This week, I've had several conversations about education, educational standards, and educational prospects. Generally speaking, I see the same problem inherant in every aspect of education. We do not begin with the proper end in mind, and therefore as garbage goes in, garbage comes back out.
Monday night, a woman in front of me in line opined her son's inability to get a job. Apparently he attended a prestigious school and earned a degree in engineering. Once City Center in Vegas folded, they turned him loose. Now, if he were really that good, he would be competitive. He should also consider leaving Las Vegas. At least he was smart enough to study something for which you can get paid. For a long time, I have believed that college is sold to us as a panacea. Although it can be important, not all college degrees are created equal.
Someone finally did an analysis of college degrees and prospects for careers. The bottom line is that if you're going to attend college, you need to study the right thing. His research found that even as college attendance increases, the number of people who earn degrees in science and math has remained stagnant. This means we have tons of people studying the humanities, which are neither lucrative nor in high demand. Please see some of my favorite Youtube videos for sarcastic analysis of the humanities.
One problem is skyrocketing college costs. Even as students, including the undergraduate who works in my 'lab', believe Obama's throwing them a bone with loan terms etc. colleges are raising the costs of attendance. The students here pay more for their undergraduate degree than I did in graduate school, and I finished grad school less than ten years ago. It now costs, just for tuition, upwards of $50,000/year at some of the top tier schools. The irony of that is that $50,000/year as a wage puts you in the top 10% of wage earners. These are not degrees that pay well. If you have to get a graduate degree and spend six years in school, you have racked up $300,000 in college tuition costs. It will take you years just to break even, and even longer if you get a degree in the humanities, assuming you can get a teaching post. Even then, I don't even earn $50,000/year base pay (they value my health care and retirement separately when they calculate my 'wage', and I do not receive that money).
Another problem is how we move people forward in education. One of my Organic Chemistry students who is hoping to apply for the nursing school next semester told me that they weight GPA at 50%. The problem with that is that grades do not indicate knowledge or wisdom. You end up with people who transfer in grades they earn at cheaper institutions with different standards who get slots based on GPA and not on what they know. Not all of us teach the same way. I actually hold my students to very strict standards and give tough exams. When the GPA holds more weight than the entrance examination, we have a problem. I can inflate my GPA by taking classes in guitar, interpretive dance, underwater basketweaving, and other asinine courses and outcompete someone like myself who has worked hard in the field itself.
Some of the people making decisions are making decisions the wrong way. Begin with the end in mind and ask some of the following questions: What are the aims of the program? Do the standards as constituted reach the goals? If not, how can we align the standards so we get the best students who will stick to it and be successful long term? We focus far too much on short term statistics and end up with a bunch of young people who cannot commit and do not want to work. They want to get 'extra credit'. They think that 'if we just do enough work', then they will be qualified to earn money to do a job they may not enjoy and at which they will be poor performers. Students sometimes begin with the wrong end in mind. They choose careers for the paycheck or prestige. You do not join the military or go into health care for the pay; you do it because you are willing to trade your life to save someone else's. That's the bottom line.
My students constantly worry about grades. While I happen to have an impressive GPA myself, I point out that nobody is particularly interested in my grades. They look at what coursework I completed, my resume, and look at what I have done with what I learned. That's the key. Nobody really wants a doctor who has a great GPA but obtained it by fraud or masked poor performance in core courses with better performance in fluff electives. People want a competant professional, and GPA does not indicate that. Even your degree does not indicate that. It indicates you met the minimum basic requirements.
The minimum is only the first step. Successful people go much further than the bare minimum. I will work on changing the equation by which we calculate who gets into health care degree programs. Until then, here's my advice: Do more. Be more. That's how you succeed, and that's how we can generate quality people in fields that elevate the quality of life for themselves as well as the people whose lives they touch for good.
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