Perhaps College Is Not For Everyone

PERHAPS COLLEGE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.   1-14

ABSTRACT:  The American dream of advancement has become focused narrowly on having a college degree as the passport to better jobs.  Some untoward consequences of this are outlined, and a suggestion for refocusing is offered.

KEY WORDS:  college, American dream, vocational training

The American dream of advancement socially and financially has become more and more focused on the college degree as an essential ticket of admission to upper status and higher paying jobs.  An unfortunate result of this has been a degradation of college learning, since by far a majority of current college students have little interest in the general education learning that college traditionally offers but are in college mainly to get the degree and to get a head start on their chosen profession or job if there is opportunity in the curriculum to do so.  Additionally, decades of “passing students along” in grade school and secondary school in spite of failing abilities, along with the American workers’ established expectation of frequent raises of pay have created an expectation in society of rewards regardless of production and have led to a larger percentage of college applicants being unprepared to do what used to be considered “college level work.”

Many professors are frustrated with this evolution of the student body, and some have “dumbed down” their classes and changed their grading curve averages to allow the same percentage to pass now that passed thirty years ago even though students learn considerably less now.  Colleges and universities, from a business perspective, have not attempted to restrict enrollment to those who are interested in general learning or headed for careers that actually require that type of college or graduate education.  Colleges have therefore become more of a combination of technical and vocational schools plus some general education (math, philosophy, science, languages) which students try to “get out of the way” as soon as possible, usually in the first two years of college.

The attitude of society has changed toward college education also, with many more parents and students thinking that college education is for gaining entry-level skills for a job, whereas college education has traditionally been for gaining greater levels of more general skills, such as thinking well, historical awareness, and communications, that make learning the skill details of specific jobs easier later on as well as providing a broader base for knowing what it is to “live well,” to live a “good life,” and to live an ethical life.  College as it currently stands does not provide as much of that job-related training as parents think it will, which again underlines the point that their children are in college simply to gain the degree.  On-line degree programs probably offer more of the job-skill kinds of courses and fewer of the general education courses than do traditional colleges.

Traditional (and still widespread) college curricula are composed of courses in—

• history (to help students understand the consequences of societal structures, political decisions, and cultural movements on societies)
• English (to help students communicate clearly and unambiguously and to be able to organize the presentation of a sequence of ideas)
• psychology/sociology/political science/philosophy (to help students understand how people and groups view the world, identify their values, and make their decisions)
• mathematics, or sometimes philosophy (to help students think more logically)
• electives, such as art, music, drama (to broaden the students’ interests)
• concrete skill courses aimed at skills needed in certain jobs (accounting, computers, rehabilitation or other medical technologies, advertising, marketing, etc.)

Students can choose a “major” area of study from any of the above.  Some majors will focus on concrete skill courses but some will have none at all.  A major usually comprises roughly one-fourth of a student’s credits.

It is unclear whether today’s greater percentage of college students seeking status and higher pay rather than knowledge is due to (1) young people switching over from expecting general education to expecting training in jobs that will result in higher status and higher pay, (2) the same number of young people attending college who like learning or are interested in general education but greater numbers of young people attending who think that the college degree is crucial for their futures, or (3) more young people attending college now who would not have done so earlier because they did not think that they could obtain admission or because they thought that the emphasis in college on general education learning was not to their liking. 

There are probably a number of reasons for the lower commitment to knowledge and learning, including a lower expectation on the part of young people of having to work hard to succeed, from seeing so much effortless success in movies and TV and (apparently) so much success for people who have little education or knowledge but are movie, sports, or music stars.  The recent craze for building children’s self-esteem by praising them indiscriminately may be another factor.  And, perhaps parents’ expectations for their children’s efforts and work ethic are lower, also, if parents are working harder than ever to “keep up” and also want to “give their children a better life,” since they may unconsciously think that a better life would be one without so many demands!  As noted above, “passing” students in grade school and high school in spite of failing performance no doubt contributes as well.

The unfortunate result of this mixing of “education for thinking” and “education for doing” has been that neither is well served.  Those interested in knowledge are given less importance by colleges seeking maximum enrollments, and those interested in jobs have time taken away from those interests by half-hearted general education requirements.

