It was inevitable, I suppose: everything that the progressive movement touches it progressively erodes, and then eventually, progressively destroys. There was a time when the term ‘Harvard graduate’ meant a guarantee of quality. Now, it barely covers ‘minimally competent’ and also brings all kinds of certain ideological baggage — the kind of baggage it would take to destroy the number one beer brand in America, just as one example. The shift from academies of learning into centers of indoctrination means that brick and mortar colleges and universities are on their way out and they are not coming back. And it’s a genuine shame.
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13 replies on “Life After College”
The federal government owns more property in Washington, DC than anyone else. GW University is second. Others like Georgetown and American, seem to be more in the real estate business than the education business. That’s just in DC.
Federal assistance/subsidies for student loans led directly to overbuilding at universities and insane hiring of administrative middle managers and useless degrees taught by useless professors. It is too bloated and insane to continue. And (professional, due to name image and likeness) college football/basketball has given a bag of gold to institutions that should have failed. On top of that, people who shouldn’t be going to college, either because of not enough academic talent or, more likely, poor preparation by the primary and secondary schools, are going primarily to be alternately indoctrinated and inebriated. It should go away. Half the colleges out there should just stop.
As Steve mentioned, non-profits have to spend all of their excess on salary or buildings. Most universities have more administrators than professors and the administrations seem to be most concerned with what other new administrators can they hire.
The other thing about universities is that the professors rarely have experience in the real world. (See Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School.) Even though I am a university graduate (PhD), I usually point students to community colleges instead of university because community college professors are more likely to have had real world experience.
Unfortunately, community colleges have also become top-heavy with administrators. I saw a memo from a local community college complaining about an increase in student enrollment. The enrollment was a concern because it would eat up some of the money that could be used for administrative things. So they were looking for suggestions on how to reduce enrollment!
Learning “How to Learn” is supposed to take place in the lower grade schools of a public education. Learning the structure of knowledge, so that you can find the information you need to learn, should rightly happen during the later years of that same grade school public education. The reason for going to college was to gain access to the most advanced and up to date information on any given subject, that may not have made it into the library yet …. cutting edge knowledge as it were, that the colleges and universities were the only real places such information could be had before information technology made the internet the first place to go to learn. However, the commercial corruption of the search engine regimes now on the internet, are rapidly compromising its ability to perform as the universal information source that we were promised!
Pursuant to your discussion of Universities and institutes of higher learning spending vast amounts on new expanded facilities and all the construction going on, it occurs to me to ask just who are the people doing all that construction? Are they the credentialled graduates of those institutions with their degrees in philosophy and gender studies? No! They are trades people; those who have learned useful skills that qualify them to produce stuff.
Great episode Gentlemen!
One of the main contributions of a university or college was that the various departments and disciplines had people knowledgeable enough to know or propose “this is the body of knowledge you should have to be competent in this field”. This defined a field of study, whether engineering, chemistry, history, art, music, etc. You couldn’t possibly learn enough to contribute in all of these fields so you specialized. This overview of what constitutes a credible body of knowledge may be provided via some other mechanism, but I am not sure yet just how that will be determined. Large employers suggesting completion of a given set of certifications may be part of it, but that will also be more constrained than the prior system. Of course we also know that much of what is valuable to an employer (their procedures and processes) is learned OJT within their employ, only a portion of which is transferrable to another job.
Speaking of employers, once the courts said you could not explore issues that elided towards sexual or racial discrimination while trying to assess candidates, employers could not “test” prospective new hires for competence, so they used college credentials as a surrogate or substitute. If you had a degree you had demonstrated at least some level of self discipline and intelligence to get it. The value of that substitute has declined drastically in the last 15 years (or more?).
Perhaps most worrisome is what is happening in the STEM area. If these fields lose their nearly full focus on reality, then the bridges will collapse, but also the new inventions and improvements in AC systems, etc., that those folks going into the trades would normally start using to make life better for all of us will not be forthcoming, either.
Interesting that WVU is cutting advanced math courses. I wonder how many study studies courses and degree programs are getting cut.
The other part of this is that Covid hastened this demise, and in several ways.
First – most universities were at the forefront of you must get the shot, followed by the next shot, and the next, . . . in order to attend. This showed clearly where the university leadership stood on the Freedom of Choice vs Authoritarianism scale. College is largely about that first taste of freedom.
Second – the ability to do “remote learning” was embraced wholeheartedly. The impact was that young people learned that they don’t have to be at a college to learn. So alternatives, that are much cheaper and fully on-line, are being embraced.
Third – Since the major benefit of the “college experience” necessitates being on campus and kids weren’t allowed to interact the students increased their dependency on devices. Now they are pretty comfortable not interacting. Certainly very comfortable not being challenged in their interactions.
Fourth – many degree programs are not worth the price. Not just the study study ones. Kids and their parents are figuring this out. The number of young people I know who want to go to Culinary school is orders of magnitude higher than when I was a kid. And that is just one outlet of a type of trade school. HVAC companies are hiring and paying quite well around here. As are Electrical contractors. Options smart kids look for options.
I personally don’t think that the demise of centralized higher education is a bad thing in total. It is a system that served well when it was necessary to create depositories of information because information was difficult to disseminate broadly. As we move deeper into the information age this is steadily becoming less of a concern.
Of the people I know who hold a bachelor’s degree or better very few actually work in the field their degree pertains to. Most of them got hired somewhile back because their degree opened a door for them. A door which led to greater personal development and realization of their potential. Had they not achieved a degree but a similar opportunity were available to them, they likely would have done every bit as well without the degree as they did with it. All the degree got them was the opening of that initial door.
