Fingers run in irritating tip-toes on the keyboard behind my back. To my right: Obnoxious images of strangers on Facebook are flashing across the screen. I’m caught between this and what’s on another screen: the irresistible new winter line at Urban Outfitters. I take a gander over the shoulder of the student in front of me, and I can watch a high-speed zombie pursuit in action. Yes, this is academia. College education is becoming less and less what I hoped for every semester.
However, we can’t blame technology for attention deficits anymore than we can blame frat parties for dropout rates. The fact is that not everyone is cut out for college, and with average state tuition prices going up by more than eight percent this year and the overall student loan debt toll reaching $1 trillion, maybe it’s time to begin weeding out the growing stock of bandwagon-hopping underachievers.
Recent generations of high-school grads—even those who don’t have genuine interest in furthering their education—go to college so they don’t have to get it together for at least another four years. In today’s middle class, if you decide against college, you are pretty much shunned. Sure, college can be inspiring and provide the insight needed to successfully put you on the right career path. The reality is, though, that many people don’t have the kind of work ethic to make that happen.
Now President Obama wants to bail out some of the massive student debt that has, for the first time in history, exceeded credit card debt.
Making it easier to pay off debt doesn’t seem like the best solution. Instead, our nation’s higher-education system should be less about making a profit and more about finding students with the right potential to pursue an education. In Germany, for instance, getting into college requires passing several challenging tests to prove preparedness for college curriculum. It would also help if high schools and our culture in general placed more emphasis on the importance of technical jobs and apprenticeships as other powerful nations do.
The increasing amount of disinterested students must contribute to why so many college graduates are waiting tables. It might not necessarily be all their fault—college may be becoming too easy and not preparing people enough for the reality of what goes on outside of campus.
Temple photojournalism professor Edward Trayes has taken action by keeping his curriculum so demanding that students often eventually leave the program. He’s doing them a favor, though. What’s a college degree worth if you don’t have genuine passion for what you’re studying? More professors seem to be dumbing down expectations, catering to an ever more lazy and disinterested student body and creating boatloads of underprepared grads.
“There’s no magic switch that’s going to be flipped when you graduate. If you don’t take yourself seriously, how will anyone else?” says Trayes. “You don’t just do the minimum. There are people who never had a chance to follow their dreams of education. Students need to be grateful for the privilege they have. Education is a privilege. I’m appalled when I see students coming to class in their pajamas, no notebook and no questions asked.”
Trayes isn’t alone in his frustrations. According to research from the Pew Foundation, more than half of college professors believe today’s students study less than their predecessors did.
Pew also discovered that only 55 percent of college graduates feel their education has helped them get a job. With numbers like that, it’s easy enough to draw the conclusion that many are either going into it for the wrong reasons, not passionate enough about what they went to school for, or didn’t put in the effort to get the maximum benefit.
I’m not trying to act like there’s no chance I might also graduate and find myself jobless. It’s an impending likelihood that haunts me every day. And I’m not implying that everyone with a college degree without a job right now obviously slacked off. The growing problem of unemployment is not one to be taken lightly.
I’ve been lucky enough to choose a career path that I’m certain I want to pursue despite the highly discouraging odds for failure. I feel relatively confident in my pursuits. I enjoy the challenges. It’s the students who constantly try to find loopholes to make it easier that worry me.
I hear it all too often when it’s time to schedule courses: “Oh, don’t take that class. I heard it’s super hard. I can recommend all of the easiest professors and best blow-off classes.” Some of us do actually want to graduate with more than just the bare minimum sheet of paper. The ones who don’t simply should not be in college in the first place.
“It’s bizarre to me that college is one of the few things people are willing to pay for and get nothing out of,” says Trayes.
College is what you make of it. You’re only hurting everyone if you try to fake it.
November 14th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
1) Companies need to stop buying into that same concept. That’s because of several reasons:
a) If you consider engineering, in companies as large as Boeing you have 25 to 35 percent of the engineers doing nothing but clerical work. Think not? Go back to the beginning of the Space Race and look at the mix of tech aides and engineers. You’ll find that much of the grunt work was done by the former; the creative thinking by the latter. Somewhat like putting a policeman through SWAT training and then assigning them to be low speed meter maids.
b) If you look at management, there is a wildly overblown notion that you can create “leaders” through appropriate training. About all you create are bean counters who have clogged industry with mo9re and more pages of rules and regulations. The cost of that is beyond all thinking to the otherwise. Think not? In the early 60′s, at GE, a study was done to identify the cost of a Drawing Change Notice to do nothing more than revise the title of a drawing. This was a one page, as-simple-as-it-gets, revision. The cost? $100 for that single page. Project that across industry and government and you begin to appreciate the cost of inept management who would rather regulate than participate. And by the way, let’s discount all the industry creators, innovators, and inventors that are sprinkled in our history. Too bad, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs never got degrees. They might have become successes, only if – - -.
2) Education is a business. Let’s not forget that. As a result they will protect their interests and will advance the notion that all is lost without their product. That’s created several problems that need to be addressed:
a) The educational community needs to get in step with the needs of the country and needs to counsel prospective students on those needs. The world has changed and we can no longer go along ignoring the international economy and the demands that are put on our nation as a result of that. Too long has the educational industry gotten away with abusing the minds of young people with the concept of “college will do it for you”.
b) Prospective student and their parents also need to understand the demand that is out there. It isn’t enough for Judy or Johnny to get just about any conceivable degree. If you insist on building a blunderbuss, you will likely find there is no marketplace.
November 14th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
I’m a graduate student who used to work for a community college in Berks County, and a very small percentage of students were college material. Many students at the community college I worked at could not speak English well enough to understand course requirements for basic courses (instead of registering students for free ESL classes, these students were registered for credit ESL courses that required payment); the students who were recent high school graduates were the only ones who were computer literate – the majority of the adult learners (ages 25+) did not know how to use a computer, much less understand how to use basic applications like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Outlook; many literally could not put two sentences together without assistance; the rest were incapable of reading a Dr. Seuss book without a verbal summary by a tutor.
A significant number of these students only registered for credit classes at this particular community college because of the decent financial aid refund checks. Receiving a $3,000 – $5,000 refund check a semester is quite attractive for a student on public assistance or working a minimum wage job.
Four year colleges and universities have their share of slacker students, but there seems to be a preponderance of slackers at the community college level. Want evidence? Check the graduation/completion rates of community colleges (like RACC in Berks County), and compare those rates to four year colleges/universities & proprietary schools.
When proprietary tech schools have a graduation/completion rate that outstrips community colleges, some serious changes need to be made.