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Do too many people go to college?

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A college education was once regarded as a first-class ticket to a better life. But the rising costs of higher education, the burden of student loans and a less-certain job market have left many wondering: Are too many young people going to college?  What do you think?

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    • 4 days ago

    One of the worst things that has happened to high schools is the elimination of what we used to call "shop" classes. These classes produced many carpenters, electricians, plumbers and machinists by getting the students ready to take on apprenticeships. These programs should be reinstated with the addition of computer programming and preparation for the many 'technologist' jobs, such has biomedical technology, where you really have to know your way around a lab. There are thousands of these technologists jobs going unfilled. Some community colleges have taken up the slack. There are plenty of students with these aptitudes who cannot find their way on a college campus. Let me do their liberal arts in the first two years of high school, then let them follow their interests into the trades.

    8 Recommendations

    • 4 days ago

    I agree. In my comment on the book Future Shock, I referred to the author as Allen Toffler. My error, it is Alvin Toffler.

    1 Recommendation

    • 4 days ago
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    I serve on the adjunct staff at Miami Dade College where some students who probably don't even have an IQ of 70 are enrolled. They simply don't have the capacity to do college-level work and fail miserably at every attempt at a course. The college continues to take tax-payers' money to pay for it. It's only on a student's fourth attempt at a course that he or she has to pay four times the regular tuition rate. They still fail. They just don't get it. Is public high education today nothing more than a retail store?

    3 Recommendations

    • 3 days ago

    Not everyone deserve to nor should go to college simply to take garbage degrees like women's studies, liberal arts, economics and then complain they can't find a job. There are great successful plumbers, landscapers, photographers, manicurists, oriental masseuses, community organizers, sport stars who don't need a college degree. Giving everyone an expensive college degree they most likely can't off is like giving everyone a mortgage they most likely can't pay off; how did that turn out? Oh yes blame Bush!

    1 Recommendation

      • 3 days ago
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      Economics is a very important field. Are you an engineer? Perhaps you're the real life "Sheldon" from that show "The Big Bang Theory"?

      I'm kidding, man. The important thing about college is learning how to think. There are wonderful professions for those who come to college already knowing how to think--Law, Engineering, Computer Science, Accounting. But you shouldn't run down somebody else's degree. I know a very smart woman who has a unique degree, teaches and publishes, but most of all helps younger people. And this is all within her field, which you may have called "garbage."

      The fact is, this woman learned how to think, found something she was passionate about, and is making her living in a field she loves. So you can't just call the degree "garbage."

      However, there are many people who are confused and go to college to figure things out. They may even learn something, but frequently they don't. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have gone. It certainly doesn't mean that the government shouldn't provide loans for these people.

      Finally, I would even say that advocating that fewer people go to college is almost what the Church in Europe wanted during the Dark Ages--they wanted people to remain ignorant.

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    • 3 days ago
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    @Minh Nguyen: How the hell can you put economics in the same category of garbage degrees as women's studies? Anyway, if the goal is to weed out people with sub 70 IQ's from going to college, perhaps degrees like finance, accounting, and business should be relegated to technical schools.

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    • 3 days ago
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    "Do too many people go to college?"--No, too few people actually learn anything.

    A college degree is not a right to receive a job, and a job is not the right to receive money. If one has that attitude, if they don't learn how to think critically, they will have a very hard time finding a good paying job.

    1 Recommendation

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