<p>@Enginox
Of course, but what’s your point? I don’t think the average college student (at least in the coastal liberal arts colleges) supports American imperialism. We’re the idealistic ones trying to fight against it! Whether or not we’re drafted, we’ll oppose unnecessary wars. The reason that mandatory military service would lead to a reduction in conflicts of choice (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan after the first year or so) is because the people in power wouldn’t want their children to be risking their lives. So long as it’s only the (relatively) lower classes who are compelled to join the ‘voluntary’ military, this won’t happen. Of course, mandatory military service could have the opposite effect and inspire a national warrior ethic. Look at Israel for an example of that. There’s a reason we insist on civilian oversight and control of the military; making your entire society, including future political leaders, into military veterans can definitely push society into adopting permanently neoconservative policies. The best way to avoid this (in theory) would be to bring back the draft, and not allow for exemptions (other than for health). This would force the children of the political elites to go to war, making the political elites more wary of starting pointless wars, without creating an entire society that identifies with, and idolizes, the image of the soldier.</p>
<p>Something that hasn’t been mentioned yet is that while the argument that “not everyone needs to go to a 4-year college” is extremely rational and should be taken note of by teens across the country, even if our society begins to recognize this important idea teens are still going to want to go to college regardless. Kids are going to want to party and have fun and be able to live off on their own. They’re going to want to enjoy the full-fledged freedom and be able to live the college experience.</p>
<p>The one thing in this thread that angers me the most is the idea that only math, science, and engineering majors are worth anything. Yes, the grades are tougher in engineering than in art history, everyone knows this. If you look at some of the more prestigious humanities though, Classics and Philosophy for example, you will find that at many schools the average GPA for those majors is approximately the same as for science majors. Also those who argue these degrees are worthless: have you ever heard of law school?</p>
<p>Next, to the idea that we should just skip undergrad and go straight to professional schools for a JD or MD: how many high school grads do you know, even those at the top of their class, who are prepared for the intensity of law and med school. It takes time to mature, both intellectually and emotionally/discipline-wise to be prepared for professional school. What is the best supporting evidence for this? The fact that the only major that law schools and med schools hate are pre-law and pre-med majors.</p>
<p>Next, to the idea that there should be a 2 year LA track that then transfers to business school: business majors are the biggest joke at all but the most elite schools. They should be renamed “General Studies” majors. If you look at the average GPA distributions for most state colleges and universities the ones with the highest GPAs are from the business school, followed by the less strenuous humanities.</p>
<p>Oh and on the point that science and engineering majors aren’t in it for the money, but for the pursuit of knowledge and betterment of humanity: I call BS. Are there some lime this, yes, but the vast majority of science majors I know are in it for the money, and talk about getting rich/earning money much more than the humanities majors.</p>
<p>If they are so selfless, why patent inventions? Why not let the whole world have this life changing technology for free? I’m not seriously proposing that they do this, I appreciate the work, and I think that scientist should be compensated for their intellectual property. At the same time, I think Enginox’s claim that STEM majors are purely selfless needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>Also, interesting article on the the idea that less qualified students are running away from STEM majors: <a href=“STEM Defection Seen to Occur After High School”>STEM Defection Seen to Occur After High School;
<p>This is an interesting topic. The commencement speaker at my S’s high school dedicated about half of his address to the fact that college is not for everyone, including some very cerebral people who preferred to seize the moment and use their youthful energy to find success and happiness without taking a detour through college. Yes, he called college a detour.</p>
<p>I think his points were valid and would make for a great discussion session for high school students, but it was a bit disconcerting, I think, to parents of graduates for him to throw that down without any follow-up or rebuttal. Generally, however, I very much like the idea that there are many paths and we should each find our own. It’s a point for which I think few people would raise an objection as they graduate from college. I think it’s a point that would appeal to an increasingly limited audience as you direct the message to increasingly younger people since fewer and fewer are equipped to chart a lifelong course for themselves that doesn’t involve college.</p>
<p>D’yer Maker…I think some of it depends where you live and the expectations in your own upbringing and so on. Where I live, many students don’t see themselves as going to college. Their parents didn’t go either. So, there is not some big pressure or expectation for all teens that they must go to college. A third of the kids at our high school do not. But I agree that young people are not that equipped to chart a lifelong course for themselves who take a path other than college and there needs to be some planned path for them that leads to goals and success rather than floundering.</p>
<p>" mandatory military service could have the opposite effect and inspire a national warrior ethic. Look at Israel for an example of that"</p>
<p>Israel does not have a national warrior ethic. It has a population that has experienced the army, and for the most part, longs for peace.</p>
<p>“The performing arts are interesting oddities in this discussion.”</p>
<p>There are lots of oddities. So many oddities in fact, that I think the question in the thread title is meaningless. (overrated as a way to become intellectually broader and more cultured? To earn a good return on your money? To grow the national economy? Which colleges? Top tier Privates? Privates that are more generous with FA? State flagships? state directionals? Comm Colleges? Third tier privates? For profits? Which majors? Engineering? Nat Sci? Econ? Accting? English? Phil? Womens studies? Perf Arts? Architecture? For whom? Nerds? Leaders? the unmotivated? etc, etc, etc) Its a response to a strawman, that EVERY 18YO MUST attend a four year college, for their own good and the good of the country.</p>
<p>It easy to win a debate by debating a straw man. You can learn that on a HS debate team. You don’t actually need to go to college for that :)</p>
<p>dyer</p>
<p>would he call an apprenticeship in the skilled trades - electrician, plumbing etc, a detour? </p>
<p>I do not believe a 4 year college is for everyone.</p>
<p>I think the economic future for folks who intend to enter the labor force and never get either any college (including comm college) or get training in a skilled trade, or enter the military, is going to become more and more limited.</p>
<p>Brooklynborndad, I agree with your post #128! Well put.</p>
<p>I also agree in 129…a four year college is not appropriate for everyone but some sort of education or training is important and without any of any sort, the options and economic future for someone is quite limited.</p>
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<p>I haven’t read this whole thing, but at first glance its conclusions seem to mirror what I have been thinking over the past couple of days after reading what seems like countless posts on here about engineering and science being impossible majors and the majors most likely to attract the very top students. I say nonsense. And let me say, I am an engineer, I am certainly not a genius. I was an above average, workmanlike student, who enjoyed tinkering and was able, with some difficulty, to obtain technical degrees. My own kid is a mediocre student at best, who will attend a community college next year.</p>
<p>But look at the typical kid on this website, especially those bound for the top schools. They have near perfect test scores, with math SATI and II commonly above 750, a multitude of AP courses in scientific areas with scores of 5s. Yet, many of these kids choose fields other than science, math, or engineering. Does anybody honestly believe it is because they would not be able to do the work? I suspect they have more likely cultivated real passions in other areas and possess confidence that they will succeed in whatever they enjoy. And I bet most of them do. And there are also a fair number who do choose technical fields, for various reason - passion, perception, whatever.</p>
<p>I fully admit I was not particularly focused as an undergrad, and chose a field I felt I could live with, given I had no real passion in any direction at the time. My dad was a physicist, I had the opportunity to recieve some help from his company if I went into a technical field, so meh, that’s where I went. It turned out fine for me, and I can’t imagine having made another choice. But I certainly don’t think that I was uniquely qualified to study engineering, and I think the same could probably be said about most of my colleagues.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think I’ll read the study later and see what it actually says. :)</p>
<p>That’s true…you can excel at math but not choose to go into it. I have a daughter who accelerated at math and was in AP Calculus as a junior (at our high school, this is unheard of except her older sister did it too) and is the highest our math curriculum goes. She scored very well on the Math SAT. She has zero interest in anything math related even if very skilled at it. She is a performer. That is her passion and always has been. She happened to just be very good at math and other subjects too.</p>
<p>I agree with post #128 entirely. My point was that the “vocational” or “pre-professional” labels that get thrown out a lot on CC may apply in some unexpected places, and that they are not inherently passionless or bad things.
I think there are really just a few topics on CC that keep on repeating over time. This is one of them.</p>
<p>Some humanities courses at some institutions are very rigorous. Some may not be. Because most humanities degrees lack accreditation standards like those covering engineering programs, there is no demanding benchmark in place to keep the quality of graduates high. Perhaps there should be.</p>
<p>Law school is not exclusively available to any group or groups of majors, and I have to question the idea of a JD degree as a panacea. I don’t know exactly how many humanities majors there are, but I don’t think there’s enough demand for lawyers to get them all jobs down the road in that field.</p>
<p>I am encouraged to see some posters commenting that college really isn’t perfect for everyone. Quick point about the draft… won’t happen. The military doesn’t want one; draftees make crappy soldiers. Actually, given the state of the economy, it’s really hard to enlist right now. The Air Force and the Navy have practically shut down recruiting for the rest of the year. While many of the posters on CC have life skills that make them good candidates for the educational elite, they don’t have the life skills (or intellectual skills) that might make them good mechanics, or Marines, or good truck drivers. We just all need to get humble enough to recognize that each person has some gift that makes them valuable as human beings. It took me a long time to wrap my head around that one.</p>
<p>I think an important concept has been lost in this thread. I don’t think college is for everyone, but I think there are many people who would really benefit from it if they were PREPARED for college. It’s not fair to kids who are not adequately prepared to push them into colleges where they will be a number and nobody really cares whether they graduate. </p>
<p>It’s not a panacea, but NY has HEOP. It stands for Higher Education Opportunity Program. Now, the program definitely has faults but essentially it helps get kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds educationally get into better colleges than they would get into without it, but it ALSO gives kids support to succeed. Many require kids to go to a summer program before starting college where they are drilled in some of the basics that they should have, but often didn’t, learn in high school. While they attend college, they have access to tutoring, etc.</p>
<p>The interesting thing–to me at least–is that HEOP doesn’t dictate how this is done. It allows private colleges to develop their own courses and programs, using NY state funds. They do have to account for how they use the funds. Results have shown that the HEOP students do substanditally better and graduate at much higher rates than students from similar backgrounds who aren’t enrolled in the program. </p>
<p>Now HEOP isn’t unique. Georgetown U’s basketball team sparked some of these programs. it has a high graduation rate. Part of this is because there was a woman who was the academic coach for the players. She helped them with basic math and writing skills and got them more help when they needed it. People thought “If we do this for basketball players, why can’t we do it for everyone?” </p>
<p>IMO, it’s not college we need to fix. It’s high school. We shouldn’t track kids without basic academic skills into vocational tracks which NEGLECT those skills. We should give those kids BOTH, so if 5 years after high school, someone decides to go to college, (s)he will have the skills to go and succeed.</p>
<p>Years ago, I read an interesting article that claimed that of the students at one Cal State who tried and failed out of college–not the partiers, but this kids who were actually trying–an exit test determined that 59% had reading and vocabulary skills below a sixth grade level. </p>
<p>We shouldn’t let those kids into college until they are caught up. Yes, a few will succeed by catching up on their own, but the rest will end up frustrated and with huge debts. </p>
<p>We also need to work on oral communication. There’s an inner city high school speech coach who is a legend. One thing he does is clean up the kids’ speech. First, he makes them stop using obscenities. They live in an enviroment in which the “f word” is used at least once in almost every sentence. He also corrects their grammaar. They can’t say “He don’t” or “they has gone,” etc. The transition is remarkable. Even if these kids don’t go on to college, they can get a job because they interview well. He pounds it into their heads that even if they dislike talking this way, people will pay a lot more attention to what they have to say if HOW they say it isn’t getting in the way. </p>
<p>We have kids graduating from high school who can’t fill out a job application. We have kids who go to an interview dressed as if they were going to the beach. We have kids who can’t say three sentences without using an obscenity. We need to teach these basic skills.</p>
<p>Post #135 by jonri is outstanding. I agree completely.</p>
<p>@ Brooklynborndad: I’m pretty sure that he would NOT consider learning a trade to be a detour. He made the point that college was a detour. Maybe a better term would be a postponement of the inevitable, but he used the term detour to describe college, as though college is an interruption…so, as he further explained, you better make good use of it because life is going by pretty fast. It was sort of out of place – in some ways – for a commencement address, although I liked the concepts he raised.</p>
<p>It was highly appropriate for a commencement address when you ponder his message a little further and interpret it as imploring those students who are going to college to be very intentional about that experience. Don’t just go through the motions because college is the next step. There are options from this point forward. It’s not like going from 11th grade to 12th grade. So make good choices and if you think college is right for you, then go in that direction. Don’t spend the next four years at a college, however, just because that’s the next thing you have to do. Because you don’t. And, in fact, it’s a detour because the default option at this point should be – and for a long time was – that this (graduation) where your lifetime of employment begins.</p>
<p>I just think a lot of parents, ready to plunk down serious cash for college, were not happy that someone planted the seed that maybe they’ll stop before college graduation and follow a different path. That scares parents.</p>
<p>I know a guy who dropped out of law school (a little different) with one semester to go because he had a great opportunity in Hollywood. He later went back to complete his degree, but had he not been willing to seize that opportunity back then, today he might not have an Academy Award, a gaggle of Golden Globes and a top executive position with a major media company. Oh, and the opportunity he seized was to be a messenger with a small studio, so it was not a move that was patently shrewd to all of us who were looking on at the time…let alone his parents.</p>
<p>I still don’t like the term “detour” to describe college because, for people who are perfectly capable of proceeding directly through college, any alternative option requires maturity, sanity/clarity of thought, and an inner-drive that most college students don’t possess as freshmen. The idea that college needs to be done intentionally, however, was spot on (in my book).</p>
<p>This has been coming for a long time. I’ve thought for a long time that too many people are going to college. By college I mean 4-year universities. Not everyone needs to go to a 4-year school. Many occupations do not require a 4-year degree. People who desire to work in these occupations would do better to attend vocational school or a 2-year college. It is absolutely true that the value of a 4-year degree has gone down and continues to go down. We all know people who are in a 4-year school that really shouldn’t be there… either because their desired career path doesn’t require it or because they are barely squeaking by with their grades.</p>
<p>I am going to attend graduate school solely because of this issue. Having a bachelor’s degree just doesn’t mean what it did 20 years ago. It certainly won’t make me stand out because too many people are getting them and the market is saturated.</p>
<p>I also think people need to stop being snobs and looking down on things like vocational school and community college. That cultural pressure is a big part of why some people who don’t need to go to 4-year schools end up going anyway. There is nothing wrong with going to vocational school or community college if it meets your needs. Every occupation is necessary to society and should be respected. I think the sooner people stop with the elitist attitude about post-secondary education… the sooner people who want to be electricians, nurses (in most cases), or paralegals will stop going to 4-year universities.</p>
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<p>This is a riveting issue, in my opinion. Should more and more high schoolers be sent to college while the percentage of college-ready students remains the same?</p>
<p>In a word, no. At least, I don’t think so. And I’m not a parent, not a GC, not a college expert - I’m a high school student. And let me tell you why.</p>
<p>I attend a poor public high school. There is little funding, but I attend anyway since it offers the only AP courses in my region. Although there are a small group of intelligent, motivated teens in my school, the vast majority of them do nothing in high school. Absolutely nothing. The athletes get by easy; in fact, two English teachers are football coaches, and they allow their players to pass their classes with a C or higher with literally minimum to no effort. I see other kids who have spent their entire high school career doing drugs and copying tests/homework who are now going on to universities.</p>
<p>I believe it’s unfair. For the top 25% of my class, who has really worked hard and risen to face the financial challenge that nearly all of us have, I think we all deserve to go. But for the vast majority of the bottom half of my class, I don’t believe they should. And if they do, it should be to the local community college. Because they haven’t put the work in. Plain and simple.</p>
<p>This is all my opinion, though; feel free to disagree.</p>
<p>Some of you need to take a class (!) about economics, as you’re missing a few key points.</p>
<p>More people getting college degrees = the value of a degree is lowered. </p>
<p>More people going to college = a lower quality of teaching. Great teachers don’t exponentially increase with college enrollment. I hardly think that an education at Joe Schmo university is equivalent to a top 50 school – as a result, the notion that everyone should be educated slowly becomes meaningless as the definition of an education is lowered.</p>
<p>We’re obviously starting to see the results of this – everyone has a degree, and said degree was easier to obtain than one a decade or two ago.</p>