but when I
see it in the WSJ, my initial reaction is that it's another right wing wacko
who sees college as just too many liberals with too much influence.

And he puts too much faith in certification tests as "classless", in my
opinion. I used to do test prep, and like most things, the people who have the
money and the time to train for the certifications have an advantage.

~~~
whacked_new
I find the whole "college is..." or "college is not..." to be a problematic
mindset in itself. For example, why not develop social skills in high school?
Many of the student leaders I know from college started as high school student
leaders.

Now we're talking about "HS is..." or "HS is not..." or "HS sucks." Why wait
until HS? Now we're talking about MS... then lower school. Then it's just your
entire life as an individual.

I like the idea of a loose education system where there aren't Nth-grade, Xth-
year students, but simply students who have proved themselves in a particular
set of studies. For those with the time to study, take one year. For those
without, take ten years. Then there won't be any of these ideas of what
college should or should not do.

It's my personal fantasy. Impractical perhaps?

~~~
Alex3917
"It's my personal fantasy. Impractical perhaps?"

There were actually three or four test schools operated this way during the
70s. The literature on them is really interesting.

[http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&...](http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=public+schools+should+learn+to+ski&searchtype=keyword&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=ti&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&objectId=0900019b8004016f&accno=ED196898&_nfls=false)

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jon_dahl
This is better than most "college is a waste" articles, but it repeats a
common mistake: thinking that people are hired for their skills. When I'm
hiring, I don't want someone with a "web design" certificate or a "Python
programming" certificate, or (worse) a "sales and marketing" certificate. I
want someone who is smart, passionate, loves to learn, thinks creatively,
knows how to write, and is enjoyable to work with. These things can't be
governed by a certificate system. Of course, they also don't correlate
strongly with a college diploma. But there is some correlation, at least with
some majors - give me a philosophy major over a business major any day.

~~~
un
You could create certification tests for those as well - general knowledge
test, creativity test, writing test, personality test

~~~
jcromartie
I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. I can see it now: "I'm a
certified Awesome Dude."

~~~
un
No I'm being serious, and "Awesome Dude" is in the eye of the beholder, you
can only really judge that in interviewing.

~~~
kaens
How would you suggest certifying creativity?

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thomasmallen
I'm doing my best to prove that this is true. While I have college credits
(about 60), I'm a full-time developer and part-time entrepreneur at 20. So far
no need for a degree...

That's not to say I'm poorly educated by any means. I have the writing,
mathematical, scientific, historical, and artistic skills needed to earn a
degree. My knowledge of the Russian canon alone might be enough at a school
which offered that major (Russian Literature or even World Literature). It
just didn't take me four years in a restrictive environment and an empty
wallet to earn it :^)

~~~
jcromartie
Bravo. Smart people will be smart, no matter what. Smart people with time and
energy will educate themselves. Smart people with money (or the willingness to
accept debt) will buy a decent education.

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sh1mmer
The most valuable part of college for me (in terms of my career prospects) was
not the degree I got, although it was a good degree.

The most valuable thing about college for me was the support, money,
facilities that the college provided to me while I was there. They enabled me
to do plenty of things I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

When I was at college I worked on plenty of OSS, created a web site for Nasa,
and contributed to the W3C. My school paid for me to fly to a number of W3C
conferences as scholarship.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time in the university library which was
many times vaster and better resourced than any library I've had at any
employer since. Any technical book I wanted that they didn't have would
normally turn up within a matter of weeks.

Add to that a 24hr computing campus with access to mainframes around the
clock. I got to experiment because I could keep my own hours and get time on
the interesting hardware at 3am when sensible people were in bed.

University is not just about a degree. As many other people here have said
it's about the experience (I met my wife in college) and the learning, in an
environment which allows it.

~~~
un
What about the children of poorer families who don't have the luxury of going
to college. The above would be fine if parents/students were paying the full
cost of the facilities, but in most cases its government/charity subsidized.

~~~
sh1mmer
I'm British so the government paid the vast majority of my University fees.
The rest were paid for by government loans, which I am now paying back.

It really is possible for poorer families to have kids in University in
Britain. It's a shame that isn't true everywhere.

~~~
zandorg
I got on a UK degree course just before they started charging.

My only loan was a student one, paying for booze and rent.

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greyman
For me, it was not.

