Santorum: Obama 'A Snob' For Wanting Everyone To Go To College

[pbrower2a]

In what country does everyone go to college?

Nowhere. But lots of countries do better than the United States these days.

Actually, on the contrary, the US has the second-highest percentage of the population with a college degree in the world: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_att_ter-education-educational-attainment-tertiary

Yes, but if you look only at workers under 35, the US scores 12th.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0809/Obama-aims-to-lift-college-graduation-rates-but-his-tools-are-few

In other words, the US was in the lead on this issue for decades, but has faltered in the last 20-30 years.

EDITED: "under 45" corrected to "under 35"

Telling. College education used to be inexpensive in America. Now it usually comes with a burden of debt about as big as that for a trailer.

[pbrower2a]

Trailer? You live in Michigan. Can't you buy houses for a fraction of the cost?

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Bill Gates says hi. [/quote]

Bill Gates has "some college" and his head on straight. If one is the new Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one might not need any college education. But that said, for every Bill Gates there are thousands who could be wiser faster if they had a real college education. That is before I even discuss the unique Mozart. Without a college education one generally has fewer -- not more opportunities and pays for the lack of opportunities in being more under the thumb of an employer.   

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Bill Gates again says hi. [/quote]

And so do lots of people in prison who became extremely materialistic and couldn't achieve their dreams without going to illegal activities (like prostitution, book-making, or drug-trafficking)... or had no alternative to personal anger in response to a nasty situation for lack of the tendency to think of alternatives. College graduates have extremely low participation in violent crime.   Before you say "Ted Bundy" or "Ted Kaczinski"-- those two had big problems that college education could have never cured.   

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Education is useful. But there's this thing called 'marginal utility'. [/quote]

Some things are public goods -- and they are good for you even if the direct benefit isn't yours. A well-educated public less vulnerable to crass commercialism and political demagoguery is one of them. That is not to say that our educational system is good at that -- it could get better at that. We need to consume less and appreciate what we have more instead of buying schlock that ends up in a landfill. We need to become more critical of mass culture that often pollutes the souls of children. We need to recognize that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll" or even bureaucratic power and material indulgence.

But some of that could still be promoted earlier than college. But that requires that we have good teachers who learn that stuff in college. Back to liberal arts.

By the way -- what is wrong with an 18-year-old taking a semester of college, dropping out, and then going into an apprenticeship for a skilled trade having realized that college is wrong for him?     

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What is the harm? Besides -- the Good Life at any level in America requires at the least some specialized training after high school. High school is no longer adequate preparation for anything other than college or specialized vocational training. The American nightmare of inescapable poverty is increasingly the norm for those who have 'only a high-school education'.

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Having 80K in a bank account is not a good thing if one blows it. A fool with 80K could easily blow it on cocaine or sports betting... I've known of people who win large amounts in a state lottery or inherit money from parents and mess up even worse.   

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The proposal is for "Grade 13" and "Grade 14" only, which is long enough for specialized vocational training at a junior college or lower-division years toward a bachelor's degree. That might be enough to be prepared to enter the workforce as a "technician", "machinist",  or "nurse". 

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K-12 education still matters. Parents have their role, too -- as in turning off the mind-wasting electronic entertainments that include TV, video games, and Internet access. A kid is better off with a low-tech violin than with a high-tech computer.   

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Does anyone believe that there are people wholly unsuited even to post-secondary vocational training?

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Maybe college could be tied to getting corporate sponsorship, with "IBM" being more desirable than "Bob Evans Restaurants". Tying college to a contract for being overworked and underpaid for ten years after graduation or having a huge debt to a giant corporation would have its problems.

[pbrower2a]

We have ignored the question of snobbery itself. Intellectual snobbery is far more common in places in which education is rare. Economic snobbery is more common in places in which the rewards for work are unconscionably small and the reward for being born into the Right Family are unconscionably profuse. The worst snobs are ordinarily the middle-class people least secure about their economic or educational status --  the legal secretary as opposed to the attorney or the waitress. The typical snob has an ill-paying job with big expenses (like "professional" clothing) related to the work.

We have also failed to answer the question of what education is for -- basically preparation for leadership even if leadership comes with personal hardships (military service, parish priesthood) -- let alone teaching, accountancy, medicine, engineering, law, and most creative work... Truly-good education improves the people who get it. It might not be a valid alternative to forty years of matriculation in the School of Hard Knocks that increasingly becomes the norm in our profits-first, people-if-the-elites-get-sentimental economy, but by the time that one has forty years of experience in the School of Hard Knocks one is washed up no matter how wise one is.

Yes, Ben Kenobi, creative people would be wise to drop out of formal education when they can no longer derive anything from it. If one is Bert Bacharach and one can churn out one lucrative pop song after another one need not devote effort to compose dense counterpoint as found in Bach fugues and Beethoven's late sting quartets that the cultural snobs alone like. (Sure, I enjoy that music... but I also think that the artsy snobs vastly underrate Thomas Kincaid as they did Norman Rockwell because he appeals to "the wrong people").   

Education at its best allows people to learn from others' mistakes instead of repeating them. One of those mistakes is to put undue trust in economic elites like ours that see the rest of humanity as livestock at best and vermin at worst. Another, paradoxically, is snobbery.

[pbrower2a]

I just want to chime in that it would most likely be beneficial for the nation if we saw more undergraduates in the STEM (science/technology/engineering/mathematics) fields. I am not an expert in labor economics, but it appears we have a severe shortage in these type of college graduates and a still-growing surplus in graduates who studied other fields (e.g., psychology, sociology, political science, history, etc.). Of course, market forces will work things out one way or another eventually...

Lastly, college is a rather expensive way to "find yourself" these days. But if that is what you want and you (or your parents) can afford it, you are free to choose that. More power to you.

