College: America's Most Overrated Product
In my job and working with thousands of students trying to better themselves and find a career I've often heard the words, "I'm paying good money for" ...
Colleges hold teenagers hostage. Because young adults need that piece of paper, colleges know students will come to them no matter how slipshod an education they provide. Employers increasingly demand a college diploma for anything above a McJob.
That insatiable demand for their pieces of paper allows colleges to sometimes provide a mediocre education without fear of losing students. And most colleges, especially prestigious ones, do provide a mediocre education because they are more interested in conducting research than in teaching undergraduates. So, for example, colleges heavily use the cheapest, least-effective method of instruction: herding hundreds of students into an auditorium to listen to a lecture by a professor whose main interest is an esoteric research area, not the basics that undergraduates need to know. Small classes are taught mainly by graduate students, often teaching for the first time. Residence hall life is rarely the living-learning environment so often advertised in colleges’ brochures.
It is ironic that the most prestigious, most expensive colleges are the ones most likely to provide a poor undergraduate education. They can only get away with it because of the institution's designer-label (acquired from its research, not its undergraduate education), and because the students are bright enough to create an interesting experience despite the college's neglect. How obscene to charge $30,000 a year and shortchange our nation's best and brightest.
How to Change it? ...
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