# Resolved: The American people should significantly decrease the number of people attending colleges. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653 "2009-10-21T18:55:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/41 "2009-10-22T17:37:05Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Well, so what? > > I again have to ask; how would a country benefit from having more ignorance? Yes, it’s true that a high school degree doesn’t carry the weight it did 80 years ago, but it shouldn’t. I can only think that’s it GOOD that a high school education has become commonplace. It’s good for everyone to be educated, even if they’re working not-so-fancy jobs. Getting an education certainly doesn’t hurt your chances. > I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about. I’ve hired plumbers and written them big checks. (Incidentally, my plumber had a high school education, plus he had to apprentice for years under a provincially regulated program to become a plumber - hardly an uneducated fool.) I didn’t feel at all ignorant, any more than I do when I pay the dealership to fix my car, or pay my dentist to fix my teeth. Other people have skills I do not. Your point eludes me. That’s the point exactly - a skilled tradesman isn’t _ignorant_ and it’s insulting to say that he is if he hasn’t gone to college. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/42 "2009-10-22T17:38:47Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > People should not be discouraged from continuing their educations, period. Are you talking about discouraging people from getting an education or discouraging them from getting a diploma? They are 2 different things. Except for a few roles where “continuing education” requires special access to equipment (medical students need to practice on cadavers and applied physicists need access to particle accelerators)… all other adults can “continue their education” with or without college. The issue of a college _diploma piece-of-paper_ is separate issue from _education_. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/43 "2009-10-22T17:39:23Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > That’s the point exactly - a skilled tradesman isn’t _ignorant_ and it’s insulting to say that he is if he hasn’t gone to college. I’m considering trying to get into an apprentice program and I have a degree. There are surely others like that too, but even so I would say it would be insulting even if there were none that had gone to college. Not going to college != ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/44 "2009-10-22T17:40:33Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > A cursory search seems to indicate that tuition to University of Michigan increased 5.6%…which is sort of like 20%. Similar to a recession being like a depression I guess… > > -XT Although of course **gonzomax** is factually completely wrong, his underlying point is not necessarily a bad one: increasing tuition costs may of themselves reduce the number of people who are able to attend college. The [Presidents Council of the State Universities of Michigan](http://www.pcsum.org/) tracks tuition and fees for Michigan’s 15 state universities. Reports for the eight years ending in 2008-2009 are [here,](http://www.pcsum.org/ReportsandStudies/PCSUMReportsandStudies/TuitionandFeesReports/tabid/79/Default.aspx) and links to press releases covering tution increases for 2010 are [here](http://www.pcsum.org/Portals/0/docs/2010%20University%20Budget%20Press%20Releases.pdf). Individual universities in Michigan independently set tuition rates; for 2009-2010, increases were roughly 5% across the board, with Oakland University being an outlier with a 9% increase. However, historically, it’s not unusual for some universities to have high double-digit increases in tution; for example, Ferris State increased tution 17% in 2008-2009. Overall, in the nine years from 2000-2001 to 2009-2010, Michigan’s universities have approximately doubled their tuition and fees. Individual universities have increased rates anywhere from 85% to 125% in that time, with one university (CMU, from **gonzomax** ’s nonexistant link) up 150% in nine years. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/45 "2009-10-22T18:20:09Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I assumed “plumbing contractor” was someone who owned a business, and raked in money from the work done by employees. A plumbing contractor might not even be a plumber, though I would guess that’s fairly unusual. Most likely. But that’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s like saying Bill Gates is a computer programmer. Really he runs a business. > [@joebuck20](#): > > In my area, the Southeast, $50-75 is actually a pretty good wage. And plumbers have more job security these days than a lot of college graduates, including MBAs. It’s good. It’s not $200,000 car good. > [@joebuck20](#): > > Go to almost any city in the country, open up the local paper and look at the want-ads, and you’ll see that there will almost always be someone hiring for plumbing related jobs. That’s not how we MBA’s find jobs.