America has always had a generally anti-intellectual bent, with its emphasis on the practical and its distrust of authority.  Another force pushing the new assumption that college is for getting a good job is our American disdain for learning psychology (what makes people tick) and learning history (how people have screwed up in the past).  With our equalitarian assumption in this country, every person thinks he or she is a psychologist and has no need of improving his or her understanding of people, and with our manifest destiny belief as a country, we think that we are somehow different from every other society and will not make the same mistakes that they have made.  Both of these assumptions are false.  We are more optimistic but just as prideful and short-sighted as all other human beings, and we will pay for these faults in various ways. 

Regardless of the reasons for the decline in college students’ readiness for “college level work” and for the decline in their interest in knowledge, the reputation of the bachelors degree from American colleges is declining and will continue to decline, if moving great numbers of students through the system is a higher priority than quality control.  Business leaders are already noting that college graduates are less prepared to function in high-level jobs, in terms of thinking and communications, than they used to be.  If employers simply allow their enterprises to function at a lower level by hiring and retaining lower qualified college graduates, the American economy will pay some price in terms of competitiveness (since there are parts of the world in which students still expect to work hard, particularly in Asia).  Unless it becomes apparent to young people that high-level thinking and communications are actually necessary for gaining those higher status and higher paying jobs (by employers filling those jobs only with actually qualified candidates), the current attitude among students will persist.  Professors who insist on reasonable levels of achievement for good grades will be pressured to change those standards in order avoid complaints from parents about their children not passing certain courses.

Our society has preferred to blame educators for American childrens’ low performance in comparison to students in the rest of the world, and to react by threatening teachers’ and administrators’ jobs if students don’t improve, but perhaps the major problem is with our young people and what we have taught them to expect.

This sorry situation could be turned around if authorities at any level—college, government, or business—began expecting more of children, but there seems to be little will to do that.  Government officials don’t want to upset the public by appearing to be critical of voters’ children.  Business leaders “have to” fill their positions with someone (even if not well qualified) if they want to avoid disruption in their current business processes.  College administrators need the income of more students’ tuition to pay for everything as inflation makes it harder and harder for them every year.  Parents feel so little authority with their children now, as compared to fifty years ago, that they dare not risk expecting more of children.

A related issue for colleges and universities is the trend for many of them to focus more and more on large research grants and the personnel to get the grants and do the research.  This often takes away from administrators’ concerns about quality undergraduate education and places more emphasis on graduate education and various “institutes,” but if an institution is committed to quality education, this need not be the result.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

A major change in our educational system that would address the mismatch between traditional college curricula and the desire for job advancement would be to create another major track in post-secondary education which would focus mainly on preparing people for success in “doing type” jobs rather than “thinking type” jobs.  (Note that the previous sentence would be roundly rejected if it had read “...another track in post-secondary education for vocational training,” since we traditionally associate “vocational training” with blue collar jobs.  We seem to want all children, if possible, to move “up” to “white collar” work which is perceived as being higher status than “vocations” such as plumbing, carpentry, and electrical work.

Actually, most of the job knowledge preparation for white collar jobs that can be done in college is of the same nature and level of the learning for hands-on production jobs and can be accomplished just as well in a setting that is not “college.”  Learning accounting is just as mechanical and structured as learning to saw a straight line and does not require a college setting or a significant amount of “thinking type” training.  The distinction between these tracks should be on the level and type of learning, not on whether the job is physical or mental.  Many “paper-pushing” jobs that college graduates now enter require no preparation at all besides basic organizing ability, so they don’t really need either track, even if employers still would prefer to hire those who have proven that they can persist long enough to get that college degree.

Lower and mid-level mathematics would need to be taught in both settings, since it is useful for quite a few of what I am redefining as “vocational” jobs, and it is also essential for learning to think clearly for those in “thinking type” training.  There is no doubt that many of those who rise from “doing type” jobs to executive positions do so because of better learning skills, psychological skills, and communication skills, but many people who start in “vocational” positions have the inherent talent for these thinking, psychological, and communication activities and will develop their ability to use them regardless of job, so they may not need college anyway.  Being in the “thinking type” track does not guarantee higher pay, either, since many activities that are basically “thinking type” activities are not particularly well paid (teachers, assistant professors, philosophers, administrators in small companies or public agencies, and some scientists, particularly those who work in the field making observations and collecting data).

