I got most of my education paid for by the milatary.

The way you suggest (2 years community college – with transferable credits) then transferring to a state college for the balance is the only way I could finance my children’s education. 2 years of Community College at approx. $1200/semester and the balance at a Salem State College at approx. 6K/Year (through Stafford Loans) because FAFSA only considers my total salary (my wife hasn’t worked for an income since we married) and doesn’t consider my basic living expenses (according to Kerry Healey, I’m over-housed) even though I live hand to mouth – no luxuries/vacations or dining out (OK maybe 5 or 6 times a year.) I’m not complaining as I am still able to provide my kids the opportunity.

If college is a necessity (which I question) to maintain a strong competitive state/workforce then it should be funded by the state as is K-12. The problem with college today is the 400 year old paradigm that most higher education still maintains. I could have dropped out of high school my junior year and have essentially the same intellectual knowledge and ability from just surviving with no college whatsoever. If I were to recommend a lucrative career path to anyone today it would be to pursue a vocational trade as they are valued far more than we engineers and those jobs can’t be outsourced. The apprentice concept (now practically obsolete) served society exceptionally well.

College is still necessary to train specialists and the primary/secondary education curricula needs to be revamped as well. Parochial school curricula minus the religion would be a good start but a Mastery system is what’s really needed i.e., no one gets promoted from a subject until a mastery of that subject is demonstrated – no matter how long it takes. The mechanical model of promote whether or not the student has mastered the subject matter at that grade level is largely an economics driven decision (although it is ostensibly to avoid poor self esteem) has resulted in a poorly educated largely ignorant populace of 20-50 year olds (many with college degrees!) A college degree only says that someone managed to toe the line for 4 years and pass by some means and nothing about the quality of either the graduate or the education received.

It all boils down to individuals, those who desire an education will get one college or not and those who are avoiding real life or attempting to find themselves can buy some expensive time to do so. In my experience of working in the high tech industry for almost 30 years, I have seen useless workers with or without college degrees and brilliant, innovative workers with or without degrees. The cachet of a BS or other degree may impress a hiring manager but if you can’t do the job you won’t last.

So, maybe, I take back my previous statement.

Still, I don’t think one can step out of University with a degree in hand and walk into a job. It wouldn’t hurt to encourage kids to think a bit about their pocketbooks while they are planning their educations.

I am not offering it as opinion,but as fact. I know people who have gone that route and are quite happy. No need to pay 40k a year for a private college.

As I said before college is a choice not a right. So really I dont think anyone should complain. I didn’t mean to single you out specifically, but it was your post that I was responding to.

Another thing, at most state colleges if you are eligible for financial aid you will recieve it. I know people who have paid little or nothing to go to college. If you fill out the FAFSA form you can find out what your eligible for. If you are not eligible it is because you or your parents are already making a nice salary.

I reread your post. Sorry I just dont see any real validity to your statements. Other than the fact that college cost more today than it did decades ago. No suprise there. pretty much everything costs more today than decades ago.If you think the cost of college is high, try comparing the cost of an average house in todays market to the same house a couple of decades ago. Now that is something to complain about.

We speak about the importance of education. Yet, after one graduates, we need a society that values our accomplishments in higher education, global understanding, multi-lingual capabilities, and critical thinking. If this society wants educated, global thinkers, then why don’t they hire us, let alone pay us so that we can cover our student loan debt? It appears to me that the very fact that students have to go deep into debt to get education, at unprecedented levels, and then fight to get a job that will pay for the debt, expresses that society is not valuing higher education. Does this country want us to be educated or not? The messages are mixed, at best. We are bogged down, when attending University, because we are carrying the burden of paying for an extremely high cost of education. Once we graduate, with high levels of debt, we are limited in our choices because we need to make enough money to pay our debt. This decreases the number of qualified individuals willing to take low paying jobs in the non-profit sector that would ultimately benefit greater society. We have not begun to see the ramifications of this. Many capable global thinkers, who are burdened with student loans, move into the private sector in order to make enough money to pay off their debt instead of engaging in fields that they are trained in (through higher education) because they can’t afford it.

