The Republican view of a college education

What is the purpose of a college education? Is the sole purpose behind post secondary education solely to train an individual for the workforce? Or is it to allow a person to grow, gain knowledge, learn how to think, and to be able to contribute to society in some meaningful way?

If you were to ask me that question about a two-year associates degree, or courses at a vocational or technical college, the answer would be to prepare you for a specific job in the workforce. When it comes to undergraduate, and graduate degrees, the answer changes considerably.

What has prompted this question is twofold. The first is Donald Trump fatigue. As a writer, I need a break from him and the nonstop chaos he creates. The second, a Republican running for Congress in NY-11 tweeted a response to Bernie Sanders calling for the cancellation of all student loan debt.

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How about people just stop getting super expensive useless degrees

— Saladino for Congress (@JoeySalads) September 26, 2019

“Joey Salads,” is not a nice person; a quick Google search will show that he has made his money making prank videos on YouTube, some of them quite racist. I am not going to lay out his biography for you here—if you want to look him up, you are on your own.

His response to Bernie Sanders tells me a lot about him. He encompasses how society as a whole views higher education, and how a complete and utter lack of knowledge, specifically relating to Republican economic policies that have caused the phenomena of expensive college degrees and student loan debt. Cutting taxes, a key Republican plank, has meant cutting funding for education at all levels. Post secondary schools have had to raise fees, and tuition to make up the difference. Tack on the fact that student loan debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and you have the disaster of student loan debt we have today. 

We know the reasons as to why tuition has gone up, but what about his comment about useless degrees. What is a “useless degree,” and who gets to decide what is and is not a useless degree? Why is it that a degree in business and a career in investment banking is considered useful, and someone who gets a degree in art and ekes out a living as a sculptor is considered by some to have a useless degree? The sculptor brings beauty to the world, whereas the investment banker moves money around—he or she really does not create anything, no beauty is brought into the world by the investment banker’s work, yet that occupation, and that degree is considered useful. 

I am not saying that everyone should enroll in a four-year college, or even a two-year college right after high school. College is not for everyone; however, we should all have the opportunity to get an education that plays to our strengths. If colleges only offered degrees tied to an occupation, then what would be the point of having any degree beyond an associates degree? Would our society be better off if we no longer offered post-secondary education tailored for artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, screenwriters, or a plethora of other degrees that might not make the cut as a useful degree in the eyes of some? 

What about the useful degrees that don’t pay much? Social worker, school teacher, early education teacher, or culinary arts, to name a few. Should those degrees no longer be offered because they do not pay enough to pay off student loans? What about astrophysicists? Not a lot of call for folks in that field—should colleges and universities just stop offering it?

The value of a college degree is not in what it earns over a lifetime. It is what it teaches the person who holds that degree. At one point in my life, prior to earning a bachelors, and then a masters degree, I thought it was just a piece of paper, that life skills and common sense were more important. I was wrong. Just like Mr. Saladino is wrong about worthless college degrees. Some of the very degrees he likely feels are useless are the very degrees that have contributed to breadth of human knowledge, and without them, the world would be a far darker place.

If we want college to be more affordable, and more inclusive, then the Republican policies enacted over the last 40 years need to be rolled back. We need fair and equatable taxation. We need the rich and corporations to pay their fair share. We need to ensure that all levels of education are fully funded, and to provide relief to those with student loan debt, and provide everyone with the same opportunity to get the post secondary education they want without having to worry about how they will pay for it. I can think of no quicker way to end poverty in America than by making a college education free for everyone.

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/2LQQfmN