Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
“Higher education” is terrible.
Please note the quotation marks, you doofy liberals who will no doubt fill the comments with high-pitched typing about how “Conservatives hate knowing stuff.” What passes for “education” today is nothing of the sort, and what calls itself “academia” is really just a venal trade guild packed with mediocrities desperately trying to keep fooling people into forking over $60,000 a year – usually obtained via ruinous borrowing that ties a financial anchor around the defrauded grads’ necks for the rest of their lives.
Today, academia’s product is largely garbage – gender studies, twisted history, and pointless sociology spin-offs like communications and political science. Yeah, we need more students studying politics when they don’t even know that the Constitution says they can’t shut people up because their feelz has got the hurtz.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Sure, the STEM fields produce a few grads who are going to be more than mere cogs in the corporate machine like their marketing major pals, and some STEM research is useful, but don’t think STEM is immune from academia’s endemic idiocy. Why, the latest thing is how science is racist because…well, probably because these hacks say everything is racist and the weak-willed gutless wonders of America’s faculty are too scared to stand up and say, “Uh no, that’s stupid and it’s not a thing and stop it.”
What’s worse is that most professors are not so dumb as to actually believe the nonsense we hear coming off our college campuses – well, some of them are, but most aren’t. They know it’s poisonous baloney. They’re just too scared to stand up to the sophomore bully boys, bully girls, and bully non-binaries who scour the countryside for witches to burn. Academics are the Ivy League version of that Broward County sheriff’s deputy, knowing they should put themselves in harm’s way to protect their students from this ideological assault, but being too cowardly to do it.
Pathetic.
Contemporary college is a scam, and if you fork over your money blindly you’re the mark. A quarter million and what do you get? A piece of paper that memorializes your indoctrination plus cirrhosis of the liver.
Hillsdale College excepted, of course. And I wish I could except the service academies too, but when West Point is knowingly commissioning open commies it’s clear that it’s chosen not to meaningfully differentiate itself from the civilian four year resorts. Well, that’s not quite right. At least after you graduate from one of the academies you will get a job – hell, it doesn’t seem the Army can even summon up the cojones to can Comrade Lieutenant yet. But you can’t say that for the rest of academia. Here’s your Feminist Theater Theory degree; welcome to funemployment! I guess being a barista with a $150K student loan debt is a kind of a career.
“But Kurt, what if I want to nurture my mind and explore my options in an environment of scholastic dedication and intellectual curiosity?”
Then you should run away from most colleges. Open environments? If you want a sneak peek at the kind of nanny state regime the liberals dream of for all of America, check out your local college campus. An unaccountable ruling class of overpaid administrators controls every aspect of the proles’ lives – yeah, you students are the masses, and if you think they’re going to let you lose your chains you’ve been taking too many bong hits back in your dorm room. Justice? That comes pre-determined based on whatever ideological label they pin on you. Remember, evidence is a bourgeois conceit, while due process is racist and misogynist. Free speech? You’re free to say whatever the grim gargoyles of the Social Justice Stasi approve of, but remember – you can never be woke enough. You’ll always be wrong somehow, because it’s by declaring you a wrongthinker that they gain their power.
“But Kurt, I have a practical concern – I want to go to law school.”
Don’t go to law school. In fifteen years, robots will probably be doing most of what lawyers do today, and most of them will probably wear better suits. Getting a law degree in 2018 is like getting a phrenology degree in 1918.
So what do you do after high school? How about live? How about do something besides march into another soul-crushing conformity factory for four years? Get a job. Do something, anything besides rush to sit behind a desk for another half-decade. Join the Army – realistically, you have a pretty good chance that your platoon leader won’t be an America-hating Marxist or some virtue-signaling, girlfriendless geebo with a #VetsForGunReform bumpersticker on his Prius. Just do something real.
