College degrees are hugely overrated in America. Soon the public will realize the military-industrial complex is nothing compared to the education-industrial complex. Both share many traits: self-serving bureaucracies, use of scare tactics, faulty statistics, lobbyists, union featherbedding, fighting the last war (or, for educrats, politically correct causes), etc.
Consider just one of the myths propagated by the education-industrial complex…the oft-quoted high rate-of-return on an “investment” in 4+ years of college:
1. The lifetime earnings of college grads vs. HS grads comparison is embarrassingly phoney. College-bound HS seniors already differ in IQ, ambition, family background, etc. from their non-college bound peers. How much does their college degree contribute to their lifetime earnings compared to all the other factors? I cringe every time I read that meaningless statistic trotted out.
2. The particular major chosen has a huge bearing on lifetime earnings. How valuable is a Sociology degree in the job market? English, history, political science, ethnic studies, women’s studies?
3. Recent tech advances allow really ambitious and curious HS graduates to learn on their own without the huge investment in time and money. The internet is an exploding font of knowledge and discovery. And that goes not only for their major field of study but the liberal arts, history, humanities as well. Wading through general ed. classes often taught badly by bored, tenured professors and teaching assistants can be topped by motivated individuals in a disciplined, self-guided course of study.
To take a real estate example, how knowledgeable would a senior majoring in real estate or finance be compared to a dedicated 22-year old glued to the Piggington site and all its assorted links. Which would you pick as an investor-partner or employee?
America has overinvested in college and university campuses and neglected HS and junior high education. We need to reach the huge and growing fraction of high schoolers who drop out and are tired of hearing that college is the holy grail they should be aiming for.
