College-Educated Thinkers Need to Rethink the Way They Trash College

I don’t know Howard Tullman, but I know he’s a smart guy. I know this because he’s got some smart thoughts about higher education. In his recent column for Inc., Why Your Kid Isn’t Going to Princeton and a Bunch of Other Top Schools, he makes the point that college (specifically, the pressures that comes from an elite education) isn’t for everyone:

It’s far more important to prepare the kids for the path and its alternatives than to try to prepare the path for the kids. Maybe the best and biggest favor parents can do right now for their college-bound kids is to lower the heat, reduce some of the stress, temper the level of expectations, and then ask their kids what it is that they really want to do. They may not have a clear or obvious answer, but they are entitled to a choice. [emphasis added]

Inherently, “choice” encompasses alternatives. In terms of education or vocation, a student’s “choice” is between journalism vs. engineering or welding vs. history. What a “choice” isn’t is one’s qualifier degrading a student’s passion or pathway. If you’re selling a “rich” engineer over a “poor” journalist or a “successful” welder over a “struggling” historian, you’re not presenting a choice. You’re merely presenting your own fears and biases.

Baristas (and College Graduates) Are Getting a Bad Rap

Tullman continues:

Maybe they don’t care to go to some expensive four-year school, study whatever, end up with long-term college debt[1] along with their parents, and graduate with a degree in nothing employable[2] so they can become the best barista on the block. [emphasis added] Maybe they want to explore some high-end vocational training[3] — learn some real substantive and technical skills — graduate and jump right into a job paying a solid six-figure income [emphasis added] and never look back at what they allegedly missed.

But exactly who is becoming the “best barista on the block?”

Obviously, ALL college graduates aren’t becoming “baristas.” There’s no data cited to support this, and I’m certain computer scientists are finding computer jobs. And judging from the tone, “being the best barista on the block”[4] isn’t meant to be a good thing. Thus, I can only assume that “barista” is limited — negatively — to certain college graduates.

So which college graduates?

To answer the question, I have to make an educated guess. Applying the cannon of statutory construction noscitur a sociis; i.e., “the meaning of an unclear or ambiguous word should be determined by considering the words with which it is associated in the context,” I can only assume that the ambiguous “barista” is limited (in a negative way) to those college graduates who:

1. don’t “learn some real substantive and technical skills,” and

2. don’t “graduate and jump right into a job paying a solid six-figure income.”

Only Four “Worthy” Pathways Through College?

“Barista” … it’s a word my friend, an engineer, once alluded to while talking about high school art students. He said that someday these students would be serving coffee to his two sons, both destined (without any choice on their part) to be rich engineers. Funny thing though … my friend hates being an engineer.

Too often, certain college students are looked down upon. They’re the barista-type graduates — 1) no real, substantive, technical skill and b) no solid six-figure income. You can probably guess who they include: journalists, historians, philosophers, writers, teachers, social workers, theologians, musicians, artists, and performers. It’s something the brilliant educator William Deresiewicz alluded to in his book Excellent Sheep:

Elite schools have strong incentives not to produce too many seekers and thinkers, too many poets, teachers, ministers, public-interest lawyers, nonprofit workers, or even professors — too much selflessness, creativity, intellectuality, or idealism. … [C]olleges and universities do nothing to suggest that some ways of using your education are better than others. They do nothing, in other words, to challenge the values of a society that equates dignity, and happiness with material success. Nor do they do much to help kids find their way to alternative careers. On the contrary: I’ve been told again and again, at school after school, that career service offices have little or nothing to say to students who are interested in something other than the big four of law, medicine, finance, and consulting. [emphasis added]

Again Tullman:

Maybe the best and biggest favor parents can do right now for their college-bound kids is to … ask their kids what it is that they really want to do. They may not have a clear or obvious answer, but they are entitled to a choice.

But how does a college-bound kid have a fair and honest choice when a) there are only four big choices: law, medicine, finance, and consulting, and b) the non-big choices are vilified with judgements like “barista”? Again, I applaud Tullman for championing “choice” — that’s important — but the way I read it, this choice is essentially wasted (i.e., “barista”) if it traps you in a non-technical, five-figure future.

College “Need” Is Personal; It’s Not a Generalization

Tullman then goes on to say:

It’s increasingly clear that not everyone needs to mortgage their future to attend a four-year college[5] to obtain a degraded degree[6] in whatever which is becoming a less and less important factor every day in the successful search to find gainful and satisfying employment.

Right … not everyone “needs” to, but then there are those who actually “need” to. Should this need be limited to just the big four — those assured of post-graduate riches? In turn, should we run off our less-rich graduates … shame, scare, and belittle them with assurances of economic ruin?

