"For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time" ...Vol. Wall Street Journal

mvp07

mvp07

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The article is long but interesting.

(CLICK ON THE LINK: to read more)


http://online.wsj.com/art...opinion_main_commentaries

By CHARLES MURRAY

Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes.

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.

The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough -- four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you're a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school.



your opinion on this?
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glad I am an engineer... degrees are becoming the new high school diploma my friends who graduated from business school can barely get jobs
 
Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.


real spit

most of what you need for your job will be taught via on the job training and through experience
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Yeah it's pretty obvious, at least for me.

Getting your BA means you passed your classes and stayed in college long enough. It isn't a real measure of your potential success at your career, it'sone of the problems with our current education system, as well as a problem with the job market.
 
I just read the article but I did not understand what he saying. Is it that he would prefer competence/certification tests instead of going to college?
 
Originally Posted by Skip2MyLou23

I just read the article but I did not understand what he saying. Is it that he would prefer competence/certification tests instead of going to college?
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Yes
 
in some cases but college has a lot more value than just learning certain facts in the classes you take. I finally got out of my passive/senioritis phase thatlasted from junior year in high school to sophomore year in college. I was smart enough to get into a good school and do what was necessary but I never tookany initiative until I changed majors. Then I became a student leader and became very polished in a lot of ways.

That kind of stuff doesn't happen if you don't go. The real trick is colleges need to be more picky about who they admit so there will be more successstories and less people wasting their time.
 
A lot of people go to school because they want to make more money, not because they want to learn. For these people, school is a waste of time.
 
Man I been sayin this for years. U don't do anything but waste money and get in debt foolin w/ college. Unfortunately for me since I wanna be a lawyer, Ihave to do undergrad before I can do Law school. I'm tryna figure out a way to be able to take the bar w/o goin to law school
laugh.gif
But all us collegestudents are doin/did is payin/paid for a piece a paper. U aint guaranteed a good job w/ a degree so it's pretty pointless. The old ppl that sit in onclasses for free got the right idea.
 
this makes me want to reconsider pursuing a finance degree and rather get an education degree for better job security
 
Originally Posted by infamousod

in some cases but college has a lot more value than just learning certain facts in the classes you take. I finally got out of my passive/senioritis phase that lasted from junior year in high school to sophomore year in college. I was smart enough to get into a good school and do what was necessary but I never took any initiative until I changed majors. Then I became a student leader and became very polished in a lot of ways.

That kind of stuff doesn't happen if you don't go. The real trick is colleges need to be more picky about who they admit so there will be more success stories and less people wasting their time.
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Exactly, the author fails to mention anything about the socialization process that occurs in college, the networking, and the general process of growing upthat all most of us experience by our junior year. I think the way college is set up is not the most efficient but I would not trade my college years for justa certification ever. What I would like to know is how he plans on paying all of the malpractice suits that arise from doctors and nurses only having to passcertifications. I'm not saying the people in the medical field are perfect but everything in the field has to have some type of certification already andpeople screw up-take out the time and all the scrutiny from professors and the mistakes are bound to go up. Great idea but flawed execution in thearticle-interesting read, nonetheless.
 
Originally Posted by HyphySole

this makes me want to reconsider pursuing a finance degree and rather get an education degree for better job security
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think again. there are serious budget cuts going on all over the place.
 
Originally Posted by HyphySole

this makes me want to reconsider pursuing a finance degree and rather get an education degree for better job security
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you read my mind, but I'm in Business Administration....
 
Originally Posted by infamousod

Originally Posted by HyphySole

this makes me want to reconsider pursuing a finance degree and rather get an education degree for better job security
Click to expand...


think again. there are serious budget cuts going on all over the place.
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Accounting/finance is actually one of the BEST fields you can be in right now. With companies and individuals having to reassess how they spend their moneybecause of this year, finance is more important than ever. Lucky me, I'm an accountant, but I will admit it was kind of a pain in the %$* to get a jobafter school, and that was when times were better than now. They key is just to get your foot in the door somewhere and go from there. But don't confuseaccounting/finance with all of the "bankers" that just lost their jobs from all of the crooked companies that got bailed out. That is somethingtotally different.
 
This guy's an idiot.

If anything, a test would make those with natural intelligence better off because they don't have to do other crap and can just take this test, which forthe most part, they could pass. People who are naturally intelligent could probably pass the test with minimal schooling.

But there are people who are naturally intelligent but lazy as a @#(*, which is what most companies would hate. On the other hand, a BA is a piece of paperthat says "By hook or by crook, I can get the job done." A BA w/ a good GPA says "I can get the job done WELL." A test says "I passedenough classes and did well enough to pass this test." Test takes a couple hours, BA takes 4 years, you tell me what means more, 4 years of hard work or Xcredit hours of acct/business/criminal justice/biology classes and passing an X hour test? Dude's also forgetting that with traditional colleges, usuallyyou're forced to take GE's. As much as people whine about it, they're actually legit most of the time and broaden your horizons.
 
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