Friday, January 30, 2009
Why Education?
Mark Steyn recently opined about college and the seemingly poor graduation rates in a couple of posts at The Corner. He gets into several issues, but his conclusion of the final post is what really strikes me:
There is also the phenomena of university as trade school. Many university degrees now forgo the classical portion of a university education to provide people with job specific skills. Trade schools are great things and I encourage them for many people, but universities? - that is no university degree.
Much of this lies in the economic transition we are undergoing from manufacturing. The world used to be divided into trades and professions. Trades involved work with your hands and did not require higher education. Professions, you worked at a desk and needed an education. Well, working with your hands is largely disappearing from our economy. Unless of course you are one of the countless clerks required to move the paperwork along in the medical insurance business - but that is front office and therefore a profession.
Or is it, all it really requires is the ability to read and write and some basic organizational skills. Skills one used to come out of public school with. As Steyn says in his first post:
People have different abilities and capabilities. Some are not suited to higher education. It does not make them lesser people. Nor does it necessarily limit their earning potential. I'm the highly educated one and most of my clients are not - they own businesses much larger than mine. Something to think about.
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We require more and more over-credentialed professions in order to justify the fetishization of mass college.He is absolutely right and this fact greatly devalues a university education. Even when I was in school there were way too many people inventing their own majors (in undergrad school mind you!) and now-a-days it just seems mind-boggling what some people get degrees in.
There is also the phenomena of university as trade school. Many university degrees now forgo the classical portion of a university education to provide people with job specific skills. Trade schools are great things and I encourage them for many people, but universities? - that is no university degree.
Much of this lies in the economic transition we are undergoing from manufacturing. The world used to be divided into trades and professions. Trades involved work with your hands and did not require higher education. Professions, you worked at a desk and needed an education. Well, working with your hands is largely disappearing from our economy. Unless of course you are one of the countless clerks required to move the paperwork along in the medical insurance business - but that is front office and therefore a profession.
Or is it, all it really requires is the ability to read and write and some basic organizational skills. Skills one used to come out of public school with. As Steyn says in his first post:
And, in America, so-called "expanding opportunities for college" is an obvious crock to absolve high schools of their failure to educate.Steyn concludes:
It would be nice to think there are persons of influence rethinking this racket.I agree, but I don't see it happening.
People have different abilities and capabilities. Some are not suited to higher education. It does not make them lesser people. Nor does it necessarily limit their earning potential. I'm the highly educated one and most of my clients are not - they own businesses much larger than mine. Something to think about.
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