Higher Education should be reformed! But will it ever happen?

It will be reformed when parents stop over-selling the actual worth of a college education to their kids.

Higher education is the way it is right now because people keep showing up without a clue.

the problem is after the 1960’s with the marxists influencing the hippy beatnik generation that opposed the vietnam war and advocated civil unrest and they are today’s professors.

LBJ and his great society programs, Richard Nixon in the 1970’s making college degrees a focal point for people to get higher paying jobs, before that minorities were being hired to fill positions and they could learn on the job, today those same jobs requires a college degree.

And after the Department of education set up under Carter, the quality of education declined further, its no wonder why people are homeschooling their kids and conservative colleges like Hillsdale are thriving.

Liberal education greatest accomplishment?
the newer generation for the first time are dumber than the previous generation and that trend is going to continue.

I think education K-12 should be reformed to allow students to gravitate toward subjects in which they are interested and hiring teachers in response to the demand for their own expertise.

This would ultimately result in higher teacher proficiency, higher grades, higher graduation rates and a higher supply of proficient teachers…along with advances in new discoveries and advancements in the various fields of study.

1 Like

Absolutely every boomer in the country hired illegals and everyone of them wrecked the country.

What an absolute bullshit comment.

But expect from a person with limited comprehension skills.

Who was that masked man?

In seven speeches, Obama focused not on having every young American attend college, but rather making college a possibility for every American who wants to attend, particularly making it more affordable. Here are those speeches:

• A letter by Barack Obama to his daughters, published in Parade magazine, Jan. 2009. “In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation. I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential—schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college—even if their parents aren’t rich.”

• Remarks at the TechBoston Academy, Boston, Mass., March 9, 2011. “What’s happening here is working. We know what works. What’s required, then, to get results from any school is no longer a mystery. And that means there can’t be any more excuses – from anybody. As a nation, we have a moral and economic imperative to give every child the chance to succeed. And that’s why I set a goal when I took office, that by the end of the decade, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. We will be number one again.”

• Remarks at a Democratic National Committee event, June 23, 2011. “We still have so much more work to do on education. We have made great strides, but we have to hit the goal that I set that once again we will have the highest proportion of college graduates of any country in the world. And every single young person who is willing to apply themselves can afford to go to college without taking on hundreds of thousands of debt. That is still something that we’ve got to accomplish.”

• Remarks at Osawatomie High School, Osawatomie, Kan., Dec. 6, 2011. “In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class. The unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average. And their incomes are twice as high as those who don’t have a high school diploma. Which means we shouldn’t be laying off good teachers right now – we should be hiring them. We shouldn’t be expecting less of our schools –- we should be demanding more. We shouldn’t be making it harder to afford college – we should be a country where everyone has a chance to go and doesn’t rack up $100,000 of debt just because they went.”

• Remarks at a campaign event in Washington, D.C., Jan. 9, 2012. “We should be trying to win the race to the top. We should be competing to make sure that we’ve got the best schools in the world, and our workers have the best training and skills in the world, and we’ve got a college education within reach of everybody who wants to go. That’s the race we should be trying to win.”

• Remarks at a campaign event in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 23, 2012. “We’ve said that not only do we want to improve K through 12 so that every child is getting the basics – math and science and English – but we want everybody to be able to go to college. And we took $60 billion that was going to – that was being channeled to the banks as subsidies through the student loan program, and we said let’s take that money and give it directly to students so that we could expand Pell grants and we could make sure that every – young people who want to go to college can afford to do so. Because right now, actually, student loan debt is higher than credit card debt in this country. And it’s a huge burden on the next generation and we have to start relieving it.”

• Remarks at the Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, Fla., Feb. 23, 2012. “When kids graduate, I want them to be able to afford to go to college. If they’ve been working hard, if they’ve gotten the grades to go to college, I don’t want them to cut their dreams short because they don’t think they can afford it.”


