Everyone,
 
Thank you for your responses. I must say, however, that they made me
extremely frustrated. Did anyone actually read the message?
 
Matt:
 
I'm not worried at all about the value of my diploma. I know that I will
get a decent job. I'm not majoring in political science, I'm majoring in
Finance and MIS, which I clearly stated in the "downloading" message
which I was thoughtlessly attacked for, which are two of the most
recruited majors here. I am worried that millions of people, people who
can't afford it without going into debt (unless the government plans on
making it free) are going to be duped into thinking that by sending
their kids to college, they will all get that "piece of the pie" that
Rhia spoke of. That's not even true now, and it will be less true if
EVERYONE has a bachelor's degree, if "college is as universal as high
school." As Adam pointed out, I never said that we should keep lower
class people out, I said that colleges should be allowed to maintain
standards of acceptance. I lauded efforts to help the poor afford
college. I specifically stated that I think it is a tragedy when a
brilliant person cannot go to college because they don't have the money.
Helping poor people get to college and helping EVERYONE get into college
are two separate things.
 
Adam:
 
While I appreciate your praise, unfortunately you missed the mark as
well. Early in the message I said that I agreed with Tara that college
encourages people to think, that my parents see it as an investment and
therefore I am a business major, but I believe in a liberal education,
and so I am minoring in Pol. Sci. and History. (I LOVE my Western Civ
class!)
        If people want to go to college for the education, regardless of job
opportunities, as Tara was talking about, I think that is great. What I
was criticizing is the fact that Clinton is selling the whole idea by
promoting college as a way to get better jobs. And if everyone has the
same degree, there are still going to be people stuck in low paying
jobs, because those jobs are not going to go away unless we use
children, illegal immigrants, or robots. And while some of those people
may be content, knowing that they are smart, many more are going to be
upset and disillusioned, many poor people who saw college as the way out
and saved money and took out government loans and have nothing to show
for it (financially). Now, hopefully many will be satisfied with their
increased intelligence. But many will not, and they will have been lied
to.
 
Carrie:
 
Don't get me wrong, business classes can be challenging. I hear from
business majors to expect those GPA's to fall once I hit the high level
classes. They are difficult. But they aren't challenging in the same way
that a political science or philosophy class might be, which is probably
easier to get a high grade in. They don't make you think about yourself
and your world in different ways. I am thinking primarily about
Accounting and Finance and MIS. Now, you are, I think, in Marketing,
which is a little different since you are looking at society and
examining it (so you can exploit it, hee hee, I had to get that in). But
the thing is, America's business world was created by liberal ed majors,
before Business was a program of study. (The entrepreneurs of the 20's
knew the value of community and culture and gave a lot back, such as
Rockefeller and Carnegie and Ford. They were the products of different
types of educations and backgrounds, which today's yuppie business major
doesn't share.) I just don't think that the sheltered world of the
business school creates well rounded students. Thus, the Miami Plan.
 
Nick:
 
I can't really say that you didn't get my point, because you don't say
whether you are agreeing with me or not. You say that we should not
simply think of education as an economic function. I agree. While we
cannot ignore that it is one, I agree with what you said about thinking
and learning about different ways of thinking. But the President doesn't
talk about having a smarter population, he talks about telling our
youngsters that they can go to college and work hard and get better
jobs. If he stands up there and says, I want to make college universal
so that you can all be smarter, but it doesn't guarantee a job, that's
one thing. That would be honesty. (By the way, I think we could learn
quite a bit from a room full of "white Catholic men", for I don't think
any institution better understands the idea of "we are not alone", or
the importance of community for the transmission of culture, than the
Catholic church. And they don't have to be white, Catholicism is highly
prevalent in Latin American countries. And they don't have to be men, we
usually here about the nuns. But that is just an aside.)
 
Rhia:
 
I hope you weren't tracking me down with violent intentions!! You bring
up a good point, and that is the increase in jobs as a result of higher
education. But do you think that all of these jobs will be the type that
require a college education? Suppose that our economy starts growing
even faster than it is now. Companies expand, jobs are created, more
production plants and stores are opened. Yes, there are more jobs, and
yes, many of these will be executive-type jobs which college grads can
fill. But here's the thing: Businesses have a hierarchical structure.
For every manager, there are several plant managers and even more floor
managers and a bunch of manual laborers. Or for every General Manager
there are several District managers, even more Store managers, and a
bunch of clerks. So more of these lower-end jobs will be created than
higher income jobs. Even if this isn't the case, even if you were to
find examples to the contrary, just think of it this way: Low-skill jobs
will ALWAYS EXIST. And as long as they exist, someone is going to have
to fill them. And if EVERYONE has a college degree, then by gosh,
college grads are going to have to fill these jobs. I really wish that
you would use more substantive arguments rather than rhetoric about
revolution and the powerful fearing the educated masses and pieces of
the pie. You say that my argument about disappointed poor families is
inaccurate. How so? You go on to use the rhetoric about education giving
people "a piece of the American pie." What exactly are you referring to?
You are talking about wealth, and you are talking about jobs. When
people listen to others saying the kinds of things that you said, they
get the message loud and clear: If I send my kid to college he or she
will get a better job than if I don't; we will get a piece of the pie.
But as I have argued (and no one has yet to refute), this will simply
not be the case. Now, it could be, if their child is one of the more
intelligent and harder working and picks a major with high job
opportunities. But otherwise, they will be underemployed as many are
now.
 
