The New Yorker: Wait, We Have an Opinion on “Skip-College” Debate, Too

June 2, 2010 by Paul Richlovsky

Joining the ongoing conversation on the economics of a college education is The New Yorker‘s Rebecca Mead, who wrote the latest issue’s “Comment” essay. As this blog has noted, we’ve already seen a flurry of recent articles and commentary in The New York Times and Huffington Post. As a special treat for auditory learners, this essay can also be played or downloaded as an audio file (requires iTunes).

Mead’s often-humorous “Learning by Degrees” wastes no time delving into the hard numbers, citing some of the popular Payscale.com data about highest-paying degrees going to engineers and other math/science-related professions.

Additionally, other salient facts are laid out. One nice tidbit mentions the U.S. college graduation rate being lower than Canada’s, Japan’s and Korea’s.  My second-favorite factoid goes straight to the “conventional wisdom files”:

“The safest of all degrees to be acquiring this year is in accounting: forty-six per cent of graduates in that discipline have already been offered jobs.”

The funniest statement is about the outspoken Ohio University economist Richard Vedder, who was a participant in a recent Miller Center/PBS Newshour debate on education’s role in U.S. global competitiveness and has been quoted in several of the recent articles from big media outlets. Mead writes, “Special note should be taken of the fact that if you have an economics degree you can, eventually, make a living proposing that other people shouldn’t bother going to college.”

All humor aside, she comes down earnestly on the side of education as more than “a route to economic advancement”; there is an instrinsic value in cultivating the mind that benefits all citizens regardless of occupation, she argues. Despite being impressed by many of the Vedder (and David Leonhardt-Times) arguments and all the problems with U.S. higher education—monstrous costs, depressing graduation figures, grade inflation—I have to say I agree with Mead, but with a caveat. Higher education should be valued, but by valuing it we need not negate career-focused education and practical training for the people who are not traditional “college material.” Discussing the “skip-college” vs. “pro-college” issue without talking about feasible alternatives—e.g. career schools—is settting up a false duality. This duality also avoids the question of how to best cultivate the talents of people who are not sufficiently prepared or motivated for traditional higher education. Ultimately, all students join “the real world” at one stage or another, and ensuring they are fully prepared serves society’s best interests, regardless of whether college degrees are in the discussion.

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Related reading: This blog chimed in on the Payscale.com highest-paying degrees here.  Thoughts on the U.S. college graduation rates can be found here.

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Photo courtesy of Jim Linwood via Flickr.