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| Photo: CUNY |
I like Bill Maher but it always irritates me when a man who has the benefit of a college education devalues the importance of a college education.😳 He's not the only university-degreed public figure to do so. Mike Rowe, a TV personality who seems to lean conservative with a libertarian streak on his podcasts, goes as far as to fund a charity to steer young people towards training in blue-collar professions. He has said, a higher education is more worthless today than yesterday.
Mike Rowe (right) and Bill Maher (left)IMHO, it couldn't be further from the truth. If you have the intellect and means, you cannot spend 4 years of your life in a more transforming way. Education changes you as a person. Once your mind has been stretched by new ideas and other cultures and learns critical thinking, it never returns to its original dimension.
Do you know who'll believe these skeptics? Sadly (1) Parents without a college education who are anxious about the costs of sending their children to college. (2) Libertarian and right-wing politicians sitting in Congress who want to cut taxes to zero for multi-millionaires and billion-dollar corporations by defunding public education. (3) Young inexperienced people without guidance or encouragement or foresight. A free public education was fundamental to our Founding Fathers at a time when only the well-to-do could afford an education. Education has long been valued in democratic countries as a bedrock for a strong democracy. Do we want an ignorant or an educated electorate? Because the zeitgeist seems to be turning.
Often a university degree is the one sure way out of poverty for a person who is born poor with no connections and few opportunities. If a person has the desire, brains, and work ethic to become a doctor, dentist, or accountant, it's in the country's interest to help them pay for their education. Society benefits when its members have access to higher learning. Getting it should not be determined by whether you are rich or poor. If someone from a lower-income family has the aptitude to be a scientist, educator, or engineer, it's in society's interest to use tax dollars to help educate a future scientist, educator, or engineer.The middle and working classes pay the bulk of taxes in the USA. We can well afford to use some of it for Pell Grants and low-interest government loans to help defray the cost of tuition for the working and middle classes.
We have a long history of striving to do better than our parents. These were the dreams of generations of immigrants. How do we benefit now by abandoning our aspirations to do so? Rather than thumbing down efforts to raise society's collective intelligence, let's continue to lift it up!
On average college graduates earn more money than high school graduates. A college education opens doors to higher-paying jobs you can't get without a university degree. After graduation, the country acquires a higher-earner taxpayer.
But aside from earning more money, the critical thinking you master in college helps you do nearly everything else in your life better. Moreover, how are you going to spend your paycheck if your vision is limited because you haven't learned about other countries and cultures? Or worthy subjects such as art, geography, history, economics, finance, etc., etc.🌍🌎🌏
In society, there are examples of people who are smart, or successful, or self-motivators without higher learning. Granted there are degree-less people who read books and are self-taught, yes, but it's a harder path to tread without structure, direction, and guidance which is what a university offers. More people are not self-motivators than those who are. It takes effort, dedication, and internships to acquire a level of expertise in a given field. Most accredited universities also require coursework outside of a major with the goal of turning a student into a well-rounded person. College is much more than just a pathway to a job.
I'll finish where I started. I like Bill Maher ... but would Bill Maher be Bill Maher if he had skipped college? His post-high school education is an important component that makes him the satirist he is. A show like Real Time with Bill Maher would be a different show, no? I would bet real money that Real Time is written and produced by people who went to college. I know of at least one staff member who did. The man at the top, Bill Maher!📚
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