> Why am I required to finance an entire degree only to be forced to take courses that I do not value? By bundling education into its most popular format, the f

> Why am I required to finance an entire degree only to be forced to take courses that I do not value? By bundling education into its most popular format, the four-year degree, we are inevitably adding low-utility courses that the consumer should be enabled to avoid. That's a problem with the curriculum, not the overall concept of a 4-year degree. There are schools that bundle useless courses as part of the required curriculum just because a tenured prof wants to teach it in a large auditorium. But other schools encourage students to build their own curricula with the courses that offer the most value to them. Brown University, for example, has been doing this for decades. It's not perfect, but it goes a long way toward catering to the needs and desires of each student. I have two (soon to be three) degrees in some combination of humanities and social sciences, and I've thoroughly enjoyed all but one or two of the dozens of courses I've taken so far. I've been fortunate because all the schools I've attended have been quite flexible in their course-taking requirements. I wish most students at many other universities enjoyed the same amount of choices. On the other hand, there is something to be said in favor of requiring engineering students, for example, to take a few courses in the humanities and social sciences. If you think you don't need to know philosophy or history to be a good engineer, you may find yourself at a disadvantage when dealing with today's complicated techno-socio-political issues. I would hate to live in a world where engineers did not stop to consider their work in a philosophical and historical context. Sure, you could study history outside of a college. High school really should teach critical thinking skills. But the reality is that most people would never even get a chance to think critically about topics in the humanities and social sciences if they weren't required to do so by their college's curriculum. The same goes for requiring humanities students to take introductory courses in math and science. Honestly, every college student should also be required to take a course in practical computer use unless they can demonstrate that they already know the stuff. EDIT Clarification: There are plenty of other reasons to advocate a reconsideration of the value of higher education as a whole, but a poorly designed curriculum isn't the most important reason. That one can be fixed without ditching the college altogether.