As you all know I have been a college teacher for a long while now. I teach at a two-year community college. A large majority of the students I have had over the years have gone to the community to work their way through their first 2 years of college before going to a 4-year institution to get their bachelor’s degree. While it is great that there are so many people working their way towards a college education, I find that there is something really bad that has happened in the US (and in other parts of the world), and it is that the bachelor’s degree has really become what was the high school diploma.
It used to be that a high school diploma opened a lot of doors for people. There were lots of employment opportunities. But that isn’t the case anymore. What has happened over the last 30 or so years is that employers have started requiring bachelor’s degrees just to get an entry level job at a company. Also, in the USA at least, there has been a huge push for “kids” to go to college. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard students say, “Well, you just have to go to college. I don’t know what I want to do, but I am going to get a degree in something because you just have to.” That is such a warped way of thinking and educating. Why do people have to go to college to get a bachelor’s degree to be able to get a job?
I feel that high school has just become another level of schooling that students just have to “get through” before they start “real school” where it really “matters” in college. I don’t think that is right. I know that some of you are thinking, but high school grades are important, but why? For getting into college, right? With good grades you have a better chance of getting into a better college, where you start working toward your bachelor’s degree. So, again it goes back to that expectation that everyone has to get a bachelor’s degree.
There was a time when apprenticeships were a key to employment. What happened to that? I know there are still cases of that out there, but not like it once was. My father was one when he was in high school with a piano repairman. He went on to repair pianos for years for all kinds of people. He also got a master’s degree in college but that was so he could teach. He used the skills he learned in his apprenticeship to one day design a camera of his own that eventually turned into a worldwide business. My father never got a college degree in business, but he was successful in his business. It is true that God had a lot to do with that as well. I think that the occupational programs that are offered at the community colleges are wonderful and are helping with this concept of apprenticeship, but it isn’t enough. I am not convinced that most high school students ever even think about this possible track for life since they are reminded all the time that they must go to college and get a bachelor’s degree.
ON top of what I have already said, by turning the bachelor’s degree into the new high school diploma society has created a whole other issue – debt. People can get their high school diploma for free (ok tax dollars at work, but still). College is far from free for most people. College can be expensive, it is time consuming, and as a result you can’t work as much so therefore one accumulates debt. Why? So that they can get that bachelor’s degree in something to then hopefully be able to find a job. But wait, now they are competing against more people that also have bachelor’s degrees. So, the pool of people is larger. These graduates are adults and they are more likely to be able, and willing, to move great distances once they graduate, so the pool of people that apply for jobs may be much higher than the high school graduate that may stay closer to home initially. The number of people my parent’s age that are still in the same area they grew up in is a lot higher than people my age or even younger generations. Why is that? Is it because they got local jobs out of high school and stayed in the general area, even if they ended up getting college degrees? Maybe.
The other thing is that by making the bachelor’s degree the new high school diploma it means that jobs that want more educated people must look for people with master’s degrees or PhDs. While this isn’t a bad thing in some cases the question to me is whether it is a necessity or not. And yes, by requiring those degrees you are having people with more college debt since they had to pay for more college*. I also know that in the last 20 years the desire for master’s degrees is falling in many technical areas and even though they say a master’s degree is fine what they really want are PhD candidates. And why? I have heard it is because they must have the most ability since they went through the most education. But this isn’t always true. Sometimes the best employee is not the one with the highest degree. It is more often the one that has the desire to work in the field and has that desire to make a change in that area. But that can’t be measured by a degree. Sorry I digress…
*NOTE – I realize that many master’s and PhD programs will provide ample funding for their students, but this is not always true. I know several people that left college with a higher degree than a bachelor’s degree with tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars in college loans.
It is true that I have a master’s degree. But I am also teaching at a college. So, it makes sense to me that there would be a requirement that I have a degree above the level to which I am teaching my students. I also learned a lot about how to be a better physics teacher while getting my master’s degree. But I would also say that I learned a lot from teaching. I think the same is probably true in many areas.
I am just so sick and tired of 18-20 year old adults struggling in college, getting into debt, dropping out and not feeling like they can do anything because they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. They have a high school diploma that currently is all but worthless because of what society has done to the value of that degree. Society needs to revalue the high school diploma. We need to make it possible for someone with a high school diploma to make a living wage for the rest of their lives in a job that can bring them joy. We need be able to demonstrate to kids that they can make a living with a high school diploma. We need society to change to make this happen. I realize this is probably wishful thinking, but isn’t that why I am rambling about it here?
What are your thoughts? What should we do? Is there anything we can do? Am I missing something?