I did study Math, and while most of the knowledge can't be used directly in my
daily job as a programmer, and most of the higher math was forgotten, I was
taught to think abstractly in several different ways (like algebra, math
analysis, statistics, geometry etc.) All of those subject are very beneficial
to study, IMHO, even if you don't apply them directly in your job.

~~~
randome
whether or not they are relevant is besides the point, I think author isn't
saying "end 4-year colleges" but rather that we should change how skills are
assessed -- so that a 4 year college isn't _required_ ... i.e you can take a
test and if you pass thats it. so college could still be a valid route of
developing skills (like the ones you said) but not the _only_ route to getting
a job.

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mynameishere
A long time ago, books and educated people were extremely scarce. So, it was
efficient to group as many books and educated people in the same place so
that, in that particular place, they were _not_ scarce. That place is called a
"school". The scarcity that gave schools their key advantage is largely gone.

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Eliezer
I've been saying this, almost to the exact letter, for the last 13 years. Not
the "college is a waste of time" part, but the part about "we need to divorce
the skill verification from the skill teaching".

~~~
krschultz
That I agree with, but truthfully it is already there. CPA exam, professional
engineer exam, bar exam, medical exams. What doesn't have an exam? Marketing,
sales? There is a PE exam for computer engineering/science but no one takes
it. Just push people to take them and it will accomplish the same thing.

~~~
bokonist
It's not there because all those professional guilds legally require a college
degree. It used to be you could just pass the bar and become a lawyer. The bar
associations then got laws passed requiring an actual law degrees, so people
took inexpensive correspondence courses. The lawyers then fought back by
requiring the schools be accredited, and setting minimum rules for face time.
Thus you are forced to pay very expensive law school tuition to practice as a
lawyer. This pushes up the wages of the current lawyers, who got the law
passed. The whole thing is a scam.

~~~
krschultz
Is it a scam? Do you really want people to be able to get engineering degrees
without going through the rigour of a full college education? These are the
people who design airplanes and cars and powerplants. Sure maybe it works for
Java programming of some BS business app, but most of the exams out there are
on fields where screwing up something has major consequences.

~~~
bokonist
That's what the test is for. In a law it's a scam because requiring professors
that teach in person has absolutely nothing to do with learning law. You learn
law from studying books and then practicing (apprenticeship). Not from
professors. The same is true with almost all professions.

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azharcs
I personally think college-education is over rated as of today. The only
reason education worked as a good model was because there was scarcity of
Information and this information could be obtained only if you paid tons of
money and joined college.

Today times have changed drastically, a guy sitting in remote part of
Africa(with a basic internet connection) can obtain the same information which
the guy in Stanford or MIT is trying to obtain.

Colleges surely had advantages a decade back like Mentors, Teachers, Abundant
Information, Labs, Job Guarantee. But today Internet is replacing all these
one by one and colleges today can't guarantee jobs. Unless colleges start
offering something really substantial else they will have a tough time
competing with internet educated population which is growing day by day.

~~~
un
I would go further to say that the current system is disadvantaging rich
countries immensely. I typical person without a college degree is likely to
think he shouldn't even attempt to seek work such as IT (it's for those
college educated types), and instead heads into the local service economy
(further depressing wages there), instead of earning money for the country in
globally based economy.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
The certification system he's talking about would massively accelerate global
outsourcing of US jobs.

ISO 9000 certification in the 80s and 90s played a huge role in sending US
manufacturing overseas. People were reluctant to believe that factories in
various second and third world countries could be just as good. Then the certs
proved pretty well that they were!

Same deal now with personnel. Employers are sometimes reluctant to believe
Indians or Vietnamese are on par with a four year American college grad.
Sufficiently standard tests would prove they are.

In other words, the US has coasted on reputation in a lot of ways and
empirical approaches can damage that reputation.

~~~
un
But you're assuming outsourcing is bad for individuals in the US, whereas most
indications are the opposite, it increases their wealth. The point about the
nongrad IT worker is that he would be able to create more wealth than he would
as a local service worker (in the same way as offshore workers do). Increasing
production (and hence wealth) from all workers, whether offshore or in US is
better for society than allowing inefficiencies and protectionism to prevail.

~~~
william42
"But you're assuming outsourcing is bad for individuals in the US, whereas
most indications are the opposite, it increases their wealth."