We are importing them -- and treating them badly. The horrible HB1A visa that allows tech companies to underpay tech people is a good reason for Americans to steer clear of tech fields.

Don't get me wrong -- it's not a bad idea to encourage highly-educated tech people into America. I'd like them to be paid enough that they have cause to join the American gene pool.

What's wrong with "finding oneself"? People who never  "find themselves" go around confused and often gravitate to self-destructive habits like booze, drugs, and reckless sexuality. 

We have a surplus in about every field of academia because working people are badly paid. Sure, it is profitable -- but ultimately destructive. Were it not for the disappearance of industrial jobs that give a middle income to people of modest intellect and imagination but good work ethic we might not have so many mediocrities entering college. 

[pbrower2a]

Also, why have we never discussed the comments Obama made about high school in his SOTU? He practically implied he is in favor of mandatory schooling until 18, not 16. Mind-boggling, if you ask me. It reminds me of the proverb, "you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink it..."

Let's see -- what prospects do high-school dropouts usually have?

Destitution

Crime

Early death

The Armed Forces don't want high-school dropouts; they have far too many disciplinary problems. Few employers want them because dropping out of high school implies a rebel if not an ignoramus.

Here's the dirty little secret of the American economy. Our productivity is now high enough that we can make in 20-25 hours what we used to make in 40. Workers have been getting the shaft from employers instead of a rising share in the production. Much of what happens in an office -- where productivity gains were slow before the introduction of PCs and word-processing software -- is now office politics. Many temp agencies supply clients hired for only 28-32 hours a week because there isn't enough work to justify the effort.

It's labor-saving technology that has created miracles of productivity -- and bureaucratic elites who have grabbed all of the advantage while driving pay down. Such is classic exploitation straight out of a Marxist stereotype of capitalist plutocracy.

Note well that the amoral, high-functioning sociopaths can do exceedingly well in such a system. The system ensures that plenty of whiskey, gold-digging mistresses, mansions, sports cars, and 'elite' vacations are available to the bureaucratic elite who can tolerate what they do to the common man.

We are five years away from major reforms of the system or twenty years away from a Red revolution -- and by "Red" I mean the sort with hammer-and-sickle devices and icons of Marx and Lenin. It used to be that the Marxist dictum "Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!" was outmoded when working people had cars, spacious flats, electronic entertainments, appliances, and comfortable furniture.

Conservatism that offers the common man nothing is a tragic fraud.   

[pbrower2a]

We might want to look at some data here:
Employment status of the civilian population 25 years and over by educational attainment, Jan 2012:
Less than a High School Diploma: 15.0
High School Diploma, No College: 9.5
Some College/Associate Degree: 7.5
Bachelor's Degree or Higher: 4.4

The labor force participation rates for these same for groups are:
Less than a High School Diploma: 45.3
High School Diploma, No College: 59.8
Some College/Associate Degree: 69.3
Bachelor's Degree or Higher: 75.7

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm
Yes, there are lots of people who didn't finish high school, or who finished high school but didn't get any further education, who've done well for themselves, because they've worked hard and made good choices. There are also people who have advanced university degrees who don't do well. But averages matter, too.

This is true but if everyone has a college degree and competes for high salaried jobs, then what happens to jobs that produce products and other services? A lot of why our manufacturing sector is gone is because people go to college instead of trade school. This is what happens when everyone goes to college. Again, college is good if you end up doing something that requires a degree.

I have known of people with advanced degrees who give up the pretense that their learning and early-chosen profession is so noble that it must be asserted by working for near-starvation pay for 'ignoble' work as a miner or assembly-line worker who gets real pay for real work.  Economic reward means something... like steak and seafood as opposed to repeated mac-and-cheese or ramen noodles. Many kids of families whose chief breadwinner has a skilled trade find that college is just not right for them and goes to an apprenticeship for a skilled trade.

People did not need and still do not need appreciable training to do industrial labor. Industrial labor has disappeared because the bureaucratic elites who wield the real power within corporations have chosen to transform their manufacturing firms into importers, effectively forcing the working class and much of the middle class into the working poor who tend cash registers and sweep floors.

People didn't go to trade school to become industrial laborers or miners. They still don't. The trade schools on the whole have poor rates of return on investment for students as do non-selective colleges that allow about anyone in who will pay the tuition or take out a loan for education.

People are getting the clue that if one wants any chance at a good life one needs to either attend college and get a degree so that one can be perhaps a school teacher or get a lucrative trade such as "plumber" or "diesel mechanic". The middle income jobs that used to require a strong back and a good work ethic have largely disappeared due to the decisions of America's corporate nomenklatura. We are headed to an economy as inequitable as that  typical of a fascist dictatorship.

[pbrower2a]

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Do you have any facts to back up this assertion - I'm seeing just the opposite.

It may not be so much that institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Rice, the University of Chicago, MIT, Cal Tech, and some top-notch public universities (California, Michigan, Illinois, Texas)   are better at teaching as it is that they get better mental material to begin with. SAT and ACH scores mean something. Attending "Kegger State" or "Biblical Literalism University" doesn't help a young adult  on the average. That's not snobbery but certifiable qualification (intelligence and not being a scatterbrain) associated with academic success.

Face it -- the US worked its way out of the Great Depression largely through the formation of small businesses that depended upon whole-family effort, low yields, and long-term investment that people couldn't run from without losing everything. It is now difficult to compete with the chains that take advantage of the benefits of vertical integration and economies of scale on everything from advertising to tax compliance. The tax structure of an effectively-flat tax upon business income above about $100K now favors giant corporations  over mom-and-pop organizations.  Maybe we need to go back to the high graduated taxes that gave small businesses a niche in food service, retailing, banking, and even manufacturing as during the 1950s.