College scam II
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The very left-wing Nation magazine is often hilarious, though rarely intentionally so. In the Nov. 21 issue, executive editor Richard Kim paints a sympathetic portrait of Joe Therrien, who quit his job and took out $35,000 in student loans to get a master's degree "in his passion -- puppetry."
Now Mr. Therrien, "because puppeteers aren't exactly in high demand," can't return to his old job as a grade-school drama teacher because of budget cutbacks.
"Like a lot of the young protesters who have flocked to Occupy Wall Street, Joe had thought that hard work and education could bring, if not class mobility, at least a measure of security," Mr. Kim wrote.
In his expectations and in his disappointment, Mr. Therrien has lots of company. Few students major in subjects which will do them much good. More major in the visual and performing arts than in engineering.
Colleges responded to the flood of money from federally guaranteed student loans by "adding courses and programs that do not prepare students in the important basic areas, especially in the hard sciences and mathematics," wrote UNC-Wilmington physics Prof. Moorad Alexanian in the Wilmington Star-News. As a result, students are "shackled with bogus degrees that lead nowhere," he said.
American colleges and universities offer more than 1,600 majors. The most popular undergraduate major, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, is business (16 percent).
What employers seek in new hires is someone who can think logically; speak and write clear, grammatical English; do simple math, and show up for work on time in appropriate business attire. It's hard to find that in a business major.
At the 24 colleges he studied, business students scored lowest on the College Learning Assessment, an essay test that assesses writing and reasoning skills, sociologist Richard Arum found. Business students also were last on the GMAT, the entry exam for MBA programs.
"Academic quality varies inversely with the presence of business education," said Prof. Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
The next most popular majors are history and the social sciences (11 percent); health sciences (8 percent) and education (6 percent).
First Published November 20, 2011 12:00 am
