should we severely limit who gets into college?

[mikeford]

The entire system needs to change. Instead of requiring education to get a job, it should simply require knowledge/experience, and entry level jobs should not require much... because they're entry level, and that's where you should be able to go to acquire experience, and move up. It should be possible to get a job out of high school and only very specific jobs like doctor should require further education, and this education should be more applicable to the real world. I went to college for 3 years, I can't say I learned all that much that applied to my actual job, I just did it because I had to in order to get a job, not because it helped me be better at the job. I learned more during my summer break while working than I did in college. The same would be true for university, probably even more true, at least in college we did do SOME hands on stuff like Cisco.

College is like playing Magic the Gathering, many people who skipped college and went directly to work may have a very nice deck of 50 cards that lets them do very well at the job they have trained for. Graduate from a good college only has 30 or so of those good cards that let you do your job, but they also have two shoe boxes of cards you may never even have heard about that give them the ability to do completely different jobs, and make insights to your job you may never have considered.

To get an entry level job you need to be worth minimum wage doing it. The higher the minimum wage the less likely someone with no work experience will be worth the risk of hiring and training. This is why the average age in fast food is up to 29 years old.

 

[OverVolt]

To get an entry level job you need to be worth minimum wage doing it. The higher the minimum wage the less likely someone with no work experience will be worth the risk of hiring and training. This is why the average age in fast food is up to 29 years old.

No wonder they haven't messed up my sandwich in awhile. The benefits of a bad economy.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Poll isn't very descriptive.

My answer is simple: Absolutely NOT. We should not limit who wants to go to college and for what purpose. What SHOULD be restricted and what SHOULD be evaluted is what someone goes into college to study if they plan on having someone else pay for it. If they pay for their tuition by themselves on their own dime - by all means, NO restrictions there.

Our government (Read: Our Government = We The People that pay the taxes) is taking a risk every single time they loan a student money, under the principle that they will likely come out of college with a good building block for career foundation - and they will end up paying the loan back, and continuing to support the next foundation with their career taxes paid. Since the government (we the people) are the one's taking the risk, we should be evaluating if a risk is worth taking, or if it is astronomically out of proportion to the point where we might as well just put the cash in a bucket and set it on fire.

THAT is what limits should be placed on college. Which one do you go to: A slot machine that has a jackpot chance of 1 in 500, or a jackpot chance of 1 in 999,999,999?

Exactly.

 

[mmntech]

Everybody who wants to broaden their knowledge should be able to. I fully support fewer stupid people in the world. There's too many as is.

However, universities and colleges need to start being honest about job prospects for chosen programs. The follow your dreams mentality just doesn't work. We're asking 17 year old kids to make life altering decisions, and asking them to take on a lot of debt, while failing to provide them with the info to make an informed choice. High school students shouldn't have to go hunting to find job prospect stats for their chosen career field. It should be readily available. I know when I was that age, it wasn't.

Maybe the solution too is adjusting the loan programs to favour fields that are in high demand, and restrict those that are in low demand. Don't know if they already do that in the US. I know they don't here unless you're going in to medicine or something.

 

[Vdubchaos]

I don't believe people should have to pay to go to college.

Read: higher education shouldn't be a business

 

[Agent11]

You can't limit access to education while also undercutting manufacturing and labor in general with illegal immigration and international trade that impacts labor jobs the hardest of any sector.

People need to be able to live a life, if you make it impossible there will be issues.

The same applies for college graduates, perhaps there should be fewer visas given for positions that have high graduation rates and high unemployment rates here in the US.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

That isn't true now. I've never been to college and have a GED and work for a world wide manufacturer as an electronics technician making just short of 100K a year.

So no, your over broad statement isn't true.

A lot of people say this because they are either trying to justify the money they spent on their degree, or are just ignorant.

I dropped out of college because I A) Couldn't apply myself to the boring classes B) Wasn't gaining anything from the classes I was in (Majoring in MIS, a sort of DB IT degree, but not learning anything from them + having a majority of Accounting/eco classes that made it seem like a GB Degree).

I went the certs route and am in the same boat as you.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Everybody who wants to broaden their knowledge should be able to. I fully support fewer stupid people in the world. There's too many as is.

However, universities and colleges need to start being honest about job prospects for chosen programs. The follow your dreams mentality just doesn't work. We're asking 17 year old kids to make life altering decisions, and asking them to take on a lot of debt, while failing to provide them with the info to make an informed choice. High school students shouldn't have to go hunting to find job prospect stats for their chosen career field. It should be readily available. I know when I was that age, it wasn't.

Maybe the solution too is adjusting the loan programs to favour fields that are in high demand, and restrict those that are in low demand. Don't know if they already do that in the US. I know they don't here unless you're going in to medicine or something.

