Going to college because you’re supposed too

Bud Whitley

Christopher Lucas discuses how during the Renascence the world of Higher Education was relatively static while the rest of the world was a stampeding herd of change and innovation. In fact, continues Lucas, that if there was any change, it was a decline from education as a means to succeed in a career to simply solidifying ones social status in the very upper class. Can the same thing be said for today? As Charles Murray writes on The Wall Street Journal with regard to some college students, “They go to college because their parents are paying for it and college is what children of their social class are supposed to do after they finish high school.” Murray’s argument focuses on the benefits of going to a vocational school or trade school rather than a four year college. For some professions, Murray continues, “The college you got into says a lot about your ability, and that you stuck it out for four years says something about your perseverance. But the degree itself does not qualify the graduate for anything.” Many prosperous careers are achieved without a particular degree in a certain filed. Many intelligent people go to college for four years to earn a degree they may not even use. Children of the wealthy who have political goals really don’t need to spend four years earning a degree in engineering, however, they go to college because they know people do not elect a non college graduate, or one that did not graduate from a super-illustrious college for that matter, regardless of how competent they are. Some people just go to college because they’re supposed to, not because that’s what they really want.