😉 > [@BlackKnight](#): > > I think college isn’t for everyone. My reason is the following: There’s absolutely nothing I learned in college that I couldn’t have learned for a tiny fraction of the cost using the Internet, a decent public library, and [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com). > > I don’t consider the time and money I spent on college to be wasted, but I do consider them to be poorly spent. If that is true either you are Good Will Hunting smart, incredibly arrogant and ignorant or you were in a program that didn’t challenge you. I find it hard to believe that you didn’t gain anything from college other than what you could learn on your own. > [@Epimetheus](#): > > Now I can’t even seem to interest those hiring for Janitorial jobs. I have 3 years part time experience programming (for the university itself) that I thought would help me land a job, but nothing. People at the job club say that part time experience doesn’t count for “experience required” so I’m relegated to the lowest rungs of entry level. > > I think a lot of this is because of so many people going to college, and not just the economy. > > Anyway, just my anecdotal 2 cents. You are incorrect. It is 100% because you are graduating into the worst job market in 20 years. And yes, you will be relegated to the lowest rung of an entry level “professional”. Because you will also be competing against other professionals who may have one or two years full time work experience. You may even be competing against people from better schools or folks who owned their own business. On the positive side, you will also be competing against recent college grads with zero relevant work experience. Employers aren’t dummies or heartless bastards. We are brutally pragmatic and we have a pretty good idea of what your experience really entails. Chances are your part time experience will come nowhere close to a year full time experience working in a highly demanding corporate envirnment 80 hours a week. But it’s better than no experience at all. You have to start somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/46 "2009-10-22T19:15:15Z")
FWIW, RateYourStudents just had an avalanche of comments on some students who shouldn’t be in college: [http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2009/10/this-weeks-early-thirsty-on-disabled.html](http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2009/10/this-weeks-early-thirsty-on-disabled.html) [http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2009/10/lonnie-from-longmont-on-coverups-and.html](http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2009/10/lonnie-from-longmont-on-coverups-and.html) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/47 "2009-10-22T19:24:35Z")
> [@BlackKnight](#): > > I think college isn’t for everyone. My reason is the following: There’s absolutely nothing I learned in college that I couldn’t have learned for a tiny fraction of the cost using the Internet, a decent public library, and [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com). So, there was no cases where there was a concept you didn’t understand from reading the text until a teacher explained it in a different way? Did you get 100% on every test you took, showing you got the material the first time? Did no teacher steer you in an interesting direction you might not have thought of yourself? I certainly assume you never took any lab courses. And, finally, did no teacher ever inspire you to like a subject perhaps a bit better than you would have without him or her? If the answer to all these questions is no, please give us the name of your college to warn Dopers and their children away from it. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/48 "2009-10-22T19:29:38Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Employers aren’t dummies or heartless bastards. We are brutally pragmatic and we have a pretty good idea of what your experience really entails. I read your post before I saw who’d written it. But I knew instantly. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/49 "2009-10-22T20:13:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > So, there was no cases where there was a concept you didn’t understand from reading the text until a teacher explained it in a different way? Although **BlackKnight** probably took a little bit of literary license by exaggerating the “absolutely nothing I learned in college” – his larger points remain. For many people, there isn’t a net positive from college investment. Using your logic, all of us should see cooking school as a net positive because there’s eventually SOMETHING to be learned about cooking or baking that we can’t get on our own. What that analysis leaves out is learning that “SOMETHING” about cooking takes place at the expense of learning something else unrelated to cooking (or doing a non-education activity such as earning money.) Various activities are not slam-dunk “net positives” because unfortunately, we all have limited lifespans. This includes cooking class, dancing lessons, learning foreign language, sailing a boat, and even 4-years of college. Your point would have more weight if our lifespans were a few thousand years. