Newspaper Page Text
>• continued f rom previous page
keep their Junior Council on World Affairs membership dues paid up
through commencement After all students listen with a shiver, col
leges have been known to react to a drop in senior-year grades by
rescinding their acceotances.
So you've gotten into the school of your dreams? Don't ease up
now! The same vicious atmospheie of competition prevails here —
you'll need the right grades to get the right college recruitment
offer (Torn the right company, or even to make it to graduation.
Given up on the job market? You'll still need at least a 3.5 GPA to
get into a good graduate school! The treadmill never stops.
Until the day your l.w.t stops beatirg, people will ask you where
you went to college. Your answer to that cocktail-party question will
often determine what people think of you, what jobs you'll be con
sidered for, whether or not you'll be promoted, whether your in-laws
will approve of you. If you're lucky, your glowing personality, savvy
wit and stunning achievements can overcome an education deficit...
if you're lucky. You won't even be safe from the cult of college when
you die; your alma mater will rate a prominent mention in your obit.
Not everyone buys into The Promise. Dan Hassan, 31, found that
dropping out o f a* Ivy League school after just a year hasn't pre
vented him from rising to a management position as a director at a
Manhattan ad agency. "Very little that you learn in a liberal-arts
education is ever used in the workplace," he says, but admits that
his in-laws still nag him about finishing his degree. Dave Schulman,
a 26-year-old Duke graduate, told me, "College is complete bullshit.
I owe $40,000 in student loans, and for what? So I can make
$28,000 doing data entry?" Everyone's so busy saving money and
getting good grades to go to school that they never ask the most
fundamental question of all:
IS IT WORTH IT?
Once you cut through all the hype, the financial and emotional
sacrifices Americans make to send their kids to college just don't
yield the payotf that many of them are looking for — financial secu
rity. Some people figure out they've been had after the fact. Allan
Feuer, a 27-year-old freelance writer says, "I don't think it was
worth it. I haven't seen a financial payoff." Feuer dropped out after
three years and returned after a five-year hiatus: "I'm glad that I
finished, but it's more for personal reasons."
Politicians like former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan blame our current economic prob
lems — downsizing, increasing income disparity, the trade deficit —
on the need for more education. Why are these people lying to us?
Jared Bernstein, an economist with the Economic Policy
Institute, finds no correlation between education — even a techni
cal education — and increased income. The best-educated workers
do no better in the nearly 20-year-old climate of downsizing than
anyone else. "We are seeing wage declines for the vast majority of
workers," Lawrence Mishel, Bernstein's partner at EPI says. "Workers
in every industry you look at, including those that are the most
technologically advanced, have been losing ground."
Despite dazzling innovations like the Internet, Bernstein and
Mishel say that new technology is entering the workplace at the
same rate it always has. Contrary to popular perception, American
workers haven't suddenly been rendered obsolete by sudden techno
logical improvements. In fact, the United States already has the
most highly-educated work force in the world — 25 percent of our
workers are college graduates. Logically, we should be kicking the
most ass in the global economy, but we're falling way behind. Blame
our economic problems on the decline of unions, greedy CEOs,
excessively free trade, a regressive tax structure, the absence of an
electric fence along the Rio Grande, whatever you want. But it's not
caused by insufficient education.
THE HOLDING PEN
We take for granted that a four-to-eight-year stint at a college
or university is required to mold an American into a well-rounded,
educated, homo modernis. In ancient Greece and Rome, the rela
tionship between students and teachers was personal, customized
and intense. Today's colleges and universities are anything but.
First of all, American colleges are not a filter. Only about 50
four-year colleges reject more applicants than they accept. About
200 more admit 50 to 90 percent of all who apply. The rest let in
anyone with a high school degree.
Our politicians and pundits are trying
to turn the US into France, where
Sorbonne graduates drive taxis and
collect unemployment
One of the best-educated people I know is a UC San Diego
dropout. He sneaks into the first day of classes at San Francisco
State, grabs syllabi to snag the reading lists and reads the assigned
books on his own. On the other hand, an acquaintance of mine w ; '.h
a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from Columbia is a total moron
who can't read a map. She knows nothing about history, politics,
music or literature. In her case, a college degree does not equal an
education.
At Columbia, I met countless student-idiots: kids on football
scholarships who passed classes without attending them, children of
wealthy alums, pre-meds who cheated on almost every exam. One
time, when I was working as a math T.A., I tutored a calculus stu
dent in the "help room." We kept breaking down a question until I
found the problem — she didn't know her multiplication tables.
