8.13.2008

Is a B.A. a waste of time?

For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

Excerpt:

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.

The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough -- four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you're a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school.

The merits of a CPA-like certification exam apply to any college major for which the BA is now used as a job qualification. To name just some of them: criminal justice, social work, public administration and the many separate majors under the headings of business, computer science and education. Such majors accounted for almost two-thirds of the bachelor's degrees conferred in 2005. For that matter, certification tests can be used for purely academic disciplines. Why not present graduate schools with certifications in microbiology or economics -- and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library?

Certification tests need not undermine the incentives to get a traditional liberal-arts education. If professional and graduate schools want students who have acquired one, all they need do is require certification scores in the appropriate disciplines. Students facing such requirements are likely to get a much better liberal education than even our most elite schools require now.

Certification tests will not get rid of the problems associated with differences in intellectual ability: People with high intellectual ability will still have an edge. Graduates of prestigious colleges will still, on average, have higher certification scores than people who have taken online courses -- just because prestigious colleges attract intellectually talented applicants.

But that's irrelevant to the larger issue. Under a certification system, four years is not required, residence is not required, expensive tuitions are not required, and a degree is not required. Equal educational opportunity means, among other things, creating a society in which it's what you know that makes the difference. Substituting certifications for degrees would be a big step in that direction.

The incentives are right. Certification tests would provide all employers with valuable, trustworthy information about job applicants. They would benefit young people who cannot or do not want to attend a traditional four-year college. They would be welcomed by the growing post-secondary online educational industry, which cannot offer the halo effect of a BA from a traditional college, but can realistically promise their students good training for a certification test -- as good as they are likely to get at a traditional college, for a lot less money and in a lot less time.

Certification tests would disadvantage just one set of people: Students who have gotten into well-known traditional schools, but who are coasting through their years in college and would score poorly on a certification test. Disadvantaging them is an outcome devoutly to be wished.


Comment: Certification instead of a sheepskin! Young people forget that the purpose of an education is to get a job!

11 comments:

  1. Very interesting article. It reminds me of a short business book I read a few days ago that talked about many people have started very successful companies that have lasted for 50+ years who really didn't know a thing about the business they started. Examples were mining and milling. The firms' founders knew how to organize and had other good business acumen, but they didn't know the first thing about their specific industry.

    Look at Nardelli of Chrysler. He was the top guy at Home Depot and now he's either the CEO or one of the top guys at Chrysler. What do hammers and cement and retail stores have in common with car manufacturing? Absolutely nothing. But the powers that be must think that guys like Nardelli can lead industries even if they have no specific technical knowledge. This is where having a good background in accounting can help a person's career.

    I don't remember the date, but there was an article in the WSJ about a year or so ago about the education of the nation's top CEO's. Many of them went to places like the University of Dubuqe or some other non-descript place as opposed to Harvard or Yale.

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  2. But is the purpose of going to college just to get a job? And would we want that, given that a decade after college, most people are not working in the area they trained for?

    Maybe the reason the BA is now a waste of time is because they've gone from the true liberal arts to a mere hodge-podge of subjects?

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  3. But is the purpose of going to college just to get a job?


    Good question. I think it depends upon the person. Some people go with the very specific goal of it getting them a job. For others, maybe they just want to be a well rounded person. But hopefully at a liberal arts college, even if the person only has vocational goals in mind, they "caught" other critical thinking skills and philosophies that make them a de facto "well rounded person."

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  4. John Stumpf, President of Wells Fargo, went to St Cloud State (St Cloud MN)

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  5. Bert - re: "But is the purpose of going to college just to get a job? And would we want that, given that a decade after college, most people are not working in the area they trained for?"

    I think people go to college for many reasons: 1.) Some to get away from parents; OR 2.) Because their friends are; OR 3.) Love of learning (I doubt there are many of these!).

    Some (in our circles) because they really want to serve the Lord effectively and college prepares them for this.

    About "not working in the area they trained for". I think a good education prepares one for a future of jobs (not just one job). For me the "disciplines" of finance and economics prepared me for a lifetime of jobs (including ministry).

    I found something out several years ago that colleges push student loans and some even get a kick-back from the lending institution. That shocked and bothered me.

    About colleges like the "Culinary Arts" schools (heavily advertised on Twin Cities TV!)": I know one who graduated from said school and basically makes minimum wage (plus a little) and has thousands of school loans to pay off.

    Going out on a limb here: I've noticed that some graduates of Christian colleges really struggle to "find themselves" after graduation. "Ministry" (by this I mean vocational ministry) is pushed so hard that young people feel like 2nd class citizens if they do not get "into the (vocational) ministry". Frankly there are limited vocational opportunities for ministry. (Not limited ministry opportunities - but limited VOCATIONAL opportunities)

    My 2 cents

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  6. Jim, good point--it's worth noting as well that those who went into ministry in the past--the greats like Bunyan or Edwards--had either the "school of hard knocks" or a classical education.

    To put it mildly, I wonder if it would do wonders for Northland and/or Pillsbury to mandate a few courses in logic, rhetoric, and maybe even Latin for all. Give kids the groundwork, then they'll be able to apply themselves to whatever they do.

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  7. Bert: re Latin

    Believe it or not, I had 2 years of it in my Freshman and Sophomore years of H/S (1963-1965). True ... our teacher's first name was Linus!

    It helped me with: learning Spanish. Learning Greek and even reading commentaries that have Latin!

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  8. I've heard about these places, but don't know much about them. It was my understanding that a school like Bob Jones University is a Christian school that offers degree in all sorts of fields of study, many which are intended to be used in secular vocation: accounting, finance, etc. On the other hand, I thought schools like Pillsbury and Northland ONLY offered degrees which, if you were to use them vocationally, would be applicable in the Christian vocational realm: Minister, Counselor, Christian school teacher, etc. Is this correct, or am I off base?

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  9. Looking at the NBBC (www.nbbc.edu) and Pillsbury (www.pillsbury.edu) catalogs, they are heavy on vocational ministry majors, but that's not the only thing you can do.

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  10. Some degrees are worthless in the secular workforce (My B.A and M.A are worthless) I have to answer to people that either have no education beyond high school or are very immature and need to be slapped!

    I can remember when having a degree was a big deal, now we are saturated with them. There are so many people with MBA's now that the degree itself does not mean much. The MDiv is becoming the MBA for ministry, a lot of them out there!

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