Are universities manipulating peoples core beliefs for profit?

The education system is broken. Most people acknowledge that. I hope no one thinks a college education is mandatory for being happy, because it isn’t, especially since it puts people in debt for decades.

I’m still not entirely sure how a college education is equated with a soul mate. Care to elaborate?

@RandomGirl Someone whose believes so strongly that the other person or school is the one. If one ruins a chance then it is never given a second chance. Like your life is ruined if you don’t do your best not to mess things up… like fighting fate…and losing serenity if you don’t play the game right to the point that people are willing to change or corrupt themselves just for one in a thousand shot at a chance to be a certain social status.

I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t think college is for everyone, but at the same time it is really hard to get into many feels without having that degree. That, and people without a degree many times will not get paid the same amount as someone with one. That being said, I prefer the way technical schools are run; they give you hands on experience. It makes the most sense. Unfortunately, they are looked down upon when compared to high rank universities. Why? I’m not sure. I don’t think the education system makes it seem like it is mandatory so much as companies themselves.

A lot of people view college as a time to learn a profession, and they want to learn at the place that will get them the best opportunity once they get out.

But college isn’t really that way. And yes, many universities don’t promote the value of a liberal arts education, but push themselves as a place to get hired. So yes, universities are manipulating things to attract students that value the school.

Sorry, but this Idea of universities tricking people sounds ridiculous to me. I am one of those people who thinks not everyone needs a college education. I think the media goes too far promoting the idea that everyone does. I hate that some people without an education feel badly, like they are judged, if they don’t have a college degree. But, to compare it with having a soulmate? Or, as a mandatory for being happy? Nope, I don’t see it. Education is about expanding your knowledge base, or about career, or both. How can that be a trick?

Education is also partly a necessity to be competitive with the next guy fighting for the position in the company. But, that is market driven somewhat, not university driven.

My husband never went to college. He began working right after high school. He hated school and didn’t feel that college was a good fit for him. At his current job with a company he hopes to one day retire from, all managerial positions require a college education. So, if he does retire without a degree, he’ll never be more than an assembler.

Is college for everyone? No. Is it mandatory to be happy? No. Is it required for a vast number of jobs in almost every field? Yes. So, are colleges tricking people? No.

Any intelligent person will know what college is for and what options they have if they’d rather not go.

Hmmm, this is a weird conspiracy to stumble upon on a Saturday morning. My first question is, who is making all this profit you’re talking about? At least in Canada (where you and I are), universities are currently going through very hard times, and seeing budgets slashed everywhere. And universities are individual institutions, with different structures and characters; they don’t work as a team.

I think part of the problem is that students enter university while they are still quite young, and many don’t have clear goals for their own future. They don’t stop and think about what a university education is for, or about exactly how it is supposed to help them meet their career goals. They think they can plunk down their money, put in a predetermined amount of time, and be rewarded with a job of their choosing. It doesn’t work like that – and no one ever promised that it would. Getting an education is about getting an education. It is not a commodity to be bought and then traded for a career. It’s up to the graduate to find a way to apply what they learned in the workplace – assuming they even chose the right degree to do that.

It strikes me as very strange to put this in terms of “soul mates…” But I think I agree with the essence of the process you have identified, just not the agents. I don’t think “the universities” are “tricking us.” I think you are looking at a decades-long process of economic and social change, and taking a manifestation of change to be the cause itself.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot for the past few years.
In the U.S. at least, college education is considered all but necessary to either become middle class, or remain so. This has taken at least half a century, starting with the GI Bill and the university contestations of the 60s, which allowed ever wider swathes of the population to seek university education that had previously been primarily reserved for rich WASPs. The economic crisis that began in 1973, signaling the decline of manufacturing in the West, made it all the more necessary that Westerners seek higher education to differentiate themselves in an increasingly service-oriented economy. At the same time as these economic and social shifts, the price of American university education (even at public schools) has been rising through the decades.

Now, today, it is common for students to apply to colleges or universities that their parents can’t really afford, and so they take out enormous loans and work themselves ragged trying to pay their whole way through. As a colleague of mine puts it very aptly, students now graduate college with a mortgage but no house. And yes, I would say this is because people think that going to college is the only way to be happy, to be a ‘real’ person (married, with full employment and the ability to buy status symbols and a house). That’s why they’ll make the commitment, or what they see as an ‘investment,’ of $30,000 a year of loans.

