Graham: Parents Need To Rethink Sending The Dumb Kids To College
Michael Graham writes in the Boston Herald:
Our colleges are crammed with students -- and cash from their lucrative student loans -- even as the quality of those students declines. In 1998, about 39 percent of high school seniors graduated with an A average. Last year, that number was almost 50 percent of grads.It's the "Lake Woebegon" grading system: All the children are above average.
Preening parents and college bureaucrats claim that today's kids really are just that smart. OK, so explain why their SAT scores have steadily declined since 2004?
...Colleges -- aka "Big Education" -- have gotten the message. Parents want their kids to get in, and they (along with the taxpayers) are prepared to pay. Student debt is a $140 billion industry, federal Pell grants alone are another $10 billion -- not to mention all that money at the state level -- and college bureaucrats believe they're entitled to every dollar.
They don't care that 40 percent of this year's freshmen will drop out. They only care about squeezing him for 100 percent of his student loan and financial aid eligibility before he does. Your kid's not a "scholar," he's a "revenue source."
The reality is, there are many who are prejudiced against those without a college degree -- which is actually the reason I finished college.
I've read all my life, throughout every day, and I study things I don't know until I learn them. Also, there are countless courses available on the Internet, and a friend just told me that, in California, you can sit in on most classes in public colleges like UCLA.
I don't see a lot of people learning to write and think in college. And I see colleges turned into giant spas with frats, sororities, and "diversity" counselors.
I think there's value to a liberal arts education, but maybe some of these students can get that in high school. Maybe it's not worth going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt if you're just going to get out and work at a P.R. firm.
Or if you're just going to walk around menacingly with a bat instead of going class, as a number of students like to do at Evergreen State College.
Related tweet from @BrianDavidEarp:
Tom Nichols on why college creates illusory intelligence pic.twitter.com/oSIzF4IOWK
— Brian D. Earp (@briandavidearp) August 9, 2017
"Preening parents and college bureaucrats claim that today's kids really are just that smart. OK, so explain why their SAT scores have steadily declined since 2004?"
It has been a lot longer than that, and every few years they change the grading scale or re norm the tests to disguise the decline.
Isab at August 9, 2017 1:16 AM
Dumb kids? What dumb kids? Oh, you mean those kids. MY kids are smart.
No one with an MBA, PhD, MD, or JD wants to see their kids go into plumbing or welding or any of the manual arts. They didn't climb their way to the top of the economic ladder for their kids to slide back down. Nor do they want to admit their genetics won't automatically produce geniuses.
So, "exclusive" prep schools and colleges become grade mills with high walls to bar entry and ensure the school maintains its exclusivity - which by now has nothing to do with academics.
Rich and connected parents get their kids SAT tutors and test prep courses to make sure their progeny don't besmirch the carefully constructed family legacy with an average or low score and to that their progeny gains acceptance to at least one sufficiently selective college, even if they are later sacrificed on the altar of egalitarianism "choosing" to attend a state school (e.g., Jenna Bush going to UT-Austin while Barbara went to Yale).
Great-Grandpa may have been a working man, but they'll be damned if Junior will.
Conan the Grammarian at August 9, 2017 5:17 AM
"Parents Need To Rethink Sending The Dumb Kids To College"
But where will our politicians come from? How will the Ivy League survive without well connected and funded idiots to sell degrees to?
And what Isab said.
Ben at August 9, 2017 6:47 AM
Kids who have no business being there, and every one placed in a remedial course fits that description, should think long and hard before going into debt for that degree. You might not get a job, but you will pay back those loans. For a piece of paper that says you're special.
Meanwhile a hard working plumber or HVAC guy can live well. His job won't be outsourced to India.
MarkD at August 9, 2017 7:19 AM
The other big contributor to this problem is that the Feds have outlawed just about every other means by which an employer might judge the competence of an applicant. You can't administer a test, you can't check with previous employers (well, you can, but they won't tell you anything because of potential liability), you can't ask them for examples of previous work. And there's a movement afoot to make it illegal to check an applicant's criminal background. That leaves little (other than trolling social media) for an interviewer to look at, other than credentials, of which the college degree is the heavyweight. Lots of jobs that don't actually require a college education to do still have a college-degree requirement for this reason.
Cousin Dave at August 9, 2017 8:32 AM
When they take the money out of it, most of the student quality problems will solve themselves.