Evidence? I'm curious, mainly because I always hear about the Rust Belt and
how it's been screwed over by outsourcing.

~~~
un
The decreasing cost of manufactured goods, increase in quality of them, and
the increase in GDP that has occurred over the past 30 years. (You can argue
much of this can be attributed to technology, but a large share of it is due
to outsourcing - most things in dollar stores and walmart are not due to
technology but outsourcing).

The rustbelt is caused by their inability to compete with the better quality
Japanese cars (and Japanese salaries are higher than in the rustbelt, you
can't make the cheap labour for that).

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Real median wages are flat or down in the US for the last 30 years.

You can talk about the theoretical upsides to global free trade all you want.
I'm a believer. But 2 billion people jumped into the labor pool and the
reality in the US is that they made a wave that drowned a lot of people. Real
wages are depressed. That's not to say there's any real alternative to full
open participation in the global market, but your free-market cheer and pom-
poms don't capture the full reality from a US worker perspective.

~~~
un
I don't think you can blame globalization for that, -technology has eliminated
many jobs -companies have become more efficient at "desklling" workers into
more narrowly defined roles (and so paying lower wages)

if you want to attack free markets, why not go further and advocate barriers
on inter-state commerce within the US.

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krschultz
The problem with this plan is that it will just make every college vocational.
Why waste money on classes that don't apply for your certificate? Why spend
time playing with classes that could lead you to a different certificate when
you are already 20% done with this one?

Or better yet, why not get a couple princeton review books to pass the test? I
passed 35 credits of AP exams in high school, all with 5 out of 5s, and
several without taking the course. When I actually took some classes in
college based on that, I quickly found out how little you need to know to pass
a test.

~~~
byrneseyeview
_The problem with this plan is that it will just make every college
vocational._

The problem with this view is that some people just want the vocational part,
and bundling it with something they don't want, but for which they will be
charged, just makes them worse off. Being able to buy A or B is better than
only being able to buy A and B.

It would be pretty annoying if some forward-thinking politician realized that
a keyboard is worthless without a computer, and unilaterally banned the sale
of keyboards that didn't come with a computer. But that would be a terrible
plan.

~~~
trominos
Yeah, but if college's function of "preparing you for work" is taken over by
vocational schools, it's not clear that there will still be a market for our
current conception of college.

And I'm sure that a lot of you will say that that's an indication that college
is mostly a waste, but I don't think that that follows, necessarily; although
I haven't been to college yet I feel vaguely that it'll be more rewarding than
most things that I could think of to do otherwise, and certainly that it'll be
more rewarding than most things that I _would_ in all likelihood do otherwise.

~~~
byrneseyeview
If colleges provide a service that's worth the price they have to charge,
they'll stick around. But arguing that we should avoid credentials and
vocational school because they could compete with college is like wanting to
ban hybrids because you look forward to driving an SUv, and figure that if
hybrids become too popular, SUVs will be obsolete and you won't get one. A
rational person would ask why your preference for SUVs over hybrids should
force everyone else to be wasteful.

~~~
trominos
Okay.

But what if _everybody_ (or almost everybody) prefers SUVs? And I guess we
need to extend the analogy a little more: what if everybody needs a car, and
their parents are buying them one, and the parents choose primarily based on
cost, and hybrids cost less? But everybody wants an SUV. Maybe everybody wants
an SUV to the extent that they'd be willing to personally pay for the
difference in price, if they had the money. Oh, and maybe the SUVs are
actually better for the environment.