Then, once you’ve lived a little, and once you’ve learned enough about the world to resist the blithering nonsense you’ll be bombarded with on campus, maybe you can consider college. Maybe you’ve earned some dough, or earned the GI Bill, and you don’t have to wreck your financial future. Maybe you’ll have a little maturity, so your college days won’t just be a drunken haze, and you’ll be able to cut through the guff and use the opportunities that college offers to meet your needs instead of just stumbling through it. I came back from the Gulf War and went straight into law school, back when it wasn’t financial and intellectual hara kiri. I was ready, and I made it work for me. UC San Diego undergrad, not so much. Oh, I had some adventures, but I was four years older than most of my law school classmates and every single day I was prepared for class because that’s what I had learned to do leading soldiers. I was ready.
Luckily the college as booze cruise model is collapsing under the weight of its infinite expense and finite returns, as well as under pressure from technology that allows people who really want to learn to use the same machine you are reading this on to find pretty much any knowledge they seek. The academic monopoly is slowly breaking apart, and that’s good. So let’s hope this is the last generation that has to spend the rest of its life paying off a grift.
There are many jobs you can’t even apply for without a college degree, even if the position doesn’t need anywhere near a college level education to easily fulfill it.
(i.e. why does a simple receptionist, telephone answering, or filing clerk position require a bachelor level education?)
So the need for one lies as much or more with employers demanding them more than colleges pushing them.
This originated back during the Vietnam war draft with all the new =but mostly useless- degrees being given out to draft dodgers who went to college only for deferments and businesses aiding them by making useless positions available to accommodate their numbers.
They require receptionists to have college degrees because you don’t lean Jack Shit in high school any more.
It’s like we are going backwards: The age of adulthood must be something like 25.
That’s sad, isn’t it?
A sign of a failing civilization, and failing civilizations are usually conquered by rising ones.
One effective fix would be to peg the maximum loan amounts to the average earnings in the student’s declared major.
No penalty to STEM degrees.
It would effectively nuke the entire student body of any degree that ends in ***-studies. And that would leave a lot of leftist-lunatic professors unemployed. Good things in my opinion.
Just watching the snowflakes melt over such a reform would be extremely entertaining.
Allow student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. It’d accomplish the same thing – and even more.
the debt doesn’t ‘go away’, just reallocated. Just sayin’
Get government out of the student loan industry. Hell, get government out of all loan activities in all areas of the economy.
That just puts the burden of payment on the taxpayers for most student loans (which are government guaranteed).
Well there’s the first mistake. Get the goobermint out of student loans. Let private institutions lend with the risk of the debt being discharged – like ANY OTHER unsecured debt. Student loans to get a poetry or Hispanic studies degree would cease to exist. Colleges would have to cut tuition and professors would have to work more. Schools would default on loans they’d taken out to build opulent student centers. Good things all around.
IW, I can’t up vote that comment enough! I have a college degree in Music, Comp and Theory yet I mostly worked my entire career in IT. Never worked one day in any music field.
I went to college for MCT because I played in a successful band before learning I was to be drafted. As a matter of fact, the bass player and the drummer did get drafted. I signed up for WOC school to avoid being placed in the infantry.
Fortunately, after the wah. Yes, the Vietnam wah, I did avail myself of the GI Bill and used it to get the MCT degree. So I didn’t have to face student loan debt.
The banksters were able to have the bankruptcy laws changed so no student could default on their debt. That in effect made anyone, that obtained a student loan, a slave to the bank.
Recently, I looked into getting an AAS degree in IT, Unix Concentration. But I can’t afford the tuition on SS and I absolutely refuse to get a student loan.
So explain to me why does .gov have to guarantee a loan that can’t be defaulted on? Seems to be unnecessary right?
How is this dissimilar from Bernie Sanders- free college socialism?
Let’s see…… kids go to a party school, study some worthless liberal arts/political science/*** “studies of some type for 4 years or longer– then they don’t have to pay and the citizenry ultimately picks up the tab?……..
Six upvotes for socializing free college education? I’m surprised at this site……..
You just said a bunch of bullshit. Iska never said he was for socialism via education. If an entity makes a loan to someone, there can never be a guarantee without collateral. What the hell is government guaranteeing student loans for? For fuck’s sake it’s an unsecured loan.
The cost structure of America is too fucking high and it’s going to kill any competitiveness we can ever hope to muster.
