As much complaining there is about college, it's hard to deny that it's very very popular. People really love their schools, so they are providing a service. Ma

As much complaining there is about college, it's hard to deny that it's very very popular. People really love their schools, so they are providing a service. Maybe what we need to rethink here is just the purpose of college. Seems like a lot of people treat it as a job training program, and would be happy to get rid of every department that isn't in the STEM acronym. The justification usually being that such degrees are unemployable and therefore worthless. But college is so much more than a job training program, it's a cultural institution at this point. College shapes young people in a way that aligns them culturally. People who go to college have the same sort of formative experiences, and after graduation these are used to relate to others who went through a similar time. It allows young people a time to explore their identities in a safe and understanding environment, to form social bonds, to test their preferences and try different classes, clubs, friends, romantic partners, etc. People call academia a bubble, and I think that it's necessarily so. Maybe think of it more like an incubator. College is also a melting pot that increases social cohesion. What other institution mixes citizens from all around the country and the world? College forces people from different religions, countries, states, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds to work together on constructive, creative, productive, and important tasks. There are so many voices out there telling us to hate one another and to work against our common man, we can't afford to lose institutions and environments that teach cooperation, unity, and understanding. It's important that people experience different perspectives, and for all the talk about how academia is a monoculture of ideas, I really must push back on that because there's no other place I can think of with such a diversity of people from all imaginable walks of life. Having exposure to this is crucial to being a citizen of the world. If we don't want college to be the default, I think we're going to have to seriously consider how to actually replicate the cultural aspect of college in other contexts. Your local trade school might not see enrollment from outside of your county or state. If we decrease enrollments in college and redirect those students just to jobs programs without any other adjustments, I worry we will be destroying something important.