Separating training settings for “thinking type” activities and “doing type” activities would allow for better training for both and could give “doing type” activities the greater respect that they deserve if we could but change our attitudes and prejudices about “vocational training.” 

The pay differential that most cultures seem to establish between workers and management is a value issue that societies should try to understand.  While organizing and directing functions (management activities) are essential for effective production, there is no logical reason why they should be higher paid and higher status.  (There are psychological reasons for this, of course, rooted in our perception as children of adults who have more and control more than we do as gods, but they are not logical reasons.)  The workers that carry out the physical (and mental) tasks needed for production are just as essential as managers for the total outcome.  As production in general becomes even more efficient in the future and as more and more people receive college training, management-eligible people may become much more plentiful, and there may be a need for fewer and fewer “workers.  At that point, perhaps we will have to face more squarely why we value monetarily some people’s work more than that of others.

High school students could choose and be counseled regarding which kind of training to pursue.  People could switch from one track to the other (if their applications were accepted), although with the penalty of having to make up some ground.  People could go from either training track into any sort of job, and hopefully employers would realize that being in one track or the other is not necessarily a limit on what a potential employee could do well.

The main resistance to building up a vocational training system would be from less advantaged families who want their children to do higher paying work, because of how they currently misunderstand what college is or does, as well as from all those who want to believe the uniquely American dictum that anyone can achieve anything he or she wants to (even though this is not and never has been true).  While it is true that in the past and even now lifetime earnings of college graduates is greater than that of non-college graduates, it seems likely that this is turning around and that the glut of college graduates will result in lower pay for college graduates in general.  This is already happening, as college graduates find it harder and harder to get their first jobs, and many law school graduates cannot get jobs at all.

A number of European nations have an apprenticeship system in which companies take on (and pay) young people for training in specialized jobs.  They get some on-the-job training and some coursework in trade schools and must pass exams before becoming permanent employees.  This approach has been very popular but may be declining due to regulations the companies must follow and the difficulties of defining uniform guidelines for what must be learned for each specialized job (which is defined nationally in Germany at least and not just by the company involved).  If companies in this country followed this approach (without the regulations and national definitions of jobs), sharing the expense with the selected trainees, it would no doubt be a very welcome alternative for many young people.

There are pros and cons of having different training systems for “thinking type” and “doing type” work.

Pros

better training for doing both “thinking type” work and “doing type” work (assuming that both tracks can operate at a similar level of excellence)

more competent cadres of workers for our society in both “thinking type” and “doing type” work

less pressure on people who really want to or are better suited to do “doing type” work to pretend that they want to do “thinking type” work or to prove themselves in “thinking type” training (i.e., college) (even with lowered college standards).

Cons

risk of some continuation of status prejudice against “doing type” work

some undermining of the American belief that “anyone can do anything”

fewer citizens getting the “how to live a good life” benefits of college (although we certainly could make those courses available all the time through adult education)

less homogeneity in society than there might be if everyone went through the same training track

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Lifelong Adherence To Expectations From Childhood

LIFELONG ADHERENCE TO EXPECTATIONS FROM CHILDHOOD

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    11-13

ABSTRACT:  The positive and negative consequences of continuing in adult life to attempt to fulfill what we believed was desired of us in childhood are explored.

KEY WORDS:  ideals, childhood, shaping, roles, self, reinforcement

As children, all of us have some understanding of behaviors and roles that we believe our parents or caregivers want us to do or fill, as well as those that they wish to discourage.  These  behaviors are typically rewarded or punished (being “good,” being “bad,” talking back, playing football well, doing well in school, acting more maturely than would be expected for one’s age, being nice to others, being selfish, being tough, “being a man,” becoming a doctor, etc.).  Most of us respond to these rewards and punishments by trying to do what adults want of us, although depending on the form and degree of those rewards and punishments, some resistance or rebellion may occur.

