Revamping student loan plans, the federal Pell Grant, and colleges’ responsibility to deliver a fair return on degree program success has been needed for YEARS.
For too long, our higher education system has become a bloated factory of useless programs that do nothing for young adults seeking the skills needed to be successful in the field they wish to enter.
I recently re-watched the ridiculous 90s flick “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead,” and it is a perfect example of the college obsession propaganda that my generation and everyone after mine experienced. We were constantly told: You have to go to college to be successful in life!
Spoiler Alert: In “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” the main teenage character has to get a job to help support her siblings while her mom is out of the country after the babysitter dies. She sucks at her food service job so she creates a fake resume and lies to get a job working in fashion, and despite a few learning curves along the way, she succeeds and helps the company survive a potential shut down. But then when she is offered a position as herself, the teenage girl–once the truth comes out–she turns it down to go to college.
It’s baffling.
And here I thought the point of college was to train students how to do a job. If they can already do it without spending tens of thousands of dollars on a degree, why would they insist on bankrupting themselves instead?
Because that was the propaganda of the 90s and the 2000s. On-the-job training and apprenticeships were somehow looked down on while emphasizing the need to pay for more and more classes that have nothing to do with your field.
Now, I am all for education, expanding the mind, and learning new trades to better ourselves, our communities, and society, but college degree programs are not focused enough. Why, if I am paying to become a professional in a specialized field, do I need to pay to take electives to graduate?
And the word “electives” is really used loosely by colleges since they require students to take them.
Why are cornerstone, capstone, and endless identity classes now also required for college students to graduate? They do nothing to improve the skills of future professionals. When I got just a two-year degree, most of my classes were busy work that basically proved I would bow down and do what I was told so I could finally graduate and have the “honor” of saying I did so.
To be fair: There were some good classes. I had, one math teacher who finally helped me understand the language of numbers and I aced his class. Core classes should always stand.
I even enjoyed taking art history because it helped me understand and remember historic events better than just memorizing names and dates, like public schools make students do. But I could have learned everything I learned in that class for much cheaper on my own.
Most of what I learned about writing and journalism came from working in the field. Working with real-world editors is what truly shapes a writer. Plenty of job skills are better taught in the field.
But thankfully, the House Education and Workforce Committee has come up with a new plan to revitalize America’s higher education system and how it’s paid for. If implemented, these changes will save Americans over $350 billion and get students better returns for their education investments.
This is HUGE
Read about it in my latest for RSBN:
Jessica Marie Baumgartner 