It is essentially socialism………. ( not saying you’re a leftist of socialist Iska)
Let us not act as leftists and actually look at some intractable evidence and precedence and think this all of the way through??
Banks would never get away with “selectively” financing one degree over another. Have we not been paying attention? Anyone remember ” Government Motors”? Too Big To Fail? the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that was–and again — guarantees loans to “minorities and special interests” because it would be racist/misogynist etc to do otherwise? When someone with a $2000 a month income qualifies for a $3000 a month mortgage ( secured by…the gov of course), then there will be no qualifiers for any field of “study.”
The first blue-haired harpy, screeching fire from her pierced tongue and lips about patriarchal science or CIS-gendered biology, bemoaning her inability to take a class in “The Phallic Symbology of Patriarchal Architecture” for her women’s studies indoctrination will be enough The banks will finance every study but it will be the Fed Gov which provides the bail-outs and debt forgiveness. Forgiveness that essentially means higher costs on real academic pursuits, more debt/QE or taxes–ultimately, the citizenry through Fed action will be paying for it. It is just a more circuitous and bureaucratic affair….
OK I’ll write the software, here’s the spec:
Question #1. What is your major?
Question #2. What is your zipcode.
Question #3. What is the cost / yr of the college you are planning to attend.
It would be pretty easy to get the average number of jobs / salary for the major. Then we amortize these costs over 15 years – to come out with a monthly payment. If the payment exceeds more than 25% of their projected income – no loan.
25%!!!!! Damn, that’s highway robbery.
Unfortunately, “education” has been conflated with “college” just as “health care” has been conflated with “doctors and hospitals.” Education has never been easier or cheaper than today. If you can read, there are plenty of libraries out there, and in addition to porn, the internet can be used to access the great works of Shakespeare, and there are plenty of on-line lectures by experts in virtually every discipline imaginable. A little known fact: all people are self-educated, if at all.
Well meaning by essentially clueless parents plunk down vast sums of money to send their offspring to colleges in hopes of their children will be somehow educated. They will not. And If you are stupid enough to pay for the whole thing without demanding any sacrifice from your child, the only thing your child is going to learn is how to cash checks from home. This is a fairly common skill these days, and not one that is likely to get them far in the world.
Uh huh. Go to an interview and tell them you are self educated.
Bwahaha!!
I’m the guy with two STEM degrees: Engineering & Comp Sci. Got my MS in Comp Sci 1971 – Penn State. I was very lucky – the jobs weren’t bullshit. You actually had to produce. I had the drive to start my own software company – and wrote vertical market applications – that were successful with sales.
In today’s environment, they have fucked with everything. Software developers are basically ‘butt monkeys.’
Looking back, my main drive was to get out of the stifling office. Giving these people face time, my life ticking away. That’s what you get if you’re an engineer. And sometimes, at the end of the big project, they lay-off the engineers.
If you’re good with your hands – get an education in one of the trades. Work for a couple of years, take a business course or two, and get licensed – start your own company.
I am a non-degreed engineer that has a successful career, every subsequent job being better than the previous. My lack of a degree did hold me back, despite having the ability to perform engineering and design, however, I did not let that limit me.
I started out in the trades after a stint at a non-degree granting institution that was able to turn out competent electrical engineers in two years–not the four years that degree-granting institutions required. This Detroit area proprietary school was so well regarded that local newspaper ads by employers of the day listed college degree or RETS as a requirement for employment.
I urge young people to seek out apprenticeships in the trades, as open slots are going begging due to retirements by us old-timers. Working with one’s hands as well as one’s mind produces a far superior individual than that of most college graduates. Hell, I know many college-educated electrical engineers who cannot wire a simple light switch or perform basic mechanical repairs–unlike us old-timers. There is absolutely no shame in working in the trades–something that many college types look down upon.
If I had my way, every STEM graduate would have to perform a job in the trades for two years in order to receive degree status.
anarchyst: I fully agree. Part of my success was that my grandfather had a mechanical engineering company. I learned to do HVAC starting at about age 11. I used to fix Scottsman ice machines, refrigerators, etc that were brought into the shop. By 16 I could wire 3 phase circuits, contactors, control circuits. The only thing that I haven’t fixed in our home was a #%^@ German Dishwasher.
