Too Many People Going To College?

[Bud Struggle]

http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magazine/are-too-many-people-going-to-college

Are Too Many People Going to College?

By Charles Murray (http://www.american.com/author_search?Creator=Charles Murray) From the Magazine: Monday, September 8, 2008
Filed under: Public Square (http://www.american.com/topics/public-square)


America’s university system is creating a class-riven nation. There has to be a better way.
To ask whether too many people are going to college requires us to think about the importance and nature of a liberal education. “Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood,” John Stuart Mill told students at the University of St. Andrews in 1867. “Their object is not to make skillful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings.” If this is true (and I agree that it is), why say that too many people are going to college? Surely a mass democracy should encourage as many people as possible to become “capable and cultivated human beings” in Mill’s sense. We should not restrict the availability of a liberal education to a rarefied intellectual elite. More people should be going to college, not fewer.

Yes and no. More people should be getting the basics of a liberal education. But for most students, the places to provide those basics are elementary and middle school. E. D. Hirsch Jr. is the indispensable thinker on this topic, beginning with his 1987 book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Part of his argument involves the importance of a body of core knowledge in fostering reading speed and comprehension. With regard to a liberal education, Hirsch makes three points that are germane here:

Full participation in any culture requires familiarity with a body of core knowledge. To live in the United States and not recognize Teddy Roosevelt, Prohibition, the Minutemen, Wall Street, smoke-filled rooms, or Gettysburg is like trying to read without knowing some of the ten thousand most commonly used words in the language. It signifies a degree of cultural illiteracy about America. But the core knowledge transcends one’s own country. Not to recognize Falstaff, Apollo, the Sistine Chapel, the Inquisition, the twenty-third Psalm, or Mozart signifies cultural illiteracy about the West. Not to recognize the solar system, the Big Bang, natural selection, relativity, or the periodic table is to be scientifically illiterate. Not to recognize the Mediterranean, Vienna, the Yangtze River, Mount Everest, or Mecca is to be geographically illiterate.

College is seen as the open sesame to a good job and a desirable way for adolescents to transition to adulthood. Neither reason is as persuasive as it first appears.
This core knowledge is an important part of the glue that holds the culture together. All American children, of whatever ethnic heritage, and whether their families came here 300 years ago or three months ago, need to learn about the Pilgrims, Valley Forge, Duke Ellington, Apollo 11, Susan B. Anthony, George C. Marshall, and the Freedom Riders. All students need to learn the iconic stories. For a society of immigrants such as ours, the core knowledge is our shared identity that makes us Americans together rather than hyphenated Americans.

K–8 are the right ye Starting early is partly a matter of necessity: There’s a lot to learn, and it takes time. But another reason is that small children enjoy learning myths and fables, showing off names and dates ars to teach the core knowledge, and the effort should get off to a running start in elementary school.they have memorized, and hearing about great historical figures and exciting deeds. The educational establishment sees this kind of curriculum as one that forces children to memorize boring facts. That conventional wisdom is wrong on every count. The facts can be fascinating (if taught right); a lot more than memorization is entailed; yet memorizing things is an indispensable part of education, too; and memorizing is something that children do much, much better than adults. The core knowledge is suited to ways that young children naturally learn and enjoy learning. Not all children will be able to do the reading with the same level of comprehension, but the fact-based nature of the core knowledge actually works to the benefit of low ability students—remembering facts is much easier than making inferences and deductions. The core knowledge curriculum lends itself to adaptation for students across a wide range of academic ability....

[IcarusAngel]

Charles Murray is an extreme libertarian racist - why should anybody listen to what he has to say?

The article is confusing and rather pointless.

The article "Democracy and Education" by chomsky (appearing in "Chomsky and Miseducation") is far more informative

The problem with American colleges is that they aren't radical enough and are training Americans to be the social leaders of tomorrow, thus, there is actually a rather large conservative indoctrination system going on in them.

Only intellectuals come up with some of the most boneheaded defenses of capitalism and tyranny that you will ever hear.

[COVARE]

i fail to see how American colleges are conservative, i'd have thought it to be the opposite?

[danyboy27]

here in Quebec, its starting to be a problem mainly beccause many crucial job are lacking of manpower.

Plumber, electrician, xomputer technician, cooks etc, all those domain need people badly, not mentionning all the offshore opportunity.

doing a job like those described dont necessarly mean being undereducated.