...This analogy is terrible.

~~~
byrneseyeview
The point of the analogy was that you are trying to say that you have so
looked forward to the old, stupid, obsolete system that you'd like to hold
progress back a few years so you can experience it. I think that's ridiculous,
and that if we were talking about how you wanted to manufacture buggy whips or
VCRs, it would be obvious that getting in the way of cars and DVDs would not
be worth it.

If you can give me some reason that the _existence_ of something that performs
most of the functions of college, but that is cheap enough to be a viable
opportunity for people who work, or people who want to get their credentials
faster or whatever, is such a threat to college that it must be stopped -- but
college, despite its vulnerability to better ideas, is still worth keeping
around -- I'd like to hear about it.

But that might be convoluted. So here's what I would ask: if we had the
credentialing system and no college, how would you pitch the concept of a
modern college to the typical VC?

------
arupchak
I'm sure most of us know that good test performance does not always equal good
job performance. Whenever I see a resume in front of me that has a score on a
test (ie. GRE score) I almost always get disinterested in the candidate, even
if the test is related to the job. I do think that these test scores can show
a level of competency in showing one's ability to study/work hard for a test
and do well. However, doing well on a professional test does not mean you
would be good at working in that profession. I'm sure we all know people from
college/school who were great at testing/studying and getting good grades but
still have a hard time in non-academic environments.

College is only as useful as you want it to be. If you want to 'coast' for
four years and meet/network with a lot of people, do it. If you want to study
your tail off in a difficult field and try and get a good job afterward, do
it. Just do not complain afterward that college did not prepare you to get a
job or that college did not make enough friends for you afterward.

------
stcredzero
I think someone should start a secret society of young women enrolled in
institutions of higher learning. The upperclassmen leaders of these secret
societies would observe the freshmen males, searching for individuals of
exceptional potential hampered by extreme awkwardness and sexual insecurity.
They'd arrange to ensnare these freshmen in a series of relationships as a
part of a program to groom them for leadership and to inoculate them against
misogyny.

Maybe they could call themselves the "Bene Gesserit?"

------
Jaytee
Great article, though my day-dreamed educational system would be a little bit
different. But who is to say which one's better until you implement them.

On the same note, High school and middle school are pretty much a waste of
time. In fact, any kind of system that categorize kids into homogeneous age
groups are socially and psychologically unhealthy. How can kids learn form
their peers if all of them have just about the same exposure and experience in
the world? That's why we have all these angsty kids, because no knows better.

I've been teaching on the side for a few years. And from my experience, when I
mix kids of different ages, they assume instinctual responsibilities (almost
tribal). Older kids become more authoritative and care-giving. Younger kids
become more attentive and respectful. This kind of social learning is both
top-down and bottom-up.

I understand the importance of school as a social environment. But if it's
going to be homogeneous and unrepresentative of the real world, no real social
skills will come out of it.

Don't take my word for it. I'm sure we all have interacted with college grads
who are clueless about the real world.

~~~
riahi
Reminds me of Montessori classrooms with mixed age-groups.

------
Alex3917
"A passing [CPA exam] score indicates authentic competence"

This is misleading, because the word authentic has a specific meaning in
psychometrics. It means that the evaluation of competence is based off of
things like observations, student journals, portfolios, inquiry projects,
exhibits, hands-on activities, essays, performances, etc. A standardized test
score is not considered to be an authentic measure of competence.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
What makes you think the author was talking strictly in terms of
psychometrics?

I assumed he was using common vernacular. Wouldn't it be odd for him to use
such a technical term in the middle of an opinion piece in the WSJ?

~~~
Alex3917
Well he is probably the world's most famous psychometrician and the article is
about psychometrics. I suspect he is using the word incorrectly on purpose
because he doesn't like the definition. It's kind of like if a famous
conservative wrote a book about the flat tax and titled the book _Progressive
Taxation_.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm really not trying to pick a fight, but isn't this just the common use of
rhetoric and re-definition that one would find in commentary?

I think your example is a great one. The conservative would then proceed to
argue that his definition of "progressive taxation" is adequate for the
discussion at hand.

I'm probably just making a big deal out of nothing. I'm just flummoxed at why
his own technical field's definition has anything to do with communication
directed at a non-technical audience.

Perhaps he used it like that to get the response you gave? That would make
sense.

------
milwaukeegreeny
Good article. Fact of the matter is that academia has evolved over the decades
into an ideologigal monolith. A stifling regiment of ideological political
correctness.

In current times most young people would be well advised to avoid Universities
and Colleges. After 4 years of classes they come out dumber than when they
went in.

------
gills
This is a self-solving problem one way or another.

The employers that use low-information predictors of productivity will go out
of business and whatever system the remaining businesses are using will drive
the educational system.

Either that, or the inevitably-higher credit standards in the near future will
help to give the college system a population haircut, which will weed out
quite a few of those who don't really mean it (and unfortunately, some of
those who do...).

~~~
sofal
Sometimes the illusion of competence is the only thing you need to succeed.

------
azharcs
I just recently saw a video of TED from Sir. Ken Robinson who said School's
kill Creativity, Really a great talk and worth seeing. Hope some of you find
it useful.

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)

------
art_wells
My college degree means nothing on paper professionally, but meant everything
to my abilities to meet business and computing challenges. I didn't study
computing at all. I don't expect that my experience is much different from
others who have Liberal Arts degrees and found joy in technology.

