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College is more than job training

We must shift our state's conversation off jobs and back to careers and the broader purpose for a college education. »Read Full Article

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  1. The greed-driven executives that now infest Washington and state capitols want machines that they can treat like slaves and that never question why billionaires need to make all that money--especially when it is the middle class workers who are doing all the work. They want to keep unemployment high, unions nonexistent, and workers on a shoestring so they can get rid of them if they get too "uppity" for lack of a better term. Of course they are trying to defund all the things about a college education that might propel a worker to a better standard of living and a little security. Scott Walker especially wants to do away with all people who are better educated than himself (which is al people with any kind of a college degree.) His prejudice toward smart people shows every time he suggests that the well-educated state workforce take another cut in pay and benefits.
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  2. The fact is that most college student go to college so they can get a good job. It is not the leaders that are pushing this it is the students. They want good jobs. The do not want a career in a field that pays 20k a year and owe 100k in debt.
  3. I am a college graduated that never worked in the field I trained in as an employee. That education augmented skills I already had. I was a paper and pencil trained accounting clerk that had no skills computers. I went to college to develop those computer skills earning a degree in IT. Things just worked out that I would be ahead of my time as a rare talent with crossover skills to automate accounting systems. The focus of my work would remain on accounting where computers were just a resource. One still needed solid accounting system knowledge to automate bookkeeping. My specialty areas were payroll and inventory. JCI Case, MGIC, Allen Bradley, NML and more were some of the companies I worked for.

    I would go on to write many software programs that passed rigid tests. However, IT professionals would say they lacked standard techniques and were poorly documented. They called the software documentation junk to be honest. In reality the software was based on accounting knowledge and was documented as an accountant would understand. Some of those programs are still in use today almost 30 years later, rewritten and modernized still based on the original concepts.

    Technically since I never worked with the specific title of IT I was counted as unemployed by my college. I was self employed or a contract employee and that counted too as unemployed.

    An education serves a broader dynamic if it builds on a base of skills or a career direction. Education is about building on your skills and developing the person. My accounting work was almost all in manufacturing and transportation. All I tried other industries I never cared for them. I didn't just count beans, I understand the manufacturing dynamic and was interested in that field. That interest built on a general interest in engineering. Its about finding what you like and preparing yourself to change careers many times in a lifetime.
  4. Well, OK, college is about more than jobs, it's also about personal enrichment.

    And if you wish to learn (in some depth) what life was like in Medieval France, or acquaint yourself with epic poetry from antiquity (in the original languages), you will find many schools that can help you do so.

    On the other hand, professional schools (e.g., law, medical, engineering school) are expected to train people to be practitioners of the profession.

    Perhaps it’s unreasonable to judge a college’s medieval history program by the number of medieval history majors who obtain employment as medieval historians. But it’s surely reasonable to judge a law school by the number of graduates who become practicing lawyers- after all, that’s why students go to law school.

    The question is, to what extent should the public be obligated to support college programs which are unlikely to lead to employment? Personal enrichment is surely valuable- but is the public obligated to pay for it?

    And for that matter, there are many lower cost paths to learning the arts, literature, history, etc.- provided one can live without the credential of a college degree. For example, there are free and low-cost online courses; there are courses on DVD which may be available from your public library, etc. It’s really only the credential that is costly.

    If general knowledge benefits society as well as individuals, then perhaps we should expect colleges and universities that receive public subsidies to do more to make that knowledge more freely accessable outside the classroom?
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    • I think the answer to your question depends on why the public is funding colleges and universities to begin with and who is paying for that funding. If it were simply funded by businesses and run for the benefit of those businesses then subsidizing medieval studies degrees probably doesn't make any sense. But if we're doing it because the taxpayers of this state want to provide the kids of this state the opportunity to obtain an education in whatever field they like then I don't see how we can stop kids from majoring in stuff like that. If we're not graduating enough of some major for a business then maybe that business should offer promising high school students scholarships to pursue that field.
    • I have no interest in stopping kids "from majoring in things like that," but I'm not so sure I want to pay for it- especially when there are far less expensive ways to obtain this knowledge.