To someone who thinks they absolutely need a college education, I would ask them what they want to do with their lives, and what they believe the point of education is. Do they feel this way because they think it’s the only way to be a real person? Or do they feel this way because they know what they want to do, and college education is the way to do it?

I would dissuade students from starting college full-time if they don’t yet have a goal and a clear vision of what they’re doing. I would also counsel them to attend the cheapest school that they get accepted in, and make the best of every resource available to them there.

@bookish1 What sucks is the cost. I believe part of the reasons the tuition prices have gone up is because of the availability of loans. I think the loans had a bad side effect that hurts us in the long run. Hurts the student who takes on the burden, and creates a false market, a bubble of what people are willing and able to pay for school.

It’s true the availbility of a college education in the past was mostly for the people who had more money, except in some cties, like NYC, there were very good city colleges where students had free tuition. But, BUT, the schools took the cream of the crop. Very poor students who had a desire for a college education, they had to test well to get in, they did not miss an excellent college education because they were poor. The city colleges in NY might be different now. I know many inner city colleges, especially some of the community colleges, the students can barely do work at a ninth grade level. Personally, I don’t believe in giving them scholarships, and loans, and telling them they should strive for a college degree. My girlfriend was teaching at a jr. college, she could only stand it for ne year, because she was pressured to pass the kids, and their work was way below par. I am not saying this is true for all community colleges, all I am saying is this trend that everyone should have a tertiary education is backfiring.

What I do think though, and I think maybe you will agree, is the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge sake seems to be withering away. I find that unfortunate. It has become so expensive that when people take a college class or pursue a degree, the question always is, “what will you do with it? Is it worth the expenditure.”

Of course they are!
They used to be run with the idea that Education was on the top of there lists, but now
Universities are run by Business people bent on making money.
Only a small percentage of University students actually move onto Professional
Careers.
What happens to the rest? They spend years TRYING to get that Degree, meanwhile
spending.

Huh?

Why does instruction continue to suffer when general operating incomes, especially student fees, have increased faster than inflation?
Why are increases of even this magnitude not enough?
One possibility: many top universities have set themselves the task of joining the elite group of world leaders.
They’ve appointed highly driven executives who, in turn, have built burgeoning support teams. These are big-salary employees.
The very exercise of pursuing higher rankings within global academia may be deflecting funds away from the classroom, increasing the financial burden on students and lowering standards in undergraduate education.

Have Canada’s top universities become preoccupied with status rather than excellence?
From website:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/14/where-all-that-money-is-going/
Here is ( part of) one article that appeared in 2010 to explain the problem better.

Just to clarify College and University are two different identities.
Here in Canada University Education costs have almost tripled.

@Inspired_2write I am looking into MOOC’s for a free education, problem is all the classes I want are full.

@Inspired_2write In America the main difference between a college and university, is a university offers graduate level courses and degrees. Even if we attended a university most people refer to our degree as a college degree. We don’t refer to colleges as universities though. In fact the only time Americans usually use the word university is when we specifically Are referrng to the name of the school. In some countries people say they “attended university” but that is very rarely said in America.

You wrote: “One possibility: many top universities have set themselves the task of joining the elite group of world leaders.
They’ve appointed highly driven executives who, in turn, have built burgeoning support teams. These are big-salary employees.
The very exercise of pursuing higher rankings within global academia may be deflecting funds away from the classroom, increasing the financial burden on students and lowering standards in undergraduate education.”

What exactly do you mean by that? How does that raise tuition prices?

In short, the analysis confirms what students and faculty have long suspected: a disproportionate share of new income has been used not to maintain quality, but to expand the central bureaucracy. That is especially vexing for students, who have absorbed huge fee increases. In 1987–88, the average top 25 university derived $24 million, or 15 per cent, of operating income from fees. Last year, it was $160 million and 34 per cent. For this, students face larger class sizes and, increasingly, teachers who aren’t much older than they are.
Directly quoted from the same article.