Is a College Degree Still Worth It? >
You Can Lead Kids to College but You Can't Make Them Learn
What's the message when grads can't write a simple E-mail?
November 17, 2011
About Naomi Schaefer Riley:
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a former Wall Street Journal editor and writer whose work focuses on higher education, religion, philanthropy, and culture. She is the author of God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America, and most recently of The Faculty Lounges ... And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For.
My husband and I occasionally employ a handyman by the name of Joe. He is a master at what he does, which is everything: carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, and painting. He is a man who after years of experience and training can take one look at whatever is wrong with our house, craft an elegant solution, and then execute it so well that no one will be able to tell there was a problem in the first place. So far as I know, Joe has never spent a day in college. I also have a relative named Jody (whose name I've changed for anonymity), a young woman who is about to get a bachelor's degree from a well-established small Catholic college with a decent reputation. She has studied to be an elementary school teacher, but her spelling and grammar are deplorable and she cannot understand the plot of texts that many students are assigned in high school. She will probably spend next year getting a master's degree.
[President Lays Out New Student Loan Rules.]
The problem with higher education today is the tale of Joe and Jody. Joe doesn't need college. He has made a good living; his skills are always in demand; he has even put his own daughters through college. He goes on fishing trips in Alaska and takes his wife to Las Vegas. Jody, on the other hand, will have a great deal of trouble getting a job.
College has become the automatic answer for young people today. We tell them that they will earn more with a college degree--and on average, they will. Even bartenders with college degrees earn more. What does that tell you? Not that they teach bartending skills in college--ha-ha--but that a college degree has become the easiest way to signal to employers that a person is reasonably hardworking and will show up on time. That's an awfully expensive signal mechanism.
[Lack of Jobs for Young Workers Spells 2012 Trouble for Obama.]
We tell young people that college is their ticket to the middle class. But we are not concerned with the content of that education--students leave without mastering basic skills we used to expect from high schoolers. There is no guarantee that they have gained a foundation in history or economics or mathematics. We write enormous tuition checks, but what we are buying is a credential. And, as employers often complain, many recent graduates cannot seem to write an E-mail that will not embarrass the organization they work for. Meanwhile we have all but closed off any other options for the Jodys of the world. Vocational education is encouraged only for the worst students. Apprenticeships have all but disappeared from our economy.
So is a college degree worth it? Until we come up with alternative ways to train people for employment, yes. But you'll probably learn more from four years of watching Joe.
- To Keep America Great, Students Must Be Taught to Innovate
- Congress Should Put a Stop to For-Profit College Rip Offs
- Today's Young Adults Suffering More Financially than Older Generations
- Other Arguments
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#18030
Yes — The return on a college investment is more than that on almost any alternative
JULIE MARGETTA MORGAN, Policy Analyst with the Postsecondary Education Program at the Center for American Progress
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#26029
No — Four to six years of partying do not equal an education
CRAIG BRANDON, Author of 'The Five-Year Party: How Colleges Have Given Up On Educating Your Child' and 'What You Can Do About It'
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#34317
Yes — Like any smart investment, the pursuit of higher education requires effort to explore the options
PETER KONWERSKI, Senior Associate Vice President and Dean of Students at George Washington University
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#44322
No — We now have nearly 80,000 bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor's degrees
RICHARD VEDDER, Director of Center for College Affordability and Productivity
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#52611
Yes — Students and their families should not simply assume that college will be "worth it"
ROBERT B. SCHWARTZ, Francis Keppel Professor of Practice in Educational Policy and Administration at Harvard University
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#64128
No — Put more courses online and limit federal student loans to four years of undergraduate work
LINDSEY BURKE, Senior Policy Analyst in Domestic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation
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#82316
Yes — Encouraging students to go to college is the right choice
ANTHONY P. CARNEVALE, Director of Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
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#92218
Yes — People need to go to college in order to have a fighting chance at a well-paying career
KEVIN CAREY, Policy Director of Education Sector
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#101816
Yes — College often provides the first opportunity for students to direct their own education
TOM CARROLL, President of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future
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#111720
Yes — The return on investment in postsecondary education remains compelling
CHRIS FARRELL, Economics Editor of 'Marketplace Money'
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#121627
Yes — Tuition and student debt have not grown "unmanageable"
CECILIA ELENA ROUSE, Katzman-Ernst Professor in the Economics of Education and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University
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