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/50 "2009-10-22T20:23:24Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > Although **BlackKnight** probably took a little bit of literary license by exaggerating the “absolutely nothing I learned in college” – his larger points remain. For many people, there isn’t a net positive from college investment. That point I’m not disputing at all. The investment needed in college is not just money, it is interest and energy also. I suspect that the person who went to college and got nothing out of it is not going to get as much from reading books as he or she thinks. I know people I went to school with who could have done just as well, given their life after college, if they had gone to a much cheaper and easier one. Some of them are a lot smarter than me. There are at least two really bad attitudes to go to a class with. The first is “tell me what is on the test” so I can do the least possible. The second is “I know this stuff, or I can pick it up from skimming the text.” I’m willing to bet that most people like this do not get a net positive from their college investment. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/51 "2009-10-22T20:53:32Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > Although **BlackKnight** probably took a little bit of literary license by exaggerating the “absolutely nothing I learned in college” – his larger points remain. For many people, there isn’t a net positive from college investment. > > Using your logic, all of us should see cooking school as a net positive because there’s eventually SOMETHING to be learned about cooking or baking that we can’t get on our own. What that analysis leaves out is learning that “SOMETHING” about cooking takes place at the expense of learning something else unrelated to cooking (or doing a non-education activity such as earning money.) > > Various activities are not slam-dunk “net positives” because unfortunately, we all have limited lifespans. This includes cooking class, dancing lessons, learning foreign language, sailing a boat, and even 4-years of college. > > Your point would have more weight if our lifespans were a few thousand years. But there are lifelong benefits to being in college that have nothing to do with class. You are forced to socialize with people from various walks of life. You learn self discipline. You learn quasi-financial independence. I don’t know what role cause and effect plays but college graduates have lower unemployment, vote more often, volunteer more often, spend more time with their kids, follow medical advice better, are more knowledgeable about civics, etc. I posted some links early in this thread talking about the benefits of a college education, many of which aren’t even related to income. Bob Altemeyer wrote a book called ‘the authoritarians’, where he talks about right wing authoritarianism and the threat it is to democracy. He uses a point scale to measure RWA attitudes, but he found people who attend universities drop about 20 points on the scale because a college environment makes them less prejudiced and dogmatic. There are tons of benefits to the individual and society that have nothing to do with a degree that you can use to find a better job. And it seems most people really aren’t considering that. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/52 "2009-10-22T21:28:22Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > But there are lifelong benefits to being in college that have nothing to do with class. You are forced to socialize with people from various walks of life. You learn self discipline. You learn quasi-financial independence. I don’t know what role cause and effect plays but college graduates have lower unemployment, vote more often, volunteer more often, spend more time with their kids, follow medical advice better, are more knowledgeable about civics, etc. Most (or all) of those bullet points overlap with joining the military or doing volunteer work overseas (Peace Corps or religious missionary work) or starting a business that hires people. You’re overselling college and implicitly underselling everything else that’s _not_ college. Heck, a person could hitchhike from Maine to California and that experience alone would let him put a check mark to each of items you deem important! There are hundreds (thousands?) of activities that have “lifelong benefits” – the trick is balancing out which ones make sense. Unfortunately, society has overhyped college to the point that it as become a net negative for many folks. To add insult to injury, it’s politically incorrect to even mention it’s a net negative in many cases! And to add another thing… the farmer that works the land less than 10 miles from where he was born and does not bother his entire life to wander anywhere outside his village is not less of person because he doesn’t have knowledge of civics. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > There are tons of benefits to the individual and society that have nothing to do with a degree that you can use to find a better job. And it seems most people really aren’t considering that. On the contrary, most people are _over-estimating_ the benefits and Return-On-Investment of a college degree. That’s where all the stories of disillusionment about college from middle-aged-crisis-what-have-I-done-with-my-life employees comes in. There are undoubtedly _itemized benefits_ to all activities (including college). The question is if it’s a lifelong _net benefit_ on balance. If a person has a passion for pursuing a career in medicine or law or hard sciences like engineering, physics, then college is pretty much a given. But many others just meander through college and end up graduating with a C+ average in Sociology, English, French Literature, Physical Education, whatever. The jobs they end up with have nothing to do with their diploma and the low salaries doesn’t show positive payback on the all the school loans. But what’s cruel is they weren’t told this when there were 18-year old freshmen. