How valuable is a college education?

It's curious why the American public is so afraid to provide a great public education system?

One of the root problems with public education is that government won't even define the role of public education. What is the purpose of public education? I doubt anyone on PF can come up with this answer. If we can't define the role, then how do we know if we've achieved our goals? If we can't define it, how can we even set goals?

Year in and year out, educators and the American public seem thrilled and satisfied with the 70% high school graduation rate. IMO achieving 70% is a miserable failure! And if education is so fricken important, why don't we provide a free public education up to an under-graduate degree?

Public education is just like all other government programs; broken and getting worse...

 

I think we can agree on a lot of this. To me public education, or education in general, should be about teaching skills and helping us to understand a very complex world. We should be taught how to read, write, and do arithmetic along with how to think critically and to think about the whole of the human experience.

70% is much too low. I agree. That means 30% of the population is running around without a high school degree in a world that is increasing in complexity year after year. It needs to be 90-95%.

Btw, I think free college education should be offered up to any degree, not just undergraduate. But we should AT least provide the OPPORTUNITY to get an undergraduate degree. And I want to be clear I mean OPPORTUNITY only. If someone does not have the intellectual capacity to perform in a university, then our society should allow them to do other things without living in poverty. But for those who can achieve, money should not be an obstacle.

And this is where we disagree .

 

I bet everyone can come up with an answer, but all of them will be different.

 

College education is not as valuable as it should be. Mostly because Government has devalued the worth of a college degree.

 

College is a great thing and will fill about 10% of your government job requirement. Colleg is not worth going in debt over. It is not worth taking out a loan to go to college. There are many avenues to go to college and borrowing money is not one of them. Neither is sucking off the family.

Right now the military has a great college plan: it offers money for education as well as education and training for those who can qualify. It also offers work experience in just about every field of the private sector, and it can make a leader out of you in 2-3 years, and a supervisor of many people. Regardless of your job in the Army, as a leader you are responsible for their health safety and training of others. And you will succeed, because failure is not an option, Yo can't quit nor can you fire anyone. No other job can offer you so much in 4 years. None.

You will gain independance, integrity, and be able to make firm critical decisions under sever pressure. You will get to travel, and operat the most sophisticated multi million dollar equipment not yet available to the world. If you like adrenalin, the military is full on pumped up adrenalin 24/7, and once you do the things Combat Arms offers, everything else in life will be boring. Because, there is no other rush you get from the things you do in the US Army Infantry. You will know what hard work and struggle is like and you will make sacrifices for your service. In addition, you will learn to be part of a superior functioning team, able to accomplish any task. Your confidence and skills will be so great that you can work off many hours without sleep, or food. And it will not affect your production. You will learn to plan and orgainze tasks and acheive all your goals in the military and in life.

It is not easy to qualify, and only a few will ever make it in. The 1 percenters of the US population. If you can succeed in the US Army Combat Arms, everything else in life is gravy. Your level of performance will be second to none in the civilian world even college and grad school, both a cake walk.

So is college valuable? sure, but only of small value when you compair it to what life demands and what you can acheive before you even get to college.

No, Im not a recuriter.

But rember this, if you make the military a career, you will sacrifice something, be it physically and/or mentally. Every one who serves gives a little of themselves, a little something.

 

You need that degree to score that job; plain and simple.

It's not fair, but that's just how it is.

 

No. But it helps to get them higher up the unemployment queue.

This is a benefit. It encourages optimism in the American dream.

 

If they're all different, then none of them are the answers. My primary problem is our government probably cannot define the mission of the public education system. I've looked briefly on the Dept. of Education website and found nothing.

For all I know we're as happy as pigs in (*)(*)(*)(*) to achieve a 70% high school graduation rate?! Maybe the goal was 55%?

If we cannot define where it is we wish to go...how can we possibly plan a way to get there...

 

A college education has NOTHING to do with government. This is YOUR choice to pursue or not! This is your choice to determine the value of higher education. Obviously you have no idea about your personal goals or the assets you will need to achieve those goals. Once you know this, you can decide if further education has any value to you...

 

It's probably the best way to insure yourself an 8 dollar an hour job.

 

It can be great if you go in with uber in-depth focus, knowing exactly what you want to do, can do, will do, without error. Most kids have no clue, and the schools feed on it. Entreprenuers are what we need, not automatons. School from the elementary stages is garbage as we've known it per the baby boomer era, and it keeps getting worse. They don't teach what you much of you really need to know or prepare you for the real world.

 

Not having an education insures you have an 8 dollar job.

 

Not true. I know plenty of people from iron workers, to fabricators, to pipe fitters, who make a good wage. The list goes on and on. The number one problem to not getting better than 8 dollars an hour is forever settling for 8 dollars an hour.

 

Ah, you are so refreshing and funny. Unfortunately,as the saying goes, it is sad but true. So, if Our consumer driven economy is dead, what now. The Crew of the popular series "Star Trek" didn't seem to be worried about making money. Well get into this in another thread. Thank you t.t.l.d. for your affirmative for the basis for the new thread.

 

Don't believe the hype. A college education is essentially worthless. If you can't form an original thought, you're worthless to an employer, unless you get a job in the public sector.

 

...and having one insures you'll be first in line for that 8 bucks an hour. Just enough to pay for gas to get to work, eat lunch and pick up some Ramen noodles on the way back home for your next swing shift. Cheap labor is all corporate "businesses" want these days, and they're not looking for anything more than 8 dollar an hour over educated lemmings. The ever popular "less in more" corporate strategy that is all the rage in the world of profit and rape these days.

 

There ya go! GO to college. Go into debt! It'll all pay off one day............NOT.

 

Well, the Wisconsin "business" mentality will fix that soon..

 

If you think for one second that not getting a college education versus getting one is a way to be financially better off in the long run, due to not having student loans.... you are misguided to say the very least.

 

...and if you think a college education and absorbing ridiculous amounts of debt at age 22, is the best way to try and insure you'll have a future YOU'RE seriously BSing yourself. Not today buddy. Not in the current "corporate" climate. Less is MORE.

 

I guess all high school graduates should work minimum wage jobs and merely work their way up the corporate ladder, or create small businesses. Based upon your opinion, that's the proper thing to do.

 

It depends on what one goes into. Obviously, medical or engineering are sure things. However, we have millions going to school, avoiding the private sector for the easy loans hoping things will turn around, and if things don't turn around, I have nothing but sympathy for the "Art History Major" in the private sector trying to pay off 50k-200k in loans at the same wage as those who never went to school. The difference in those two lifestyles will be greatly favoring the person who picked an industry and simply stuck with it.

 

The differential in wages earned is enormous. Sure, at this very moment, jobs are hard to come by for everyone, and so a lot of college grads are waiting tables. Things will get better, and when they do, those with degrees will be much better positioned to take advantage. To look at the college grad waiting tables and projecting that out for their lifetime is just being foolishly short sighted.

 

That is the Walmart dream. Start cheap. Stay cheap. (or we'll get somebody else). You're "really educated"? Great!!! You get to be department manager in charge of restocking orange juice.