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I think we have a logic/emotion split about college, where logically we know college costs lots of actual money and should be regarded as an investment, but our
by zach 16y ago
I think we have a logic/emotion split about college, where logically we know college costs lots of actual money and should be regarded as an investment, but our emotions have been manipulated to think of college as a certain kind of life-validating experience.
So the decision to go to college is governed by the logic of college as investment, but then the content part is guided by the emotion of college as personal self-realization.
So we end up with a society where countless people pour thousands of dollars into attending college for fundamentally emotional reasons. Or even worse, for mistaken factual reasons about the practical benefit of their education.
In other words, as Ted Rall put it even before college costs doubled, college is for suckers:
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.26.96/student-9639.html http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.26.96/student-9639...
- rdtsc 16y agoThat is a good article. A classic. A key part of it for me is: --- Although America's universities are churning out a steady stream of brain-dead simpletons, our society relies almost exclusively on college credentials as the central determining factor of social status and employment opportunities. --- I know it is a farce. But I also want the HR departments across the country to know that too. (I guess the lesson is: don't work for companies that consider college degree + GPA as the main determinant for your employment criteria).