Almost exactly a year ago, Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe noted that many Americans are dissatisfied with their lives because they no longer appreciate the intrinsic value of work.
Additionally, Rowe previously concluded, millions of reasonable people – Republicans and Democrats alike – are worried that our universities are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world. They’re worried about activist professors, safe spaces, the rising cost of tuition, a growing contempt for history, a simmering disregard of the first amendment, and most recently the so-called ‘Varsity Blues’ scandal of systemic elite cheating into prestigious schools.
And on the heels of that, Mike Rowe slammed the system on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last night, blasting Americans, and the American establishment for being “obsessed with credentialing, not education.”
“I think because stuck in this binary box, this or that. Right, blue-collar or white color, good job or a bad job. Higher education or higher alternative education.
When you only have two choices or you think you only have two choices, then you do one thing at the expense of the other.
So for instance, you know we have talked about this before, but it just seems so clear now. When four year degree universities needed a P.R. Campaign 40 years ago, they got one.
But the P.R. Came at the expense of all of the other forms of education. So it wasn’t hey, Tucker get your liberal arts degree because it will give you a broad base of appreciation for humanity. It was come if you don’t go get that degree, you will wind up over here turning a ranch or running a welding torch or doing some kind of consolation prize.
So we promoted the one thing at the expense of all of the others.
And that one thing just happened to be the most expensive thing. And so, look come I don’t think the skills set is the mystery. A reflection of what we value.
7 million — 7 million jobs available and they require training. Yet we are obsessed not really with education, you know. What we are obsessed with this credentialing.
People are buying diplomas. They are buying their degrees. It is a diploma dilemma, honestly. And it is expensive. It is getting worse. It’s not just the kids holding the note. It is us.”
All of which confirms his recent Facebook post, directing his frustration at the exorbitant cost of attending college, especially the elite schools that were involved with the scandal:
You don’t have to be rich or famous to believe your kid is doomed to fail without a four-year degree. Millions of otherwise sensible parents in every tax-bracket share this misguided belief, and many will do whatever it takes to get their kids enrolled in a “good school.” Obviously, those who resort to bribery are in a class by themselves, but what about parents who allow their kids to borrow vast sums of money to attend universities they can’t possibly afford? What about the guidance counselors and teachers who pressure kids to apply for college regardless of the cost? What about the politicians and lobbyists who so transparently favor one form of education at the expense of all the others? What about the employers who won’t even interview a candidate who doesn’t have a degree? Where’s the outrage?
The cost of college today has almost nothing to do with the cost of an education, and everything to do with the cost of buying a credential. That’s all a diploma is. Some are more expensive than others, but none of them reflect the character of the recipient, none are necessary to live a happy and prosperous life, and none of them come with any guarantees. And yet, the pressure we put on kids to borrow whatever it takes is constant, and precisely why tuition is so costly. It’s also why we have $1.6 trillion of student loans on the books along with a widening skills gap. That’s a bigger scandal, in my opinion.
Rowe has long been an advocate for trade and blue-collar skilled jobs. In many cases, these careers can earn similar salaries to those earned by college graduates.
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America is much more class conscious than we think we are. My high schooler has different circles of friends: upper middle class and paycheck to paycheck middle class. Private school vs public high school. Even among public high schools there’s a gradation from best in the nation to pretty much rotten. Even among only the white kids you have those who just spent spring break in Italy and those being raised by one parent who works the night shift, leaving the kids to virtually raise themselves. Certainly a few people cross from one realm to another. Kids whose parents are college professors can end up as house painters – especially if you throw in a lot of weed-smoking. A few children of illegals can even eventually finish a BA and get a middle class job. If they marry right, and can add another income, they could raise their kids in a higher stratum.
But for the most part, people stay in their lanes. And because everyone knows that it’s hard to move upward in strata, they want their kid to get the best start possible even if it’s ridiculously expensive. It’s the same helicopter parent impulse that makes parents check whether Johnny is bringing his water bottle to practice for fear he’ll die of dehydration after ten minutes of light jogging in seventy degree weather.
People werent like this when they had seven kids in the 1970’s. Now that they have only 1-2 kids they want to make everything perfect for them. Aw what the hell do I know?
Mike Rowe is an American treasure who speaks a brand of common sense we seldom hear anymore. And the thing is he is so correct.
I wanted my son to go to college and get a professional degree, but he was not interested. Instead he got a 1-year degree in a field he loved. Now he makes more money than anyone else in the family, and my family is made up of a bunch of high-powered professionals. One other thing, he is happy.
What was the degree if I might ask?
“We’re Obsessed With Credentialing, Not Education”
This tendency, while already somewhat underway during the time of the Clinton Regime (because regimes and not ‘administrations’ are what we truly have) really started gaining traction during the Obama Regime. And has never stopped since then. Anyone who can read a newspaper even badly should be informed about it. But therein precisely lies part of the explanation for America’s conundrum: the U.S. currently ranks #125 on the List of Countries by Literacy Rates (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-highest-literacy-rates-in-the-world.html)
Since as per usual the reporting in America is always painfully lagging behind the actual facts on the ground, allow me this free update for you: currently the U.S. is way beyond the issue of credentialing vs education. It’s at Common Core Stage stupidity levels. Students now get rewards for just showing up (many times they don’t even bother doing even that) or for not using their i-phones during class. They’re taught that gender, just like Baskin & Robbins ice cream, comes in at least 31 flavors and the levels of imbecility are such that they actually believe the claptrap. Is it any wonder the U.S. currently ranks 27th internationally in education, down from 6th in (drum roll!) 1990! Gee, what a coincidence. Wasn’t that when Woody Woodpecker and his wife Cankles were running the show? (https://www.businessinsider.com/us-ranks-27th-for-healthcare-and-education-2018-9)
As the late great George Carlin was fond of saying, “Garbage in, garbage out”. THIS is the best we have America. It’s the reason we have the shit for leaders we have and it’s the reason why turning this ship around is already impossible at this late stage. On the upside, they do say that death from hypothermia is relatively painless.