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"Everybody needs to go to college" has done incredible damage to all the kids who really should have gone to trade school. And I'm not talking about smart versus dumb. Some people are into math, science, or writing. Some are into working with their hands and building things. And they generally know that by the time they are high school seniors. A tech-oriented motorhead might want to get a mechanical engineering degree. Another might want to go right into mechanic training, work on cars for 10 years, and then open his own repair shop. Both can be quite successful. The one who isn't, is somebody who goes to college and racks up a huge debt, and then ends up an auto mechanic with huge student loans to pay off.

And most of those will go into the trades. That's what I did and if I have a single regret in my life it's that I didn't go to college.

Your complaint against kids going to college is that they will rack up student debt. Your answer is that kids shouldn't go to college.

My answer is to subsidize education so that anyone who wants to pursue any field of study can do so. If they choose trade schools those also would be subsidized.

You apparently see education as nothing more than a means to a paycheck. I see it as an important life experience that will set the tone for a more successful life.

Your thought leave society with kids with degrees in English and a 200,000.00 debt which also is likely to destroy their lives.

I favor the British plan. If children show interest in trades, or they are not able to pass the tests necessary for college they goto trade school otherwise its college. Both the trade schools and the college expenses are picked up by gov. I wonder if they still send most orphans to the their military.

I am writing this from memory which, unfortunately, is not as great and accurate as it once was.

No, my thought subsidizes education whether it be academic or trade-related.

I'm not sure why you think students should be charged for education. Do you also advocate that all schools become private so that all education comes at a cost to the students?

We could eliminate the Department of Education altogether, as well as expensive public school systems. Many feel that privatization rather than socialization is the better answer to all problems, that the wealthy should profit from everything, and that the poor should pay for everything.

I certainly HOPE so! A proper government would round up all the ne'er do wells and put them in workhouses! Orphans and pot smokers to the military! I'm sure appropriate measures could be taken for the queers and coloreds among us as well!

Fortunately, Old Blighty has taken the socialist route and provides education and healthcare.

You are almost as clever as the guy who invented the phrase; "when was the last time you beat your wife" - WELL DONE!

I don't propose kids should not go to college at all. Anybody who can hack it should be encouraged and totally subsidized. But let's face it: Some people are just wasting their time. They may get a better general education, but at least in California they could do that almost for free at a junior college. Mainly, I have a problem with a $200,000 debt ruining kids lives when they are just going to end up with a career that has nothing to do with their major. Or drop out with a huge debt outstanding, even worse. Deciding to go to college or trade school should not be determined by IQ or wealth. Students need to think hard about what they actually want to do with their lives, and decide accordingly.

Intelligence falls pretty close to a bell curve. For every student with an !Q of 110, there is another with an IQ of 90. Everybody can't be "above average". With an IQ of 90, a college student or trade school student is going to have to work his ass off to get through. With an IQ of 80, he won't. So why waste their time? Maybe we should show them how to operate a wheelbarrow or a lawn mower. There really is a level of competence for everybody, and finding yours may be the key to a happy life.

IQ is only one possible (not necessarily required) attribute of competence. And the usefulness of education is not only in relation to employment. And education is not the sole test of employability.

I see a glitch in the system that correlates getting degrees with the opportunity to make more money. What logic is there in a system that assumes a person’s happiness in life should be determined by how much ‘education’ they got while in school? Or that it is locked in to making money?

Having just finished an arbitration hearing where I was grilled for hours by a dishonest lawyer, who I suspect had a middling IQ, and who was fond of asking speculative compound questions while insisting that my answers be yes or no, I am very sensitized to the need parse out concepts that contain a mixture of facts and unexamined, sometimes biased, assumptions.

The topic of the relationships between free education, employability, competence, money, happiness, and status is complex, to say the least. And don’t forget to factor in personality disorders, religion, and politics!

My two cents on education are these - education shouldn’t be regarded as a thing you complete before you reach the age of 25, that serves for the rest of your life as your train ticket to happiness. The rather strong tendency that we have to accept that paradigm without question is a serious flaw in our cultural programming.

(In my opinion)

I've always maintained that IQ needs to have a friend...the WQ, the Wisdom Quotient, which would be a measure of both emotional and intellectual maturity. It must by needs be bound to a measure of intellectual curiosity and a measure of critical thinking ability.

To put it in rather mechanical terms, if you measure an engine's horsepower to prep for a drag race, you must also test both track conditions, your car's ability to maintain traction and the skill of the driver.

If IQ is a measure of your mind's "horsepower", this "WQ" would be a measure of your "traction", the ability to translate all that power to getting the vehicle down the track, and the emotional and intellectual maturity would translate to the skill of the driver.
An eleven thousand horsepower top fuel dragster isn't going anywhere without large enough slicks in the rear and indeed, without adequate driver skill behind that tiny steering wheel, even if it did get traction, it may wind up rocketing straight into the wall and bursting into flames.



It's one thing to have a massive brain with a lot of mental horsepower, quite another to have the ability to harness that power and translate it into useful work.


I've encountered a few attorneys like that, but surprisingly I've also encountered more than a few debaters who try that tactic.
I'm sure I am not alone in this.

I think your video metaphor might be considered to be 'hyperbolic'... not judging, though.