Small and big universities or colleges

We try to educate our kids by sending them to a higher level of teaching after what we call "high school."
It is done in modern times mostly so the kids can make a better living with such an education. It wasn't always that way.
College is now a place where we hope our kids will "grow up" and be able to handle themself in our commerecial world of today. We feel that if in some fashion they can manage to glide through four or five years and obtain that "degree." that they are much more likely to succeed.
College is not now about "learning and how to learn," it is about how to succeed. Make money generally.
As we can see by the recent college tragedy about a student who made it withing a month of getting the "degree," never should have started the first year!
People are no longer recognized and praised for their daily accomplishments very much until we know whether or not they were able to "get through college."
The so-called professionalism of a graduate has less and less actual serious meaning due to the "dumbing down" of those we send to college.
What we have is too much of a "good thing" being wasted on those who just don't belong there. Everybody is cheapened.

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Old one by dollar (above)
Submitted by Bonkers on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 11:26am.

It is just that we shouldn't force inept people into college. They can learn more in Trade Schools and other specialties, something we need and it pays well now.
We also pay some "college" educated people way too much for what they do. Any smart person can learn most of those jobs in a month.
College is just helpful to some to learn how to learn anyway.
Need to get college back to 3-4 years of liberal arts, then a professional degree if they are good enough to do it.
They are just taught how to shuffle paper for a living now and are naive about common sense, math, classics, and science in general.

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$, I see your point but
Submitted by swmbo on Thu, 04/19/2007 - 10:11pm.

While I understand what you mean about the "cheapening" of a college degree, I have to ask a question. Who will determine what student "doesn't belong there"? There was a time in the United States when women "didn't belong" in higher education. So, sending a woman off to be educated was a waste; everybody knew women couldn't perform at that intellectual level. There was a time when Native Americans "didn't belong" in higher education. Then it was hispanics and African-Americans.

While I get your point, I also get a little nervous any time someone starts talking about who "deserves" a shot at the American Dream or who "belongs" in the places where you can get access to it.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

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swmbo: college
Submitted by dollaradayandfound on Fri, 04/20/2007 - 4:09am.

It didn't cross my mind concerning race and gender. I do understand though that any kind of choice does limit someone.
We simply don't sort any more as we should. I am NOT suggesting that some pristine board do the sorting. The student should make the final decision, but only after intense counselling so that he or she know what to do.

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$, it's cool
Submitted by swmbo on Fri, 04/20/2007 - 12:28pm.

I get your point and thanks for the clarification. But I think the resounding issue in the VT situation isn't about failure to be selective. The issue is the decreasing funding for mental health services.

Think about it: there are children who are diagnosed with schizophrenia as teenagers (sometimes even younger). If their parents have no health insurance or if the insurance they have doesn't cover mental health services, they are reliant on publicly-funded resources. Well, in our own county, the mental health services center is threatened with closure because the State is refusing to fund it. Where do those parents go? The only help for them is when their child is hospitalized -- and the spiraling descent into hospitalization is fraught with peril for everyone who comes into contact with that kid.

To make matters worse, hospitals are tasked with releasing people from their psychiatric ward as soon as they are no longer a danger to themselves or other people. Now, that doesn't mean that they have to be cured; it doesn't even mean that they have to be registered with any kind of outpatient program for follow-up care. They just have to be "not a threat". So, the hospital pumps them full of happy pills and dumps them out -- unsupervised -- on the sidewalk with instructions to keep taking the medicine. The patient then begins the not-a-danger-spiraling-into-becoming-a-danger-hospitalized-not-a-danger cycle again.

Now, multiply that by the number of mental illnesses besides schizophrenia. And remember that some of our Iraq/Afghanistan war vets are about the same age as the VT student and are being sent home mentally ill with a tattered mental-health safety net, at best.

Dollar, the VT situation is just the latest canary in the coal mine of our national neglect of the mentally ill.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

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