<p>what do you guys think about college in general. forbes had a bit on colleges by 2020 - extinct. got me thinking, does everyone else feel the same? is it just a path to take because nothing else is there?</p>
<p>College has been around since 1088 A.D. I doubt that it’ll be extinct in the next 9 years.</p>
<p>One of the greatest values of college is its ability to help young people develop sophisticated BS detectors (colleges prefer to call it “critical thinking,” but it’s pretty similar :)). Consider that Forbes has no investment in whether colleges adapt or go extinct. But Forbes has a major investment in how many copies of their magazine they sell this month. A headline that reads “College will be extinct by 2020” will grab a lot more eyeballs than one that reads “College will need to adapt to changes by 2020.” Inflammatory opinions attract both those who agree with the opinion and those who are incensed by it. It’s an important thing to keep in mind as we listen to the media and to public officials, and it’s a key insight that’s developed in college.</p>
<p>^ Love your post gadad. I also love your synonym for critical thinking :)</p>
<p>I’ve seen a lot of things written lately on the worth of college, likely because the recession is making it next to impossible for recent grads to find work that will allow them to survive, let alone pay off massive loan debt. </p>
<p>I’m definitely in this situation, but I would never ever say college wasn’t worth it. I learned so much, both in and out of the classroom; I developed passions I never knew I had; I in general matured and grew into someone I never would have become. Even now, with no work and little money, I am satisfied that I received an excellent education. </p>
<p>College is extremely valuable to those who are right for it. There are many who may be better off going to trade school or beginning a job straight away after high school; certainly no one should be pressured into higher education if they don’t want it. But if college is something you’re passionate about you can’t exactly put a price tag on it.</p>
<p>And finally, ditto gadad’s post!</p>
<p>good points gadad. the article, however, did not contain those flashy headlines full of marketing techniques but was rather neutral. much better than places like US NEWS college rankings, which is a clear marketing ploy (some school reps even said that their stats for their school had been made up).</p>
<p>heres the link:</p>
<p>[The</a> Classroom In 2020 - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/08/stanford-design-2020-technology-data-companies-10-education.html]The”>The Classroom In 2020)</p>
<p>interesting read.</p>
<p>The most recent Harvard magazine has an article that make similar points.</p>
<p>Education at the high school and college levels will continue some of the changes that technology has already started, for sure.</p>
<p>To me, that is a separate issue from the question of whether or not college is a valid choice for everyone. I think things will change in that regard, because of the enormous expense of college. And fewer than half those who attend (sorry, I forget the actual number, I believe it was between 30% and 40%) actually graduate.</p>
<p>There are many good alternatives to college, most of which lead directly to a job, that need to be explored and offered to graduating high school seniors. But so many feel, as the original poster said, that there is “nothing else there,” and go to college because it’s the thing to do. Maybe that will change.</p>
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<p>:) Two thumbs up!</p>
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<p>However, a lot of people take a course or few at the local community college for personal interest or to learn a specific skill (e.g. a foreign language, or an immigrant improving his/her English) without ever intending to complete an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. So the low graduation rate may not be surprising if such students are counted among the “dropouts”.</p>
<p>About the bs detectors: would that it were true. On other threads they’re agruing wsj, nyt, the works. Nothing against any poster here. I am just up-to-here with some other threads. Critical thinking- or even some notion that it can exist- *should * be the standard. Too many kids, too many adults still go on “I heard,” “I read,” or “I know someone who…” </p>
<p>The low grad rates usually only count those enrolled in a degree-seeking program. You can look up the individual college rates- eg, many state flagships hover around 50% after whatever marker it is (6 years? 8 years?) while the more selective others can hit the 80’s on up. The 30-40 figure is probably across the board, including those expensive, low aid, 3rd tier or below. Where I doubt much practice in bs detection is taking place. Yup, I am a curmudgeon tonight.</p>
<p>ps. our friends at (you guessed it) usnwr have a site on 4 yr grad rates. CDS includes 6-year, sometimes more.</p>
<p>after reading these posts, i now realize i missed the meaning of ‘bs detectors’ in this thread. someone care to explain?</p>
<p>College as we know it has become unaffordable to the middle class. The advent of on-line technology will undoubtedly have an impact (see Stanford offering free instruction via the Internet). There are already substantial changes in the way hundreds of thousands are receiving post-secondary education. But, there is no substitute for leaving home and immersing oneself in a community of young thinkers. For the wealthy and those given tuition waivers, “college” will be around for a long time.</p>
<p>Actually college IS affordable to the middle class, however, many don’t want to attend the schools they can afford…</p>
<p>“bs detector” The “bs” stands for bull crap</p>
<p>Or you can use the elementary school-age appropriate term “nonsense detector”.</p>
<p>"I’ve seen a lot of things written lately on the worth of college, likely because the recession is making it next to impossible for recent grads to find work that will allow them to survive, let alone pay off massive loan debt. "</p>
<p>its making it even harder for non college grads to find work.</p>
<p>I dont think that can be used as a basis for judging the long term value of anything.</p>
<p>"much better than places like US NEWS college rankings, "</p>
<p>The value or lack thereof of those ranking has been oft discussed here. I fail to see the logical connection between “USNWR rankings are not worthwhile” and “college will go extinct” other than that both are things published in magazines, that have something to do with colleges. </p>
<p>If your college education did not teach you to make precise logical distinctions, than it may well have been a waste of money.</p>
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<p>I can just see the resume of the future. Education: Watched 1800 hours of free Stanford lectures online. Employer laughs as he hits delete.</p>
<p>Brooklyn–yes, you’re right. Much blue collar work started disappearing even before jobs for college grads. Yet I’ve heard many ridiculous arguments made about this; one public access program suggested high school students instead invest their savings in silver and by the time college would be over for them they’d “have enough to buy a house.”</p>
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<p>If by “college” you mean a private school offering little or no financial aid, then yes, that’s unaffordable for many middle class families. But as hanging out of CC for day can show you, there are many other far more affordable ways to get a college education. In fact the percentage of the US population with a college education has steadily risen decade after decade. That wouldn’t be true if college were unaffordable to the large middle class.</p>
<p>Re: “BS detection”</p>
<p>Let I be guilty of plagiarism, I didn’t make the concept up.</p>
<p>This is from the Opening Exercises for Freshmen during the Sept. 2006 move-in weekend at Harvard by Jeremy Knowles, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the university’s elder statesman. Try to imagine the comments below delivered in an immaculately precise British accent, with no hint of any smirk, but with tongue firmly planted in cheek:</p>
<p>"In 1914, when I was a good deal younger than I am now, there was a philosopher at Oxford called J. A. Smith. He used to start his first lecture by saying: “You are now about to embark upon a course of studies which will occupy you for [four] years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I’d like to remind you of an important point . . . Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in [later] life - save only this - that if you work hard and intelligently, you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot. And that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”</p>
<p>"Professor Smith believed that the most important benefit of a college education was skepticism, and that - whatever we go on to do in life - the biggest danger is that of being taken in, either by knaves who have ulterior motives, or by fools who haven’t asked any of the right questions. All of you have emerged victorious from twelve, long, years of coursework and examinations, and you’ve arrived here bursting with all there is to know about everything from the sex habits of the mollusk, the socio-economic basis of the Russian revolution, and the religious imagery of Milton. [I can’t resist reminding you of an exasperated Harvard President who was asked why the University was such a marvelous repository of human knowledge. “Well you see,” he said, “the freshmen bring so much when they arrive, and the seniors take so little away when they graduate.”] But here you are, wonderfully informed, and hungry for more. So why am I worried about your skill at detecting people who talk rot?</p>
<p>"There are many kinds of rot, of course. Plenty of it occurs on the edges of the sciences. We’ve all heard about those people who bend spoons just by thinking hard about them, or how if you play Mozart to carrots, they grow faster. This kind of rot is not a problem for Harvard undergraduates. You all know exactly how to design and conduct a controlled experiment, so that you separate groups of carrots, for example, would experience Mozart, silence, and perhaps a tape of hungry carrot-eaters, and we should see which grew best.</p>
<p>"Nor am I going to worry about charming fantasy, such as Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. I’m not going to suggest that these whimsical inventions are rot, and in any case, most of us let go of them by the time we reach college. Indeed, if any of you have been admitted to Harvard still believing in the Tooth Fairy, I’m certainly not going to do anything about it now. Then there’s the kind of rot that’s relatively harmless pseudo-science, like that which fills the astrology columns of some newspapers, or that goes on when someone reads your palm. Most often, they predict that we are about to find great happiness, immense wealth, and the mate of our dreams, and I’m not particularly against any of those.</p>
<p>"No. The rot that Professor Smith wanted us to discern, is the kind that occurs in our daily lives, and that determines what we think and how we act. I’ll call it logical rot. When a respectable newspaper tells you that America’s children are undernourished because - can you believe it - exactly half of the nation’s children are below average height. That’s rot. When we’re told about the existence (or non-existence) of global warming, or about a new ‘miracle’ cure for AIDS, that’s when we’d better be skeptical and analytical. These are the kinds of things that affect our understanding of the world, and that affect the decisions that shape our lives. These are the things that we must think about. Bertrand Russell once said: “Most people would die rather than think, and many of them do.”</p>
<p>"I suppose I could leave you on this note, trusting that you’ll go through the next four years committed to challenging all forms of rot. But I must be careful. For while I’m encouraging you to scrutinize everything you read and hear, I also hope you’ll be open to new ideas, however bizarre they may first seem to be. Even if it’s very rare, it’s possible, you know, for Harvard students to be wrong. Error is much more common in Harvard Deans, of course, and I’m reminded that when I was about twelve, my mother commented that man would soon explore the moon. I knew that this was logical rot. I’d just read an analysis by a distinguished Nobel Laureate, who had calculated the energy required for an object to escape from the earth’s gravitation, and I told my mother that it’d need a rocket of 80 tons to put something the size of a tennis ball into orbit. Exploring the moon was therefore unthinkable. “Yes dear, I see,” she said. Two weeks later, Sputnik was launched, and my mother never believed me again. So do be careful, and scrutinize your own logical assumptions, just as thoroughly as you do everyone else’s.</p>
<p>"Finally, I ought to say a word to your parents. After so many years of affectionate attention, your dear parents are now wondering how Harvard can possibly replace them, in advising you about small matters like nuclear disarmament and social security, as well as really important issues like who gets the upper bunk and whether pizza is addictive. I hope that they’ve forgotten that Ogden Nash poem entitled: “The Parent.” Let me quote the whole thing:</p>
<p>‘Children aren’t happy with nothing to ignore,
And that’s what parents were created for.’</p>
<p>"But it won’t be like that. For all of you will tell your parents - at least weekly - how happy you are, and how much you miss them. I recently had a moving letter from the parent of a rising junior, which ended: “My daughter is so looking forward to coming back. She just returned from a summer in Greece editing ‘Let’s Go,’ she goes tomorrow to lead a group in the Freshman Outdoor Program, and then she’ll visit the Business School for a week before classes begin.” The letter ended, wistfully: “She has, however, agreed to have one dinner, this evening, at home.”</p>
<p>“So, to the Class of 2010: be generous to your parents; be skeptical of everyone else; and watch out for anyone who talks rot.”</p>