In the recent past, grand children asked my advice about choosing
a college and a career. My advice to all of them is that they should let a
career chose them, meaning that should let their own propensities guide them. By
giving experience a chance, they will end up in a career that fits their talents
and personality. One of those choices should be that college is not for them. Obviously,
most people have their choices somewhat limited by innate mental and physical abilities
and associated drive and determination, likes, and dislikes—you cannot be a football
quarterback if you are not an athlete nor can you ever be rich if you choose a
career as a classroom teacher.
Start with generalities such as a desire to be a teacher, or
take advantage of art or music talent, or the enjoyment of working with
animals. Academic talents including mathematics, writing, politics and extend
to technical skill, electronics, mechanics, construction, etc and then go on to
such specifics as business verses biology verses physical sciences verses arts,
etc. This all sounds complex but it is not. By the time they are asking for
advice, they have answered most of these questions by introspection—and should
be pointed out—that is what adolescence is all about.
If college is an option, student should focus on specific
careers by judging their likes and dislikes based on experience in life as well
as their success in courses they take. This should start with selection of
courses the like. Why, for example, would a student interested in biology register
for a course on graphic design. Obviously, if you registered in a calculus
course but failed or did not enjoy it, then theoretical physics is probably not
your best career choice. Starting with entry-level courses, by the time
students are seniors, for or five years later, they will finalize their career
choice by job opportunities. It usually does not work to choose a career before
the college experience. So much for career choice; now, thought about making a college
choice.
After a life long career as a professor in a professional
school, a difficult truth for me to accept is our current government has allowed business interests to corrupt of our
state universities. As a liberal, I believe that college level educational
opportunities should be available for everyone according to talent, drive, and
determination and not just those who can afford it. Therefore, the utopian interpretation
of this is that anyone who desires to go to college should be able to register
in what every they choose. Reference here is to the career choice matrix as
presented in the first three paragraphs. Tax supported public universities with
open doors for everyone but close the doors on those who lack the talent and
drive to succeed, an educational system of “natural selections” based on trial
and error. This smacks of social Darwinism, but so what as long as there is
equal opportunity.
The fear that the freshman class would be huge would be realized
but by far, most people do not want to
go to college. Most young people know when they do not have the desire, talent,
or drive for these type of careers. Second, the “trail by fire” will eliminate many
who have made a mistake in assessing their own ability or cannot fulfill a
parents dream. By adhering to rigorous standards, the size of the class would drastically
diminish with only the most talented being able to complete the curriculum even
extend it into the master degree level and finally the PhD level—no grade or degree
inflation.
What has gone wrong with this dream and how has our state universities
been corrupted is the objective of this post. There is a thing called human
greed. It is something we all have; we do not want to pay taxes. In addition,
we have a strong dislike of cheating. We would not want someone going to
college on my tax dollars just so he or she did not have to go to work. The
third and most complex and difficult thing to understand is the impact industrialization
of our university system has had on higher education.
We do not want to pay taxes. Politicians we elect grant tax
money to all level of education including state universities. We have had a never
ending series of confrontations over taxes since government were formed. The “cut
taxes mantra” has bankrupted our government. Therefore, the amount of money
available for state legislature to support universities has fallen
dramatically; “you” have bankrupted the institutions of learning. The
universities, in compensation for loss of tax support, have raised tuition
making higher education a rich family’s game. A yearly tuition of $60,000 over
five years in a public” university is untenable and the cost of seven to ten years
for professional degrees is ridiculous. The student loan situation make is
worse: the government guaranteed student loans so lending institution can charge
less, but “banker greed” steps in and the interest rates do not fall, in fact, they
increase. A $300,000 to $600,000 debt with a 6% interest on graduation
discourages parents and students like.
Corporations corrupted
institutions of higher learning and changed them into research institutes.
There is a great need for non-patentable or “basic science research” results in
universities; however, professors seek research grant that pay overhead costs,
including part if not all of the so-called “professor’s” salaries and not for scholarly
merit. These grants are the ones that yield profit to the researcher. Consequently,
university administrators hire “research scientists” as professors and not “teaching”
professors to supplement their budgets because of the lack of tax support of
higher educations. This becomes complex when we realize that all professors
apply for and receive government research grants to pay part of their own
salaries, the state taxpayers pay for the buildings, and the remaining overhead
costs, which is huge, but industry can patent the research results for their own
benefit. Taxpayers are deceived into thinking they benefit from all of this when
industries benefit from tax dollars. Their money is going into the pockets of
industries and not into educating our children.
Even though I strongly believe in public education, it is
sad to have to recommend that aspiring college students choose to go to private
colleges where their tuition, which is still high, goes to hire “teaching professors”
and not researchers. The situation is different in K-12 education because there
is a politically backed but greed motivated intentional move to destroy public
education by the voucher program. I fully support the K-12 public schools in all
but rare circumstances. It will take a serious political move to separate out
the research institute from state universities and allow the universities to go
back to doing what they were intended to do—educate students and push back the
frontiers of science. Until that happens, young students should consider going
to carefully selected small private colleges; they are not all good, there are
some real loser out there. A law school that
teaches biblical law or a biology course based on creationism is not “good”.
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