Although America's universities are churning out a steady stream
of brain-dead simpletons, our society relies almost exclusively on
college credentials as the central determining factor of social status
and employment opportunities. "A college degree is a signal to
employers that you can do what people tell you to do for four
years," Patrick Barkey, Ball State University's Director of Business
Resources says.
If I were hiring for Microsoft, I'd be much more interested in
related work experience than in a Stanford degree and a GPA. But it
ain't that way.
WINNER-TAKE-ALL
Robert Frank and Philip Cook argue in their recent book The
Winnu-Take-All Society, that "winner-take-all" markets, where more
and more people compete for fewer and fewer prizes, add up to
enormous differences in economic rewards for negligible differences
in performance. For instance, an Olympic silver medal winner is very
nearly as good an athlete as a gold medalist, but doesn't receive
nearly the same amount in endorsements and prestige. Frank and
Cook found that although degree holders tend to earn more money
than non-degree hrlders on average, education only accounts for 15
percent in the difference of wages. "Human capital" — people's per
sonalities, abilities, physical appearance and intelligence — account
for the vast majority of the variance in wages and personal success.
The use of college degrees to screen applicants for jobs and peti
tioners for marriage leads to social and economic instability by dis
couraging and disenfranchising non-degree holders. Given how sec
ondary schools, the admissions process, financial concerns and acad
emic curves randomly prevent countless brilliant Americans from
obtaining college degrees, it's insane to rely on them as a qualifier.
There is no proof that holding a degree from an accredited edu
cational institution makes you a smart person, yet that's a central
assumption in our society. So people chase more degrees. A bache
lor's degree is now worth what a high school degree was a few
decades ago. In most companies you need a master's to be consid
ered for a middle-management job. Soon you'll need a doctorate. As
degrees become devalued, the only winners are university trustees,
who invest their skyrocketing endowments in the financial markets
so they can afford to pay themselves six-digit salaries.
Why play along? If you really need a cumbersome bureaucracy to
teach you what they want to teach you because you're too unimagi
native to learn on your own, and the idea of a four-year vacation
from life appeals to you, start rounding up recommendation letters
and application fees. If you need college certification to pursue your
professional goals, go for it.
Otherwise, bear in mind that The Promise, whatever its merits
during the '50s and '60s, is a quaint anachronism dating to an
unwritten social contract that has long since been revoked.
Inexplicably, our politicians ard pundits are trying to turn the US
into France, where Sorbonne graduates drive taxis and collect unem
ployment. Trained for an elite without openings, these people can't
find it within themselves to do what they want — start their own
business, write books, write software, sell stuff on the stieet —-
whatever it takes to survive in a world without guarantees. They
bought into the notion that a college degree is everything. They
expected to coast through life after graduation, so they focused all
their energies into the day when they'd walk down a long aisle in
alphabetical order and collect a diploma. They lived for that
moment, and once it passed, their lives were over. Theyd wasted
years of their lives and lost infinite opportunities.
At least they didn't pay for the privilege.
Ted Rail is a cartoonist and writer based in New York City.
1
"Established Pizza Bakers Since 1974.
Compare Our Quality, Taste and Nutrition."
Also offering a wide selection of fresh baked
hoagies, calzones, pretzels, salads and munchies.
Over 100 bottles of beer and
36 drafts from around the world.
★ New Expanded Wine List ★
DOWNTOWN FIVE POINTS
259 East Broad St. 1661 S. Lumpkin St.
613-0892 613-0555
Oine-in • Pick-up Dine-in • Delivery
All Major Credit Cards Accepted.
imioim\ makki r
Corner of Broad & Pulaski
Mon.-Sat. 9:30am-7pm
Phoenix
is interviewing for the
Manager
Position.
Please Call
for Details
or Apply
in Person.
Ask for
Chris Highsmith.
♦ Come Enjoy Lunch .♦
V Specials from $3.95 >
S DRINK SPECIALS £
MONDAy ♦
y $1.99 Lime Margaritas
y WBDNESDAy
M All Flavored Margarita Pitchers ij
A $2.00 OFF A
A THORSDAy A
A $2.75 - 60oz. Beer Pitchers .♦
M * M
♦ FRtDAy +
y Happy Hour Specials ■V
B .,, P.O.Box 302
ell Maysville, Georgia 30558
By the day or week or more enjoy the
comfort of wholesome family fun
CLOTHES-FREE
Swimming * Hiking • Hot Tub
Camping • Volleyball • Relaxing
706-677-2931 800-432-1436
Af1ilia*ed with the American Association for Nude Recreation.
great when you open
the door, and
it only gets better cg&kies
when you bite into our cookies. &COMPANY
I C • A • F • E
SEPTEMBER 2, 1998