      I do think that enless increases in student financial aid have a lot to do with the rapid increase in the cost of going to college (see ).

      Part of the problem I have with subsidies is, they don't come from heaven- they come from taxpayers. And if college actually costs more than students pay for it then that means that ultimately those who don't (for whatever reason) go to college are subsidizing those who do- even though those who do tend to have higher incomes.

      Or, consider the value of education- if it's not worth its price to the student, then why should anyone else be forced to pay for it?

      Tuition has increased faster than inflation for decades now, and if this continues then eventually tuition will consume our entire GDP.

      That's obviously not going to happen. BUT at some point the solution to college affordability must be improved efficiency in higher education- whether that means distance learning, MOOCs plus credentialling exams, whatever, the cost (not just the out-of-pocket cost to the student!) must come down.
  5. I can go a lot of ways on this. On the one hand, the idea of college as job training is kind of simplistic. If you are in a professional program like medicine, engineering, law, accounting, or nursing then you're pretty much going with the desire to be a doctor, engineer, lawyer, accountant, or nurse and if you don't get into that profession then that's a problem. So for those majors it pretty much is or should be job training. There's some general education objectives and other electives too but you are pretty much buying that degree in order to get a specific job that wants that degree. But there's a lot of majors that don't really align with the job market and that doesn't mean they're worthless. If you want a white collar job then you generally need (or at least will benefit from having) a degree. All the history and journalism majors I know aren't historians or journalists but they probably wouldn't have their current job without that degree.

    On the other hand, I can definitely get behind making schools take some responsibility for the condition of their graduates. We should have the schools make all student loans out of their endowment funds and then allow judges to discharge these loans in bankruptcy. And if the schools publish misleading placement information to try to entice potential students to enroll (ie fourth tier law schools) then they should be subject to class action lawsuits.

    Also, some people have this idea that professional-type degrees are more valuable in a recession than a liberal arts or general business degree. And that's total nonsense. There are separate markets for these degrees. Just look at the 2002 tech bust for a time when engineering degrees were worthless and you were more employable with a liberal arts degree.
  7. This debate is based on a false dichotomy. There has always been a tension in American education between vocational training and education for quality of life and citizenship. This tension is healthy. The fact of the matter is that a college degree should provide both, not just one or the other. This is why faculty insist that a degree include general degree requirements that provide a broadly based view of the world, with requirements in math, science, social science, humanities, and arts, as well as a requiring that students complete a major and minor which are narrowly focused in particular fields. Devaluing degrees in arts, humanities and social sciences is short sighted: society needs people who have an in-depth understanding of other people and society at large, which is what these fields provide. It's true that many if not most of these graduates will not work "in their fields," but their degrees provide them with perspectives and "people skills" that are of great value in many jobs. Society also needs people who are trained in narrowly focused skills intensive fields like accounting. The best preparation for law is a broadly based undergraduate experience that fosters critical thinking skills. The best preparation for medical school is an excellent general education program combined with a life science major and perhaps a psychology minor-- doctors treat people, not just illnesses. To buy into the idea that a college education can only either train for a vocation or educate for quality of life sells higher education short: college graduates should have received both, for everyone's benefit.
  8. When I earned my undergrad degree nearly 40 years ago, I too, thought the degree was 'job training'. after 20 of those years as a corporation vice president, the very same truth came through in practice that struck me as a kid in the 70's. It isn't necessarily what you know, but whether you are able to be educated. Can you pick up from your surroundings and apply things on the fly? In my 'declining years', I just completed my Master's so I can help teach the one basic skill every so-called 'educated' person needs-how to think critically. I am no genius, but has seen the value of critical thinking as a valued tool.
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