For Most People, College is a Waste of Time

Charles Murray:

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:
First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”
You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that’s the system we have in place.

One thought on “For Most People, College is a Waste of Time”

  1. Wow. Very interesting ideas. Could it work? There is a system much more like in place in Germany, for example, but they still have an intellectual class who goes off to university to do “god-only-knows-what” in the eyes of 75% of the population. It is just that postsecondary education is aimed at getting you certifications and into apprenticeships in a field you care about and can grow in.

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