Most engineers sit behind desks and order parts out of catalogs.
The latest Florida bridge collapse – the FIU (the university) engineering dept designed the bridge! Get this: A 174′ concrete bridge, that weighed 950 tons (1,900,000 lbs) – for a pedestrian bridge???? Must be a lot of fat assed chicks in Fla.
They could have gone to any steel fabricator, given them the dimension, span, weight requirements, and had the beams fabricated.
But it wouldn’t have cost enough for government.
I had a contractor that had a degree in IT, Novell CNE, Microsoft MCSE call me a mechanic yet he could not replace a hard drive in a system. As a matter of fact, he could not do any hardware work at all without destroying the system being worked on. Hence, his reference of me being a mechanic. Obviously all those classes of he took about logical gates and circuit design went right over his head.
This individual was what I call a vomit student. Eat all the info to pass a test and vomit it once the test was administered. Once passed, empty stomach! Onto the next test! Useless individual really when it all boils down to it.
The last day of his contract he was doing a telephone interview and the person on the other end decided to quiz his IT knowledge. The poor fellow got one answer right out of 20. He was so angry he slammed the phone down, with righteous indignation bellowing, “Why would anyone give a test over the phone!”
Can you say snowflake? I knew that you could.
“I am a non-degreed engineer…”
Then you are not an engineer. Designer, maybe.
Imagine going to the clinic and having the person seeing you proclaim they are a “non-degreed doctor”.
Buh-bye.
No degree required.
“A Stationary High Pressure Steam Engineers license certificate recognizes the license-holder had demonstrated competency by examination. ”
http://www.nasoe.org/high_pressure_license.asp
I too sought out a trade instead of traditional college, while engaging in many educational pursuits. Pursuing a trade allowed me to earn a very comfortable living while having the time to educate myself.
I am comfortable discussing just about any subject with anyone from pre-schoolers, high-school dropouts, to those with advanced degrees and PhDs.
In fact, I have had PhDs remark positively about how truly “educated” I am despite lacking a “college degree”. There has been some negative criticism from insecure “college types” about my alternative learning of various subjects–to these misguided individuals who resent my extensive knowledge and lifelong love for learning, despite not possessing a “college degree”.
In my younger years, it used to bother me, but no more…it’s THEIR problem–not mine…
Opening one’s mind does not require a “college degree”. In fact, there are those who made great strides in technology despite not having a “college degree”.
One prime example of this is the story of Stanford Ovshinsky. A machinist by trade, he came up with the idea of “amorphous semiconductors”. Traditional semiconductors are fabricated from crystalline structures, by complicated processes, which are then “doped” with various “impurities” to gives them unique electrical characteristics. Ovshinsky’s method utilized non-crystalline methods which could be simply “sprayed” on a surface, while possessing these unique electrical characteristics–much less expensive to produce. He took his ideas to local universities, whose professors all told him that his ideas would not work. He still pursued his line of thinking “outside the box” and was extremely successful. Multinational corporations such as Sony and Sharp have licensed his patented technology. These same universities, who initially rejected him, in later years, have invited him as a “peer” and have finally embraced his unconventional methods who they initially said “wouldn’t work”. Thinking outside the box can be a lonely pursuit, but is quite often necessary to advance the technology…Mr. Ovshinsky himself, admitted that if he had received a traditional college education, he would not have come up with his successful ideas…
Sometimes I think articles like this are like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
JMHO of course.
My oldest worked his way through college – degree in computer programming. No debt, two years after graduation and earns a six figure income. He gets new job offers almost on weekly basis. So, I think some degrees may still make sense.
However, however there is still a downside. He has been turned into a little Liberal. I hate that part for sure. I just continue to hope that someday he sees the light.
Okay. You are proud of your son for being a success. Any Father would be. However, you lost your son to communism aka the American left.
Was it worth the trade to go from being pure to being Satan’s spawn?
