Which raises a question: If this is what college graduates do, why exactly are we in a hurry to send so many people to college?
Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of justifications for sending people to college — by which I actually mean, for subsidizing people’s attendance at college, and for maintaining a taxpayer-funded higher education apparatus. Probably the most important are:
- Creating wealth. College graduates earn more, so creating more college graduates will create more high-earners. A related argument suggests that rich societies have more higher education, so more higher education will make a society richer.
- Promoting public values. Higher education is supposed to be a place where our society’s highest values are nurtured and taught, ensuring that they are propagated to future generations.
- Encouraging critical thinking: Teaching people to think for themselves, not to accept what they’re told or to go along with the crowd.
- Maintain intellectual capital — like knowledge of history, ancient languages, philosophy, etc. — that is valuable for society as a whole, but not readily supported outside of an academic environment.
Okay, so how are we doing in serving those purposes? Not so great. I’ve written about this before, but here’s a sum-up.