This debate about education is good but leaves out the burden of cost. For many, our societal structures are isolating and burdening for students. The higher cost of education is discouraging to part of the population who would otherwise engage so it is clear to me that this is an important part of the discussion on the crisis in liberal education. I can not count the number of individuals who have told me that they went to college, decades ago, for a miniscule fraction (comparitively) of the cost. They marvel at how much it costs now. I think to myself, why are you not up in arms about how much it costs us?! Why do we not have the same right as you to afford college?! I politely suggest you do a show on cost.

More than anyone, however, kudos to Chrostopher Lydon, our public intellectual, whose incisive mind burrows through all subjects to advance critical thinking on the part of us all. Chris, you are a gift!!! Could your show be extended to 2 hours? On the station that you left, your interests, focus, voice intonation and even hesitations are copycatted in shallow, pitiful ways. We need more of the real thing … your relentlessly probing mind shooting off critical thoughts and ideas. Like many others, I try to never miss a hearing. THANKS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION. WE NEED MORE OF YOUR TIME ON THE AIR!!! HOW ABOUT IT? IS YOUR STATION LISTENING???

I found I was constantly running up against the limits of my attention span and the limits of my own cognition. At times I felt like I was going crazy –too much shit in my head.

And so I have tried to figure out the root of my angst and I think it goes back to the fact that I played soccer growing up and while I was in school. I never tried to learn the guitar, or to paint, or to write, or to work on cars. Now I don’t have a sport to take up my time and I missed the first time around learning the delights of making something. The times when I have felt less crazy are the times I have engaged in some creative process with some true output. I never saw the importance of a learning a craft while I was in school. I never appreciated so much why we must create; we’re trying not to go NUTS.

I think that’s why I enjoy cooking so much these days. There is something to enjoy at the end of my effort.

The NAAL reports that just 31% of college grads are ”proficient” in their ability to read prose. Many are also woefully incapable of solving simple math problems. When it comes to American civics and American History, forget it. Most dont know who we fought in the revolution. They dont know both Germany and Japan were our enemy in ww2.etc etc.

I read posts that suggest we need to teach the value of other cultures.We need to teach people about global citizenship. We need to teach kids about our own culture first.

I found Professor Lewis comments quite interesting. I must disaree with almost everything he said. If our college grads cant read or do simple math,or even have a basic grasp of American history and the great men who gave us the freedom we have today, why on earth would we expect, or even want to move in another direction.

You can’t teach someone to run before they have learned to walk.

October 11th, 2006 at 12:28 pm

“Hey Samnang, I got a BA in German and history, too, but it didn’t lead me to the same conclusion. Technical understanding can be picked up in the real world. I worked as a technical writer for a while about complex financial products, and I taught myself html and general blog installation and maintenance for this gig. This stuff is not rocket science (and lucky for all of us I don’t build rockets for a living).

For once, I agree with Brendan. One can always combine what one learns with other skills. The BA one gets in college need not determine the rest of one’s life.

But, Harvard is not a tech school. These elite students are in a position to enter and affect change in multinational corporations. How will their under graduate studies (or impressive degree acronyms acquired later) train them to reallign their vantage point and allegiances? What is required to supress their geographic, religious, ethnic, and cultural bias to do what is “right” as an employee AND world citizen. How do you ensure the students don’t warp a sense of self and place in exchange for global awareness?

I agree that such cynicism is problematic. But it also seems an honest stance, unfortunately one that has to make its peace with ignorance.

Logic allows critical thinking and evaluation of all other knowledge. You can see the logical fallacies in advertising and other ways\places that try to influence public thinking without evidence.

How to find VALID information.

Not just any information, but information that stands up to tests of evidence FOR and to tests of evidence AGAINST

Science.

What it is and how it works.

Communication

Languages and how to use them.