If internalized, these expectations become ideals for us, and we use them as part of the standards by which we judge ourselves. An ideal is what we are “supposed to be” (or do) rather than just what adults want us to be or do or expect of us.  Ideals and expectations both involve satisfaction if we fulfill them and internal conflict, shame, guilt, and/or self-punishment if we view ourselves as failing to live up to them. 

If most of this parental guidance or coercion is aimed at personally or socially productive behavior (brushing your teeth regularly, treating people well), then going along with it is usually in our best interest, but if it isn’t consistent with our personalities or talents, then to continue to hold it as an ideal and attempt to fulfill it can create problems.  During development, we are capable of trying all sorts of behaviors, but as adults, conflicts between who we are and who we believe we are supposed to be are more serious.  If the expectations and ideals that we have accepted growing up are not compatible with our personalities and talents, then we must deal with whether to continue to please others by conforming to and honoring the ideals that we have accepted from others, or to take the risky step of changing our ideals to some that are more compatible with our adult views of ourselves and of the world. 

If one has been expected to become a doctor, and one has accepted this as an ideal, and if one has the intellectual capability and is accepted into medical school, then becoming a doctor may be possible, but one should ask whether this “feels right” to one in terms of one’s other values and pleasures.  If one is inspired by painting considerably more than by learning about the body, then there is a conflict, and one must weigh the rewards of pleasing one’s parents by being a doctor (plus the rewards to oneself of that role and career) while missing out on an art career, versus disappointing one’s parents and pursuing art as a career.  The consequences of changing directions might be even greater if one had been expected to become a professional athlete but then changed to art!

This conflict is even more intense if it is not just a question of pleasing or disappointing one’s parents, but also involves still trying to gain parents’ conditional acceptance by pleasing them.  It is much easier to risk making the change to do what one wants to do if one is confident that parents will still love and accept one but much harder if one expects the parents to always thereafter view one as a failure and refuse to “forgive” one.

Many of us are in this bind of fearing to displease parents because of feared disapproval or rejection, and we rarely talk about it with anyone, because we sense, correctly, that it would reveal a weakness that would be more appropriate for us as children than for us as adults.  As a result, many people soldier on doing what they don’t really want to do, out of fear of this disapproval and rejection (which we often generalize to our peers and to society in general as well).  You can check out whether you are being affected by this dilemma by being honest with yourself about whether you are really doing what you want to do.  This applies to every area—your job or vocation, whether to have children, where to live, who to marry, how to spend your weekends, and so forth and so on.  If you would really rather have your life arranged differently, what keeps you from doing it?  Leaving aside the practicalities of capabilities and costs and considering only others’ reactions, whose disapproval, disappointment, or rejection keeps you from making some changes?

If you have made life choices in order to please others or gain their love or acceptance, imagine what it would be like not to have to prove yourself any longer, what it would be like to be free to be you no matter who that was.  You might miss the security of knowing what you are “supposed to do,” but the relaxation and release from a straitjacket of expectations (and conflictful ideals) could be even more valuable.  You would no longer have to cringe every time you wondered if something you had done or said has angered or disappointed significant others.  You would be free to be happy.  You may have derived some satisfaction or happiness from your success in pleasing others, but the joy in being yourself and using all of your talents in the world would far surpass that.

Of course, making changes after one’s life is already established in certain important ways has its practical difficulties (getting additional training, moving to another city, how one’s spouse and children will feel about the changes, etc.), and we must always be realistic about these new goals.  It is not productive to set new goals that are fantasies and not compatible with one’s actual abilities or are simply not possible in the environment.  Those in boring jobs that do not use their abilities are in an especially difficult position, since in modern industrial society, many tasks are needed that are in fact boring and make little use of personal qualities or abilities, and alternatives may be hard to find.

The life circumstance that is most prohibitive of some changes is raising children, whose welfare “should” be paramount for us.  It is easier to leave a marriage in which there are no children than to leave a spouse and children.  There are circumstances, therefore, in which one’s decision probably should be to honor one’s commitment to childrearing before making changes that would be of serious detriment to those children, although in some families it would actually be better for the children for the parents to separate, and the spouse who institutes the separation might in some families also take the children.

