The university has its uses, and I can't deny that in more than a few cases, having a higher education opens a lot of doors and gives people the knowledge they need to do well in their profession.
However, at some point, having a college degree became one of the most important things in a young person's life, and while the intention was good, it ended up creating an entire generation who are over-educated and under-employed, buried in debt, and too often indoctrinated with political opinions that don't do anyone any good.
We shoveled our youth into the university system like coals into a furnace, then as the left infected it with ideological nonsense, society went with it. I have to wonder what our society would look like today if leftist bad faith actors had never pushed themselves into positions of power over young minds. What kind of world would we live in today?
My guess is there'd be a lot more flying cars.
The point is, the value of the university education has tanked significantly. It's the source of a lot of issues we face because it creates negative outcomes too often. It's not paying out what we put into it, and there's also that issue surrounding many of them churning out brain-dead leftists who do things like assault Jewish students, burn, loot, and curse the country they reap so many benefits from being born into.
How do you become so stupid from going to a place where you're supposed to be further educated? It's because the place itself has become kind of stupid itself. It's a sad fact of nature that pretty much everything that becomes institutionalized corrupts and degrades, but that is the sad reality we live in.
It's time to leave behind the antiquated idea that a college education is necessary for success. We need to stop putting so much value in degrees that do nothing but trouble the people who possess them.
Instead, we need to start pushing away from that idea and embrace the fact that there need to be more options.
J.D. Vance made this very point while speaking in Pennsylvania on Wednesday:
“Why is it that we force every single young person to get a big chunk of debt at a four-year college or university? Why don’t we give our young people more options, because if we did, a lot of them would come and work at Don’s Machine Shop. And that would be good for them, and it would be good for American workers,” Vance said. “You know, we think it’s fine. If you want to go to college, go to college. There’s a lot of opportunity out there. But if you want to work with your hands. If you want to build something, if you want to build a house, build a bridge, make one of these incredible orders that comes in from this small business right here in northeastern Pennsylvania, your government should not be forcing you to do what elites in Washington want you to do.”
He's right, but first we need to get rid of the attitude we have around not having a University education. As pointed out by the Daily Caller, young people in America feel a certain "stigma" when it comes to going without:
Over two-fifths of Generation Z Americans are attending trade schools, including over a third who have already obtained college degrees, as debt has become burdensome and colleges have become overrun with left-wing politics, according to a survey from Resume Builder.
A survey of 1,000 U.S.-based 18- to 20-year-olds found that 74% perceive a stigma with choosing vocational school over attending a four-year college, according to McKinsey. Despite this, the number of students enrolled at vocational community colleges rose 16% in 2023 while the number of students training to become construction workers increased by 23%, The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2024.
It's also not the most fool-proof plan to get a degree right now, either.
We're on the verge of a great shift in society thanks to the arrival of AI. Corporations are integrating it here and there, but these are just the pebbles before the avalanche.
According to Brookings, there's a high chance that 30 percent of all workers can see AI become responsible for up to half of their job, effectively phasing many people out or, at the very least, making their positions worth less than they are.
We're on the verge of a whole new world, and it would be really unfortunate to get caught up in a world where jobs become harder to get thanks to AI and automation while you're buried under mountains of debt. There's really no telling how society will look 30 years from now, so more options need to be on the table.
It's a strange world we're entering, but the university system still manages to be stranger with its outcomes given what we intend it to do.
Society needs to start looking at it as an option, not a desired destination.
