http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/03/stephens.college/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

That would seem to be a solution to the rising cost of tuition. I'm not sure if it will work, but I'm all for someone else trying a different avenue and possibly putting pressure on college's to lower their cost.

Interesting take....I've always felt the educational aspect of college is overrated. A lot of the time you take courses that have no relation to your major. Not to mention that outside of a few majors, most of the training and knowledge you'll get for you actual job will be at that job instead of in a classroom. College, however, does provide an important social education that I think everyone should experience, especially if you come from a small town. Basically, it's not a waste of time...it's just useful for different reasons than most assume.

I think for 60% of kids it is a waste of time. Depending on your major and in coming knowlege/skills it can be worth your while. I do believe liberal arts schools to be a waste of time unless you get lots of scholarships and/or are pursuing a doctorate of some kind. Unfortunately employers like to see that piece of paper more often then not.

I've always thought that college was a bti of a sham/overrated. I went to a top 5 schopol for undergrad and never felt like they prepared me for the "real world". I def had a good time and grew up so to speak in college, but as a device to prepare me for the working world it was a joke. I thought the German sturcture would have been the best model for me and success.

I somewhat agree with the article. I don't believe college is a waste, but the system is flawed. They feed you that bullshit that you need to be "well rounded" by taking a bunch of meaningless GECS. For what?

I was always fond of how they do it in the UK. High school until 16-17, then A-levels to find your career interest, then a 3 year undergrad. I feel that the higher education system in Europe in general is more "to the point."

My brother and I had a conversation the other day about how college is the one of the biggest scams out there. For instance, a kindergarten teacher has to have a bachelors degree, plus a masters down the line. I'm sorry, but there is no reason for it to take that much schooling to teach a kindergartener how to read and write. There are very few occupations out there that truly require more than a year or two of training.

se-alum;790110 wrote:My brother and I had a conversation the other day about how college is the one of the biggest scams out there. For instance, a kindergarten teacher has to have a bachelors degree, plus a masters down the line. I'm sorry, but there is no reason for it to take that much schooling to teach a kindergartener how to read and write. There are very few occupations out there that truly require more than a year or two of training.

And why do gym teachers have to go to college at all? #ridiculous

Interesting article. Looking at the picture in the light he shines out it, I think he has painted a pretty nice picture. Now... let's see someone else shine a different kind of light on the picture of college, and I'm sure it will look pretty good too.

Getting a worthless degree (e.g., [insert] studies, anything involving race or gender, or something made up) at a bad school with mediocre grades is a bad idea.

Getting a useful degree (engineering, accounting, etc.) at a good school with good grades is still an extraordinary investment.

Commander of Awesome;790089 wrote:I've always thought that college was a bti of a sham/overrated. I went to a top 5 schopol .

You definitely didn't get you monies worth.

Did you get a dregree?

fan_from_texas;790158 wrote:Getting a worthless degree (e.g., [insert] studies, anything involving race or gender, or something made up) at a bad school with mediocre grades is a bad idea.

Getting a useful degree (engineering, accounting, etc.) at a good school with good grades is still an extraordinary investment.

This. If you get a practical degree it is very helpful. I still think being well rounded is very helpful though. You can tell when you are speaking to a well rounded person, and it comes off well during interviews.

Thread Bomber;790174 wrote:You definitely didn't get you monies worth.

Did you get a dregree?

Nice stretch pointing out a typo. Dont be jealous.

like_that;790276 wrote:This. If you get a practical degree it is very helpful. I still think being well rounded is very helpful though. You can tell when you are speaking to a well rounded person, and it comes off well during interviews.

You mean like these guys?

Commander of Awesome;790089 wrote:I've always thought that college was a bti of a sham/overrated. I went to a top 5 schopol for undergrad and never felt like they prepared me for the "real world". I def had a good time and grew up so to speak in college, but as a device to prepare me for the working world it was a joke. I thought the German sturcture would have been the best model for me and success.

Commander of Awesome;790278 wrote:Nice stretch pointing out a typo. Dont be jealous.

I'd only be jealous if you had a dregree.

Dude didn't really propose an alternative though. "Learn outside of the traditional models" isn't really much of a plan. Plus the argument that employers are hiring and finding people on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin isn't that good either because I see those services as more akin to replacing job applications and some aspects of interviews than replacements for formal qualifications (degree, etc).

I agree college is a waste of time unless you are majoring in something useful and attending a top school. What's the point of getting a BA in Business Administration from a crappy school?

Commander of Awesome;790089 wrote:I've always thought that college was a bti of a sham/overrated. I went to a top 5 schopol for undergrad and never felt like they prepared me for the "real world".

