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In 10-20 years, America and Americans will be one of the most uneducated country and citizenry on the planet. No degree is worthless. College is not a job training program. It never was.
Actually, college is suppose to be a job training program. Once you have your degree and career then you can take up those worthless courses if you desire. Won’t improve your chances for promotion, but you’ll feel better at having learned to hate USA, hate the military, and blame the white man for all the problems.
I went to community college for 2 years and transferred to the University Of California Santa Barbara for my last 2 years. Looking back it wasn't a waste or time. For me college wasn't just about getting a job, it was about personal enrichment. I majored in Classics: Classical Civilization and Culture. The student loans I borrowed amounted to $30,000 and I mostly paid them off in 10 years. The education I got did help enrich my life because I'm a researcher.
The principle of an Associates Degree is to create a well rounded person. One day many years after I graduated I really meditated on what education was about. I realized how applying education to my life could make my life better. Now I see life as an ecosystem, thanks to my education. There may be only a few things you can get out of each discipline you study. When you take certain things from various disciplines you may find the right combination of things that can greatly improve your living conditions. That's what I've done and it works. Money can't replace the comfort I get from applying my education to my life.
Actually, college is suppose to be a job training program. Once you have your degree and career then you can take up those worthless courses if you desire. Won’t improve your chances for promotion, but you’ll feel better at having learned to hate USA, hate the military, and blame the white man for all the problems.
College is NOT and has never been a job training program. It should provide a well rounded education so that an employer can easily train people to do jobs. For certain subjects like STEM, nursing, and allied medical jobs, obviously it would need to be more specific. However, most jobs are not those jobs. At my last job, I worked with people who had tasks that needed basic writing, math, and speaking skills and they had none of them. It was a disaster. What did college teach them if not those things?
Ding, ding, ding! It is the employer's job to teach new hires the particulars of the jobs they are hired into. Nobody else can do that for you. What colleges and grad schools provide is a grounding in some related basics. If the job requires a math background, I want to see courses that show the student has an actual interest in and facility with math. I can take it from there. If the job requires cooperative and communication skills (and I don't know any that don't), I'll want to see some evidence of proficiency there. Perhaps a writing sample or two, but I'll also be paying close attention to how engaged with the language and with the notion of dialogue an applicant is during an interview. Is there an appreciation of nuance? Is there a sense of humor? Can the applicant shift gears? If I simply keep talking for a few minutes, do any eyes start to glaze over? These are simple things. But they tip you off as to what you are getting yourself into. Hiring and placing a new employee is expensive. An organization that shuns due diligence and expects ready-made workers to come marching in the door is going to lose out on a lot of that initial investment.
College is NOT and has never been a job training program. It should provide a well rounded education so that an employer can easily train people to do jobs. For certain subjects like STEM, nursing, and allied medical jobs, obviously it would need to be more specific. However, most jobs are not those jobs. At my last job, I worked with people who had tasks that needed basic writing, math, and speaking skills and they had none of them. It was a disaster. What did college teach them if not those things?
People don't go to college because the classrooms give them orgasms. All majors are job training programs, and you see this more acutely at the graduate level where people are much more directly trained to be in whatever profession they're going to be in.
No employer hires someone because they have a well rounded education post education. They are looking for strengths in certain areas.
They are looking for strengths, period. If there are any and they are a decent match for the type of work to be done, you might see a hiring decision made at some point down the road. Then the real work of training will begin.
Looking back on your college education, what percentage of it was a huge waste?
Actually, 100% of my college education was a great investment.
None of it was a waste, huge or otherwise. I learned valuable life skills from every class I took, and, I didn't even go to one of the "best" universities like you did.
And, yes, I had to take student loans out to make it happen. Managed to pay them off without a problem even though, adjusting for inflation, I had about the same amount of debt that the average college student graduates with today. And, I graduated at the height of a recession. Adjusting for inflation, in my first job, I made significantly less than today's average recent grad makes.
Uh... Life skills -- sometimes you do not need to go to college for that... Nobody taught me how to fix the flat tires you get while driving on the road... Can you figure out how to know this "LIFE SKILL?"
People have no problem taking out loans to buy cars. And, a car only lasts for a handful of years. Education lasts for a lifetime.
I do agree with you though that there is a certain percentage of students and parents who don't make the smartest decisions about how much to borrow for college. I'm a retired school counselor, and saw families do this all the time. They wanted expensive College XYZ even though less expensive College ABC was just as good, and in order to get College XYZ they racked up PRIVATE student loans to get it.
But that isn't the fault of colleges. That's the fault of students (and parents) making dumb decisions.
It's just like the decisions people make when buying a car. Some people want the shiny new BMW even if they have to take out $40,000 in loans to get it. Other people say, "that little used Honda will get me where I want to go and I only need to borrow $5,000 to get it."
But, blaming the auto manufacturer for that choice after you make it is ludicrous.
By the way, above I emphasized the word PRIVATE student loans for a reason. Federal student loans -- especially the subsidized ones -- are lower cost and it's almost impossible for an undergrad to rack up "six figures" in debt for undergraduate school with them because Federal student loans have CAPS on the amount you can borrow. But, again, families make the decision to opt for a more expensive school that they can't afford and the only way to do that is to tack on PRIVATE loans.
But, again, buyers always have choices. No one is forced to take out six figures of debt for college (or graduate school). The trouble comes when you opt for the new BMW instead of the used Honda.
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