To risk the disapproval, disappointment, or rejection of significant others is a major challenge, but not to act risks self-hatred and self-rejection, which can be even worse over the long run and which prevents you from achieving the degree of maturity and life satisfaction that you might otherwise achieve.  It may be better overall to do what is “right” for you and resolve to work out as best you can any relationship consequences.  Even if you cannot get the acceptance of significant others, it may be best for you to do what is “right” for you and to feel good about yourself.  The key to making this shift possible is for you to no longer hold yourself to a rule above all other rules of always pleasing those other people.  It is also not unreasonable to reverse the direction of these expectations, so that you now believe that they “should” accept you as you are (at least as long as you are treating them decently), rather than continuing to expect yourself to please them.  As an adult, you have a right to do what is best for you, as long as it is not unreasonably harming others, and it is not reasonable in this day and age for parents to determine their childrens’ important life choices.  You will probably have to work with yourself for a while to convince yourself of the appropriateness of this role reversal, but it is probably in the interest of your emotional health and your happiness to make this shift.

This analysis has focused on roles and achievements, but the reasoning and value choices apply equally to all expectations of others—degree of sociableness, customs of all sorts, conformance, dress, agreeableness, the assumption that one will take care of parents in old age, etc., etc.  The argument is the same in every case.  What is the best thing for you under the circumstances and given careful consideration of all of the consequences of each possible choice (which includes how your actions will affect others)?  These consequences include our own emotional reactions to our choices, consequences far in the future as well as immediate consequences, how our behavior impacts others, the reactions of others to whatever behavior we choose (and our reactions to their reactions, etc.).  This is not an argument for simply doing in every case what would seem to be more immediately enjoyable, since long-term rewards can be much more important than immediate enjoyment.  One might appropriately decide that the best thing for one’s life is to stay home and take care of one’s parents if that will be emotionally rewarding and financially feasible, before making certain life changes.

Every option has negative as well as positive consequences.  If

we choose an artistic career, then we should be prepared to give up excessive alcohol use, since it probably would eventually impair the physical abilities needed to produce our art (and perhaps our artistic judgment as well), and we should accept that we must also find a way to prepare for retirement, given the fact that art often pays poorly and given that it would be unfair to other family members for us to presume that they would support us in our old age.

In order to make the best possible decisions about one’s life, it is important to be aware of potential misleading input from one’s own culture.  Just because something is popular, we cannot conclude that it is sure to lead to a better life.  In current U. S. culture, for example, there is a strong message from the culture in general to “move forward” and “take risks,” as well as to please oneself (as opposed to careful consideration, moderation, and self-control).  It would be well for us to remember that in many other cultures, the weight of cultural wisdom would be on tradition and the welfare of the social groupings involved, rather than solely on our own happiness.  Before making a major life choice, you should ask yourself whether people in those cultures that are not as hopeful regarding change are happier with their lives than people in your own culture, and you should investigate what the outcomes are for people in your culture who have made each of the choices that you are considering.  Of course, it is difficult to accurately assess outcomes for those in other cultures, since we are not a part of those other cultures and cannot judge with certainty about whether they are happier, but we must recognize that there are many ways to live a good life.

These arguments are intended to be freeing but not to support irresponsibility.  They rather attempt to shift responsibility more to yourself, so that you rather than others are making the final decisions about your behavior and your benefits and losses.  For some people the choice to reject parental expectations of care in old age would be the right one, if that choice were necessary to enable them to have an extremely rewarding career (and they might choose later on to take care of the parents anyway).  For some people, it could be the wrong choice, if while it enabled them to have the desired career, it also resulted in suffering from lifelong guilt about doing so that they could not resolve.  Choice is complicated, but in general we feel better about ourselves and our lives if we make the choices rather than letting others make those important choices for us!

There is an assumption, of course, underlying this line of thinking that your choices for yourself will be better than those of others for you.  This is generally true, because we know ourselves and our needs and feelings better than others, and because the wishes of others for us are so often contaminated by their natural wish for us to be and to act in ways that will benefit them, even if they are to our detriment.  If you are one of the few whose cognitive capacities are not sufficient for making these choices for yourself, then you may wish to consult with someone with more experience and better judgment to help you.

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