The questionable efficacy of additional years of education?

My wife and I are home school parents, well more her than me since I’m in the office everyday. :slightly_smiling_face: This is our second year even though we’re considering sending my oldest back to public school once he hits 9th grade. Even now as a 7th grader he’s talking about college (he want to major in comp. sci with the career goal of designing and developing video games) and how far he need to go with his education. I also to a certain degree agree in regards to tailoring education to individual needs

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Good for you! I support school choice as well.

I’m not talking about the value of having a degree per say because that can vary greatly from person to person and from degree to degree. What I’m challenging is the value of say 4 years of course work vs 8 years of course work, and having a more practical career oriented higher education system.

I’m sure we can agree that Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Dell (to name a few) saw little value in sitting through four more years of classes.

My compliments on the extra efforts you and your wife are devoting to your children.

A career oriented degree path would consult with businesses on what they want in their employees for a specific type of job, and as such students could tailor their course work around that.

Our current system takes too long, costs too much, and in many cases and coursework does little to nothing in advancing human capital. Along with that is bankrupting our many of our citizens. Have you read Caplan’s book? Do you have any empirical date to definitively refute his observations? I have actual first hand experience in the system and can say unequivocally that forcing students to take coursework does not in anyway benefit them.

The current system of trying mold every student into some sort of well rounded polymath is an arcane and archaic system that literally dates back to the ideals of education rooted in Plato and Aristotle. As Caplan and others have pointed out it doesn’t work.

I support the idea of school vouchers as it would open up the private sector to develop programs tailored to the interests and abilities of a diverse population.

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The education system is tainted with people like Bill Ayers from the terrorist group The Weather Underground.

oh for the love of God :man_facepalming:

As someone with actual experience with the current system I can attest that forcing students to take subjects they are not interested in is simply not effective. As someone who taught science to largely lower level students with not interest in science most of what I did day to day had little to do with teaching/learning but was mostly classroom management, discipline and preventing cheating.

Yes we can. You just named 4 people out of 328 million. 4 very blessed individuals.

Most people aren’t like them.

And who did they hire to actually do the work?

Tim Cook of Apple, Jobs’ COO and current CEO, industrial engineering and MBA.

I couldn’t disagree more. A 20 year-old locked in a specific type of job based on company wants? His education decided by a corporation?

No sir. That would be a miserable existence for anybody with half a brain.

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most people go to college for a specific career.

No they don’t.

Mostly everyone I want to school with had a career in mind, be it mechanical engineering, accounting, agriculture, Maybe that is a “Canadian” thing the last year of High school is very forced on trying to figure out your career path most kid take co-op related work in said field to try it out.

but a lot of people go to collage end learn they hate their intended studies and switch.

“In mind”. 20 year-olds have a lot “in mind”. It is ridiculous to think a child is supposed to decide at 20 what they’re going to do for the next 45 years.

What you saw was response to pressure.

Your average 20 year old in college is 110k + in debt they better have something in mind.

Oh bull ■■■■■ Stop dude.

Why do people go to college and are willing to spend a lot of money to do so or why do parents want their kids to go to college and are willing to spend a lot of money for that? It has nothing to do with becoming a polymath. I’m sure you would agree with that. It’s about getting a job.