College graduates are certainly learning something – all that resume padding isn’t worth a bucket of spit when all the imaginary jobs that kept people busy moving around notional financial instruments disappear.
But that hasn’t stopped at least one enterprising student from applying her hard-won educational attainments toward a productive end – she is suing her college for failing to land her a job.
This might be the impetus for new university programs that can take advantage of this widespread discontent – e.g., MAML (Masters in Alma Mater Litigation), or BEE (Bachelors in Entitlement Entrepreneurship), or JDBS (you can figure that one out). Or maybe schools with declining enrollments will take a chance and offer money back guarantees if you don’t get a job within six months of graduation (watch out for the fine print, however…).
This latest act of litigious absurdity does speak to the very real belief among college graduates that the main and perhaps only reason to attend university is to land a good entry level job in paper moving. Colleges do very little to dispel this belief, and actively market themselves as providing grease for the wheels that will glide down easy street – albeit without using so many words. Institutions that were once established through the considerable sacrifices of communities seeking to foster character and virtue among their young adults have become credentialing machines that implicity promise a quick payday, most often somewhere else. While this particular student’s actions are at once risible and pitiable, they are not wholly incomprehensible or unexpected in light of the implicit social contract that now exists between schools and their students. As fewer of our current graduates land those plum positions, more and more young people (and their parents) will be asking themselves why they should pony up 100k+ for the likelihood of a minimum wage job after graduation (if that). To which our colleges and universities will not be able to provide a good answer, as it seems long ago they got out of the business of educating young people for lives as responsible members of communities, and instead got into the business of supporting private ambitions for gain and lucre. Unable to guarantee their contribution to that end, the ability of today’s universities to explain the reason for their existence recedes from sight…
O my prophetic soul, said the lord Hamlet.
Last week in Minneapolis I gave a talk in which I said we will soon see econ majors suing their colleges for gross negligence and dereliction of duty–in the main because right now you can get a degree in the dismal science without being told a single thing about thermodynamics or the basic principles of ecology.
That is to say, you can learn a lot about the artificial wealth of Wall Street but nothing about the real wealth of the world that backs it.
My auditors, mostly academics, did not find this amusing. They didn’t even find it interesting or relevant.
Of all the social sciences, economics is in the most dismal state. That is because its practitioners, by and large, don’t view it as a “social” science but as a physical one. The few that do view it properly are regarded as fringe elements. But 90% of all economists missed the coming of the current recession. How could such a science maintain any prestige or confidence at all?
Thankfully for the economists, everybody else is just as mis-educated, which means they have no tools to see the obvious. I believe that most of the tuition dependent collages will close in the next five years, as the “marginal utility” of a degree reaches zero. That’s a lot of people on street corners with “Will lecture for food” signs.
“As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record.”
If that were true I’d be making a lot more money.
I’m not so sure the problem is with colleges in general so much as with business schools. We liberal arts majors knew we were doing impractical things, but kept at it anyway for the love of knowledge.
While I’m not a big fan of silly lawsuits, I think this one makes a good point. Universities need to quit selling themselves as job prep factories and frame their product more accurately. A college education will help prepare you for adult life and give you skills that employers will find desirable, but much of what we make of our careers happens after college. Job-specific skills in most fields have a quick expiration date and someone who wants to make real money must stay current. That means staying up late learning the latest drafting program or reading trade journals that roll out newer techniques. None of us would feel very comfortable with a surgeon who was using the same techniques he learned in med school 30 years prior. But in other fields people genuinely believe a BA should get hem all the way to retirement.
I went to my university’s ‘career center’ once after graduation. The lady there checked out my resume and made two minor suggestions about how to arrange it. Then she gave me a list of job websites and said I could use their computer to do on-line research. THAT perhaps did deserve a lawsuit…because if that’s the level of service, just stop offering it. But ultimately it’s not their responsibility to get you a job. It’s their responsibility to give you skills that will make you better at whatever you ultimately do.
I remember my mother saying that getting a college education was so that one would be educated. If you wanted preparation for a well-paying job, there are schools to train people in electrician and plumbing work.
I look forward to the new MAML, BEE, and JDBS programs…
“While this particular student’s actions are at once risible and pitiable, they are not wholly incomprehensible or unexpected in light of the implicit social contract that now exists between schools and their students.”
Exactly. I try to remember this whenever I find myself reacting too harshly in response to some of the attitudes I encounter. If the kids have been told by their guidance counselor, admissions counselor, and their own parents, that Education = $, then, realistically, how can one expect much else from them than mercenarial mercantilism? It’s a miracle that any college kids are still genuinely motivated toward humane learning at all.
Of course most schools are indeed subtle in regards to the social contract — but even among so-called liberal arts schools the “liberal arts” bit is widely understood to be pure lip-service.
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