Just asking.
My son is working as a hazmat OTR driver. He is a rational human being and not a snowflake. Sure he didn’t go to college and become another suckerberg. I am still proud of him, never the less. He is a good father to his children and a good husband. A rarity in these times.
A partial list of actual social science courses taken from UCSC (One can get a PHD in most of these) :
degree in cognitive science:
Weird Science, Diversity in Cognitive Psych, Psych of Social Activism , Psych of Social Justice, Achievement Disparities.
degree in community studies:
Introduction to community activism, economic inequality in america, activist art since 1960, health care inequalities, race class and culture, immigrants and immigration ..(the entire list of courses is similar, community activism is lower division required course)
Let’s not bother with sociology degree and plenty of the others.
It’s pretty much 100% Leftist New Modernist playbook (i.e. 2’n gen communist)
Now I live in Santa Cruz and the University is a fair block of the city’s goings on, but not like college towns that center on the university as the reason for being (Davis, UC Santa Barbara/IslaVista etc).
So go ahead and have a good time up on the hill I say, EXCEPT
Now a group of 10 social science professors are stoking the students up and qualifying a MOST ONEROUS rent control ballot initiative which involves max rent increase .8 of CPI , just cause eviction, 6 months rent payable to renters for any eviction relocation expense, essentially removing legality of fixed term lease, blah,blah OMG.
It’s a WAR between those who believe in personal responsibility, freedom, and those who want to throw the system under the bus to achieve equality of outcome for everyone no matter the reason because EVERYTHING is a right that doesn’t necessarily need to be earned.
I will grant the alt-right is not better if you take it to it’s fascist conclusion anyway.
The rent control facebook page give a flavor https://www.facebook.com/screntcontrol/ of the mindset
although the actual proposed legislation is more of a horror show.
Whether college is a good idea depends, in part, on what the kid would be doing otherwise, it seems to me.
Greetings,
These days I work as an inventor. My products are used by the music industry, gaming industry, movie industry and even ham radio operators. I have zero formal education in this field – zero. Now, I despise being in Hollywood so my business partner has to make those platinum selling albums everyone gets all excited about and destroys the competition because he gets first crack at the tools I conjure up. Between the two of us we can do the follow and do it without any education in that field.
Recording Engineer – Check
Mix Engineer – Check
Mastering Engineer – Check
Framing – Check
Plumbing – Check
Home Electrical – Check
Room Acoustic Diagnostics – Check
Electrical Engineer and Design – Check
Circuit Board Design – Check
3d Autocad – Check
Manufacturing – Check
Branding & Marketing – Check
Website Design – Check
Photo Editing – Check
Video Editing – Check
Guitar, Bass , Keyboards and Drums – Check
Film Scoring – Check
Live Sound – Check
Theatrical Technical Director – Check
and so on
It amazes me that anyone would bother to go to school at all as anything you need to figure out can be figured out by going to the library, using the internet or just by talking to someone that already does it. If you want to see an example of what I’m talking about then have a look at this. I’m the guy in the white lab coat. Oh yeah, that guy in the plaid shirt has worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Christina Aguilera to Justin Timberlake.
Impressive video NTR. My youngest son is a junior in high school and has his mind set on the field of Recording/Audio/Mix engineer. We’ve started to look at some schools which specialize in this field. I’ve tried to steer him toward those programs which require strong STEM courses (math, electrical engineering, physics). He’s a pretty bright intuitive kid and would not get wrapped up in the college party society.
If he were to decide to fore go school, what specific advise could you give him for this particular field, as it seems you are an SME on it. I would think school would open some doors and contacts for him. If you want to keep it out of these comments I’m sure Jim could provide you my email address. It’s always good to get advise from someone in the industry.
Greetings,
I do not know a single person in this industry that went to school for it. Think of it like this:
Suppose I open a 4 year University that teaches young people how to ride a bicycle. The first thing I would do is make them waste two full years taking classes that had nothing to do with riding a bicycle but I’d just call those classes “prerequisites” and no one would be the wiser. Next, I’d get a bunch of professors that have never ridden a bicycle to teach classes on the history of the bicycle, labor laws related to bicycle manufacture, all the different parts of the bicycle, bicycle theory, etc. After 4 years of this my young students would know everything about a bicycle EXCEPT how to ride one.
