That’s how I saw it. I didn’t like school at any level, but I didn’t have the aptitude for the trades or the temperament for sales. At least I didn’t find it hard. I considered dropping out, but always concluded that it was the less of all evils. I’ve had a good career as a librarian, although the last 16 years in the school system have sometimes been difficult. Now that college is many times more expensive, I’m sure it’s harder for kids who really don’t want to be there but feel like it’s their only choice. One of our kids is like that, but is managing to muddle through (albeit slowly). Anyone else experience this?
I doubt anyone is happy at having to pay lots of money to get a good education at a state school. That part, at least, is not “necessary” and is obviously rigged against students without lots of money.
As far as being an “only choice”, one advantage of a college or university is that it provides opportunities to learn academic stuff, which will be difficult if one suffers from a lack of motivation, but if you are really that unmotivated I don’t see how it is going to be much easier to study that stuff on your own.
Some people are just not made for college. College is about following someone else’s idea of how and when and what to learn. That’s why I didn’t go, I would have been miserable and never completed. But I had plenty of motivation, I have done quite well for myself because I knew how to learn and was highly motivated to do so.
It’s never been totally clear what the purpose of the postwar higher education system in America is supposed to be.
It shouldn’t be “to turn upper class people into Latin and Greek literate members of the clergy” like it was before the 1860s, though de facto there are still many schools whose primary function is to socialize the rich with each other (Sarah Lawrence, Tufts, places like that) and that is clearly at least one thing that goes on at the Ivies.
It hasn’t been “to teach modern scientific agriculture to family farmers” for a long time, which is what the land grant colleges were originally for, though there’s a logical reason that most of those places transformed into leading science and engineering schools.
No one wants to admit that it’s “to provide a credential allowing you access to certain careers.” Clearly we do not need four-year universities to teach practical skills such as accounting, software development, nursing, teaching, etc. We got along just fine with specialized trade schools teaching those things until it was decided in the 70s that everyone who managed to graduate high school without kicking and screaming “had to” go to college, and what were previously viewed as skills that any studious person could pick up in two years of night courses suddenly started requiring four-year diplomas.
One of the things that college administrators will tell you is that the purpose of a university education is to provide a chance at well-roundedness and exposure to different intellectual disciplines before economic and family pressures on one’s time make specialization a necessity. But more and more colleges are cutting offerings and requirements in the liberal arts, and more and more people are being forced into “nontraditional” academic paths. Does someone with 4 years of military service and 10 years in the working world who is starting college at age 32 in order to get promoted at the job they already have really need to spend time on general education? Can’t we trust that they have already figured out what they need to learn? Why not?
I am in a career where essentially none of the skills or information I learned in college make me any better at my job, and I would be far better off economically if I could have simply started doing what I do now at age 18. But I deal with a lot of white-collar, professional people and there is no way I would have been able to get my job without a college degree. The social pressure to check off the box is what drives people who have to sacrifice or take loans to spend unnecessary time in college. For those whose parents are better off it’s just a matter of “if someone is gonna pay me to put off getting a job for four years and I get to spend most of my time partying in exchange for showing up to class for 10 hours a week then I guess I should take that deal.”
I think we could do a lot of economic good by making secondary school more rigorous, destigmatizing the trades, and discouraging people who won’t get a value-add from going to universities.
That’s why I didn’t want to go, and why I didn’t enjoy it when I did. Grad/professional school I didn’t exactly enjoy, but there was an end goal in mind. Could I have been a competent librarian by an apprenticeship type program? My guess is yes, but I don’t know for certain. If I want to learn about something, I’ll do it. Once I’m done, I want to be done.
My state’s land grant colleges are still needed to teach that. Modern agriculture is getting more complex and science-driven, not less.
Neither a nurse nor a teacher can learn what is needed in “ two years of night classes”. I would speak to the other professions listed but those two I am close enough to to know. Yes, we do need four colleges and universities to teach nursing and teaching.
