Back in the late 80's my high school had a vocational-technical co-op with another area school district. They were in the industrial arts such a auto mechanic, electrician, plumbing, etc.

Even back then they were looked down upon. They were also associated with being druggies. (Some of which was true.)

The hypocrisy was that the college preppies probably were smoking about the same amount of pot.

The administration always came down on the techers, but the preppies got a pass.

So this has been a steadily building thing. The question is how screwed will the accountants be when the system collapses?

Even the idea of college/university is different in the European countries, the kids aren't "walled off", they live with their parents or rent apartments. The American cloister system comes from the English, where if memory serves me right the system was originally monastic, and the monastic system has been maintained.

>>"Moreover, on-the-job training promotes acculturation into the adult world instead of walling off 16- to 18-year-olds in their own, sometimes dangerous, world."

And now, 18-24 year olds are being walled off into their own world. College/University is **NOT** a great entry point into the adult world. It's basically High School 2.0. Everyone there still holds your hand, you're told exactly each step to take in order to get from A to Z and if you goof up, there's plenty of do-overs. Sometimes I sincerely wish I'd skipped college and gone straight into the workforce. I think I would be pretty much the same person without the experience, and I'd be much more worthy as "human capital".

Of course, who knows if I would've been accepted into a good position without that coveted Bachelor's.

I think the key to blowing up the bubble of higher education is developing a viable alternatives (like the German apprentice model) to college. Right now no major US employer, outside of the tech industry ironically enough, is really willing to hire someone without a college degree. Even if that degree doesn't actually mean anything.

I consider myself a liberal, but I'm not a guilty liberal. I think there's a big fear from the guilty liberals of being elitist when they say that college isn't for everyone. But the reality is simple, it's not. There are many ways to learn and become productive and we shouldn't be forcing kids into as the ONLY option to get ahead.

The hypocrisy was that the college preppies probably were smoking about the same amount of pot.

A friend of mine was sent to a religion-affiliated private high school by his mother in order to keep him away from the "bad" influences (i.e., drugs) in the public high school.

He later told me it was easier to get drugs in the private high school than it would have been in a school that didn't pretend drugs didn't exist inside its halls.

The steward was that rarity even among college graduates, an educated man. -- Earl Derr Biggers (The House without A Key)

Kids are in a difficult position. If they DO go to college, they face a mountain of debt when they get out. If they don't, they are facing much higher unemployment rates and lower lifetime salaries. A BA or BS is the price of admission to most professional jobs.

A person's major is not his destiny. My husband majored in business and is now a successful engineer. Lit majors can become teachers, and sociology majors can become doctors. Perhaps a better idea than choosing which majors we will subsidize is demanding a certain amount of civil service, either through the military or some other organization.

And I absolutely think tuition assistance should be both income- and achievement-based. Helping lower-income people attain a better quality of life helps everyone, but we shouldn't be taking risks on people who have demonstrated that they can't do the work. Nor should we abandon those kids. I'd like to see high schools helping kids find what they are good at.

Hubby didn't do college. He went military and let them pay for a 2 yr degree and training. He banks in a rare, needed, non-offshorable technical feild now. We have 4 kids and I don't work, and more tellingly we don't qualify for assistance. Meanwhile, I got a BA from UT and will be paying my loans when my kids are in school, for no boost to my employability whatsoever. Working on practical degree now. Guess whose kids won't be forced into college? As a friend of mine has said, "you turn 18, you get a scholarship or you enlist". Or, I might add, you apprentice b/c plumbing and electrical feilds are lucrative.

Tabarrok said:

First, there is plenty of risk in sending a kid to college! Forty percent of students don't graduate within six years (and probably never will), many more graduate with degrees that won't help them much in the labor force, and even the ones that do graduate often do so with student debt that will follow them for decades. Moreover, even when college pays for kids is it paying for society? A lot of schooling is just signaling, not the true building of human capital. There is an argument for subsidizing science, technology, engineering, and math fields, but should we really be subsidizing anthropology, sociology, and English lit students?
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Um, those last three subjects - unlike, say, college courses on Madonna - used to be considered perfectly dignified, worthwhile subjects - especially if the students made good use of them after graduation. (Nowadays, of course, an awful lot of students major in a subject, only never to use it again.)

Isn't that sort of like saying that since fewer people are reading every year, we should cut back on funds to public libraries and school libraries? What we need is to REVERSE the trend of willful illiteracy - especially if we care about not being flattened by China and other countries! Kids who don't like to read for fun are not going to remember anything they're FORCED to read once exams are over! (Not to mention that they grow up to be parents who don't read to their kids!)

In short, what we REALLY need is to stop funding college kids who don't want to BE there in the first place. Trouble is, there's no way to sift out such kids unless they admit they don't have any real enthusiasm or plans. One thing that would help is a parent who says, early on: "When you turn 18, go to trade school, go to college, or move out and never come back or ask for money. Take your pick."

And I would also say to kids: "It's OK if you really don't want to go to college. What's NOT OK is using that as an excuse not to read constantly. Especially newspapers that make you think!"

"Um, those last three subjects - unlike, say, college courses on Madonna - used to be considered perfectly dignified, worthwhile subjects - especially if the students made good use of them after graduation. "

There is considerable value in a solid humanities education. The very definition of the term "liberal arts" encompasses a mastery of composition, literature, logic, rhetoric, and understanding of human nature. Plus the "learn how to learn" aspect.

Trouble is, there aren't many schools that actually offer that anymore. What passes for humanities these days is a weak tea of political correctness, indoctrination, third-rate literature, mystery cults, and using lots of big words to impress the yokels. It's a poor imposter, a cardboard cutout, a Chevy with Mercedes badges stuck on it.

I've always been a technical guy, and I admit that when I was in school it took me a while to realize the value of the humanities. But there aren't that many people anymore who have actually been taught any. I like to say that the humanities people were a lot more fun to argue with when they could cogently argue back.

Per Althouse, next semester New York University will begin offering classes (plural) covering the Occupy Wall Street movement.