Which school was that?

fan_from_texas;790158 wrote:Getting a worthless degree (e.g., [insert] studies, anything involving race or gender, or something made up) at a bad school with mediocre grades is a bad idea.

Getting a useful degree (engineering, accounting, etc.) at a good school with good grades is still an extraordinary investment.

I would say that even obtaining a less direct degree can be valuable if it is from an institution that pushes the education of how to learn instead of what to know. I do think that general study classes from competent educators can greatly help make a person well-rounded.

like_that;790276 wrote:This. If you get a practical degree it is very helpful. I still think being well rounded is very helpful though. You can tell when you are speaking to a well rounded person, and it comes off well during interviews.

I tend to agree. People who learn how to think, instead of what to think, tend to be able to transition thought processes to other circumstances in life, drawing parallels from one to another.

As for other helpful elements in the hiring process, such as speaking properly, etiquette, and at least somewhat decent penmanship are things that we have hopefully learned before attending anything beyond high school.

sleeper;790334 wrote:I agree college is a waste of time unless you are majoring in something useful and attending a top school. What's the point of getting a BA in Business Administration from a crappy school?

I don't mind the BA in Business Admin. NEARLY as much as I would mind the quality of the school's educational process. College is not meant to be a glorified trade school, so the "usefulness" of one's focus while attending isn't something I'd consider to be of primary importance, at least when compared to the level of education one can receive at such an institution (personal education notwithstanding).

My company hires about 600 college grads a year nationally - we have a specific number of positions allocated as entry-level management/sales position. We interview about 2400 graduates each year for these position - I assist in the initial round of interviews for the Ohio/WV/KY candidates.

College degrees are flat-out required for management with very rare exception. But - a degree isn't a magic wand - we look for people who actually learned some things.

Things we look at closely:

- Not messing around. Five years is fine as long as there was a good reason - like working 20 hours a week. A change of major can be OK, but it has to be reasonable - a change from pre-med to business would be understandable - especially if you made up ground. Two changes of major while you were a full-time college student? Forget it.

- The quality of your coursework - not just grades, but the degree of difficulty of the courses. A marketing degree can vary quite a bit in terms of quality from one college to the next.

- Your school. Certain colleges (about 60 nationally) have programs with which we are familiar and reliably turn out well-prepared graduates. All but two of the Big Ten business schools fit into this class, by the way.

- Major. Surprisingly, we hire a LOT of liberal arts majors from certain programs, especially for sales. They generally tend to able to function well in a variety of situations. Note - you really to need to take some serious math - at the very least, a full year at or about the level of college algebra. You also need to be able to show that you regularly turn out serious research/case management reports - the ability to write well is beyond crucial. As FFT noted above, a degree in ____ studies is viewed with suspicion - but if you took tough courses outside your major and have a body of written work (well-done research papers, serious statistical work,etc.) Another major which with which we've not had good luck - Communications.

Greek affiliations - not a factor unless you appear overly involved. Warning - five-year Greeks are viewed with extreme suspicion - too much partying?

Yes - we most certainly look at any on-line media sites you publish, and that's before you get the interview. I'd say a fourth of graduates whose we consider for interviews get dropped after we check out their Facebook/Twitter accounts - If you can't keep profanity or your more intensely private moments to your self, there's no way we're going to trust you to keep things such our marketing plans and competitive strategies in confidence?

Cat Food Flambe';790400 wrote: - Not messing around. Five years is fine as long as there was a good reason - like working 20 hours a week. A change of major can be OK, but it has to be reasonable - a change from pre-med to business would be understandable - especially if you made up ground. Two changes of major while you were a full-time college student? Forget it.

This seems like sort of a dumb criteria. I mean, the average student changes majors more than twice so I don't see how it can be a massive hit. Plus how long you take in school is a really arbitrary thing that depends on what was going on in your life as well as what school you went to (schools anymore tend to dick you around the last semester or two by having classes you are required to take that fill up very quickly only offered every other semester. So if for some reason you gut shut out of it you're stuck there for at least another semester).

I'm going to assume though that you look at it on a case by case basis though (IE: Dude that took six years to get his degree but has good grades, took difficult course work, and was involved in student groups like SIFE, etc wouldn't be docked for the extra time he took because there could be any number of reasons that it took longer that aren't "messing around".

Edit: And this is why you make sure you clean out/put very good privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts before applying for real jobs.

The issue, which what the author of the article touches on, isn't the general value, but rather the relative value as costs continue to outpace any rational sort of expected return. We're a nation intoxicated with debt, and the student loan burden is the next bubble to burst. People can debate whether trickle-down economics work (in my experience as my employers did well, so did I) but there's no doubt that misery trickles upwards.

We have a generation of young people so saddled with debt and grim employment futures that it affects everyone. Our home prices are stagnating or going down because they can't afford homes, and in many cases are delaying having children. The 60% or so of college grads that are moving back with their parents aren't exactly stimulating the economy.

College is overpriced, and grad school is horribly overpriced (with the exception of medicine, but that's a tough road even if one has the aptitude). The quality of instruction hasn't kept up with the exorbitant costs. From a classroom perspective you get the education you put in - whether it is Yale or jackbat tech community college. The real value is in (i) signaling to employers and (ii) networking with classmates - from a career perspective this is far more important than taking "From Beethoven to the Beatles, an Evolution of Music Theory" (a real class at my undergrad, which all the arts and crafts students took).

Manhattan Buckeye;790485 wrote:... jackbat tech community college.

I laughed at this.

Manhattan Buckeye;790485 wrote:The real value is in (i) signaling to employers and (ii) networking with classmates - from a career perspective this is far more important than taking "From Beethoven to the Beatles, an Evolution of Music Theory" (a real class at my undergrad, which all the arts and crafts students took).

This is, I think, a problem. The fact that the college learning experience has become the means to an end with so many. Colleges were not intended to be "job mills." That was the purpose of things like trade school and associate's training. However, it has become such that the actual learning to be done in college takes second chair to seeking employment.

Maybe it's an antiquated view, but I'm saddened that that places which could be breeding grounds for intense higher education ... true education ... have become a means to the end of finding a job.

It's why I wasn't surprised when 42% of college graduates who took our company's aptitude survey said that 8 + 1 * 10 = 90. 42% of people who graduated college, and took the survey, did not know the order of operations in math.

That question actually became a punchline in the company, and anyone who did or said something stupid was replied to with, "It's not 90."

When a college education ceases to be about education, and begins to be treated as just something you have to do to get a good job later in life, I believe it does lose its relevance.

Since that is largely the case with many students today, I sympathize greatly with the author of the article in the original post.

"This is, I think, a problem. The fact that the college learning experience has become the means to an end with so many. Colleges were not intended to be "job mills." That was the purpose of things like trade school and associate's training. However, it has become such that the actual learning to be done in college takes second chair to seeking employment."

Agreed 100% until college went from something that could be paid for from part-time/summer jobs into an endeavor that will take a lifetime to pay off the debt. At that point it becomes a cost/benefit analysis. This is another part of the social divide in this country - baby boomers typically graduated with little or no debt and don't understand the frustration of younger people that are upset that the "means to the end" isn't working out, learning about 19th century French poetry is enlightening, but when Sallie Mae expects its $800 check every month it can become not just an economic problem but a sociological problem as well.

College itself is a big waste of time. Too much fluff involved. As others pointed out, you have to take classes that have nothing to do with your major.

A lot of the bullshit could be cut out. It needs to be restructured. It's obvious why you have to take these "elective courses", and that's because of the $$$..

Now, what else can you do? Not everybody is going to be successful starting a business or creating some kind of invention. You're much better off with a college degree, there is no doubt about that.

hoops23;790519 wrote:College itself is a big waste of time. Too much fluff involved. As others pointed out, you have to take classes that have nothing to do with your major.

Go to a trade school, or get your Associate's Degree. There is less general education going on in those places.

hoops23;790519 wrote:A lot of the bullshit could be cut out. It needs to be restructured. It's obvious why you have to take these "elective courses", and that's because of the $$$..

Actually, such "electives" were around long before money was an issue.

hoops23;790519 wrote:Now, what else can you do? Not everybody is going to be successful starting a business or creating some kind of invention. You're much better off with a college degree, there is no doubt about that.

Actually, I'm noticing more and more people my age (late 20s) who are ahead because they started their career early and DIDN'T get a college degree. It seems to be a crap shoot in more and more cases.

Manhattan Buckeye;790517 wrote:Agreed 100% until college went from something that could be paid for from part-time/summer jobs into an endeavor that will take a lifetime to pay off the debt. At that point it becomes a cost/benefit analysis. This is another part of the social divide in this country - baby boomers typically graduated with little or no debt and don't understand the frustration of younger people that are upset that the "means to the end" isn't working out, learning about 19th century French poetry is enlightening, but when Sallie Mae expects its $800 check every month it can become not just an economic problem but a sociological problem as well.

No. 19th Century French poetry is bull, no matter how you slice the check.

In all honesty, the BIGGEST problem I have with the system is that there are employers who DON'T seem to care whether or not you've learned anything, or if you've become a more critically thinking, articulate person. As long as you have a Bachelor's degree, you're good to go. These places accept trade school-level quality (which is not right or wrong, but dependent on their business model), but they demand a Bachelor's degree. That seems asinine to me, as the cost of a trade school isn't as bad right now as most universities. If that gets you to the point where you fit the competency requirements for a position, that should be enough.