Isab at August 9, 2017 8:34 AM
Cousin Dave wrote:
Lots of jobs that don't actually require a college education to do still have a college-degree requirement for this reason.
Isn't that a goddam shame? Obviously those seeking to enter what used to be called The Professions (mostly medicine and law) need higher degrees, but a community college certificate, a vo-tech certificate, etc. should be held in at least as much esteem.
I dropped out of college and have yet to regret it. Even then, it seemed like a bit of an expensive cult.
Kevin at August 9, 2017 9:50 AM
Depending on how far you want to get in engineering it can be valuable. But certainly for most of the humanities it is mainly credentiation as opposed to education.
Incidentally what do you do Kevin? Not a knock or anything. Just trying to get some insight into your experiences. I've been fairly upfront that I'm an electrical engineer in the oil and gas industry. That certainly shapes my experiences.
Ben at August 9, 2017 9:57 AM
C.D. is correct. I heard that even to become a cop, you need a college degree these days.
I suspect, at least, that part of the prejudice has to do with the idea that if you didn't go to college, you supposedly can't be well-read, even if your lack of college was only about a lack of money. (Not that really poor families are known for reading a lot, sadly.) Trouble is, of course, we don't really put any emphasis these days on being well-read (in ALL topics) whether you go to college or not. Even so, if you do graduate college, people are supposed to assume you ARE well-read. (I never assume that.)
lenona at August 9, 2017 12:41 PM
My friend is a plumber. In his peak years he was making $220,000. Now he declines the real tough jobs and only makes $160,000 since he is a little older. Most college profs only make half that.
Cousin Dave: the feds are also now upset about doing criminal background checks (even for financial jobs) --though you aren't off the hook if your new hire rapes a customer--and even credit checks. I think the value of job fairs to employers is they can get a look at you before wasting their time, since many elements of bad work habits and criminality show up in person. This leaves no paper trail. Of course it also allows race discrimination with no paper trail.
cc at August 9, 2017 2:44 PM
"Obviously those seeking to enter what used to be called The Professions (mostly medicine and law) need higher degrees, but a community college certificate, a vo-tech certificate, etc. should be held in at least as much esteem."
Add engineering to that short list, but yeah. My stepson taught himself to weld. Does anyone realize how scarce good welders are? He was working on an assembly line, and one day a machine broke. He volunteered to fix it, and they found out he could weld. They moved him up to a maintenance tech, with a big pay increase. Now he's a supervisor, and he's advising on things like preventative maintenance plans for machines. He's reading up on robotics and wants to get into CNC machining, and maybe open his own shop. He knows more about metallurgy and metal fatigue than I do. No college degree.
Cousin Dave at August 10, 2017 7:17 AM
"I dropped out of college and have yet to regret it. Even then, it seemed like a bit of an expensive cult."
The problem is, that if you're job hunting these days, the applications are all on line and you automatically get kicked out if you don't have a degree.
It's ridiculous that 30 years of office experience count for nothing, but having a BS degree in medieval French poetry will at least get you a chance.
JoJo at August 10, 2017 8:39 AM
"I dropped out of college and have yet to regret it. Even then, it seemed like a bit of an expensive cult."
The problem is, that if you're job hunting these days, the applications are all on line and you automatically get kicked out if you don't have a degree.
It's ridiculous that 30 years of office experience count for nothing, but having a BS degree in medieval French poetry will at least get you a chance.
JoJo at August 10, 2017 8:39 AM
To expand on my last post, I think every 15-year-old needs to hear the following from parents and teachers: It's OK if you really don't want to go to college (provided you're not planning to sponge off of anyone); what's not OK is using that as an excuse not to READ. Especially newspapers. People won't treat you like an adult when you're 30 if your vocabulary and knowledge are the same as when you were 15.
Of course, the reading habit needs to start much earlier.
lenona at August 10, 2017 11:01 AM
One is "smart" because one knows what colleges teach, which is "smart". Knowing what colleges don't teach doesn't count as "smart".
While my college experience was valuable and exposed me to a good many experiences I wouldn't have had in other ways, the odd thing is...never in my employment have I used anything I learned in college classes.
The only exceptions were in the Army when some credits in SEA anthro and suchlike might have been useful but, in the event, turned out not to be.
Had I not gone to college, I'd have had different experiences and what they'd have been or what their value would be is of course unknown.
Richard Aubrey at August 11, 2017 6:41 AM
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