The Morning Rant

A college education used to be a useful thing. At its most basic, it confirmed that the holder of a degree was minimally capable of some complex thinking, and had a basic understanding of history and literature and science and mathematics. It also indicated some skill at planning and prioritizing and communication, in particular in writing.

Fast forward a few generations and the college education of many Americans has become a sad and cruel joke. Academia has morphed into a miasma of Woke leftism that indoctrinates its students into a progressive bubble of post-modern thought. The world is viewed as a capitalist, colonial, patriarchal zero-sum game, and the goal is to destroy it. Education has become the tool to reach that objective, and real learning has been discarded in favor of that indoctrination.

So students emerge with nothing more than massive debt and a skill-set that is useless in the real world. Add in Artificial Intelligence, which can do some of the basic tasks that new employees are often given, and a college education may be going the way of the dodo.

But wiring a new house can't be done with AI, and a degree in Low Country Lesbian Verse of the 17th Century doesn't help much when installing a 200 Amp service.

American students ditch college for trade school as enrollment rises 20% since 2020

Over the next 15 years, the enrollment rates in traditional higher education are set to decline by 15 percent, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has predicted. Some of that has to do with falling birth rates, as fewer Americans will be turning 18 in the coming years. Some have decided to go into the trades as the costs of higher education have increased more and more over the last several decades.

You don't need a college degree to run an excavator, but you do need real skill. Fixing HVAC is a real skill that is in demand, and that demand will never go away! Plumbing a new office park is a non-starter for AI, but not for 20-year-old apprentices with no debt. Making a double espresso with a cute pattern in the foam is a luxury that as labor costs rise will be replaced by automation.

Real education can be had with some curiosity and a library card. Indoctrination and huge debt can be had at any number of failing universities across the country, but more and more people are figuring out that it is nothing more than a scam. When graduates leave campus unable to compose a readable email or balance a check book, but are still on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars for their useless degrees, something has to change!

If I had a high school senior about to go out into the real world, the last thing on earth I would suggest is college, unless he is dead-set on medicine or engineering or one of the few professions that require higher education. Learning to weld may sound like a step down, but when he is debt-free and making $75k right out of trade school, while his friends are scrambling for entry-level jobs that don't even pay enough for their student loans, that step down might be the smartest thing he ever did!

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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