Slashdot Mirror
Too Many College Graduates?
The AP reports on a growing sense among policy wonks that too many Americans are going to four-year colleges, to the detriment of society as a whole: "The more money states spend on higher education, the less the economy grows." "The notion that a four-year degree is essential for real success is being challenged by a growing number of economists, policy analysts, and academics. They say more Americans should consider other options, such as technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades. As evidence, experts cite rising student debt, stagnant graduation rates, and a struggling job market flooded with overqualified degree-holders. ... The average student debt load in 2008 was $23,200 — a nearly $5,000 increase over five years. Two-thirds of students graduating from four-year schools owe money on student loans. ... [A university economist said,] 'If people want to go out and get a master's degree in history and then cut down trees for a living, that's fine. But I don't think the public should be subsidizing it.'"
Check out the Tea Party rallies and you can see for yourself.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
If colleges weren't a bastion of elitism and single minded thought processes run by like minded individuals I would agree.
Of course, progressives are first in line to cry censorship when it affects them, but when it affects a conservative ... well they just deserve it.
Consider the response to the following ... Bill Ayers comes to campus and a bunch of right wing fanatics try to stop him from speaking, what would the outcry be from the left?
Now replace Bill Ayers with Ann Coulter, and ask the same question (reversing left/right). And while Bill Ayers is an admitted terrorist, and Ann is not, guess which one is more likely to be labeled a terrorist on a college campus?
Colleges aren't giving well rounded education, and haven't for 30 years. They are a bastion of leftwing ideologues indoctrinating students; where having an opposing view to the status quo is routinely quashed.
Try speaking for personal liberty and responsibility in the age of group / identity politics and see what happens. You end up with people like Obama and Holder speaking about how evil the AZ immigration law is, without ever even having read it. Its only Ten Pages, so it isn't like it is a hard read.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
America, currently being a Free Capitalist Market (hey, only 33% of it is Command, Give His Highness some more time to fix that) means that we can have as many English & Philosophy Majors as the market can bear. If they cannot find a job in their market, then they can go perform unskilled labor.
Still more needed, though, is UNSKILLED LABOR, apparently, given the eternal quest by our crony-controlled federal government for illegal aliens and the amount of times I've heard "You're overqualified" from HR idiots.
Fixed that for ya.
In answer to your title, because for over fifty years, the high school curricula in most states has been systematically gutted of anything that could possibly be useful to a graduate looking for a job of any sort.
But that's the definition of a trade school, not a college. In no way shape or form should a college's goal be to prepare you for a job. It should enhance your knowledge and life. If you can use things that you learned in college in your future careers, all the better.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
I would be more than happy to pick up trash, it's not demeaning doing what needs to be done. I just wouldn't like being forced into it, and then scorned for having to do it. Heck, if everyone spent two hours a day doing the shitty jobs rather than forcing them onto the unfortunate, we'd get the shitty jobs done with plenty of time left over to do what we like.
When you try to score points in an argument based on guesses and assumptions, you will usually lose.
It's not demeaning to do what's done. Who said it is? Who's forcing you? Who's scorning you? That pesky strawman again.
This is not about verbal skills and arguments. You're really happy to pick up trash, you believe it should be done, then no one is forcing you. Great: go do it and keep me posted on your progress. I'm completely serious. I'll "score you some points" depending on how far you go supporting your bold rhetoric with real actions.
Capitalists rarely become professors, sucking off the tit of the government.
They tend to, you know, make stuff.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller