This was a recent discussion between some friends of mine and wanted to get some outside opinions.
There is a huge push for kids to go to college these days and with the cost of college rising is it really worth it. I met with a few recent grads and they were admittedly struggling to adjust to life outside of college. I don’t buy that college teaches you how to think, if you don’t know how to think by the time you get to college you wouldn’t survive. I don’t think social reasons is a good reason anymore because really you can meet people anywhere and with social media making friends and connections has become easier. With the many gen ed requirements it feels like I’m paying for a review of high school. So unless your going to trade school or entering a stem degree what beneficial skills or knowledge is a college degree giving you that you can’t learn on you own? Is college actually preparing you for life or getting kids to memorize things for a semester and then never use it?
My oldest was a liberal arts subject major. She has a job managing a group that does research projects. The in-depth writing and analysis skills she learned in college are very valuable in her job. There is no way she (or almost any) student would be ready to do that job right out of our current high school system.
I have a business degree from a university where business classes start sophomore year. But again – the writing and analysis skills I learned in liberal arts classes make me much better at my job. My co-workers routinely ask me to help draft or review communications prepared for upper management.
My youngest is a Physics major with an interest in condensed matter. Without the core requirements at her college, she wouldn’t have tried that area out and discovered her interests.
There are still areas where college students could be better trained. It drives me nuts when new hires don’t write down what they are told and have to ask the same questions twice. Or when they don’t ask questions and flounder too much. Or when their reading or speaking skills are subpar (oh, wait… those are skills that should be built in those pesky gen-eds… maybe they need more of them, not less).
I think overall I agree with the OP post more than I disagree, but I think there’s a few key additional notes and distinctions:
College **should** be a transitional time where you can slowly adjust to full-time work living. For example, getting an apartment, signing a lease, setting up your own cell phone plan, buying furniture for the first time, paying taxes on internship income, and other events should all take place in college ages - it does take a proactive student to do many of these things though, and if you don't do any of these before graduation, life after is going to hit both hard and quick.
While you should already know how to think when you get to college, there is always improvement to be had. Really, it's an academic philosophy of having more knowledge as background in life as well as improving your thinking. I think it should have a significant effect on your thinking, but you are correct it shouldn't be teachign you the very basics of how to think.
I think you hit a nail right on the head that's been sticking out for a while now: gen-ed's: First, no the idea of having background and breadth in an education isn't flawed. However, what has changed is how far people go in high school, something colleges haven't caught up to yet, even with the AP credit system (which isn't even accepted as credit at the high levels, and sometimes not even as placement. That said, some colleges are making the changes. Many colleges are stressing and advertising more open curricula for these exact reasons.
Part of the preparing of college is really just about the time itself: going into the workforce at 18 versus 22 is a big difference in maturity, and college tries to foster that increase in maturity. The reality is it doesn't work for everyone, but for many it does.
College for the majority of students is really High School Grades 13, 14, 15 and 16. It prolongs the amount of time students have to acquire information and keeps them in a relatively well protected environment. I’ve seen no evidence that most of the students in the few public universities I am most familiar with are the type of scholars or have any interest in academics that would come close to justifying staying at a university for 4 years. But nowadays the college degree is the expected terminal degrees for most jobs, even when the job involves working behind a counter and manufacturing fries.