an alternative vision of college 'Going to college' should be more like hiring a contractor - eCampus News | eCampus News
"With a bachelor’s degree now the must-have job credential," So, he was wrong before he'd even finished his first sentence.
While that first line troubles me and the overall proposal will contribute to the devaluing of the bachelors degree I think the article does a few things well: 1. It points out that the British system has some significant advantages over the U.S. system. It does. And while the Commonwealth system certainly isn't perfect it at least comes off as less flawed as the tangled mess we've made in the states out of higher ed. 2. It acknowledges, somewhat, that high schools in this country suck and do little to meet the needs of the workforce, higher education or the students they supposedly serve. Graduating from high school it is unlikely that you've learned a trade. Equally unlikely is that you are actually prepared for serious college level study (generally speaking). My first semester at Scranton made it very clear which kids came straight from the Catholic and prep schools, the well-funded public schools and the poorly funded public schools. If you push college level learning to 15 year olds what you end up with is 15 year olds learning the stuff they should have been learning in high school. Evidently we can only justify the appropriate amount of academic rigor when you slap "college level" on the course description. The problem, however, is that while a bachelors degree is not as necessary as the author states, going this route would make the bachelors degree the new high school diploma (even if it's an HSD + 2). Handing out more bachelors degrees to more people doesn't make the workforce better educated it just makes them over-credentialed. Mark Cuban is a prominent example of someone who dropped out of high school and went immediately to college. Even if a high school student were nervous about the potential implications of being a "high school dropout" they could avoid that stigma entirely by knocking through a self-paced, online high school (PF, Ashworth and countless others). The simple truth is that high school doesn't really serve a very useful purpose any more and it, as a traditional institution, can be skipped entirely without compromising one's future. By trying to fill up that time with college studies we aren't making high school more relevant we are just turning it into a college. It seems to be the simpler approach would be to just eliminate high school entirely. After 8th or 9th grade, you go to either a technical school or to a university/college.
There are few, if any,absolute truths in this world but this is substantially more true now than 50 or even 20 years ago. And isn't that really what the author was trying to say?
I suppose it is a matter of interpretation. Years ago it was possible to start out as an accounting clerk (no degree) and rise through the ranks to become a full CPA without ever earning a degree. Years ago it was possible to earn a degree in law or medicine without a bachelors degree. Today, significantly fewer institutions allow such a thing to occur. There are still a great many jobs that don't require a bachelors degree. But an increasing number of blue collar jobs are adding the requirement. Elsewhere, I believe I shared the story of the individual I met who took great pride in requiring his warehouse workers to have a bachelors degree to "show they can finish something." We crank out more bachelors degrees and we bury young people in debt. And who ends up able to own a home? The union carpenter, the truck driver and the welder. The problem is that the degree holders are also typically the policy makers. And I think we've all shared enough examples of "well, if I had to do x, then so should you." So I would say that the author's proposal is just some of that. Oh, you want to learn how to weld? Well, you can do whatever you want after I force you to take two years of college just to earn the diploma you actually need.
