Should everyone go to college?

I don’t think that college is necessarily right for everyone, but I also don’t think that vocational school is the only other option.

What do YOU think are other options?

@saraccina There are many options that work for different people. But for most people, I would say that the other possibilities are work, internships/apprenticeships, travel, etc.

Not everyone is college material. For those people, they do what they can. They go to a vocational school, learn a trade, work at grocery stores or other places that don’t require degrees.

“College for everyone has become a matter of political correctness,” says Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University. “But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than a quarter of new job openings will require a bachelor of arts degree. We’re not training our students for the jobs that actually exist.” Meanwhile, the U.S. has begun to run out of welders, glaziers and auto mechanics—the people who actually keep the place running.

Source-

There is nothing wrong with vocational school. We need more laborers and less lawyers.

College is not the only avenue to travel for your career dreams. There are so many really good technical schools that can prepare you better than many universities.

Welcome to Fluther. Not everyone is cut out for college. Some don’t have the ‘talent’ for school, but may have other talents that will provide them a living. Following where your talents lie is what is important.

If you are not inclined towards college then by all means, don’t bother. A bachelor’s degree doesn’t mean much these days but excellence in almost any trade will get you a job virtually anywhere you go. I have a collection of letters behind my name but at my age they do nothing for me, my ability to trim someone’s poodle puts food on my table. And is a lot more fun.

@dontmindme: Diane Ravich was a college buddy of mine and a very smart lady; listen to her opinion.

(more laborers and fewer lawyers)

No. I suggest you take the Meyers Briggs personality test and after you get a general feel for your tyoe you can then research what your apptitudes are in terms of work/career.
I am the ENTP extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving type, and we are the entrepreneurs of the world.

I am a very bright person but the rigid structure of formal education could never hold my attention. We are all snowflakes and self discovery is the only true “education” one needs.

@gailcalled I appreciate the correction. thank you

@dontmindme: That was very gracious of you,

Tying in with @dontmindme‘s post is the growing concern that is degree inflation. Everyone getting a BA means that BAs mean less. This leads to a mad scramble through the letters and eventually devalues any degree, either through saturation or by forcing the schools to make their curriculum more accessible.

@dontmindme I would agree, but I also think there are problems with trade schools (mainly of the “for profit” variety) that make me hesitant to recommend them.

I don’t know if there is much that everyone should do, except things like eating and breathing and sleeping. The rest of it—well, nothing is for everyone. Not even college.

People should do what they want to do to prepare themselves for life. Life, not a job. That might include vocational school, apprenticeships, on the job training, work, travel, and many other things.

Now, if you are in school, and the teacher wants you to do a data collection project where you ask survey questions or open-ended question, I think they should teach you how to ask these questions. It is important to draft questions that are based in the literature. They should be tested on a small number of people before given to the public. They should be clearly related to the research question. They should be tightly focused.

Just saying—but I’m not sure I could begin to guess the research question here. I’m not sure I believe it even exists.

@wundayatta I agree 100%. Our teacher though, is very closed minded. She wants one distinct side to be taken, but in my opinion, the question isn’t black or white. There are shades of grey, and she doesn’t want us to express that. I can only support my argument FULLY when I actually believe something. If I don’t believe it, I can’t support it. I’m really stumped on what to do.

And to think that John Moses Browning, one of the most successful, most prolific firearms designers in the history of the industry, would not have gotten anything out of college.

Not everyone can move to Hollywood, get a job as a waitress, hire an agent, and hunt for an acting career.

Not everyone should go to college. Some people are not very academically oriented, or have a lot of trouble in school. What a waste of time and resources to force that child to try to go through 4 years of college.

Vocational schools are a great option. As long as someone can be trained in a particular field that they are interested in and the training is recognized by the industry as sufficient. My high school actually had vocational programs. Students could graduate with a cosmetology diploma, take the state test, and be ready to cut hair when they graduated. We also had automechanics classes, I am not sure if you could be licensed in some way at the end of that coursework, but I know a lot of the students had apprenticeships, auggie might remember better than I do.

I used to think college was the way to go. But now….I think tech schools are best. You get in and out quickly, fairly inexpensively, and you come out with an actual, relevant skill you can put to use almost immediately (Unlike a college graduate who has a degree in biology or business, whatever.)

Get a toe hold in the real world that way, then decide if college is the next step.

In addition to vocational schools, community colleges offer many course programs that are more career oriented than academically oriented.

Apart from career training, if a person has a particular academic interest and does not care about getting degree credits, the Internet provides plenty of learning opportunities. For example, there are free online lecture courses provided by MIT and some other highly rated schools. The courses include tests and student forums. My feeling is that such programs are going to be increasing and will offer a very attractive learning alternative.

Short answer:

No.

Long answer:

I do not think that everyone should pursue a bachelor’s degree, but I do think everyone should at least be encouraged to pursue some form of tertiary education. The mistake I think many people make is in thinking that education is primarily about employability. It’s not. Education is about many things, such as making life richer and more satisfying. Human beings are curious by nature, and education is intrinsically satisfying when done properly. This is why those who view education in purely instrumental terms will never understand its value.

That said, academics tend to overestimate the degree of education necessary for a good life. They also tend to forget that education can be pursued outside of academia. Vocational schools surely fall short of providing the sort of education needed to satisfy human curiosity, but they may help people secure jobs that give people enough free time to independently pursue those things that most interest them. Community colleges, meanwhile, typically offer programs of study containing an excellent balance of vocational training and general education.

The bottom line to me is this: if you wind up at a party and find you cannot talk about anything other than how to use a buzz saw, then you’ve made some sort of mistake; but if you wind up at a party and find you cannot talk about anything other than abnormal noun declension in Latin poetry, then you’ve also made some sort of mistake. Education should be about broadening our understanding of the world, not narrowing our focus to the point of being blind to everything else. We’ll know that we’ve achieved the proper balance when differences in profession do not keep us from relating to one another.

^^^^ Hear hear!!

I agree with @dontmindme as far as the political correctness of going to college. I’m in my 40’s and I was raised to believe anyone who didn’t go to college was a loser. My parents were horribly disappointed when I didn’t degree, they thought I had failed at life, somehow wasted a mystery opportunity and that my life would never be as good as if I had degreed. Lots of parents were programmed to believe this even when they didn’t go to college or degree.

My belief is kids need more interaction than goosing into advanced programs or aptitude tests for areas of study. Vocational courses alongside traditional studies used as community service requirement stuff or summer internships would give kids ideas and experience about needed functioning jobs and maybe challenge their minds to create, innovate. I don’t look at it as selling your kid downstream and that they’ll never envision anything greater than the task at hand. It’s more hands on applications of what’s in the head which many kids need to spark off on their own.

In 2050, almost everybody, yes.

@Neizvestnaya I don’t have any citations, but researchers I have worked with have told me this on several occasions. It is father’s education that matters when predicting the success of children.

I don’t know how that makes sense, but if it is true, then your decision is a wise one, so long as the father of your children has more education than you do. Your time is better spent on parenting than on improving your education.

I have to wonder if this will hold true over time, though. Surely, as women do better in the workplace, there will be a correlation between their education and their children’s success. But perhaps there is some hidden mechanism at work here that explains the correlation. But it is interesting to hear your reason for doing what you have done, and to note that it is a rational decision given the data.

@wundayatta: That’s an interesting idea about the father’s education. It certainly doesn’t hold with my families though where the fathers have many degrees and then the children don’t. In my husband’s families, several parents and their siblings are degreed doctors and several attorneys yet my guy didn’t degree at all. We’re kind of anxious for my husband’s 3 kids- I hope those researchers continue to miss our little realm.~