In another four speeches, Obama focused on community colleges as an alternative to the traditional, four-year college experience. Here are those speeches:

• Remarks at Macomb Community College, Warren, Michigan, July 14, 2009. “Now, I know that for a long time there have been politicians who have spoken of training as a silver bullet and college as a cure-all. It’s not, and we know that. I can’t tell you how many workers who’ve been laid off, you talk to them about training and they say, “Training for what?” So I understand the frustrations that a lot of people have, especially if the training is not well designed for the specific jobs that are being created out there. But we know that in the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience. We will not fill those jobs – or even keep those jobs here in America – without the training offered by community colleges.”

• Remarks on the economy, Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 18, 2010. “We’ve got to focus on community colleges, which are a wonderful asset. Not everybody’s going to go to a four-year college. And even if you go to a four-year college you may need to go back and retrain two years or – for a year or two even while you’re working to keep up – keep pace with new technologies, new developments in your industry. So what we really try to do is – is to partner with community colleges, figure out how we can strengthen them, put more resources into them, and link them up to businesses who are actually hiring so that they’re training people for the jobs that exist as opposed to the jobs that don’t. One of the problems we’ve had for a lot of young people is they go to college training for a job thinking that their job’s – or thinking there’s a job out there, and actually the economy has moved on. And what we need to do is tailor people’s education so that they are linked up with businesses.”

• State of the Union Address, Jan. 25, 2011. “Of course, the education race doesn’t end with a high school diploma. To compete, higher education must be within the reach of every American. That’s why we’ve ended the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that went to banks, and used the savings to make college affordable for millions of students. And this year, I ask Congress to go further, and make permanent our tuition tax credit –- worth $10,000 for four years of college. It’s the right thing to do. Because people need to be able to train for new jobs and careers in today’s fast-changing economy, we’re also revitalizing America’s community colleges.”

• Remarks at a Democratic issues conference, Jan. 27, 2012. “They don’t all have to go to four-year colleges and universities – although we need more engineers and we need more scientists, and we’ve got to make sure that college is affordable and accessible. But we also need skilled workers who are going to community colleges, or middle-aged workers who are allowed to retrain, have a commitment to work, have that work ethic, but want to make sure that technology is not passing them by – and so focusing on our community colleges, and making sure that they’re matched up with businesses that are hiring right now, and making sure that they help to design the programs that are going to put them – put people in place to get those jobs right away.”


In another four speeches, Obama was quite explicit about encouraging Americans to pursue either a college education or vocational training, apprenticeships or lifelong retraining. Here are those speeches:

• State of the Union Address, Feb. 24, 2009. “Tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”

• Remarks at Fox Senior High School, Arnold, Mo., April 29, 2009. “Once kids get out of high school, making college affordable is absolutely critical. We have to redesign the college experience so that – not everybody is going to go to school for four years right in a row when they’re 18. Some people are going to work for two years, then go back to school for two years once they figure out something they’re interested in; go back to work, maybe five years down the road they need to retrain. We’ve got to create a pathway for lifelong learning for young people – and not-so-young people – so that all American workers are continually upgrading their skills. So we want to put a lot more emphasis on community colleges and how they are working effectively together.”

• Remarks in a “back to school” speech, Sept. 28, 2011. “Not only do you have to graduate from high school, but you’re going to have to continue education after you leave. You have to not only graduate, but you’ve got to keep going after you graduate. That might mean, for many of you, a four-year university. I was just talking to Donae, and she wants to be an architect, and she’s interning with a architectural firm, and she’s already got her sights set on what school she wants to go to. But it might, for some other folks, be a community college, or professional credentialing or training. But the fact of the matter is, is that more than 60 percent of the jobs in the next decade will require more than a high school diploma – more than 60 percent. That’s the world you’re walking into.”

• Remarks at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., Jan. 27, 2012. “Higher education is not a luxury. It’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford. And when I say higher education, I don’t just mean four-year colleges and universities; I also mean our community colleges and providing lifelong learning for workers who may need to retrain for jobs when the economy shifts. All those things cost money, and it’s harder and harder to afford.”

Well that isn’t true at all. My little brother never went to college and ended up President of North American operations for a major telecommunications company. I live in a pricey neighborhood and there are quite a few plumbers and contractors living in it right alongside the corporate executive level types.