This is no different than the schools that promise to teach the art of recording and broadcast. The ONLY way to learn is by doing – period. There simply is no other way. Now, I have a number of simple, proven and inexpensive ways to make that work and I’d be happy to share them with you.
[email protected]
The only reason any of these rackets continue is the Feds ability to make unlimited amounts of ” money ” out of thin air .Get rid of the Central Bank and these scams will go away very quickly.
Some time ago people confused “education” with the piece of paper that supposedly signified one had attained one (i.e. the degree). This paper credential, like fiat currency or Comex futures for physical gold, was subject to inflation and manipulation. There was money to be made by the gatekeepers, regulators and administrators. If you want to find the source of the corruption, don’t blame the teachers and professors (72% of all college faculty are part time adjuncts without benefits). They are not the ones raking in the money or making the policies. This is like blaming bank tellers for the 2008 economic collapse. Look to the “behind the scenes” administrators pulling the strings.
Education is a good thing. Higher education is also a good thing. Specialized education is a good thing. Even many of those seemingly esoteric degrees people make fun of – like Women’s Studies or Cognitive Sociology – potentially have merit if they could be divorced from the politics in which they are steeped. We just don’t need thousands of people with these specialized degrees. Hell, you could learn a great deal by studying shit piles for 20 years – you just don’t need armies of scatologists in the workforce.
Take a good look around. Wherever you find corruption you will find centralization and a bureaucracy that feeds from it (i.e. parasites). This is true in government, the military, business, finance, communication, education, etc. The parasites are now so numerous they are killing the hosts.
We live in the information age. The cost of education should at this point be free (or close to it). A highly educated work force is a highly productive work force. Someone is sucking up all that potential and productivity for their own benefit (at the expense of the masses).
Nickel Thrower , can I borrow a couple Million ? I promise to pay it back.
Greetings,
I wish I had millions but I manufacture here in the United States. Not only that but I source most of the parts here in the States as well. I could probably save 70% on costs were I to take the work outside of the United States but my partner and myself simply refuse. Funny thing but both of us, my partner and I, have a parent that is not a US citizen. My mother is Italian and my partner’s father (a retired neurologist) fled Lebanon during the civil war. Knowing how messed up things are over there makes us value the possibilities of the United States that much more.
Colleges are doing exactly what the Oligarchs want: Give every minority a degree (ed, sports and ***studies), give everybody a big debt (which most minorities traditionally don’t pay), and pack heads with liberalism. Liberal Arts Colleges will be as hard to get rid of as the Federal Reserve, Public Schools, Welfare, and WDC Whores.
My son went to Bowling Green State University for one year and hated it. Took the rest of the money and went to a local career center for Heavy Equipment Operator AND a CDL A to deliver said equipment.
Drivers a C7 Stingray and makes 85K a year.
24 years old.
Greetings,
Bowling Green was a rival school. I know that area quite well as I grew up near there.
My son is majoring in Geology. He is learning Geology from people who know Geology. He is accumulating scientific knowledge and methods in a systematic, planned and complete course of study. That is the purpose of organized education.
I agree with those who criticize the fluff built into the system. Instead of a 4-year degree with a lot of prerequisites, the same quality education could be boiled down into a concentrated two-year program.
Yes, I know I am discussing one of the the best-case scenarios available these days, and yes, a disciplined, organized individual can now achieve a complete education in any number of various fields, one of the salutary effects of the internet age. How wonderful that knowledge is so much more widely distributed and available than it has been ever before!
So let’s not denigrate the value of education. Instead, let’s celebrate its broader availability. Let’s also acknowledge that experience without comprehensive education/learning is almost always incomplete, and of limited ultimate value and use. There is a reason the truism is that “Knowledge is Power”, rather than experience.
Let’s be careful with the Prius-bashing. I have a 2012 Plug-in, and it’s the best car I’ve ever owned.