Opinions on college education

[celandine13]

 The extremes on this debate are absurd.  College is not useless; it has many benefits to students. On the other hand, it would be surprising if the most efficient way to provide those benefits was exactly the social institution of college in America as it exists today.

The signaling function of college works pretty damn well.  Yale/Princeton/MIT

Comments

[ledflyd]

yes, grad school is an apprenticeship, preceded by multiple years of undergrad bs. Wouldn't it be grand if all of college was replaced by grad school-type training?

[olifhar]

Please make some version of this post public. I'd like to see people discuss this more broadly.

[xuenay]

But how much more valuable is a video lecture course than a textbook at the public library?

Hmm. I wonder if the primary benefit of video lecture courses might not be so much the information, but getting people to realize that this kind of study is possible. While the textbook self-study option has always been there, most people have been taught to think that if you want to learn a subject, you have to earn a degree in it. It's not that they've considered the autodidact option and rejected it, it's that it has never occurred to them in the first place

[ext_1386599]

I could probably design a system that served as a better filter for smart people than college, for a certain value of "better" - but I certainly wouldn't be able to persuade people to establish and participate in a competing system. After all, not wanting to "play the game" is a strong signal that you're not any good at it.

[smokinlloyd]

I found you linked from ranprieur.com - he may interest some of your readers