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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Robinson" data-source="post: 1452738" data-attributes="member: 18849">Maybe things are coming full-circle in an overdue manner.Pre-WWII, a person went to college to prepare for a profession (law, medicine, or engineering/science), teaching, or to be an academic (i.e., teach in college).  To teach in public school, when my grandmother went less than a hundred years ago, it was a two-year degree.  High school was serious and most people did not graduate high school.  My wife's grandfather was a banker and his education was a high school diploma and a correspondence course in banking.  Jobs like nursing, hospitals had training programs.It changed due to wars.  Post WWII a bunch of GI's were coming back, and maybe to keep unemployment down the GI bill would send them to college.  College was more serious back then, and they surely got something out of it, but it made a lot more graduates so employers began to ask for degrees when used to they did not--if the graduates were out there, why not?Then during Vietnam, going to college was a way to get a deferment, so more and more people went.  At the same time, since that was where all the guys were going, the women started showing up to get MRS degrees.  So again, more people going to college meant more employers arbitrarily asking for degrees.  A degree showed a person could stick to something, and the education still meant something.Two things happened around this time.  The hippies hated western civilization, so lobbied to turn the core curriculum (American history, world history, western literature, etc.) into a bunch of mush.  Used to going through the core curriculum could produce a well-read and well-informed person.  Now it really does not mean anything.  I agree with others, it ought to be dropped outright.Then, the Dept of Education was created in the late 1970's.  Before that, the administration of a typical small college was the college president, the dean, the president's secretary, a book keeper, and not much more.  Now, to get goodies from the feds they had to hire lots of administrators to fill out forms and prove compliance.  Thus here we are today when colleges have more administrators on the payroll than professors.  Someone has to pay those administrators.Speaking of administrators, when I started college, it was at a science/engineering school and every president for the last hundred years had been a scientist in one of the fields the school taught.  Traditionally, he taught one class a semester.  That changed, and in came a president who had been an administrator.  Instead of a focus on quality education it became a spreadsheet about the bottom line, mainly by promoting the school while (I suspect) lowering the academic rigor to boost enrollment by a 1/3rd or more.  Added some dorms, most new professors were adjunct and not tenure track, and I suppose the money rolled in.Another hit was the 2008 financial crash.  I suspect it was engineered when McCain was ahead in the polls, so as to give the lead to Obama.  Who then took pains to keep the country down.  In my field I saw wages go down during that time period, and I felt sorry for anyone graduating those years.  More kids went to college and more stayed for advanced degrees trying to ride out the recession.  Which functionally ended after Trump came to power.  The point is, yet more people were going to college.Along the way, anything bad happening, the government was supposed to fix it.  Administrators got into an arms race to add luxury dorms, lazy rivers, weight rooms, etc., to attract students.  Textbook publishers consolidated then saw not reason to keep costs down.  Since the government was supposed to do something, the costs got paid for by student loans guarenteed by the American tax payer, with no regard to what the students were actually studying.You could throw in the "toxic masculinity" thing, and guess who are masculine?  Welders, pipe fitters, plumbers, oil field workers, mechanics, electricians, construction workers, linemen, etc.  The guys we actually really need.  What do you think a soyboy did?  Go to welding school or go to college for a liberal arts degree?  By the way, "liberal arts" was coined in ancient times because liberal (free ) arts were what the free (i.e., upper class) did to pass the time.  For a living people engaged in servile arts.  I do not think it would have occurred to many that a person could make a living at liberal arts back then.  Only truly exceptional people could hope to gain a patron to support their philosophical musings, astronomy, etc.Anyway we need to go back to where we were about a hundred years ago. It worked just fine.  Make high school mean something, promote correspondence courses for specific tasks, and leave college for the professions.  How to do that, well, anyone who hires people, stop asking for college degrees.</blockquote>

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