Hold on, I never said that. I’m talking about the degrees people walk away with when they’re done — and the income people can expect to earn by having those degrees, relative to the cost to obtain them.
Of course people can (and should!) take worthy electives. But the cost of any particular degree should absolutely bear some rational relationship to the value (and I do mean monetary value) of having it.
This is a problem. And we have to address it…sooner rather than later. I’ve given one idea on how to do this, but I’m always in the market for other ones.
I think in some aspects we agree more than you realize. You mentioned that college isn't needed to lean a language, very true. Some day I will learn Klingon from Duolingo to prove the point.
I said earlier I believe the value of the degree is far more showing the willingness to spend years working, proving one has the desire to better oneself. Something I failed at at 18. That is the gatekeeper.
That and looking at transcripts shows one has taken and passed ASL (as a language example). Most employers don't want to devise a test to prove fluency in a language. They don't want to grade a paper to show an employee knows how to write. They don't want to administer a math test to show they know how to do math, or grade code to show they really know how to code. Looking at a transcript showing all that is far easier and less time consuming. That's the role university is providing.
So I am not sure why we would discount a degree in religious studies, philosophy, geography. We do, but why? Those have math requirements, language requirements, public speaking and writing requirements. All necessary for most modern jobs. Most people I know with a business degree state right up front they didn't learn anything that really made them superior. So, why do we value them more?
Now clearly if I were hiring someone to design bridges, I would want someone with an engineering degree. But I also know the way we overvalue degrees. After my year at the IRS, I was 6th in their rating system. Once tax season ended, they kept the top 5. Since points were given for having a degree, and I was the highest scoring non-degree, I am fairly confident that lack of a degree cost me. On the other hand, it worked out because I much prefer where I have been and what I have been doing for the last 35+ years over the IRS. And that worked out because in the late 80s we needed more IT people than we had people with degrees in IT. "Can you program Dbase III+ and can you replace RAM in a computer" was pretty much the job interview. And some were lucky, my roommates were Comp Sci majors and they were in desperate demand. They proved Gladwell's point that people like Gates were really lucky in one way, born a year or two earlier and they wouldn't have been in computers and born a year or two later and someone else would have already made their contribution.
