The College Imperative and the Coming Idiocracy
More: Now we are learning that as many as 85% of US college graduates are forced by debt to move back in with their parents when they leave college. Perhaps someone should have told their parents this was going to happen, before the fact?
For several decades, American children have been pushed toward a college education as the path to life and career success. More and more children are enrolling in college -- over 70% of American high school graduates enrolled in college over the past decade. Yet there are many reasons to believe that this rush to a college education is not only counter-productive, but may be downright destructive to a society.
Image Source
It has been argued persuasively that a rigorous 4 year college degree can only be put to good use by a person at or above the 80th percentile of IQ. Forcing more people into the system requires a dumbing down of admissions, a dumbing down of course work, and a dumbing down of evaluations and credentials.
The situation is even worse for women. Women who go put all their energies into the higher education bubble and a career, all too often risk dying childless and unloved, and deeply in debt besides. Even so, the proportion of women attending college is growing and approaching 60% as the proportion of men continues to fall toward 40%.
It is the most intelligent and best educated women who are choosing careers over motherhood, while the least intelligent women are bearing the lioness' share of children. Given the choice of sex partners by less intelligent women, it is likely that the average intelligence of newcomers to society is declining -- a dysgenic process leading to Idiocracy.
GNXP
The same trend toward higher proportion of births from low-IQ populations is taking place in nations across the western world -- in no small part due to the push for more children to go to college, particularly women.
Many other potentially catastrophic side effects of the "college imperative" are put on display in the documentary "College Conspiracy." The college bubble is a source of massive capital misallocation and extreme (often frivolous) debt, for youth just beginning their lives. The psychological impact of living under so much debt is incalculable. Many young people must postpone thoughts of marriage and raising a family for many years -- and sometimes indefinitely -- due to massive educational debt. And the problem is only growing worse over time.
Is college a waste of time? No, it is a waste of lives and a waste of human capital. The college imperative is becoming the waste of the future -- the midwifing of the Idiocracy.
For several decades, American children have been pushed toward a college education as the path to life and career success. More and more children are enrolling in college -- over 70% of American high school graduates enrolled in college over the past decade. Yet there are many reasons to believe that this rush to a college education is not only counter-productive, but may be downright destructive to a society.
It has been argued persuasively that a rigorous 4 year college degree can only be put to good use by a person at or above the 80th percentile of IQ. Forcing more people into the system requires a dumbing down of admissions, a dumbing down of course work, and a dumbing down of evaluations and credentials.
If 70.1% of high school graduates enroll in a college or university, how does a college degree give you an advantage over the rest of the population? Back in the early 1960s, Americans didn't need to go to college. We were a creditor nation with a strong manufacturing base. With an unemployment rate of only 5%, jobs were available to almost everybody. Less than 50% of American high school graduates enrolled into college. For those who did attend college and graduate with a degree, it was actually something special that made you stand out from the rest of the field, because not everybody had one.
...The current college education bubble is one of the largest bubbles in U.S. history. The college bubble has been fueled by the U.S. government's willingness to give out cheap and easy student loans to anybody who applied for them, regardless of if they will ever have the ability to pay the loans back. Student loan debt in America is now larger than credit card debt, but unlike credit card debt, student loan debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy. _CollegeBubble
It is the most intelligent and best educated women who are choosing careers over motherhood, while the least intelligent women are bearing the lioness' share of children. Given the choice of sex partners by less intelligent women, it is likely that the average intelligence of newcomers to society is declining -- a dysgenic process leading to Idiocracy.
The same trend toward higher proportion of births from low-IQ populations is taking place in nations across the western world -- in no small part due to the push for more children to go to college, particularly women.
Many other potentially catastrophic side effects of the "college imperative" are put on display in the documentary "College Conspiracy." The college bubble is a source of massive capital misallocation and extreme (often frivolous) debt, for youth just beginning their lives. The psychological impact of living under so much debt is incalculable. Many young people must postpone thoughts of marriage and raising a family for many years -- and sometimes indefinitely -- due to massive educational debt. And the problem is only growing worse over time.
Is college a waste of time? No, it is a waste of lives and a waste of human capital. The college imperative is becoming the waste of the future -- the midwifing of the Idiocracy.
Labels: Idiocracy, University, women and higher education
posted by al fin at 2:10 pm
8 Comments:
It used to be that those without college educations could find rewarding work in the crafts. But manufacturing changes have driven many previously repairable devices into the realm of disposable or too sophisticated for the mom and pop store.
It looks as if the trend toward an over-educated, under-employed populace will continue because, for most below the 80th percentile in IQ, there are diminishing alternatives. If you have nothing else to do and someone else will support you, you may as well have sex as often as possible with as many partners as possible to fill your days.
This nightmare started with Griggs vs. Duke Power. Employers can be charged with racial discrimination for giving applicants IQ and aptitude tests as a result of this Supreme Court ruling.
College degrees replaced IQ & aptitude tests as a 'filter' to weed out the incompetent. Now.. college has been 'dumbed down' to being (outside of the hard sciences) 13th grade.
HILN I totally agree. I have seen first hand what the college conspiracy has done to many of my friends, years and thousands wasted. Although one of my people I know from high school does deserve it a little. He went to some liberal arts college and bragged to me the whole time how he was going to be the boss of engineers like me. He is still parking cars for the valet service that he parked cars for while he was in school. The real problem is that these schools tell their students that with a 4 year degree and no experience they are going to boss around engineers and programmers, and peple wonder why the economy stinks.
HILN: Good points. But understand that in order for the Supreme Court to rule the way it did, "the nightmare" had to have started a long time before the actual court decision was handed down.
Note to commenters: If your comment was erased by Blogger's destructive maintenance episode of a few days ago, please feel free to re-post your comment. My apologies for this blog's inability to retrieve what was lost.
Good post though I believe you intermingle two separate ideas into this article: 1) a college tuition bubble, and 2) many American kids aren't smart enough for college due to their low IQs.
I agree with the first point but not necessarily with the second point. The critical assumption made in your article is that IQ (and ergo sum performance) is a fixed measure. I don't believe that is necessarily the case. I think to a-apriori dismiss a significant portion of the population as being college-unworthy is premature. I believe that any education does help with performance, provided the educational instruction is a particular caliber. The all-important question is what cost to acquire that education.
doromain: Excellent educational instruction is available at no charge on the internet, 24h a day, 7d a week.
Much better than an emphasis in semiotic basket weaving, or a concentration in studies of queer ethnic women of colour. So many 4 year degrees in dumbed down topics where it seems that even one with a flat-line EEG could graduate magna cum laude, like the US President!
I may be a little late to the conversation here, I would like to point out that there are fewer and fewer jobs for dumb people. McDonalds could be completely automated quite easily. There simply aren't enough uses for dumb people.
The idiocrats are coming.
Post a Comment
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell
<< Home