August 22, 2008
Charles Murray wrote the pathbreaking critique of Federal welfare, Losing Ground, in 1984. He won that argument, although he was savaged at the time. Then he and Herrnstein wrote The Bell Curve (1994), one of the most controversial books of the 1990s. They won that argument, too. But that argument got lost in the uproar over racial IQs. Their argument was that the best and the brightest 2% attend a few dozen prestigious universities and colleges, all liberal, all with the same outlook. These people go on to become the nation's leaders in every field. There is no diversity in terms of worldview.
Now he has blown the whistle on college education generally. His article appeared in The Wall Street Journal (August 19, 2008).
Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."
You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.
Finding a better way should be easy.
It should be, but it won't be.
If Wal-Mart and half a dozen other firms get into the degree-granting business, this will break the oligopoly. I explained this three weeks ago.
Murray continues his critique:
Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.
I have argued that certification can be done by examination. So does he. I have argued that apprenticeship is the best way. So does he.
Here's the reality: Everyone in every occupation starts as an apprentice. Those who are good enough become journeymen. The best become master craftsmen. This is as true of business executives and history professors as of chefs and welders. Getting rid of the BA and replacing it with evidence of competence -- treating post-secondary education as apprenticeships for everyone -- is one way to help us to recognize that common bond.
In my manual, I show how anyone can earn a BA at home for about $15,000.
A wise parent would make his college-bound offspring this offer. He would make it at the end of the student's sophomore year in high school.
I have set aside $60,000 [or whatever] to send you to college. But I will give you an option. You can live at home for free, apprentice with a local small businessman and learn the basics, study for college exams in your off hours, and complete your college degree by exam for under $4,000 a year. Your salary will pay for that. On the day you graduate, I will give you a graduation present of $30,000 [or half of what you had budgeted]. You can use this to attend grad school, start a business, or make down payments on two or three investment rental houses. You can quiz out of your first two years in your junior and senior years of high school.
He or she will graduate at age 20 or earlier. He or she will get into the work force as a college graduate at least a year earlier. Maybe two years earlier.
That's a win-win deal.
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