[Bud Struggle]

The problem with American colleges is that they aren't radical enough and are training Americans to be the social leaders of tomorrow, thus, there is actually a rather large conservative indoctrination system going on in them.

There aren't more than 100 people in the world that think that American Universities are too conservative--the VAST majority of people think it's the other way round. That's quite an oddball opinion.

As for Murray being a racist--that's a matter of opinion. He just lets the numbers speak for themselves. The fact that some people may not LIKE what those numbers say--that's another story.

Me, I'm quite neutral on the whole Bell Curve thesis. But there are piles of people comming out of colleges with now where to go. Better off with a trade from some Community College.

[COVARE]

thee is a huge shortage of tradespeople in BC. people can make $30/hour for less than a year of training because there is such a high demand.

[IcarusAngel]

i fail to see how American colleges are conservative, i'd have thought it to be the opposite?

I just told you how they are conservative. They generally train people to be the social leaders of tomorrow, especially the ivy league schools.

These schools also put down a lot of peace activists and so on and were some of the last institutions to diversify.

The fields of economics, international-relations, and so on, are also conservative in their structure despite many "liberals" who are really just neo-liberals. Economics is doing a little better though.

Here's a counter essay to TomK's conservative essay:

http://books.google.com/books?id=84NQ3IXpbOYC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=chomsky+%22the+topic+that+was+suggested%22&source=web&ots=F0eHpYqTca&sig=fzIS_6sJck2-_JnlNnI7js8oBkM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

[IcarusAngel]

There aren't more than 100 people in the world that think that American Universities are too conservative--the VAST majority of people think it's the other way round. That's quite an oddball opinion.

Sure there are. There are thousands of people who understand the difference between left and right, tomK.

Conservative whiny, crybaby pussies just love to single out the media and our colleges are "conservatives" because they're idiots who don't know what they're talking about.

If you look at the framework of both colleges, and the media, you see that they are influenced mostly by the government and now the corporations.

Corporations are starting to make their way into even the colleges now, such as at Berkeley, and through the authorship of textbooks and so on.

That is another reason why the educational system in the US is failing, when the school events are sponsored by Federal Express and Mercedes-Benz.

There was even a kid who got suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt on Coke day, for example.

corporate indoctrinaton != to learning, Tomk.


As for Murray being a racist--that's a matter of opinion. He just lets the numbers speak for themselves. The fact that some people may not LIKE what those numbers say--that's another story.

Murray is indeed a racist and is hellbent on proving blacks are inferior to whites.

His "Bell Curve" has been debunked hundreds of times.

Anyway, if schools were progressive, they would follow a Deweyite model, which is not about rote memorization and repetition of certain facts.

Rather, the Deweyite model is about developing your innate talents, studying at your OWN pace, progressive modes of learning, and so on.

It is not about indoctrination, be it left or right, especially right, such as the lie that the US has been benevolent around the world and is generally a democracy.

Most things you learn about the US are simply untrue and have a right-ward bent.

[danyboy27]

I just told you how they are conservative. They generally train people to be the social leaders of tomorrow, especially the ivy league schools.

These schools also put down a lot of peace activists and so on and were some of the last institutions to diversify.

The fields of economics, international-relations, and so on, are also conservative in their structure despite many "liberals" who are really just neo-liberals. Economics is doing a little better though.

Here's a counter essay to TomK's conservative essay:

http://books.google.com/books?id=84NQ3IXpbOYC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=chomsky+%22the+topic+that+was+suggested%22&source=web&ots=F0eHpYqTca&sig=fzIS_6sJck2-_JnlNnI7js8oBkM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result


In what its supposed to change something in that world that american universities and colleges are conservatives?
i dont think its actually making things bad for the left, i mean, there is so many communists/socialist from all countries that studied in yales, harvard, and other prestigious american universities. Leftist that have received their education from their parents will go trought all that without problems.

[COVARE]

i guess my school's an exception eh? i hear a ton of people saying "today's colleges are increadibly liberal" and its true from my experience. none of my profs. are conservative, maybe moderate at the most. but my economics textbook is different, i might add, however (command economies always fail, less gov. intervention is better) that doesn't mean that the teachers themselves are libertarian or anything like that, it's really the individual (although most are liberals, some are marxists) perhaps it's just your biases that are unable to see things as it is?

