<p>Lookingforward, it depends on the job/trade you want. MANY require a 4 yr. degree, and if you want to be truly competitive in many fields, you’ll need one, even if the entry level position does not require one.</p>
<p>I know. But I see the value of “an education” as more than just to get job X or any job. The diploma isn’t magic. I don’t think the point is to sit through four years of classes, but to make something of that experience, stretch and grow, elevate. Come out a better thinker with, well, more to think about. I could describe many scenarios where people did or didn’t get the degree, could or couldn’t perform their jobs well. But life’s not just about what you do to earn your keep. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, I agree with Lookingforward, but the expense of education today and the debt the kids and parents are taking on to get an education today means it has, by necessity, become career training for many. It’s too much of an expense for a family, given that colleges feel they have the right to a certain percentage of a family’s income…</p>
<p>So, it has to pay for itself. Education has done that to itself by becoming an industry and not a pursuit.</p>
<p>I read that masters have increased by 63% since the recession, and that universities now see these as a major income stream. They say “income stream” now. So… It’s a rather unfortunate development, but a real one.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree. It has to be in one’s sights. But it’s possible to value both the forest and the trees. </p>
<p>But anyway, I just asked D2 what she thinks the purpose of an education is and she said she wrote a paper on the topic, answering, “economic self-sufficiency.”</p>
<p>The ability to think, to question, to reason, to understand, to accept and to incorporate all of that into your work and private life.
I believe that will get you a job.</p>
<p>Sure, it might get you a job. But those alone will not get either of my kids the job they want. They each need a specific degree to even be considered.</p>
<p>Plus, I interview people every week with those skills, and opt for others who have specific training or experience and also have those skills.</p>
<p>I dunno, poetgrl. Is it really that different? A couple generations ago, only the rich went away to school, or a few very smart kids who won scholarships. My mom was val of her hs, but went to the local CUNY because that’s what she could afford. My dad went to an Ivy- However, it was the local one (Columbia) and he won a scholarship which paid tuition, and he commuted from home. There was no sense of going away to school for them.</p>
<p>I did. However–my mom and I both took out loans, fairly large ones. I made the choice to go to an OOS public. It cost a significant amount; took me 10 years to pay off my part, and a second mortgage for mom to pay hers (I’m not saying that was wise, but no one, least of all us, thought we were being misled or scammed.)</p>
<p>Many more people are going to college now than even when I did. Many more low income kids, which is good, but of course playing into the loan numbers. This is somewhat industry driven in that entry level jobs in many areas require college diplomas when before they did not. So that’s adding to it. Then look at what Cromette says–the kind of degree that got a job in the past is now being shunned–more specific degrees requiring specific education (meaning less college choice, and possibly more 5 year experiences to figure out the right major).</p>
<p>Then, with college being the new HS, students now see a masters as necessary. Call that a money-maker for colleges if you want, but the driver again is industry, which wants those masters–the new bachelors degree.</p>
<p>In lots of ways, the concept of turning college into training for specific jobs is a major driver of the loan situation. In my generation, most of these profession-specific majors didn’t exist. They do now because that’s what the market wants.</p>
<p>There’s definitely a chicken/egg situation here.</p>
<p>I agree with those who say that economic self sufficiency is a very important and primary outcome of education. Especially given what we are investing in it. </p>
<p>My hope is that my child will also gain the following from his college education:</p>
<ul>
<li>The ability to successfully tackle a problem he has never seen before.</li>
<li>The ability to work with others to achieve a stated objective.</li>
<li>To develop a sense of responsibility to himself, others and his community and to learn that with freedom necessarily comes responsibility.</li>
<li>To be able to write clearly and fluidly</li>
<li>To develop his ability to think in a fact-based, logical, critical and analytic way</li>
</ul>
<p>It would be wonderful if he also has the opportunity to find his passion and his talents, but I don’t think college is necessarily the only route to doing so, nor do many people find that passion in college.</p>
<p>Most of these skills could be developed outside of college, but I’m hoping college provides a relatively safe environment (in terms of intellectual risk taking) that speeds their development.</p>
<p>I sat with a couple of very bright engineering students at a wedding recently. One of them recently got his doctorate. That is not a usual occurrence in my experience. I asked him why he chose to do that rather than entering the workforce after undergrad. He said that, increasingly, it is becoming difficult to compete and advance in the field without a graduate degree! Interesting information.</p>
<p>I don’t know, Garland. We can afford to send our kids to school to study whatever they want to study, and we have the connections so that they will get hired if they can’t find something on their own. So, we have no concerns. We view graduate school as a part of the process and will also fund that without concern, after they work a few years.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until I came onto CC and spent time around here that I came to understand how much of a hardship education costs are to even middle class families, these days.</p>
<p>I put myself through college. It wasn’t a financial hardship at all. Most people in our generation could do this easily, even if some made other choices. They were choices, then. They really aren’t now. And I think that is a huge difference.</p>
<p>Maybe I missed it, but it seems that no one mentioned that education can help make one a better citizen. Not always, but usually higher education provides the student with a broader and deeper understanding of what is going on in the nation and the world and that can enable the individual, over the course of a lifetime, to provide more effective and positive input to the political/economic system and the society at large.</p>
<p>^ Hmm, when D2 described that paper, she said she was torn between the purpose being economic self-sufficiency and good citizenship.</p>
<p>Economic self-sufficiency is the basis of good citizenship.</p>
<p>^ But economic self-sufficiency is an illusion, and students who do start to understand their world at a deeper level may realize that we are all interconnected and interdependent and none of us, except maybe those who live off by themselves in the wilderness, can really claim to be self-sufficient.</p>
<p>I think…economic self-sufficiency here implies the ability to manage one’s needs. While good citizenship is about awareness, perhaps compassion and definitely some engagement of some sort, in aspects of the process. And no, I don’t think you have to be ESS to be a good citizen.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pretty much falls under the umbrella of increased productivity.</p>
<p>I think past a certain age, point, in order to be a “good citizen” one needs to be engaged in “giving back” to the community. Giving back, by its very nature, implies the ability to take care of one’s own basic needs.</p>
<p>Clearly we are all interconnected, but good stewardship of a life demands sane finances.</p>
<p>It’s a basic necessity.</p>
<p>One of the things I think about concerning education and being a good citizen has to do with developing analytical and critical thinking skills. This can be beneficial when adults serve on juries, vote for candidates and policies, etc. </p>
<p>But another thing that I value in a college education is the development of what I think is called cultural literacy (which these days would have to include a global perspective as well as western civilization focus). Not just reading well, but being well-read and to have had learned about the great ideas and creative works in history. This is something I associate with a liberal arts education (not necessarily from a liberal arts college, but the curriculum).</p>