So Rob Portman voted to confirm Betsy DeVos

[*bfine32*]

(02-09-2017, 09:18 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I think this is a pretty big problem. Teachers have spent decades telling kids that they need to go to college or else they won't succeed at life. So now it's pretty much just a matter of course. So everyone now goes to college even if it means some random major that they'll never have a job related to, while taking a huge amount of debt on. They then end up working at Starbucks with a degree and $20k in debt.

Meanwhile we're going to run out of Electricians/Plumbers/Carpenters/etc in awhile when the current workforce retires and there's not nearly enough people to replace them because all the people who would have previously went to trade schools instead went to college and got degrees in Underwater Basket Weaving, or Psychology.

I agree with this 100% and this is why I balked at the "more folks enrolled in college" stat as an indicator of our increased prowess. I look more at our failure in STEM globally and wonder why they hell does someone getting a A in "Elvish, the language of "Lord of the Rings" have to do with our success. 

We are measuring ourselves by an antiquated yardstick. "Just go to college" is no longer the answer.