There seems to be a myth surrounding the power of a college/university degree, If you don't go to college - you'll die sad, poor, and alone. It's something spread subliminally all the time by teachers, councilers, and others of that ilk - those who spend time talking about "my future" after I graduate. From basically grade 7 - it was clear that they were trying to put pressure on us to consider only college/university as a reasonable path to the future.

It's only in the very late grades, around the time that we've had all this drilled in our heads that they start mentioning workplace alternatives - apprenticeship programs, workplace internship and alternative education sources. It's somewhat infuriating when this all comes to light after you've been brainwashed into this dream of the cathedrals of education that university and colleges come to represent. It's coming to the point that the college you go to is directly intertwined with your self worth - and that's distressing.

Colleges and university educations aren't a negative obviously - it's the feeling of urgency and necassity in attaining one which annoys me.

Given the option, I probably wouldn't go to college. There's far too much that I really don't want to learn, because it's required of me. Why would i possibly be taught something I 'have' to learn, to graduate?

I want to write. I don't need to accomplish math, history, religion, etc etc etc to do it.

But, I will. Though I don't want to, it's pretty neccesary, not just for it's 'keep up with the status quo' factor, but because it actually is helpful, not just overpriced.

/rant.

I'm tired...

What I find interesting is that I have seen only two arguments on why or why not to go to so-called higher education that weren't explicity tied in with making more money.

1)They teach you how to think
2)Social interaction

So here's a big kick in the genitals with a scythe - who cares about money? Honestly, is it really so important to everyone here to get a high paying job? Our society is based around an axiom of wealth = success and is really quite sickening. So if you only go to high school, end up serving fries your whole life you are a failure? What if you want nothing more than to sit on your ass and watch TV and in order to maintain food and house you serve fries? Though I disagree with the ultimate goal, who's to say that this person isn't succeeding? You don't NEED a good job, you don't NEED financial security because - getting right down to it - there's no such thing whatsoever.

We will all lose our jobs at the time of death. Period. No money saved will help you, no 401k, no insurance policy, no mutual fund, nothing. Call it pessimistic, it's truth people don't look at. Why spend your whole life straining for something you won't keep? Why not try for a simple life that - even if you don't believe in anything spiritual - is comfortable? Make enough to live and get some inner peace.

As for the other reasons, I would agree that college tries to teach you to think, but they do so in a wrong way. Processes that convince someone that they are the ultimate judge of hings is wrong - we are imperfect and not one human can be said to be an ultimate judge, so why think that we should rely on our own reasoning? I won't get too far into that, however - dangerous topic and sidetracking from this one.

As for social interaction, there may be less at a home school, but that suits me fine. I really don't want my children anywhere near today's society. Social interaction mean picking up the habits of that society, and the society of the modern world is hellish. Let them interact with those who know and are striving for the goal of life.

Other than that, don' go to college, but be student. I study every day, not because I want a grade or a job, but because I want to learn. I go to class and take notes. I do homework diligently. It's a matter of conscious endeavor and desire. You want to be a brain surgeon? Hang ou with those who know it and ask them to teach it to you. They force you to pay - is it worth that much money to be a brain surgeon for you? Then you'll pay.

The real kicker that I'm surprised you didn't bring up. College, yes, allows this for you, but it is unnecesary. You learn best if you do a voluntary independant study, or better if you get a group to learn. The only reason colleges are there is so that they make sure professors are periodically evaluating you. However, we could all learn what we needed to know without going to college. In the 8th grade, I talked to a college professor about the science fair. I'm sure that if I can do that in 8th grade, anyone at the age of 18 could do it themselves.

Actually, something only just struck me. By making all of this stuff so open to students, we are minimizing their independance. A student would have to be independant to search for professors or knowledgable people in the area to get first-hand evaluation of skills. Same thing with doing group or independant study. Without teachers and professors people would need to learn how to find information, etc. Really, it would be better to have schools in general be dismantled and completely recreate the system. This is, of course assuming that kids will do their work and try to learn. That's a perfect world. Realistically, we should definately have less high school and limited college.

Oh and socail interaction, how can THAT be an argument to go to college, unless you really don't get out enough. And for that, you join the NPF.

Oh, and Dusanadus is kind of right. However, it's a bit deeper than that. The origins as I see them, you got more money the more useful to society you were. Therefore, the allure of money made you strive to be useful to society. Then the system was corrupted to include people who stole, wether white-collar or not, people who got money for no skills what so ever and just looking good (too many acters), and more things besides. To continue onward would be to seriously derail from this topic, but to put it bluntly there was a purpose to holding the allure of money to people. At one time. Now the system is seriously screwed up.

I would agree with this actually. Ever since the loss of everything I consider true wealth (land, precious metals, and valuable goods) was denied the status of tradeworthy (try buying an iPod with a deed, a hunk of silver, or a microwave - no no, first get money for those things, THEN buy your iPod), money was a symbol of one's worth to the nation. The only problem with this, is that our nation has no idea what should be considered having worth. We have plenty of ways to enjoy our senses, we have plenty of ways to grow economically, we even have plenty of ways to engage in religious systems, but what we are missing is an ultimate goal that all of these things should be leading to. While trying to avoid the taboo subjects, I am trying to get at the fact that currently our nation sees the GDP as the best evalutation of whether or not this country is doing well. Once you have all the money - what are you going to buy with it? There needs to be a direction. If a miracle happens and suddenly nobody has to wrok ever and everyone's material needs are met - then what? Where do you go? There's no clue from anyone with a position of authority - THAT's the problem with the system.

It is a bit of a con job, isn't it?

Especially considering white-collar workers are getting just as shafted as the blue collar lads employment-wise, these days.

Mostly it only serves to artifically improve the economic outlook by delaying people's entrance into the job market, and to move the burden of employee selection, accreditation and training from the employer to the worker.

...

Really, you want absolute guaranteed job security, there's two fields for you.

Plumbing, and mortuary.

The two things people will pay any amount of money not to have to deal with themselves.

Actually the day isn't too long past that there was such a thing as a 'free' - ie taxpayer-funded - higher education. CUNY in New York was tuition-free until the mid 70's, and a number of public universities have it written into their charters (University of California and U of Missouri systems, offhand) that residents aren't to be charged tuition, though such institution did charge nominal educational 'fees' which were on the order of a few hundred dollars a year up until, again, the mid-70s, when those fees served as the loophole through which were forced the same ballooning individual costs as were dropped upon students across the higher-educational spectrum.

Actually I got quite the opposite out of my college education. Mac Hall had a relatively accurate description of the process a while back. It really was a humbling moment.

I mean honestly, you make it sound like kids coming out of high school need to be taught to think that they know everything.

I hate studying, and if there was no forced evaluation I would probably fail every course or subject I ever pursued. It's not that I don't like what I study, I do quite a bit, I just enjoy sitting on my ass and playing video games and hanging out with friends quite a bit more.

Thanks to the evil, misguided university, I give them my money as a relatively good safety deposit to make sure I do the work they give me, so I can have my piece of paper in a few years.

Sure, serve fries your entire life, we do need people to do that (until robots enter the scene more expansively). However, right now I want to be a high school teacher, and to do that, I need a university degree and a teacher's degree.

I disagree to the point that university somehow teaches you to think in the wrong way, because I do not agree with whatever spiritual or religious undertones caused the making of said point. The more courses I take that reinforce the scientific method (and due to silly electives, the philosophical method), the better I can approach any issue. To say I am doing so wrongly is opinionated, not fact. As imperfect humans, we don't really have the right to say university is teaching us to think wrong (cough).