Overall good statement as far as a loan program that favors in-demand fields. However the prospect of expecting universities or any school to advertise "This field we are offering isn't very good for making money" is ludicrous. It's like telling McDonalds they have to advertise "This food will make you fat and kill you." or a car manufacturer that has to say "This car has a 55% chance of breaking down in the first 2 years". It's basically telling them to shoot themselves in the foot as far as revenue goes.

If you owned a business, do you think that's acceptable? It's not.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

No, we should aim for a population that is as educated as possible.

Our entire economic system needs to be overhauled though. When the robots (that will replace our Chinese peasant laborers) do all our work, people will starve because they will have no jobs, when the reverse is what should occur. Robots providing ultra-cheap, efficient labor should result in a massive increase in our standard of living, not make everyone poor. If everyone ends up poor, its because our economic system does not work.

When the USA is reformed into the USSA (United Socialist States of America), everything will be better.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

No, we should aim for a population that is as educated as possible.

Our entire economic system needs to be overhauled though. When the robots (that will replace our Chinese peasant laborers) do all our work, people will starve because they will have no jobs, when the reverse is what should occur. Robots providing ultra-cheap, efficient labor should result in a massive increase in our standard of living, not make everyone poor. If everyone ends up poor, its because our economic system does not work.

When the USA is reformed into the USSA (United Socialist States of America), everything will be better.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Someone can be educated in stupidity. Someone can be educated in playing videogames. Someone can be educated in fine dining. That doesn't mean it's education is worth anything. That doesn't mean it's education that has any demand (and thus, expect any money).

Our economic system is working just as designed - the problem is the rapid pace change and people not understanding it. You must adapt to what is in demand - or the skills you have will be useless.


Oh? You can put widget A into Socket B? Really? So can this machine that was built by 20 engineers. :|

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Not really. They just need to enforce more stringent standards in terms of academic performance. A degree based on a 2.X GPA from a mediocre college is of negligible value.

 

[Vdubchaos]

No, we should aim for a population that is as educated as possible.

Our entire economic system needs to be overhauled though. When the robots (that will replace our Chinese peasant laborers) do all our work, people will starve because they will have no jobs, when the reverse is what should occur. Robots providing ultra-cheap, efficient labor should result in a massive increase in our standard of living, not make everyone poor. If everyone ends up poor, its because our economic system does not work.

When the USA is reformed into the USSA (United Socialist States of America), everything will be better.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Robots are making more profits for the rich while middle class/poor lose the jobs and are worse off.

Welcome to America

 

[Hugo Drax]

The majority of people go to college so they can have an official work permit, not to further enrich thier worldly knowledge.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Yes

 

[Scarpozzi]

I think most people can agree that not everyone is cut out for education and that not all educators or universities/institutions do their jobs well.

College is as much about WHAT you learn, as it is about HOW you learn it. What I mean, is the whole purpose of a college education is to train scholars to be self sufficient in their careers. So you aim a kid toward a pile of books and eventually when they have questions, they will know how to answer them through research.

In some fields, college is about preparing students for exams or industry certifications. Med school and Law school are examples....where you have to pass industry exams to be state-certified to practice law or medicine.

In any case, if you flood the market with graduates, perhaps some of the business grads will create startups and create jobs. There's been a decline the past 2-3 years in college enrollment as a result of the economy. Sadly, many college graduates are walking out with $100k+ in college debt. Hopefully something changes to help drive those costs down for schools.

 

[Leros]

Yes. There are a lot of people who barely scrape by in college and then can't get a job when they graduate and end up making minimum wage. They'd be better off going to a trade school of some sort.

 

[SlickSnake]

We need sports colleges so we can stop pretending to educate dumb jocks and giving them wasted scholarships. You don't need a higher education to throw or bounce a ball for fucks sake.

 

[yuku]

I work for a large financial services firm. We've been hiring college graduates for 5+ years for our entry level positions in our records scanning area making $24-28k/year.

Those folks are way over qualified for their work. The smart ones figure out if they bust their butt and do a good job they'll be promoted in 6 months. In my department the only way you get in is if you have a degree or the specific job experience we are looking for.

Yeah, one must have a degree or the specific job experience in order to have a job.

 

[mammador]

I don't believe people should have to pay to go to college.

Read: higher education shouldn't be a business

So how is it funded? People simply don't want higher taxes.

 

[Stringjam]

I really wish people would stop saying "free" college.

The use of that term only serves to solidify the fact that you've probably never had a job and watched almost 40% of your wages disappear to pay for these "free" services.

 

[Mandres]

The solution to the degree inflation problem is to make student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy like most any other kind of debt.

Easy credit leads to big problems. We still haven't learned that yet...