I've worked with many people who have degrees and certification in computing
and many who don't. As a result of my experience, I've rejected resumes from
people who have studied computing and sought professional certifications
solely, in preference to people who have English degrees and weird hobbies.
Professional experience is supreme, but after that, I want a broad mind to
tackle the problems at hand. While that's highly prejudicial, I've found it a
very rewarding way to approach a stack of resumes.

~~~
un
Sounds pretty elitist, and your company might suffer for it.

~~~
art_wells
I'm sure there might be problems with choosing the wrong criteria, but I can't
see how "elitism" in itself can be a cause of problems in the hiring process.

~~~
un
By elitist I meant to say cliquey, you might filter out people you would
really excel

~~~
art_wells
Yes, I can see that as a possible problem. I've seen fewer cliqueness in this
crew (prehaps because they all come from varied educational and professional
backgrounds), than I have in groups pulled mostly from tech academics and
companies.

------
msluyter
I'm torn between two somewhat incompatible visions:

1\. College should train you for some sort of career and should do so in the
most rigorously objective way possible. In this view, certifications provide
the gold standard of objectivity.

2\. College should help you become well rounded, responsible adults. By which
I mean, able to reason about complex issues, having some background in
history, science, philosophy, literature, the arts, a basic understanding of
subjects that affect our lives, such as economics, etc... In other words, the
sort of people who desire to remain informed about political events, who could
weigh several candidates for office and be able to apply some sort of
selection criteria beyond a mere gut instinct. In other words, the sort of
people that keep democracy on track.

~~~
un
In the UK, the higher education system is as you desribed in point 1, you get
a degree in exactly your subject. yet they have no shortage of people who can
debate on the issues you mention in point 2.

------
whacked_new
The current system is the continuation of a historical establishment, which is
the same with many other human-created systems. They will always be flawed,
but humans will also be slow to react to changes; the larger the group, the
older the establishment, the more resistant to change.

While it is atrociously suboptimal, it's a bit much to call it a waste of
time.

Incidentally, I happened upon this article this morning and like the idea very
much: the Grandes écoles. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%89coles>
Does anybody have any related stories to tell?

~~~
jb92
I went to one of these, so i think i know about it. I think it creates another
kind of establishment, and not a very likeable one at that. It's very much
like the Ivy leagues colleges in the US. People are not out of school that
they are already so very certain of their own worth, it's despicable.

