Rick Santorum’s Anti-College Rant

[JB3]

Wow! They don't even list your minors on your degree? How are you to confirm you have those minors (other than transcripts of course)?

Again, why get a minor? I accidentally, almost got one and there are actually people out there that go out of their way to get a minor? I took some hardcore Spanish courses only to be told I needed a lightweight Spanish Poetry class to get a Spanish minor. This sounds like a scam.

My cousin is a ditz and goes to Stanford. She's a psych major with a Spanish and Poli Sci minors... Get this: she's trying to become a CIA agent.

She swears up and down that those minors mean something.

They do. Here in Illinois (and in several other states), if you're a teacher and have a minor with enough credit hours, you can get your teaching endorsement for that area and all you have to do is pay the license fee.

Also, depending on what your major is, your minor can help you get a job or get into graduate school. An example of that would be an econ major that also has a foreign language minor, which can help them get a job in international business.

 

[T-Rexx]

And science degrees can be purchased as well.

Not from an accredited university, they can't. This is extremely easy to vet in the developed world. In the third world, it can sometimes be a problem.

I have a colleague who holds a doctorate from a university in Uzbekistan which has gone out of business since it issued his degree. He was made to repeat a course of study in the USA, even though we all knew he was legitimate (he knew way, way, way too much about his subject of interest not to have been what he claimed to be).

Ask anybody who was a Nuclear Engineer in the Navy... they pay a fee and get a degree.

*Gasp*

I don't understand why the navy would not do what any high school or community college would do - vet the credentials of anyone claiming formal education of any kind. Especially for such an important position.

 

[JayHawk]

Enlisted Nuclear Technicians are not required to have degrees to serve BUT by having attended the 7th most difficult course of study in the United States in going to Nuclear training with the Navy there are plenty of very reputable colleges that will award the BS in Nuclear engineering ... cash based system not knowledge based

 

[T-Rexx]

Is that universal?

I think it is rare for both majors of a double major to be indicated on the diploma. That would make it look like the school has (or had) a special program of study in both fields simultaneously, which is not what a double major constitutes. It would be easy to confirm that a school which issued such a diploma does not have such a program of study, and that would in turn imply that the degree was making false claims.

If there is one thing schools hate, it is the appearance that their degrees are anything less than the honorable and reputable certifications they claim to be.

 

[Kulindahr]

To sum it up, I believe it's great that students go to college, but they should ONLY GO TO COLLEGE IF THEY WANT TO, not because they have to. Making a college degree more common than it has to be is VERY dangerous and would lead society into a rut much like America today.

I know the majority of others would disagree with me on this and call me some form of a pessimist/cynic, but unfortunately, that's what happens.

Not cynical at all. There are other paths than college, and as I keep pointing out, if under Clinton and Bush we'd been making those look as attractive as has been done for college, this country wouldn't be in the mess it is: some three million technical jobs in the country are unfilled, and for every unfilled one three other jobs don't exist. So if we hadn't diverted students from technical schools and two-year technical degrees and apprenticeships, there would be twelve million more jobs right now.

To catch up, there should be a program for anyone unemployed right now to get the first two years of a voc-tech education free. For many, that would mean the whole thing at no cost to them. And for every one who graduated and got one of those jobs, three other people would get hired.

And if we can't do that, then we should grant immediate visas to people from other countries who have the needed skills and want to come -- because for every one of those immigrants, three Americans would get jobs.

 

[Kulindahr]

My cousin is a ditz and goes to Stanford. She's a psych major with a Spanish and Poli Sci minors... Get this: she's trying to become a CIA agent.

She swears up and down that those minors mean something.

Actually if she's just out of college, she might have a shot. She'd get a desk job, of course, shoveling and summarizing and filing documents having to do with Spanish-speaking countries -- not exactly the sort of "agent" she probably dreams of.

 

[Kulindahr]

Enlisted Nuclear Technicians are not required to have degrees to serve BUT by having attended the 7th most difficult course of study in the United States in going to Nuclear training with the Navy there are plenty of very reputable colleges that will award the BS in Nuclear engineering ... cash based system not knowledge based

If they're issuing it based on cash, they can lose accreditation or be put on probation, either of which butchers their ranking and makes recruitment harder.

OSU had a program like that, but the 'students' had to pass a whole stack of written tests as well as hands-on at the reactor. Since they weren't in the classroom, the tuition for the courses was only half, plus a fee of like a hundred bucks to retake a failed exam.

There are rules for granting degrees that way, just like for extra majors or double degrees.

 

[Kulindahr]

I think it is rare for both majors of a double major to be indicated on the diploma. That would make it look like the school has (or had) a special program of study in both fields simultaneously, which is not what a double major constitutes. It would be easy to confirm that a school which issued such a diploma does not have such a program of study, and that would in turn imply that the degree was making false claims.

If there is one thing schools hate, it is the appearance that their degrees are anything less than the honorable and reputable certifications they claim to be.

They probably separate them with a miniature school seal of something so it's plain.

 

[jackoroe]

Maybe we should leave it to the people to decide what kind of education they would like to have. We need rocket scientists and software writers. But we also need people to fix our toilets and cars. Market forces should be the determining factor about what level of education best suits us, not government.

Of course, given the Obama economy, we have some of the best educated waiters on earth. I know several with master's degrees. Not to mention tens if not hundreds of thousands in student debt.

They aren't all that happy with their investment.

 

[Kulindahr]

Maybe we should leave it to the people to decide what kind of education they would like to have. We need rocket scientists and software writers. But we also need people to fix our toilets and cars. Market forces should be the determining factor about what level of education best suits us, not government.

Of course, given the Obama economy, we have some of the best educated waiters on earth. I know several with master's degrees. Not to mention tens if not hundreds of thousands in student debt.

They aren't all that happy with their investment.

Finally a function I can agree to for a Department of Education:

providing an annual statistical statement of the sorts of jobs currently available and expected to be in five years, and the education and/or training required for each.

Except we don't need a Dept. of Ed. for that -- it could be relegated to a small office in Commerce.

Oh, well.