Many won’t say it, but there’s no shame in aiming small economically yet big passionately. Not every college student wants “real substantive and technical skills” or “a solid six-figure income,” especially if those things demand a lobotomy of the soul. Not everyone wants to be ensnared by dollar signs and passionless work. Not everyone wants to live in Roosevelts’ “gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

For some students, it’s increasingly clear that college IS the right choice — the only choice — despite the debt, despite the “degraded” degree, despite the opportunity to “never look back at what they allegedly missed.” Because some students simply don’t want to miss out. Because some students want a degree that satisfies their soul. Because potential growth, for some students, far outweighs potential debt. Because, as William Deresiewicz notes, education — for the sake of education — is important to some people:

Of course, money matters: jobs matter, financial security matters, national prosperity matters. The question is, are they the only things that matter? Life is more than a job; jobs are more than a paycheck; and a country is more than its wealth. Education is more than the acquisition of marketable skills, and you are more than your ability to contribute to your employer’s bottom line or the nation’s GDP, no matter what the rhetoric of politicians or executives would have you think. To ask what college is for is to ask what life is for, what society is for-what people are for.

….

College is not the only chance to learn to think. It is not the first; it is not the last; but it is the best. One thing is certain: if you haven’t started by the time you finish your B.A., there’s little likelihood you’ll do it later. … The purpose of college is to enable you to live more alertly, more responsibly, more freely: more fully. … A real education sends you into the world bearing questions, not resumes.

[1] “Debt” — open-ended and undefined — is often the sharp and heavy ax swung at higher education. But what “debt” are we actually talking about? Is it $10,000 of debt, $100,000 of debt, or any debt regardless of amount? The truth is that many students are taking on too much debt, but the equal truth is that many students are intentionally and strategically not taking on too much debt. It’s both, even though many argue that it’s only the former. Many students limit their debt — and limit it significantly — by pre-saving for their education, starting at a community college, choosing a cheaper “dream” school, combining scholarships, or working through college. Also, debt — portrayed universally as a student anchor — doesn’t get equal degradation elsewhere. In the context of college, the open-ended “debt” is a broad and all-encompassing boogeyman. However, in the context of entrepreneurship or law school or cryptocurrency, debt’s not only acceptable; it’s often championed. Or as Deresiewicz so aptly puts it:

It’s considered glamorous now to drop out of a selective college if you want to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, but ludicrous to stay in to become a social worker.

[2] “ … and graduate with a degree in nothing employable ….” There’s an assumption out there that if you graduate with a certain degree — e.g., a history degree — you aren’t employable. But there’s always the option to teach … we’re in dire need of good teachers, and many graduates are happy being teachers. I assume that some people deem teaching as “nothing employable.” However, that’s not a fact or statistic; that’s arrogance and bias. Likewise, when we talk about employability post college, our imaginations tend to be limited and lazy. You can pigeonhole a theatre major with a theatre future, but that assumes he’ll never consider work at a school or a college or a non-profit or as a politician or an entrepreneur or a law student.

[3] “Maybe they [students] want to explore some high-end vocational training.” Yes, maybe, but what about those who don’t? Not everyone wants a vocational job (the same way not everyone wants or needs a college degree). I once interviewed a student who trained 2-years in metal machining … and he hated it! His exact words — “I couldn’t find my purpose in it.” — which was his reason (personal to him) for enrolling in college (and being happy with is decision).

[4] It doesn’t sit well with me to degrade one person with another person’s employment. Life deals us different hands, and some people — good, smart, talented people — find satisfaction as a “barista.” The label doesn’t make them less than; it doesn’t define them or devalue them. Of course, it doesn’t stop with “barista.” For some, the words “teacher” and “social work” translate into “less than” or “unsuccessful.”

[5] One might look at the original title — Why Your Kid Isn’t Going to Princeton and a Bunch of Other Top Schools — and argue that Tullman’s beef is with elite, high-priced “Top Schools.” The article starts out this way, but eventually, it veers away from the elite college applicant and moves toward every college applicant … e.g., “It’s increasingly clear that not everyone needs to mortgage their future to attend a four-year college.” [emphasis added] and “Maybe the best and biggest favor parents can do right now for their college-bound kids …. ” [emphasis added] and “Just because we’ve always seen for centuries that becoming a college grad was the be-all and end-all ….” [emphasis added].

[6] How does one determine if a degree is “degraded” or not? “Degraded” is defined as “reduced in quality; inferior.” Some will call an art degree inferior solely because it supports a small market, but that’s a narrow opinion. An art degree can produce dignity in a specific student (for example, as an improved artist) regardless of what the economic wonks might preach. Conversely, an expensive law degree may be “degraded” — despite its potential for earnings — if the individual (as opposed to the faceless horde of “successful” law school graduates) never actually uses his degree or simply hates being a lawyer.