Reblogged:Stossel on College as a Scam

[Gus Van Horn blog]

John Stossel recently provided a short, sweet synposis of the past and present of the college cost crisis brought on by the federal student loan program.

Regulars here will likely already understand why that program has caused college costs to skyrocket, but Stossel has a good, simple explanation for anyone who hasn't thought much about the issue before.

Spolier: The same perverse incentives that are making college expensive are also causing many to spend five or more years there without graduating, or to leave with degrees that are worthless to employers.

Most interesting to me is Stossel's report on conditions on the ground in today's job market, in light of this:

College not required! (Image by Elvert Barnes, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)

College students take on loans and spend decades in debt because they believe they must get a degree to be hired. But that's no longer true. IBM, Accenture, Dell, Bank of America, Google and other big companies, recognizing the uselessness of many undergraduate degrees, recently dropped college-degree requirements. So have state governments in Maryland, Utah, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Alaska, North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia.

Good jobs in the trades, like welding and plumbing, don't require a college degree. Trade school programs often take less than two years and cost much less than college.

Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, started a foundation to support students interested in vocational education, and has said similar things in the past. It is interesting to see some of the companies whose actions are speaking louder than words in agreement.

-- CAV

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