college, high school, education

Can't Complete High School? Go Right Along to College. This is a fascinating article, if nothing else because it moves so quickly from the headline/opening paragraph issue, "OMG unqualified high school dropouts are going to college!," to a related but largely different one, "OMG damned unqualified high school dropouts are leeching federal financial aid funds!" So this is really a question of education for those who can't afford it on their own.

I have had converstions with friends and my students about why people go to college. My (elitest?) sense is that most people shouldn't go to college -- not because they're unqualified or not somehow not smart enough but simply because there is no point to going to college just to have a degree so you can get a job. Now I know of course the reality is that many jobs are requiring bachelor's degrees, and that's part of the issue, but there are just so many people who come from family backgrounds where it's just expected that people go through college before they get a job, start a family, etc. And so many of them would do better just to go right into the work world. I've even wondered about having more apprenticeship type systems out there, not just for "skilled trade" jobs but all kidns of jobs. And to have people go into these systems when they come of age at 18 would probably lead them to the point where they are firmly established in their careers and making more money by 22 than if they had gone to college and then gotten a first job then. (A related issue is whether or not many pro-destined athletes should go to college first -- a phenomenon that has received quite a bit of attention. Usually, the way people respond isn't so much that college is a necessary site of education but that these players need to "mature" in their games before they enter the big leagues of pro sports.)

All that said, I still feel that most people should get high school degrees. If we're talking foundational learning skills and basic content, that's something that I can get behind. I don't think such an argument works as well with a college education, though what I imagine a college education doing (even as a professor-type person) is still a mystery to me.

hmmm academic jobs

saltbox linked to this article, "What Ph.D. students really have to fear." What I find fascinating about it is how much there's an assumed desirability of "top tier" university jobs. Maybe this is just my gripe about going to a non-top-tier graduate program, soon to start a job at a non-top-tier liberal arts college, but part of what I see in my non-top-tier world is a wider range of career goals. More directly put, people want different kinds of research and teaching jobs. Some people want the high-prestige, high-stress, high-publication-output jobs. Others want more teaching-oriented (still high-stress) jobs that have a cultural capital of next-to-nothing.

I would've loved to have gotten a gig at a top-tier university with a small teaching load. But I've also come to realize that I'm not particularly invested in being a scholar who publishes frequently. I'm not even sure I want to publish a book in the next six years -- something I'd have to do if I did land a top tier job if I wanted tenure.

how much do i regret not living in toronto so i could befriend ryan north?

Regret Index.

books rule