Current Events > Bill Maher calls college a scam

(+) Yeah! (+)

It is

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I'm gonna go ahead and guess every single guest he had on that panel went to college

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Bill Maher doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. There are very few times where I would call college a "scam".

Not all paths require it, but you're rarely worse off for having gone

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Which fields are stem aka worth it

With most people going for physcology/criminal science degrees, I think the parents need to have better conversations with their kids

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ElitePonyRebel posted...

With most people going for physcology/criminal science degrees, I think the parents need to have better conversations with their kids

Indeed.

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sLaCkEr408___RJ posted...

Which fields are stem aka worth it

Psych is in STEM, so people are mostly just confused.

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COVxy posted...

University systems have never been at all connected with any job market other than higher education.

Universities are about education, and American culture has bastardized that.

universities were about education. They were supposed to liberate people by providing them with knowledge, therefore the name liberal arts, which were the first subjects taught as the first universities.

But now universities are seen as the gatekeepers of employment. All throughout the 80s and 90s the message from society was clear: Go to college/uni or you'll be condemned to work at retail or at a restaurant for the rest of your life. Nowadays even a data entry job (literally typing shit) demands a college degree. They're no longer about education, they're about getting a job.

matchboxsantana posted...

universities were about education. They were supposed to liberate people by providing them with knowledge, therefore the name liberal arts, which were the first subjects taught as the first universities.

But now universities are seen as the gatekeepers of employment. All throughout the 80s and 90s the message from society was clear: Go to college/uni or you'll be condemned to work at retail or at a restaurant for the rest of your life. Nowadays even a data entry job (literally typing shit) demands a college degree. They're no longer about education, they're about getting a job.

How degrees are seen by employers/society is not a reflection of how the academy sees its mission

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matchboxsantana posted...

Nowadays even a data entry job (literally typing shit) demands a college degree. They're no longer about education, they're about getting a job.

I had an interview for a basic data entry job and I pointed out that on my resume, I had 6+ years of experience working with and repairing computers of varying types and operating systems. The literal response I got was this - "well, yeah, that's retail. This is an office job."


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Takes one to know one, Billy

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Shezarr posted...

How degrees are seen by employers/society is not a reflection of how the academy sees its mission

awesome. So nobody is accountable.

In reality, higher learning institutions have all sorts of agreements with employers (job boards, alumni services, job fairs, recruitment fairs, recruiting agreements, etc) and companies nationwide do have the power to shape the curriculum of some schools.

The mission of these schools in society has changed, whether they like it or not, and they have not adapted to changing job markets and trends, because they don't give a fuck.

CRON posted...

I had an interview for a basic data entry job and I pointed out that on my resume, I had 6+ years of experience working with and repairing computers of varying types and operating systems. The literal response I got was this - "well, yeah, that's retail. This is an office job."

they probably hired some loser who has 0 experience with anything.

Other than coming out a little smarter I could probably have made a better choice than a philosophy degree.

It hasn't explicitly opened any doors for me.

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COVxy posted...

Psych is in STEM, so people are mostly just confused.

I was hoping for more examples. Let's say at least five.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x5SeXNabd8

Here's his actual segment if anyone wants to watch it.

There's a point in here to be made, but its surrounded by "old man wants to hate the young people" and "rich ass doesn't want to share"

College may not be a total scam in theory but it isn't nearly as mandatory for most career paths as it is argued.

Colleges most definitely are predatory towards recent high school graduates and the high cost of tuition means two things: One, that few people from poor families can attend without loans or scholarships and two, the for-profit nature of academia proves that educating isn't the primary objective of these institutions.

What college cannot account for are changes in the economy and how it impacts certain fields. I spent four years obtaining a bachelor's degree in technical communications only to have the Bush recession narrow my career opportunites, of no fault of my own.

College isn't a total scam but it is a gamble.

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Also Mathematics, computer science, both the natural and physical sciences (biology, physics, etc) chemisty, economics, and many other "STEM" degrees are part of the liberal arts.

It's just that people have a negative association with the word "Liberal" thanks to dipshit conservative media figures and think it's all underwater basket weaving and women's studies.

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Wii_Shaker posted...

College may not be a total scam in theory but it isn't nearly as mandatory for most career paths as it is argued.

have you seen the average person's reading and writing skills pre college? and you want people like that (edit: this might be a bit aggressive. maybe some people shouldn't communicate at all through writing <_<) to work in offices where communication is important? this doesn't apply to everyone, but not everyone comes out of fucking high school with great reading and writing skills.

at some level the skills you learn in a college are relevant, but that doesn't mean you can't get them somewhere else. but every kid who grew up on a forum shouldn't assume everyone writes as their primary mode of thought.


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Gwynevere posted...

Bill Maher doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. There are very few times where I would call college a "scam".

Not all paths require it, but you're rarely worse off for having gone

I am worse off from going to art college. All that matters to me is that I was screwed.

It's a scam but the Biden administration is presumably making it less of a scam.
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Graycap posted...

It's a scam but the Biden administration is presumably making it less of a scam.

how so?

pistachio12 posted...

Business degrees are not STEM. The M for mathematics does pertain to accounting or finance.

Accounting/finance isn't math though. Like the "STEM skills" that get Mathematics put in are not about your ability to do arithmetic and you don't need to even do arithmetic well to be an accountant.

Proto_Spark posted...

Don't forget in a lot of places, a Ph. D can actually hurt your chances of getting a job, not help. Because a Ph. D means your knowledge can be too focused, so a PhD is usually a mistake unless you want to go into academia (good luck)

Your pushed to go study as much as possible, but then punished if you go too far.

It's not because your "knowledge is too focused", it's because they don't want to pay for their education level or are worried about being a temporary job. A PhD is still generally going to have more general knowledge than someone with a bachelor's, they just also have a topic they know a lot about.

E.g. when it comes to teaching, in many states a school district is required to play $X to someone with a teaching certificate, $Y to someone with a master's, etc. and so someone who comes in with a PhD in education with no teaching experience is less appealing because you're paying for "just a degree" (a PhD in elementary education isn't intended to make you as an individual a better elementary school teacher, it's to improve the science of elementary education).

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Graycap posted...

It's a scam but the Biden administration is presumably making it less of a scam.

They said they'd make it less of a scam, but just because a politician says something doesn't mean they'll do it.

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