Those opportunities are always going to be there as long as there’s a commercial demand. There’s always going to be a commercial demand as long as we can avoid the pitfalls of socialism/communism. The Soviets proved that without economic and other incentives to improve their lot in life, people just aren’t productive. The Chinese proved that you can still have tyranny in the name of communism while implementing a commerce system that is communist in name only and then only when it suits the tyrants.
The question then is how to satisfy the commercial demands that create opportunities?
The source for people that can fill that demand productively has traditionally been colleges and universities. I’m not a bit bothered if that changes because while the intention is to be a source for information that can amplify productivity those institutions have abandoned that function and become a centralized, controllable, dominating source for societal dysfunction, unrest, delusion and antisocial behavior in the name of “good”. The more they move away from the former, the more pronounced and impactful the latter.
These institutions are cutting their own throats in doing this. Whether you’re a person of Faith or not the Bible phrases this phenomena well — “In professing to be wise they became foolish.”
If you do “X”, the result will be “Y”. This is inevitable and immutable.
That said, there will always be some sort of institution that provides things with which the individual cannot generally equip himself. If you want to study astronomy or astrophysics you have to have access to various sorts of equipment that are generally beyond the financial grasp of individuals.
Our friend Harry Ferguson has often pointed out that the thing you feed and enable is the thing you get more of. So some priorities need to be examined as far as subsidies and grants are concerned. Even so, eventually that kind of thing is going to sort itself out. Nothing succeeds like success, if you can’t get success from a school then you won’t attend a school. The real question here is how much pain is going to have to be self inflicted on how many people before that changes?
So I see the educational nexus as being likely to transform and evolve into something broader and more decentralized than it is now. Unless you need access to a lab, telescopes or a super collider you can learn an awful lot for free all by yourself.
There will be challenges to overcome in that department too. One of the biggest problems with self-education as opposed to a formal education is the gaping holes in your knowledge that you aren’t even aware exist. This is amplified by confirmation bias and other human foibles. We see that all the time. Even in here there are people who think themselves expert in the political realm yet are nothing more than crackpots who have disappeared down the rabbit hole of their choosing.
I see the question of education shifting to a more personalized matter of both selection and delivery. The more comprehensive, accurate, realistic and thus productive the source of education, the better the individual will do in life. The creation of courses and studies tailored to the individual student is therefore likely to become a significant commercial endeavor in its own right. Supplanting formal institutional education as that form of education continues down the path of its own immolation.
Gee… I get credit for good things I said. I will take that. Thanks. But I also take blame when I do something wrong. Typically immediately afterward. Did that a lot. So much so, that if I denied doing something, I tended to be believed.
Now i am an example of having a degree that i only used for 3 years (Chemical Engineer) Then 22 years programming. Started when engineer. Got reputation for programming and because that degree was rare then (early 80s) I was moved over and that profession started. Proving your point about degrees leading to something other than your degree.
By the way, unless you co-op, or even if you do, for my degree, you had to access to things like large circuit boards, distillation towers, and massive pumps and heat exchangers. Thus proving your point about some things can’t be learned online.
And my co-op experience? Invaluable. And generated some interesting experiences…. Like a.tank splitting open in front of me, a pressure vessel losing containment (end flew off, coming close to taking someone’s head off) and finding in one building the granddaddy of all cockroaches. (about 2 inches long. Raw animal grease was the feed in that building) And more little things.
Now when I did three years as engineer, well, I don’t feel like typing in even half. Just say, scary things, stupid things, and things that initially caused me grief with the operators of the units, but eventually them respecting me, and even thanking me.
Fun times.🙄
Chemical Engineer here. We had not time with studies and labs to even CONSIDER alternative lifestyles and viewpoints. It was PREPARE for the next exam and complete the routine homework assignments. Our kids are very practical in their thinking today and have enough collegiate education to realize real world practical skills and trades have more value today…. so they are gradually working towards a degree more for advancement and in turn make GREAT money with a trade.
Another Chemical Engineer trained here. Welcome to the club. Also spent little time socializing, but did some. Mainly at church. We also did co-op at various places. Four quarters, so in effect a year. Practical experience that was invaluable…… And generated some interesting experiences…. Like a.tank splitting open in front of me, a pressure vessel losing containment (end flew off, coming close to taking someone’s head off) and finding in one building the granddaddy of all cockroaches. (about 2 inches long. Raw animal grease was the feed in that building)
Only did that for three years, then the company moved me into programming. That because I had a reputation for it, and computer science degrees were not common (early 80’s) That I did for 22 years.
Just saw the notification you had replied. More than 35+ years working as a ChE mostly operational and along the way became very proficient in permitting for CAA, RCRA, TSCA and many other regulatory agencies. Also worked in some VERY disagreeable environments and working conditions. I am of the belief that I did well professionally but my kids feel (and I support) the trades are a better avenue TODAY. I see what welders, mechanical maintenance, electrical superintendents make as short term contractors (travelers) and am astonished how necessary they have become in the last 10 years as it is difficult to retain those positions as permanent full-time due to high demand. Compare what you pay an electrician to come do a 200 amp job at your home today versus what that same job would have cost (not materials) just 10 years ago. They can pretty much write their own hourly wage and GET IT due to high demand.
23rd Century? Ha ha , Scott slipped in a sly reference in near the end.