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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