What are the options for someone who doesn’t want to go to college, but doesn’t have the aptitude for any of the trades? I’d like to know in case I’m reincarnated and have to do everything over.
If you spend your first four years out of high school working at an Amazon warehouse instead of spending it at college and then getting an “unskilled” job anyway, then you will be, on average, $176K ahead in net income by age 22.
Pretty sure unskilled labor at Amazon warehouses right out of high school doesn’t pay $58, 600 a year, which is what it would have to to beat $176,000 divided by 3, since that college kid could work a total of 12 months in his or her summers off from classes in those years since high school graduation.
My figures are based on Amazon’s lowest starting wage of $15, a full-time work year plus an average of 160 hours of mandatory overtime, and not taking on $32,731 of average student debt for a college graduate.
Sure, the college student could work part-time; just as much, the Amazon employee could get raises, work in an area of the country with a higher base wage, or have a second job. There’s lots of variables but the point is that for our hypothetical person who won’t be learning a skilled trade or getting a job that requires a college degree, getting into full-time employment as early and as much as possible is a good idea and can still provide a decent standard of living as opposed to whatever the alternative is.
How many places are there with options like that? These jobs pay a little over twice the minimum wage. I’d better be reincarnated somewhere with a lot more options than there were my last time through, or I’ll just have to do the college thing again.
If half of the classes at the 4-year college have nothing to do with nursing or teaching, then no; we do not need 4-year colleges to teach nursing or teaching.
Nurses need 4 years of education, at least a good percentages of them do and that will only become more so in the future. Nursing is a profession, not a trade. I am one, I know. Educators also need a four year education, teaching is also not a trade. I watched closely my 3 children being educated-I would not have wanted them to be taught by two-year wonders.
If you don’t want to college, don’t go. Don’t disparage or belittle what a college education is nor what can be done with one.
So, to become a nurse, one needs 8 semesters of instruction on nursing, and nothing but nursing? Is that what you’re saying? Or are you saying that in order to be a nurse, one MUST attend classes such as “Approaches to Humanities” and “Intro to Microeconomics”?
Oh…and I’m a college graduate and a tradesman. FWIW.
So am I. Except I am a tradeswoman.
But…you’re a nurse, right? You just said that nursing is a profession; not a trade. And you never answered the question.
I never said nursing was the only career I ever had nor the only skill I employed.
The question was:
Sometimes it’s a very real requirement from future employers. My son is a pilot, and a college degree was a “necessary evil” to get into the big leagues. He was able to fly regional jets without it, but had to finish the degree before moving up to the larger planes. I don’t know if this is still true today (he’s out of touch right now, can’t ask). Hopefully one of our board’s professional pilots will come along with more up-to-date info.
I’m probably being cynical, but I wonder sometimes if degree requirements are just filters to reduce the number of applicants.
There is a lot of that. And piloting is an example of that. 4-year degrees are required to fly for the majors, but only a small percentage of major airline pilots have 4-year degrees in anything aviation-relevant.
But the filtering you mention, although 100% real, is not 100% cynical.
Ultimately, a lot of jobs require a lot of learning. And the aptitude and willingness to continue learning throughout your career. And to keep your brain engaged while doing the work; it’s not mere mindless toil. Piloting is one such job, but many office jobs are similar.
When the great mass of people can graduate high school effectively unable / unwilling to read, and attitudinally lacking in anything approaching a mental work ethic, those folks are mentally unqualified for a job requiring those skills.
Having graduated college is prima facie evidence you probably have those skills and attitudes. Far more damaging is the unwarranted assumption that not having graduated college is strong evidence you don’t. It might just as well be you never had the economic opportunity to attend college.
In fewer words: If high schools did their jobs properly, we wouldn’t need college degrees as a generic filter for “trainable / tractable / awake enough to hire for a non-physical non-McJob”.