So I happened to see this guy Ken Robinson do a ted talk:
And I have to say, he says a lot of good things. I do love how he talks about the current obsession with going to college simply for the sake of going to college.
However, if we really are going to foment a true learning revolution, there are a few other points that need to be made.
While we often speak of a “college education” as merely a process of acquiring greater skills, but we can’t forget the social/ networking aspect of college. The better and fancier the college you go to, the more likely you will meet and bond with people who will be in higher positions of power to help you through the rest of your life. Those connections can easily be worth the $200,000 some colleges charge for them. That system is not going away anytime soon, it works too well for the rich and powerful, and it’s too well funded.
Second, and this never gets talked about, is that a college degree is something of a “guild membership.” If you read any job posting anywhere for any kind of work that is not manual labor, they will list all the skills and experience they want, and consistently, they will also demand that you have either a bachelor’s or a master’s degree. Even if you know all the stuff, you still have to put in the time and the money. Until that ubiquitous college degree requirement for every decent job is lifted, people will be crawling all over themselves to get that degree, even if it’s from a diploma mill where they are not actually learning anything. Also, colleges will continue use that leverage to charge more and more.
The sad part of how the system is currently set up is that people who are perfectly qualified for certain kinds of work are essentially discriminated against because their circumstances at age 18 made college an unlikely path. I don’t mean to be overly cynical, but in the back of my mind I do believe that the universal requirement for a college degree is in place so one can legally discriminate against certain “kinds of people” who perhaps have worked at the company for years and would otherwise be perfectly good at the job in question. Far from being an instrument for creating upward mobility, the requirement for a degree often serves as a legal poll tax, and helps to maintain the current power/class structure.
The other problem with placing so much emphasis on college is that it gives few alternatives to young people other than to start life saddled with massive debt. I can’t help but wonder if this is an intentional reinstatement of “indentured servitude.” If you saw “College Inc.” on PBS you saw some of that predatory lending that has destroyed many lives instead of giving them a leg up– and we taxpayers are footing the bill. To date, the federal government has pumped something like $750 billion dollars into the economy of colleges in co-signed college loans. And we wonder why tuition keeps going up. And by the way, are we really getting our money’s worth? Can we find anyone outside the university system to do the research? (btw, according to Bill Maher, 85% of college grads move back in with their parents upon graduation.)
I can't help but see some parallels between the university system and renaissance Italian City States. Here in Boston they are constantly acquiring new "territory" of new real estate. And in terms of the general requirement that you join in order to be 1st class citizen (i.e., have a degree to be able to get management jobs), and the "tithing" of saving up for tuition, in some ways it's like a state-sponsored religion. As universities grow and become more powerful, there are fewer people who will be willing or able to stand up to them. If you aren’t part of the system, if you don’t have a degree, it is assumed it is because you are mentally inferior, or not motivated. The marketing is fabulous, and other than military service we offer precious few alternate choices for young people to explore the world after high school.
(also, this argument that "college grads make more money" is not logical. Poeple with big houses make more money too. It is not "causal." People with ambition go to college mostly because they have to have that certification in order to get to where they want to go, but that does not mean that if you have no focus or ambition that getting a degree will give it to you.
So the next time you HR folks automatically require a college degree for a given job, just remember you are excluding the following potential applicants: Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Richard Branson, Ted Turner, Woody Allen, Mary Kay Ash, Henry Ford, Mark Zuckerberg, John D. Rockefeller Sr., Steven Spielberg, Michael Dell, Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs.
© Justin Locke
