Who Needs College Anyway? Remarks by Charles Murray

President Obama set an ambitious new goal in his speech to Congress on February 24, 2009, proclaiming that by 2020, America will ...have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

But some experts, like author Charles Murray, dont think we need more Americans going to college. In his new book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing Americas Schools Back to Reality (Random House, 2008), Murray argues that Americans place too much value on the bachelors degree.

Murray and researcher Anthony Carnevale debated Who Needs a College Education Anyway? at the Hechinger Institutes Seminar for Higher Education Reporters in December 2008. Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed moderated the debate.

Murray, the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, contends that because ability varies and 50 percent of people are below average, our current system of higher education makes little sense.

Carnevale, Research Professor and Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, argues we should encourage as many students as possible to attend and graduate from college, because intelligence isnt fixed at birth and can be influenced by education.

After their remarks, Murray and Carnevale took questions from journalists participating in the Seminar.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• college
• higher education
• insidehighered
• bachelors degree
• bell curve
• degree attainment
• postsecondary attainment
• college access
• below average
• drive a forklift
• social mobility
• social inequality
• upward mobility
• american education

[Ilikemustard]

DEGREES ARE WORTHLESS.

You can learn much more studying by yourself with access to a library and the internet.

[FaidleyEthan]

Thank God. Until now i thought i was the only one who wasn't being brainwashed. Even my parents say get a degree - no one will hire you without it - its the only way you'll succeed. I wish that they had an open mind like me. But there brainwashed because they come home from their crappy job and watch tv and go to bed, and go to their crappy jobs. This is the life of those that don't question the truth that they are being fed. I do not want to end up like this.

[TheTrueLeaderOfAll]

fuck college I don't need it you don't need it you just need a plan and pull it off.

[TheMedievalMan]

@scottandrewhutchins I consider myself a "traditional free-thinker". Conservatism & Progressivism has had many different meanings throughout history, it changes even among generations. To be conservative is to follow yesterdays trends & ideas, to be progressive is to create new ones. Chesterton said tradition is the democracy of the dead, its the ideas that have proven to work over time. One should be careful about following too strictly any political/social ideology.

[scottandrewhutchins]

@TheMedievalMan It sounds like you're a right-wing extremist.

[TheMedievalMan]

@scottandrewhutchins True, but thats why I try and look at things from an outside-the-box view. I read as much as I can on the opposite side of what I personally believe. If I want to attack Feminism for example, I look at Feminist authors. If I want to attack Afro-centric pseudo-history. I look at what Afro-centric authors have to say. If you read more on the opposing view, you will be more knowledgeable than those who only read what their own side tells them.

[scottandrewhutchins]

@TheMedievalMan I thought that way the first few years out of grad school, but now one of my grad school colleagues is paying to relocate me to work for him.

Again, my point was that autodidacticism is necessarily restricted because it has no external guidance. It's extremely valuable, but when it's entirely self-driven, you often ignore things you should be looking at.

[TheMedievalMan]

@scottandrewhutchins I disagree. College has become a money making scam. Most who acquire degrees in certain fields, dont even use it for what they studied for. I know of a guy I was friends with in High School. He came back with a Masters, and got a job working for the Supermarket I used to work for. He couldnt find anything else. My Mother knows a friend with enough education to be a lawyer, shes unemployed and in debt. I wouldnt go because its a waste of my money.

[scottandrewhutchins]

@TheMedievalMan Having earned 2 degrees and been an autodidact when not in school, I don't think that either can adequately replace the other.

[TheMedievalMan]

@scottandrewhutchins Look at reviews. Also, recommendations from internet forums that specialize on discussion of certain subjects.

[Superseadragon]

@scottandrewhutchins so it seems

[scottandrewhutchins]

@TheMedievalMan How would someone even know what to look for with just a library card? I don't mean subject headings, I mean, how does one determine which materials are worthwhile and which are too shallow to be of use without wasting a great deal of time?