1 Like

Nobody convinced employers of anything. What happened was, hiring became so expensive that companies wanted at least a minimum guarantee that people had enough focus and commitment to see their way through to a college degree. It’s a character reference. Most of them will readily admit that most of what they need to know to do the job is actually taught to them on the job. It’s just another way to weed out the slackers.

As someone who has worked in education the cookie cutter approach is dumb. All students are forced to take classes they have zero interest in. Because of that a high school teacher’s job largely is focused on classroom management and preventing cheating. Very little of my lesson planning was on teaching the material.

1 Like

I never specifically mentioned employers. The push to encourage everyone to go to college happened over a period of time to where we are today. This here was an summation from another person I had a discussion with related to this topic:

The problem started in the 60’s when draft deferments were offered to those persons enrolled in college. Liberal professors that opposed the war in Vietnam eased up on educational requirements so that even mediocre students could stay in school and avoid the draft. More students enrolled which increased expenses for more instructors, more dorms, more construction, more of everything.

After the threat of the Vietnam War passed, many students who were hiding in school to avoid service decided to leave school and do whatever…leaving unused facilities…empty dorms, instructors that didn’t really have a teaching load…

Enter the marketing experts that convinced America that everyone should have a college degree, even if it was only a useless bachelor’s degree in psychology. People who would have normally been encouraged to learn a trade were talked into going to college and to keep them in college, content was watered down in many instances. This produced many graduates that weren’t that much more educated than when they left high school.

Meanwhile, easy to get student loans were offered…this appealed to parents that didn’t have the money to send their kids to school…while trade school education was pooh-poohed by the main stream media as not being needed because we were all going to become involved somehow with computers and high-tech jobs. Well, how did that work out?

Honestly? That is a shame.

I have a business and no way in hell would I hire an illegal or someone who could not speak English. I’ve had plenty of opportunity to do so and it would be the last thing on earth I’d do. Some of us business owners , and quite a few I know, have the same morals and values.

I also think you should not look to “boomers” as the culprit, but to the politicians who’ve allowed those who would take advantage to take advantage.

Puberty makes it hard for them to focus long enough to research facts.

1 Like

Agreed. Notably the Air Force requires pilots to be officers. And the only educational requirement to get into flight school is a college degree. It could be in English, or History, as well as engineering or science.

Also…If you are going to put the power of Hell on earth right in the hands of a human, you would like them to have some greater perspective than how to press the buttons and fly the plane. I don’t think college provides much of that anymore but I’m pretty sure that was the idea.

The Air Force is thinking about changing that but that’s the way it is now.

  • The Air Force prefers a degree in the sciences, such as aerospace engineering, physics, computer science, or chemistry. To be competitive, you will need to have a high grade point average, generally 3.4 or above.

Candidates with civilian flight training, such as a private pilot’s license, tend to have an edge with the selection board.

You also must be between the ages of 18 and 28. Aspiring pilots must appear before the military board that commissions officers before turning 29 and must enter flight training before turning 30. Age waivers are possible in some cases up to age 35.

Yeah… they prefer technical degrees. But my OTS flight in 1981 had English majors headed for flight school after graduation. The AF preferred technical degrees then too but the point is that a college degree was non-negotiable even if the major was.

Maybe things are different now. That was almost 40 years ago… (holy shit that was a long time ago.)

1 Like

Yes - let’s go back to the days of child labor. Let’s get rid of all labor unions too while we’re at it. That will fix everything.

Arn’t you trained to say
“I guess you want to return to lynching people of color and denying women the right to vote” ?

No - I already know how racist the right is. Why bother asking? I bet you guys miss all that free farm labor that was so abundant in the regions you inhabit.

Upstate New York? WTF. German dairy farmers?

You struck out there buddy.

Yes how time flies.

And that college degree remains a requirement today.

I don’t think they take non technical degrees at this point.

Amazing how myopic you seen to be.

At one time labor unions were a must as they helped clean up business practices. Today, not so much. Laws have replaced unions and they have become nothing but political tools for the left.
Today people find they can negotiate better deals than a union with employers.