Regardless, I thought the topic was interesting. . .especially in light of the outrageous debt many students have accumulated or will accumulate--and especially in light of the fact that mostly the post-secondary educational system is all about sucking up every single dollar--and creating high paying positions for people--and never cutting students a break with regard to tuition or publications needed for study. There is no sense of concern for people from this educational industry, regardless of how much it ends of crippling students, their families, or the country.
BTW, plenty of folks are walking around with degrees, and they are as the article mentions, mail carriers (nothing wrong with that), or any number of things that are unrelated to their degrees. And in fact, there was a time when education was about becoming well-rounded, and not necessarily about pursuing a particular field or discipline that pays a salary. There's nothing wrong with that either. But there is something rather anemic with what "education" has become in this country.
My family member paid over $20,000 grand for the first year of college for his daughter, and she ended up just dropping out. This is typical of a number of students and how their families end up getting stuck. Some students just think going to school is simply what you are "supposed" to do b/c others are doing--with no serious thoughts about true education or their real interests and commitments toward pursuing formal education in a or any particular area.
And here is something too many in this country have forgotten. Being educated is NOT necessarily about having a degree. Nothing wrong with earning one--not at all. But obtaining a degree and becoming truly educated are not necessarily the same thing.
Plenty of truly educated people throughout history were indeed highly educated--more so than many people w/ formal credentials, and they did not have earned degrees.
The problem is so much of it has become about credentials and titles and silly nonsense and NOT about the spirit and mindset of what being and staying a truly educated means.
Dumbing down has nothing to do with credentials and degrees. It's really about a philosophy, and in my view, most often it is something that must begin in the home--in the family--in the influential circles within communities of people. Many formally educated people cannot begin to name The Great Books, for example. There are people that may have pulled good grades back in their days in say bio, but they still cannot related the fundamental processes involved in photosynthesis. Honestly.
What's more, there is nothing wrong with a person that is intelligent that pursues automechanics.
Sheez, for one thing, a number of these people clean up. My mechanic has more money and a more grandiose real estate that I have. He is a good guy, intelligent, family man, contributes and an is involved in his community.
I don't consider him uneducated at all.
