The College Gauntlet

There's a great article by Gary North over on the LRC. It's called Running the Collegiate Gauntlet at Age 17. It's about how wasteful, dangerous and useless going to college has become these days. He also gives his own advice on alternatives to the traditional college experience. I agree with most of what he says and I think this is a growing problem in America. General college cirriculum has been dumbed down and admission standards have been lowered. The quality of education and the edge it gives you has declined significantly while the price has risen astronomically. The environment on most campuses is more conducive to deliquent behavior than it is to learning. Aside from all this, perhaps an even bigger problem lies in people's perceptions about what a "college education" means. It is our expectations that are most important.

Going to college may still be a necessary step in our lives, (although many highly successful people do not go or end up dropping out,) but we shouldn't harbor illusions about what it really is and what it will do for us. So many have become convinced that college is the gateway to the middle-class lifestyle; to eternal financial security. As kids we are taught that we must graduate from college and that once we do we can find a good job and make money, as if a degree were some magic document that overnight endows us with much desired skills and above average intelligence. This view seemed confirmed to many of us because it seemed like that's the way things worked for our parents. That paradigm, if it ever existed, is no more. Everyone goes to college these days. If everyone does it, then it can't possibly give you a significant advantate. What it does is raises you up to (or maybe slightly above) the average. College is just a hoop to jump through. It does not by itself, constitute a real "education." It does not by itself, equip you to work in the real world, or (in most cases) provide you with any unique or marketable skills.

And it is afterall skills that matter in the professional world. Employers use the college degree to try and get around a regulatory and legal system that does not allow them discriminate on most factors. It is one of the last screening processes they have available to them and most use it extensively. However, in most cases it is just that, a screener. It is skills, productivity and the ability to learn that are really important to employers, not the degree. So, regardless of what degree a person is pursuing, our primary concern should be the acquisition of valuable skills. Some of those may come through formal schooling but most will not. As long as we understand that, although a college degree may not provide a lot of benefit, at least it won't mislead us or hamper our progress.