Everyone, ask yourself this question: what would things be like, if
everyone has a college degree, and things aren't as bad as I am making
them out to be, when suddenly... Recession? Massive layoffs, even more
un- and underemployed college grads. We are at the mercy of much more
than education. For crying out loud, Asia could have a recession and it
could shake our economy.
 
Anyone who wants to argue, "fine, well at least everyone will be more
educated," I agree that this will be a positive result. My whole point
is this: We should not be selling the idea of universal college with
fables about endless job opportunities and Instant Pie. American Pie,
like American cheese, is highly processed. (That statement had no
meaning, I just thought it sounded good.) If we are going to argue for
universal college, we have to argue for it on the basis of the benefit
of a more educated society.
 
Even so, I would still disagree with this idea. Before we make a college
education as universal as a high school education, I think that we need
to make a high school education universal. That is, what we define as a
high school education needs to be improved, and it needs to be attained.
Proficiency tests aren't that tough, and yet thousands fail them, maybe
more. If the government is going to spend money on education, it should
be in the lower levels. I don't have any problem with Head Start, or
Americorps, at least the ideas behind them; I don't know enough details
to say whether I think they are the best route, but nothing will be
perfect. I think that the President is trying to pass the buck. Public
middle and high school educations have failed in many areas due to
historical, social, and economic conditions. And I perceive this
universal college education as a way to give students in poor (income
and quality) school districts the education they should have gotten in
high school by sending them off for another 2-4 years, and saying Wow,
aren't you special, you've got a college degree! But really, the federal
goverment can't do it alone, nor should it. It requires initiatives by
states, counties, and cities, and most importantly, communities and
families. If we are really talking about the value of education for the
sake of education, then let's improve it across the board, starting with
elementary, middle, and high schools. The government has taken
initiatives in this direction, but I think it must complete them before
this whole universal college thing is even approached.
        And once again, I don't think that college is for everyone. Many people
can easily afford to go, and could easily get in, but choose not to go
or drop out early. I know several people like this. They just don't have
the motivation. And that will be true of many. What I am afraid of is
not that my degree will be "worth" less, but that every degree will MEAN
less. And I do not mean on the job market, I mean that quality standards
will have to be lax to allow everyone in. This means lower quality
colleges, which means lower quality educations, which means that, just
as we have now, the privileged will go to the exclusive schools and they
will get the better educations and the better jobs. Instead of the high
school grad vs. college grad distinction, we will have the low standard
college vs. high standard college distinction. Those low paying jobs,
which won't go away, will be filled by the low standard students. And
the low standard college students won't get the same wonderful education
that challenges them to think as Tara and Nick and Rhia talk about.
 
Think of it as a graph. Draw it if it helps. On the x axis you have
average incomes, on the y axis you have the number of jobs at those
incomes. You draw a curve, it starts high on the left, it probably
starts sloping downward slowly, then more rapidly as it approaches the
high income levels. Lots of low income jobs, fewer high income jobs.
        Then change the x axis to years of education, and the y axis to the
number of students with this level of education. Ignoring the fact that
in some fields even PhD's are low payed (such as college professors),
which really only helps my argument anyways, draw this graph. I have no
idea what it looks like, but I'll guess that since there are more poor
people than other groups, and they can't get into college as easily, the
graph will look quite similar when drawn next to the other one. Lots of
people with less education to fill low income jobs, fewer with
post-graduate work for the high income ones.
        Now, imagine that college is universal. Almost everyone has at least a
bachelor's degree. Now, your college grad graph is going to be much
lower in the low education areas, shoot up, level for a long time, and
then take a dip in the higher levels, requiring Master's or PhD's. With
the exception of the lower education levels, the curve will be much
higher across the board than the first one.
        But what about that income graph? Let's say that this increased
education does in fact improve the economy and job availability, and the
entire curve shifts upwards a little bit. It will either retain its
shape or become even more skewed on the side of lower income levels,
since businesses are generally hierarchical. Now you have more jobs at
each level of pay, but the distribution is generally the same.
        You see? Now you have all these people qualified for these great jobs,
but the jobs just aren't there. The lower income jobs didn't go away,
but the people who have just the right education necessary to fill them
have (they've gone away to college). So now most people have to settle
for lower income jobs which they are overqualified for.
        But wait! By flooding the job market, at a higher rate than economic
growth can sustain, wages will fall across the board. Shift that whole
income vs. #jobs graph to the left. What do you have now?
A Big Mess.
 
That's enough, anyone who read all of this, I applaude you.
 
Dave S.
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