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Friday, June 16, 2017

Four Reasons Why College Degrees Are Becoming Useless

Students are running out of reasons to pursue higher education. Here are four trends documented in recent articles:

Graduates have little to no improvement in critical thinking skills

The Wall Street Journal reported on the troubling results of the College Learning Assessment Plus test (CLA+), administered in over 200 colleges across the US.

According to the WSJ, “At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table”. The outcomes were the worst in large, flagship schools: “At some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years.”

There is extensive literature on two mechanisms by which college graduates earn higher wages: actually learning new skills or by merely holding a degree for the world to see (signaling). The CLA+ results indicate that many students aren’t really learning valuable skills in college.

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like more will be living in their parents basements!

Anonymous said...

9:23 PM that would be due to the crap economy, lack of jobs and high rents.

Steve said...

It's the dumbing down thing, My son was so glad to get out of the clutches of high school that now he's working a 40 + hour job plus side jobs at home. No need for anything but more customers, and his phone rings many times a day! I am so proud of him. He will have his own shop in a few years, I'm sure! Very much smarter than school.

School is nothing anymore than a barrier to Entrepreneurship..

Anonymous said...

And stupid kids taking 100k guaranteed loans in a crap economy, lack of jobs and high rents... then they get out and play victim with a 1000 dollar loan payment. GUESS WHAT your STUPID for taking out the loan without guaranteed employment.

Anonymous said...

10:19 PM - I 100% agree. There is much more to life than a piece of paper. I can see in some professions, that further education is necessary.

Anonymous said...

Universities have become so liberal the professors are teaching their own agendas instead of the curriculum. Students learn to rant and rave and protest about inequities that they are clueless about. Couple this with a diminishing need for a white collar labor force and voila.

lmclain said...

Lots of tech skills.
Couldn't interpret a P&L or analyze a spreadsheet. Couldn't determine a ratio or a gross margin.
BUT!!!
They can take a beautiful selfie from several angles, put balloons in the picture, send it by satellite to a friend in Beijing, print it out and show all her friends.
Has to fill out a computerized employment app because, at 23 years old, she still can't spell or write a proper sentence.
Look!! A Rutgers degree!!
OK, great! Get downstairs and sort the mail.
$200,000 degree to sort mail.
Keep cheering.