Reflections On College Education

[MSimon]

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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 39354.html

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Most of the money spent on college is wasted.

[CaptainBeowulf]

I think we discussed something like this before - but yeah, like the author of the article I'm an academic with a similar point of view. Probably too many people are getting university degrees who don't need them - part of the problem is that high school degrees have become devalued. A BA is now seen much like a high school diploma was back in the 1960s or even 1970s, and an MA is much like a BA. For people who are going to become researchers, professors, or analysts it's necessary, yes, but for people who are going to go work in an office or something - it would be more efficient for their employer to teach them the skills they need.

Obviously, profession degrees like PEng or MD require extensively schooling - but it's targeted to produce a person who does a specific kind of job.

Also, I think that making military art and science and strategic studies into an academic field and encouraging the higher levels of the officer corps to get graduate degrees has been beneficial to the armed forces. You could throw military history into that mix, but military historians have always been around -- but I think the interdisciplinary opportunities by broadening graduate programs from just military history to other related aspects give you better-rounded analysts and officers. So, in some cases more higher education has been good. But, those guys are a much different case than 20 year old kids racking up $100,000 debts to get an arts degree they don't know what to do with.

[BenTC]

Do you want frys with that?