OTOH the training we receive in institutions might also directly correlate with higher income regardless of the actual "education" that occurs. For example, imagine an authority figure taking a 500 piece puzzle and throwing one piece at an individual and then telling that individual a story about the picture on the puzzle. A properly "trained" individual would accept that story without question. AND if they were really highly trained, they may even use their "training" to invent justifications for the story they were told and then pass these justifications off with the miasma of authority these pieces of paper confer. Individuals who are trained like this would be very valuable for certain kinds of jobs in our society.
Following what appears to be a trend in your once clear thinking towards overcomplication, I invoke the
pancake bunny.
I mean, honestly, was it the move to Hawaii, or what, John? :lfao:
Even if the graph is correct, reality is more complicated.
Indeed. One has to wonder how many of those 80,000 bartenders with college degrees referenced in the Stossel article are actually making $80k or more a year-it is more than possible, after all.
First off, for some of us, the value of work lies in more than the paycheck-I was raised to recognize the value of work beyond payment. For the scholar, the counselor, the
teacher (
John), the minister, and, one would hope, the police officer, their calling has more to do with interests, passions and yes-“
calling” than pay, and whatever training or education they had to attain to work in their field of choosing has inestimable
value beyond monetary compensation for
employment.
Indeed, I’d wager that a high school chemistry teacher could make far more employed as a chemist in industry…..or running a state of the art meth-lab. :lfao:
And, speaking of high-school: upon my return to academia, in spite of my having already earned a BA in religious studies, I had to take an examination for basic composition.
Because of the shoddy quality of high school education circa 1980, I had to prove that I could write coherently in my native language. It was an admission requirement.
This is the real reason for the devaluation of college education-that it truly has become an extension of high school, especially for freshman year, and the fact that it has become far too specialized: I know far too many of my fellow engineers who can calculate the “most efficient” method for processes, and yet will simply forget the man-machine interface-the fact that someone has to actually operate the damn thing-and come up with something that is nearly physically impossible to operate. College can’t-or often, doesn’t-teach common sense, or creativity.
Likewise, when I got the job at the nuke plant, it was because I passed a basic science and mathematics test-one that, in my estimation, anyone with an adequate high-school education should be able to pass well enough to be hired-yet not everyone can. Okay, perhaps I more than “passed,” and the test didn’t present any particular difficulty for me, but some skill with algebra, physics and chemistry isn’t too much to expect from a high school graduate, I think.
Getting back to the idea of “value” though, while I haven’t earned a damn penny with my religious studies degree in nearly 35 years, it’s education that I value, and has come in handy-it’s still an area of study for me, and I still contemplate post-graduate work in the field, from time to time. As for my engineering skills-while many of them could be attained in other ways, there is no place
but college for me to have attained others.
I dunno if using Bill Gates or anyone who is so clearly
exceptional as an example is doing anyone any justice, either. If you think you’re the next Bill Gates, well, you’re probably wrong. If you
know you are, then college, what you’re told, and everything else really won’t matter.