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/53 "2009-10-22T21:43:15Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > And yet, we are desparately short of Engineers … I would dispute this. I am an engineer, and although I admit that my civil service job isolates me from the job market, I talk to colleagues in the private sector and am sometimes indirectly involved in hiring. It 's been quite a while since it was easy to find an engineering job. One small set of anecdotal data: we have science and engineering students intern in our office a couples of times a year. In the last few years, every intern who was offered a permanent job upon graduation accepted the job. That didn’t happen during the dot com boom. There may be areas of technology that are hot (I know colleagues who have to hire memory designers, and they say it’s a sellers’ market if you have the skills and experience [and, in this case, the security clearance]). But this doesn’t make for a shortage of engineers across the field. Technology-related jobs are inherently prone to rising and falling demand, and job security over long periods is rare. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/54 "2009-10-22T21:45:44Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > And doctors and nurses. > > We had another thread about this a few months ago, and someone made a point I liked: threads like these are usually full of college educated people saying _other_ people should not have gone to college. While I agree it’s a problem when people get degrees they can’t use, or end up with a lot of debt for a degree they didn’t not really need for the jobs they are doing, that doesn’t mean fewer people should go to college. People should not be discouraged from continuing their educations, period. And I regret not becoming an engineer. I got _ **really** _ bad advice from my High School Councilor.:(:smack: ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/55 "2009-10-22T22:29:05Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > There are hundreds (thousands?) of activities that have “lifelong benefits” – the trick is balancing out which ones make sense. Unfortunately, society has overhyped college to the point that it as become a net negative for many folks. To add insult to injury, it’s politically incorrect to even mention it’s a net negative in many cases! What’s “many”? You seem pretty convinced college is bad for a lot of people. How many people? Can you provide some evidence that there’s a significant number of people for whom college was a “net negative”? > [@](#): > > And to add another thing… the farmer that works the land less than 10 miles from where he was born and does not bother his entire life to wander anywhere outside his village is not less of person because he doesn’t have knowledge of civics. “Less of a person” is meaningless without some definition of what you’re calling “personhood.” I do know your farmer is certainly more ignorant than the farmer who works the land less than 10 miles from where he was born who DOES know something about civics. And I don’t see an advantage in ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/56 "2009-10-22T22:35:52Z")
To the people who think we need more people in the trades: is there actually a demand for such skilled workers in the United States not being filled because young people are more likely to attend college, or has the trend of increased college enrollment happened because those blue collar jobs have increasingly disappeared? ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/57 "2009-10-22T23:01:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > What’s “many”? You seem pretty convinced college is bad for a lot of people. And you seem to be convinced college is good for most. Which type of “college” are you talking about? The type of college that Plato and Aristotle envisioned with genuinely self-motivated people seeking knowledge, wisdom, truth? Or the watered-down type of college today that puts many students into a mountain of debt that their unrelated job doesn’t quickly pay back? > [@](#): > > And I don’t see an advantage in ignorance. Well, there are infinitely many facts so all of us are already handicapped with being ignorant in some area. One could read books and attend classes for every waking hour of a human life and still know less than 0.00001% of the information that is out there. I know differential equations. Did Mother Theresa know differential equations? Probably not. Is she “disadvantaged” from the ignorance? It makes no sense to ask that because that knowledge is not relevant to her life. The “advantage” to ignorance is that it’s time not spent on learning that piece of knowledge that has no obvious or immediate bearing on a person’s life. There is a tradeoff cost to “learning” information or skills because we have limited shelf life. Typical human has about ~400,000 hours of consciousness and time “learning” something has to be subtracted from that. If we could live for thousands of years or someone invents a direct cerebral implant like the Matrix movies, the “advantage” of selective-ignorance goes away. Therefore, your statement: > [@](#): > > I do know your farmer is certainly more ignorant than the farmer who works the land less than 10 miles from where he was born who DOES know something about civics. …is flawed because it assumes the civics knowledge came at _zero cost_. The farmer that didn’t read about civics or watch a TV show about civics maybe spent the time studying his chickens behavior to maximize eggs laid or has a better relationship with his son because he played catch with him. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/58 "2009-10-22T23:12:16Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > And yet, we are desparately short of Engineers & Teachers. In the high school my kids went to, every teacher hired in the last 3 years, without tenure, got laid off. Short on teachers? I think not. Short on teachers willing to work in bad schools for not enough money, maybe. There aren’t enough saints in this world. As for being short on engineers, you hear that just before a company applies for a new set of H1B visas. However, we are short on engineers born and raised in the US. I don’t know if this is because US kids consider it too hard, or they see that the reward aren’t worth it, so the really smart ones become doctors, lawyers, or go into finance. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/59 "2009-10-22T23:18:05Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > Most (or all) of those bullet points overlap with joining the military or doing volunteer work overseas (Peace Corps or religious missionary work) or starting a business that hires people. You’re overselling college and implicitly underselling everything else that’s _not_ college. Heck, a person could hitchhike from Maine to California and that experience alone would let him put a check mark to each of items you deem important! > > There are hundreds (thousands?) of activities that have “lifelong benefits” – the trick is balancing out which ones make sense. Unfortunately, society has overhyped college to the point that it as become a net negative for many folks. To add insult to injury, it’s politically incorrect to even mention it’s a net negative in many cases! > > And to add another thing… the farmer that works the land less than 10 miles from where he was born and does not bother his entire life to wander anywhere outside his village is not less of person because he doesn’t have knowledge of civics. > > On the contrary, most people are _over-estimating_ the benefits and Return-On-Investment of a college degree. That’s where all the stories of disillusionment about college from middle-aged-crisis-what-have-I-done-with-my-life employees comes in. There are undoubtedly _itemized benefits_ to all activities (including college). The question is if it’s a lifelong _net benefit_ on balance. > > If a person has a passion for pursuing a career in medicine or law or hard sciences like engineering, physics, then college is pretty much a given. > > But many others just meander through college and end up graduating with a C+ average in Sociology, English, French Literature, Physical Education, whatever. The jobs they end up with have nothing to do with their diploma and the low salaries doesn’t show positive payback on the all the school loans. But what’s cruel is they weren’t told this when there were 18-year old freshmen. Yes, many things do add lifelong benefits. Traveling internationally can add a good deal to a person’s personality. I don’t see how I was underselling that. If people can get lifelong benefits to maturity, civics, interpersonal relationships or life experience by not going into debt and going into college, then go for it. I said earlier in this thread that we need more varied forms of education to take advantage of people’s many talents. Some people would be better served as individuals by spending 4-5 years traveling, joining the military or doing volunteer work. I’m not denying that. If you went $100,000 into debt at a private university for a degree you don’t use (a degree you could’ve gotten at a local public university for $20,000 in loans) and you got nothing to advance your personality out of college then yet it was likely a net negative. But for me it was not. And as a general rule of thumb, more education is better (especially early education when someone is under 6). And a farmer who never ventures 10 miles from his farm would be better served by civics. It was farmers who never ventured more than 10 miles from their farms who helped spur on the revolutions in the US and France in the 18th century as well as revolutions after that like the 1848 rebellions. You are totally off by claiming people like that had nothing to gain from civics. People like that were integral in political movements in the last 300 years. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653/60 "2009-10-22T23:26:37Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > You quibble like a child. And you are out of line with your snide remarks about other posters’ reading skills and your direct insult, here. Stop it. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-the-american-people-should-significantly-decrease-the-number-of-people-attending-colleges/514653.md?page=4)