Monday, August 18, 2008

Is College a Waste of Time?

No, I'm not asking whether you wasted your time in college. Scholar and always controversial Charles Murray asks in the Wall Street Journal whether alternatives to the bachelor degree would be better for most students. Excerpt:


First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

Read it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html