[Decolonize The Left]

i guess my school's an exception eh? i hear a ton of people saying "today's colleges are increadibly liberal" and its true from my experience. none of my profs. are conservative, maybe moderate at the most. but my economics textbook is different, i might add, however (command economies always fail, less gov. intervention is better) that doesn't mean that the teachers themselves are libertarian or anything like that, it's really the individual (although most are liberals, some are marxists) perhaps it's just your biases that are unable to see things as it is?

"Liberal" means little anymore. When the media is called "liberal" you can understand why this word has lost all meaning. It is now a tool of the neoconservatives to label centrists as 'to the left' for the purposes of polarizing and diving the population, achieving re-election and a continued consolidation of power.

Your school is not "liberal." It may have some 'leftist' professors, but this ultimately means little. The school itself is responsible for producing students of suitable quality for the alumni - and the alumni are concerned with furthering the status of the school. There is nothing "liberal" or "leftist" about it.

- August

[Schrödinger's Cat]

In other news...

Are Too Many People Alive?
By Charles Murray (http://www.american.com/author_search?Creator=Charles%20Murray) Archives: August 10, 2000
Filed under: Public Square (http://www.american.com/topics/public-square)

The globe is becoming a terrain for stupid and obnoxious people; is genocide the solution?

[Bud Struggle]

Sure there are. There are thousands of people who understand the difference between left and right, tomK.

True--but very few of them understand it the way you and your fellow RevLefters do. "Left" for by far the majority of people (at least in America) means "Obama."


Conservative whiny, crybaby pussies just love to single out the media and our colleges are "conservatives" because they're idiots who don't know what they're talking about. Whiney crybabies, you say? :rolleyes:


If you look at the framework of both colleges, and the media, you see that they are influenced mostly by the government and now the corporations. Well shouldn't they be some connection--as most people that graduate from colleges go off to work for either the government or corporations.


Corporations are starting to make their way into even the colleges now, such as at Berkeley, and through the authorship of textbooks and so on. I agree here.


corporate indoctrinaton != to learning, Tomk.
I think there is a need in America for more skilled workers and less liberal arts majors--the liberal arts degree is very expensive and in the long run doesn't pay off very well for the recipient. Technical degrees are fine--engineers and such. In most cases the people that get these degrees are just advanced "skilled workers."





Murray is indeed a racist and is hellbent on proving blacks are inferior to whites.

His "Bell Curve" has been debunked hundreds of times. It's been a while since I've read it--and I know there's been some questions about his mathematics--but if I remember correctly he was "debunked" for a lot of assertions he didn't actually make. Anyway--the book was really about his theisis that America is becoming polerized between the "intelligent" haves and the "not-so-intelligent" have nots. An interesting question. The issue of Blacks was an unfortunate digression.


Anyway, if schools were progressive, they would follow a Deweyite model, which is not about rote memorization and repetition of certain facts. I understand, but the problem is that schools are so over politicized that they have little else in the way they can turn besides for memorization without loosing objectivity. That's why private schools are a much better alternative to public schools. They don't face the pressure of politically correct factions from all sides. Another alternative that is being introduced into Public Schools is the International Baccalaureate Program, which while considered by some somewhat "elitist" really does offer a much more comprehensive education to middle and high schoolers.


Rather, the Deweyite model is about developing your innate talents, studying at your OWN pace, progressive modes of learning, and so on. As I mentioned above I believe the IB Program does something similar.


It is not about indoctrination, be it left or right, especially right, such as the lie that the US has been benevolent around the world and is generally a democracy. I doubt any America school is going to last very long teaching little third graders that America is a Fascist state. :lol:


Most things you learn about the US are simply untrue and have a right-ward bent.Alas, I see things in quite the opposite fashion.

But as they say--you say tomato and I say tomato. :)

[Robert]

Well shouldn't they be some connection--as most people that graduate from colleges go off to work for either the government or corporations.

If communists wants to tear down corporations, government, and society as we know it, you have to wonder why they'd go to an American university at all. Plus, they already know everything anyway.

Of course, there are other things to do at college besides study.

I mean, that's what I've heard.

[danyboy27]

If communists wants to tear down corporations, government, and society as we know it, you have to wonder why they'd go to an American university at all. Plus, they already know everything anyway.

Of course, there are other things to do at college besides study.

