Denmark's free college has created "eternity students" who never graduate

[fallenturtle]

Can’t you just put a cap on it be it financial or time based?

[Janet_Miller]

Fine.

Cover the kids until they’re at least 50.

[Eagle-Keeper]

@TommyLucchese

■■■■ remember when conservatives used to defend the classic liberal university education? That wasn’t even that long ago.

Is it actually necessary to get that “education” by sitting in classrooms listening to boring lectures and paying $100,00? Listen to this clip from Good Will Hunting (especially around the 2:30 mark):

Good Will Hunting (Education vs. Intelligence)

[wiley8425]

You do realize Good Will Hunting was a fictional story, right?

[zantax]

@TommyLucchese

Everyone should learn how to code so in fifteen years big tech can pay lower middle class wages for programmers instead of upper middle class wages!

You think humans will be doing the coding in 15 years? I wouldn’t bet on it.

[Janet_Miller]

Why do they need relevance? These aren’t vocational schools.

But since you asked, the English major needed good verbal, reading & and written communications skills to make it in pharmaceutical sales.

I’m sure knowledge of our society’s economy helped the judge understand at least the economic position of some in his court (econ major).

Some in areas like foreign language went into teaching through education minors. Other students minored in business administration & are running their own enterprises.

Not everyone wastes their college years, learning nothing & receiving nothing from it but student debt. Some do quite well for themselves.

[Jezcoe]

@wiley8425

You do realize Good Will Hunting was a fictional story, right?

Didn’t Damon write that script while attending Harvard?

[wiley8425]

Yep. He was 26.

[Liberty323]

@Eagle-Keeper

@Liberty323

Hey, kudos to you; you’re obviously an exception. I just see so many kids electing to major in stuff like “Pop Culture” and “Social Justice” while accruing $60-150K in student loan debt with a worthless piece of paper at graduation. I’m not sure about the specific majors in Denmark but I imagine they are similar.
A good friend has 2 sons who graduated with English degrees 4 and 5 years ago. One works at an IT helpdesk making about $13 an hour, and the other works at a furniture store.
They could have had those jobs without even going to college. Too many graduate every year with liberal arts degrees and that’s why most of them cannot find work in their field of study, or get paid dirt when they do. No demand.
There’s a reason STEM graduates make a decent income right out of college.

I worked in education and when it came to hiring new teachers my school would get very few applicants for most of the science positions, although when it came to the other non-science related teaching positions they would get hundreds of applicants. There’s many people out there with degrees working in jobs that have nothing to do with what they studied in college.

Totally understandable, that’s because those other degrees are much easier and don’t require as much work. I would bet most education majors would prefer to teach something like Sociology rather than Algebra. I know I would have. The ones who graduate with STEM degrees don’t get jobs in HR or Social Work.
I think kids should be able to take a year or two off after high school to ponder this stuff rather than be pressured into immediately going to college.

[wiley8425]

Hell, I’m in College right now with kids who are still in High School. Under a Head Start program.

[Eagle-Keeper]

@wiley8425

You do realize Good Will Hunting was a fictional story, right?

You do realize I was just using a small clip from the film to make point, correct?

[wiley8425]

Using a fictional source. Makes perfect sense.

[TommyLucchese]

@Eagle-Keeper

Is it actually necessary to get that “education” by sitting in classrooms listening to boring lectures and paying $100,00? Listen to this clip from Good Will Hunting (especially around the 2:30 mark):

Matt Damon wrote that script while attending Harvard University. Lol.

[TommyLucchese]

@Liberty323

What?

I’d hate to think I went over your head with that, considering the subject.

[wiley8425]

Yes but you see he was making a point about how useless college is, by pointing to a film where the script was written by the lead actor while he was in college. How does that not completely prove college is useless?

[Eagle-Keeper]

@Janet_Miller

Why do they need relevance? These aren’t vocational schools.

But since you asked, the English major needed good verbal, reading & and written communications skills to make it in pharmaceutical sales.

I’m sure knowledge of our society’s economy helped the judge understand at least the economic position of some in his court (econ major).

Some in areas like foreign language went into teaching through education minors. Other students minored in business administration & are running their own enterprises.

Not everyone wastes their college years, learning nothing & receiving nothing from it but student debt. Some do quite well for themselves.

Interesting, if there is little to no relevance in the coursework, what is the purpose of the degree?

The fact is that NOBODY retains much of the knowledge they learn in most of their coursework (the majority of students forget at least 85-90%). In many types of jobs one would be hard pressed to demonstrate how much the knowledge they obtained in college had any direct relevance to the job they are doing. The fact is that many of the jobs people do with degrees are in many ways the same as people did years did years ago without degrees. Here’s another reality, if the coursework one takes in getting a degree is so vital then how is it Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, etc., etc., became so successful? Regarding jobs in sales (Pharmaceutical or otherwise), they don’t just hire English majors.

Regarding your last statement I never said they learn nothing and receive nothing, and that none do well for themselves.

[Eagle-Keeper]

@wiley8425

Using a fictional source. Makes perfect sense.

Nice deflection, completely avoided my question. Here I’ll post it again:

Is it actually necessary to get that “education” by sitting in classrooms listening to boring lectures and paying $100,00?

[wiley8425]

Ask the guy who wrote the script, for a class, while attending college.

[Eagle-Keeper]

@wiley8425

Yes but you see he was making a point about how useless college is, by pointing to a film where the script was written by the lead actor while he was in college. How does that not completely prove college is useless?

Actually he was not making a point about how useless a college was, did you even listen to the clip? The point he was making is one does NOT need to sit in classrooms listening to lectures to obtain knowledge. Here’s another movie that’s based on a real story that you might want to check out. Look up Lorenzo’s oil, it’s about how a non-scientist becomes a scientist.

PS - I’m not debating that the piece of paper - the college degree - cannot provide someone with a good paying job.

[Eagle-Keeper]

@wiley8425

Ask the guy who wrote the script, for a class, while attending college.

Again a non-answer. So I guess it’s fair to assume you believe that the only way to obtain knowledge is to pay lots of money and sit classrooms and listen to lectures.