A College Education is OVERRATED!!!

     Don't ask me why my blogs make such inflammatory remarks.  It's just that my opinions are not congruent with the social norm.  Now that I have said that...I'M GOING IN!

     Anyone who has known me closely in my professional life since I turned 28 knows the title of this blog has been my motto.  Once again as always my logic is undeniable.  Please don't misunderstand, I am not saying that an education is not important.  I absolutely believe that being educated should be top 5 in a persons life goals.  However I take issue with the education system as it is today. I will break it down for you into smaller more manageable bites, that way you may digest my points in sample size bits.  My first point will cover the cost of a college education and the financial burden it creates.  Second, we will discuss the meaningless courses and how course completion does not coincide with job requirements .  Lastly, I will contrast the differences between college learning and life experience.

     

     According to a study done by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics in 2010 using 2009 figures, the average cost for undergraduate tuition, room, and board was estimated to be $12,283 at a public 4 year institution and $31,233 at private institutions.  So just to be clear this means that the average graduate, roughly 22-24 years old, is left to embark on their pursuit of the American dream already burdened with somewhere between $50-120k of financial debt.  The rising cost of education and the burden it creates leads young grads to run out to try to snag any job to off-set this unfortunate circumstance.  It is due in large part to this sad fact that most grads do not venture into careers that will make this country, better yet the world a better place, fields like science, technology, agriculture, medicine, or any research field.  Instead they get sucked into less honorable professions like, investment banker, politician, or corporate executive who will trade their soul for a fast buck.  This trend of degrading talent keeps us from reaping the benefits of having the best and brightest working in industries and career fields that would lead to a better quality of life for us all.

     Is Ballroom dance an important course at a college university?  Alright, so that is a little outrageous, but a real course at some universities.  How about Arts History, we all had to take that one no matter what degree program you were in.  Unless you are pursuing a career as a critic, museum curator, or an artist yourself then chances are this course was of little use to you.  I know, I know there are several forms of artistic expression but my point is that unless you were planning a career in one of those fields, which would make this course a core requirement, then what good is just knowing this information?  I say all of this to say that there are classes that can be deemed worthless when it comes to completing your degree program.  I previously spoke about the large amount of debt that comes with a college education and I feel that excess classes contribute heavily to this ballooning cost.  To better illustrate my argument I will use an example to highlight my points.  Lets take a common concentration like Bachelor of Science in Accounting and dissect the course load as well as getting a job upon completion to support my claims.  Now, the course itself requires roughly 125 credit hours for to satisfy the syllabus.  That is a combination of core and elective courses.  I will concede that all of the core courses make sense and are necessary, however I take issue with the elective courses.  The degree program requires 6 hours general electives, sure take whatever you want, ballroom dancing anyone?  Then there are the 7 hours of scientific understanding electives, yeah go ahead and try to make the debate for the need for science for an Accountant.  Finally there is the 9 hours of cultural enrichment electives.  Remind me again why I should care if my accountant is culturally enriched, just make sure my money is making me more money!  Simple math says that all totaled the electives equate to 22 hours of non-essential course hours, which is almost a full year worth of meaningless courses.  This is the universities' way of getting paid a little extra, keep you in school, collect more on the tuition, room, and board...cha-ching!  God forbid you get bogged down with the work load and have to take a core subject over again because you failed it...mo' money, mo' money, mo'!!!  I'm sure that there are more expenditures from college life that I have failed or forgotten to list here but I think I have made my point.  So what about getting a job?  Lets say you complete the degree program as it is.  It will still be darn near useless to you.  You still need a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license, which requires that you complete 150 course hours before you can even take the exam.  This means you will probably have to take the Masters program.  Did I mention something about more money?


     Finally we come to the soul of my hypothesis.  This ideal is what led me to postulate my entire theory.  I am going to admit this right up front, the following is heavily opinion based.  However those opinions are derived ENTIRELY from experience.  Here we go!  Experience trumps a college education every time.  Now I am not going to debt that I am in the minority when it comes to that sentiment, but if you know me even a little then you will know that my arguments are primarily based on angles.  The angle that I am taking my approach to this particular blog rant is that I don't believe that a college education as it is structured today is as effective as it needs to be to develop young minds.  To aide me in this to paint clearer picture I will us the military as my example of experience.  For those of you unfamiliar with the military, all service members have a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) which means they have a primary job skill.  Each MOS has a structured training program that equips the trainee with the core skills necessary to perform their assigned duty.  From this training service members go straight to putting these skills to work.  The advantage this has over college is the hands on experience and the focus on the core aspects of the skill to be acquired.  Soldiers also get to make mistakes in a controlled environment and receive immediate candid feed back which empowers them to take action in the future with confidence, as oppose to college where the TA grades your assignments and all you can gather is that you got a passing grade so you must have done something right.  Another advantage of education by experience over college learning is the method of teaching.  It is a proving fact that true sustained learning is aided by involving as many senses as possible.  The military has this covered on all fronts!  Sight, sound, taste, smell, and feeling all come into play in almost all military training.  I use to personally subscribe to another principle of learning which was create a Significant Emotional Event (SEE).  This is where you use emotions to cement teachings.  I have found that there is no better way to induce this response, without causing any physical harm anyway, is vigorous physical exercise.  The good stress this creates on the body stimulates the mind therefore the learning curve is accelerated.  I would say this is a far better principle than classroom settings, lectures, and lack luster class participation.  Now, now don't bash me over the head just yet because I will concede that it has worked out fairly enough thus far, I'm just saying it can be better.  Ultimately you can just look at the difference between someone coming out of the military after 4 years versus 4 years spent in college.  I guess it's unfair because of the discipline that goes hand and hand with military service hence maturity is also a result.  


     Everyone please understand that I do not have a problem with "Higher Learning" I just think there is an over emphasis placed on colleges.  If you can't see that institutions in this country are becoming more and more a business with the focus being more on making money than about the education students are getting then you can't see the forest for the trees.  I mean think about it, news about cuts in teachers pay and jobs are constantly in the headlines meanwhile the CEO's, politicians, and Wall Street types who nearly ruined this country get bonuses, lavish salaries, and get to vote on their pay raises (Politicians).  I have my opinions and they are not void of recommendations of how to improve things.  First you can reduce the cost of a college education by merely cutting a year out of the current curriculum, thus getting rid of unnecessary courses.  Then improve the way lessons are taught by using more of a hands on approach, call it apprenticeship, internship, on the job training, whatever.  This will give students the experience they will need to be successful in the workplace.  I have other suggestions that I will share but not expound on, increase teachers salary, reduce class size, and lastly give teachers and students a personality profile test and match students and teachers by compatibility.