The-Ave.US

Yes, I’d say, if they can do the work.

Knowing more, and possessing better thinking skills, is always better.

But I’m against dumbing down curricula or relaxing grading standards so everyone can pass.

If they can’t or won’t study enough to pass exams, they shouldn’t get a degree. A degree should signify educational attainment. People who spend their entire college careers partying instead of studying shouldn’t be shoveled out into society with fake credentials.

I realize this discriminates against low achievers and ungifted people. Laziness doesn’t deserve sympathy, and what I’ll say about intellect is that IQ isn’t everything. Being intelligent and smart are two different things. Plenty of average people are smart, and there are stupid geniuses. What more is there to say on that subject?

All honest work is honorable, so let’s decouple social status from occupation. It’s dumb to judge people by what they do, and smarter to judge them by how well they do it. A hard-working janitor is more reputable than a lazy or incompetent doctor.

Let’s also discard the notion that colleges only exist to train people for jobs in the economy. That’s a fallacy. Knowledge is an end in itself, and besides you never know when it might come in handy. Universities are our principal repositories of knowledge, so you should go to college to learn about things you’re interested in. They don’t have to be useful, merely fascinating is plenty good enough, and social utility and/or economic needs shouldn’t limit what colleges teach.

There’s the little business of college expenses. That’s not a problem for everyone. If you’re a kid whose parents are serving prison time for trying to buy a college placement for you through a crooked middleman who faked your athletic credentials to get you in, your problem more likely is explaining to them (after they get out) that you didn’t really want to go to college anyway, you prefer to bum around Europe on their money.

But as a practical matter, most people not in that category of familial support do find it necessary to make their degree pay in some way. We all have to make a living somehow, excluding those who don’t, of course. Probably a majority of people who attend college do look at it as training for an occupation, although they may have no idea what it is they’re training for. Nowadays, their future job may not even exist yet.

There’s an article here with survey data on reasons people gave for not attending their first choice of college. I’m not sure it’s relevant to anything I’m writing about here, but it doesn’t matter, it’s an interesting bit of knowledge. (I always just assumed it was because they couldn’t get in.)

I also have a chart here showing what percent of Americans had four-year degrees at various times since 1940. When I graduated, a little over 10% of the U.S. population were college graduates, so I obviously did it for snob appeal. Many of my contemporaries did it for draft deferments, figuring it was better to be bored to death in lectures hall than shot to death in Vietnam. I recall a sociology professor telling me he wouldn’t flunk anybody because he didn’t want their deaths on his conscience. A lot of students, especially males, signed up for his class.

Anyway, you can tell if someone is serious about knowledge and learning. All you have to do is listen to them. Are we getting collectively dumber, despite more of us (nearly 38% as of 2019) now having four-year degrees? Isn’t it obvious? (Do I need to explain that?)

This flood of degree-holders into society from our institutions of higher learning is causing angst, and prompting articles like this one, wherein it is written that our nation is plagued with a “college-is-for-everyone fantasy.” Reference is made therein to “sorely needed jobs in communities across the country” and a pressing need to “collectively change our psyche and fundamentally shift how we think about the role of education and entry into the workforce” because “many of the jobs supported by [Biden’s] infrastructure bill — jobs in fields like construction, carpentry and plumbing — don’t require a four-year college degree.”

Really? Is there some reason why construction workers can’t have degrees in history or business management? Just for their own enjoyment? You also might get smarter voters if more people go to college.

But only if college isn’t dumbed down. If you’re going to let students get away with ignorance, what’s the point of teaching them?

Return to The-Ave.US Home Page