------
kansando
College is a place where you learn to learn, or should be...

~~~
bbgm
Agreed. Seeing comments here and elsewhere, one wonders if people actually
care about quality education just because it's a good thing? How about access
lab facilities, the ability to interact with other smart people, hopefully to
learn from good teachers, or do quality research? College and grad school was
all that for me. Was it perfect. Not at all, but given a choice, I'd do it
again.

------
vaksel
Well its probably true, look at most liberal arts majors, they spend 4 years
learning and then go back to the same job at GAP because they can't find any
job in their field.

It seems like going to college is a requirement now, where people go there
because its expected of them. They don't go to learn, they go there to put in
the time(like in highschool)

------
t0pj
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32553>

------
Prrometheus
The example of certification-based credentials mentioned in the article, the
CPA exam, is a bad one since you have to have a bachelor's degree in order to
take the exam. It doesn't matter if you could ace it on your first try, most
state accountancy boards require 150 hours of college credit before you can
take the CPA. This restricts the supply of accountants and keeps accountant
salary high.

There was a movement a few years back to increase the requirement to a full
Master's degree. It's totally unnecessary to be a good accountant.

------
jrsims
I dropped out of the JC I was attending and just started finding better ways
of doing things (read: "developed technical solutions") at each company I
worked for, regardless of what the position was. Although I would like to make
more money, I trained myself, followed my interests, and now - relatively
speaking - I have an above average salary, both for my current position and
the region I live in.

College, in my case, was totally unnecessary. Yet I'm a DBA/Developer for a
respected Fortune 500 company.

------
icco
I think this is a little excessive. It really implies that someone got a
strong high school education. A lot of the public high schools where I grew up
sent a small portion of students to college just because the school system was
hurting very much. Most students didn't feel like they had learned much until
after their first years in college or a stint at the local junior college.

------
jordiculous
College, more than being proof of a person's intelligence, is proof that you
can jump through the hoops deemed appropriate by your "higher ups" (aka
professors). Understandably, some employers consider this a desirable trait in
employees. I call those employers Fascists :P

------
invisible
College degrees should be your GPA with the degree title underneath. I guess
it's a hard sell for college when your degree is only worth something
significant when it has a 3.5 or greater on it though...

------
steveplace
Hooray! Broad generalizations!

------
kaens
I think I can bring another point of view to this discussion.

I'm currently 22, and have never been to college. I'm a smart kid, and have
always had a passion for learning - but went through some rough times during
and after high school that I'm just coming out of. I currently make most of my
income from doing simple freelance coding work, and live with a group of
people in something of a music / art commune.

I would love to go get a formal education, but I wouldn't want to attend a
college where I was not being pushed to my fullest. I'm capable of learning on
my own, and do so pretty much everyday, but feel that I could benefit greatly
from being in an environment where other people are learning the same things,
and where there was at least one person who had a lot more experience in
whatever field was being studied than the class did.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of college courses that I've seen that deal
with areas that I currently feel I could spend the rest of my life working
with are rather poor. In the town I live in, I know at least one person with a
BS in "comp-sci" who had never been exposed to the concept of a finite state
machine, never been exposed to the concept of "first class functions", and had
no practical experience with anything other than cut-and-paste java
development, or similar cut-and-paste php development. I know that this is not
the case at every college, but it seems to be becoming more of the norm than
not.

I'm at a point where I can either continue doing hellishly boring freelance
jobs until I make enough money to drop off the map for a while and develop
something really useful to a lot of people, or I can go the route of putting
myself in debt to go to college with the hopes that I can excel enough to
either get noticed / hired by a company that is doing interesting work, or get
a job that would allow me to pay off my debt, work for a year or two, and then
again start working on software that would be useful to a lot of people.

Because of what I've seen of most colleges and their courses in most of the
areas that I've been in, I tend to feel that I would be wasting a good four
years of my life in most colleges.

I have some noticeable gaps in knowledge, specifically in maths, that I would
like to fill (and am working on filling, thanks Knuth and friends for writing
Concrete Mathematics - it's a wonderful start.)

Largely, the question for me is one of quality of education. I do not want to
pay people to give me busy work for four years. I don't want to be paying for
textbooks on core material that hasn't changed in decades and only differs
from the previous versions by what order the chapters are in, or what order
the questions are in.

What I want to do is learn to the best of my ability, and apply what I learn
to the best of my ability. I think that a college environment very well could
provide the means for that, but I have serious doubts that it _is_ providing
that for most students. Part of me doubts that most colleges even _intend_ to
provide that sort of environment.

I can see that degrees are starting to matter a lot less, at least in the
programming industry. I for one hope that that trend continues, and we get a
nice influx of employers who are looking to pay people to learn and apply
their learnings to solving practical problems.

Anyhow, that's enough about that for now.

------
time_management
College is an aspect of upper- and upper-middle-class life (formerly) that has
replicated on account of the status and advantage once conferred by the
college degree. Now it's a requirement for a large set of jobs, most of which
wouldn't even be considered desirable.

Is college a massive waste of time and money for a lot of people? Probably. I
think it's useless and unfair to put a person through college and then have
him end up in a job that does not involve the level of autonomy and
intellectual challenge that college led him to expect. Since society has not
evolved to the point where good jobs are abundant, it's hard to see any good
reason for more than 5-10% of people to have college educations.

One has to examine the motivations behind the proliferation of higher
education. The far left supports widespread college education under the belief
that if lower- and middle-class people have the benefit of a liberal
education, they'll demand good jobs and become "Angry Young (Wo/)Men" if they
don't get them and, therefore, evolve into revolutionaries who will overthrow
the status quo. The corporate right likes it because the colleges provide
companies with a sorting mechanism, the costs of which are paid by the people
being sorted rather than the corporate "users". The center supports widespread
college education under the guise of increasing social equality. It's obvious
that an idea with such support from both the wings and the center will be
implemented.

Also, there are the goals of the academics. In the 1950s, professors widely
believed that a merger between the academy and the larger capitalistic society
would improve their social position. As they saw it, rule of society by
educational institutions seemed to be the next logical step after rule by the
church until the Enlightenment, by governments up to World War I, and finally
by business corporations in the XX-c. They got their desired "merger" but
Mammon, being larger and meaner, won and turned the academy to its needs,
rather than vice versa.

~~~
stcredzero
"turned the academy to its needs" -- nay, it practically started out that way!

------
nazgulnarsil
merit based hiring is too rational to work in america.

