What’s the purpose of education? The Trump administration has one theory

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-the-purpose-of-education-the-trump-administration-has-one-theory-2018-06-22


I'm for separation of education and state but if government does have an educational role then that would be in regards to employment.

 

Most of the ideas expressed in the article are ones that we at DegreeInfo have been discussing for years. "College is not for everyone," student debt, the value of the humanities, learning a skill to support yourself and then returning to school later for "softer skills." I think it's good that people have choices but unfortunately, mistakes in this realm tend to be expensive. One thin I'd like to see change is to have high school guidance counselors (mine was completely useless) actually provide some guidance. Help kids and parents understand that going to Amherst and getting a BA in English sounds great, fun, interesting, etc. but what about the debt afterwards? What about the job prospects? Even your local state college is expensive and there aren't many parents who are really prepared to pick up the tab. So where's the money going to come from? Loans and part-time jobs, etc. (that's how I did it). I think that the Humanities are important, valuable and should be a part of everyone's "higher education," Being able to think abstractly and critically, to understand our history and government, to be able to express yourself verbally and in writing are all extremely important and can at times make the difference between a decent career and an outstanding career. But the idea of earning a degree in something like Sociology (which I love, btw) and thrn having no idea about what's next, no idea of how to translate that into a job/career is very shortsighted and making a bad decision in this way can plague a person for a long time. Kids do not get good advice in these matters. Not in high school and not even in college. I'm not sure that combining the Dept of Ed with the Dept of Labor will solve that problem. It might be a part of a solution, maybe providing information to people about employment trends, etc., idk, but I think the real solution needs to happen down at the micro level.

 

And they probably use paragraphs.