I mean, that's what I've heard.

they go there beccause its a good education system.

bin laden studied in harvard you know!

[Robert]

I don't think Osama Bin Laden went to Harvard, or any other American University. What is your evidence of this?

[danyboy27]

I don't think Osama Bin Laden went to Harvard, or any other American University. What is your evidence of this?


oops my bad, nevermind.
still, he studied economic and buisness managing.

[Bud Struggle]

I don't think Osama Bin Laden went to Harvard, or any other American University. What is your evidence of this?

On the other hand Ted Kaczynski, the UniBomber did go to Harvard--so there is still a bit of terrorism being taught there. :lol:


In other news...

Are Too Many People Alive?
By Charles Murray (http://www.american.com/author_search?Creator=Charles%20Murray) Archives: August 10, 2000
Filed under: Public Square (http://www.american.com/topics/public-square)

The globe is becoming a terrain for stupid and obnoxious people; is genocide the solution?


DAMN Gene--you made me look. :D

[Lynx]

here in Quebec, its starting to be a problem mainly beccause many crucial job are lacking of manpower.

Plumber, electrician, xomputer technician, cooks etc, all those domain need people badly, not mentionning all the offshore opportunity.

doing a job like those described dont necessarly mean being undereducated.
In Quebec, most trades are taught at the secondary III, IV and V levels, with a few being in college. Is there really a shortage in the construction industry? The decree is such a fascist law it was near impossible to get your apprentice card even if you had a job lined up and waiting :(

Quebec has one of the highest (or the highest) rate of private school enrollment in the Americas.

[Bud Struggle]

Is there really a shortage in the construction industry? The decree is such a fascist law it was near impossible to get your apprentice card even if you had a job lined up and waiting :(

And that's UNION PROTECTIONISM. To hell with the Unions. Nothing better than right to work States (or Provinces--if such a thing exists.)


Quebec has one of the highest (or the highest) rate of private school enrollment in the Americas. I'm personally not crazy about private schools financed by the State (Parochial schools.)

I'm a Catholic in good standing--but I like the separation of Church and State. It's best for both parties.

[danyboy27]

In Quebec, most trades are taught at the secondary III, IV and V levels, with a few being in college. Is there really a shortage in the construction industry? The decree is such a fascist law it was near impossible to get your apprentice card even if you had a job lined up and waiting :(

Quebec has one of the highest (or the highest) rate of private school enrollment in the Americas.

yea, that all about the union man, they dont want competition, that how they work, i heard a lot of horrible stories. Yea in quebec the construction buisness is booming.

there is a lot of private school in quebec and yes they are financed partially by the public sector. A lot of people are going to private schools recently mainly beccause public education is horrible these year, they lowered the standards, a result of the failure of the state to have balls and make the system work AND also the fault of the unions working in the schools, its basicly impossible to fire an incompetent teacher,the union will protect him unless he killed or mutilated a children, and the problems with union is quebec is spread amongst the whole public sector, we cant change jack shit beccause they dont want to.

[Lynx]

Well, why does the Quebec government follow the letter of the law when it comes to public works or the construction decree? Why don't they slim down and eliminate some of the bureaucracy?
Some of the construction unions were run by the Mafia - so no love lost there.

Teacher's strike - when I was in high school, we supported the teachers.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And that's UNION PROTECTIONISM. To hell with the Unions. Nothing better than right to work States (or Provinces--if such a thing exists.)

Now we have your explicitly anti-worker attitude on the record. :)

[Lynx]

I'm a Catholic in good standing--but I like the separation of Church and State. It's best for both parties.
The Quebec school system is linguistically based. When I was in school the English would go to Protestant schools (even though we were all Catholics) and the French pupils to the Catholic. But there was very little religion taught. Quebec society is now secular.

The construction laws are so restrictive, it has forced workers into becoming businessmen (ie. an independent contractor). Then they can enter the trade and get hired by REAL (bourgeois) contractors.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Now we have your explicitly anti-worker attitude on the record. :)

Yeah! All government protection for the business owner, none to the worker! That's freedom at its finest. :laugh:

[Bud Struggle]

Now we have your explicitly anti-worker attitude on the record. :)

I was being arch--OK? I was saying that if the Union was restricting the freedom of people to work it is "mistaken."

Anyway Icarus Angel is my "official biographer" so that job's already taken. :tt2: :lol: