Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for January 19, 2015

This is painful to read. College is a waste of investment if it is not directed at the desired career.

That is a common mistake today, imagining that one’s like must be scripted from birth. (Meaning you guys are wrong.) All serious learning has great value. Most of the hard science fields do require the time investment that goes into a degree to acquire the intricate base knowledge. I will never be an engineer. But I would far rather have a detective working for me who had some significant formal education aside from “criminal justice,” which is pretty much going to be learned on the job anyway. Sophistication and knowledge of other fields is what makes him valuable. And this is aside from the sheer enjoyment to be had from formal coursework in fields that bring greater understanding of the world. Nor does it include the experience in how to learn something very involved that requires considerable time to master. I have four-year and advanced degrees (math and computer science) and am about to retire from a law enforcement career. The job was mostly huge fun. The college education both tremendously enhanced my life and was hugely useful in advancing my career, not the least in the ability to write to meet the demands of graduate work. He who can communicate his ideas well wins. I could have worked in C.S. (4.0 GPA), but I took the path of greater adventure and attraction. But the university education shaped my life in so many ways that I would have to say that forgoing it would have been the real waste. The second panel is golden advice.

You will be a baby forever but only in your mother’s eyes.

AKHenderson: Bald R. Dash, as Walt Kelly used to say. By the time you finish your Masters, what you learned as a freshman is already obsolete. All I got out of university was a knowledge of how to learn – and in the days on the blacklist, it was enough to survive.

With all the MOOCs available, you can get a great education without going near a college. Unless you have a job in mind, college is an expensive way to improve your social life.

Agreed.

I’d have to agree with others (and disagree with AKH and gt5): My father told me “A college degree merely proves that you know how to play the learning game. When you get out of college, the first thing your employer will do is send you to school to learn what they need you to know.” He should know; he had a bachelors degree in psychology, was hired by Bankers Trust out of school, then a year later went to work for IBM. Twenty-five years later, he was a vice-president at Big Blue. He’d been a programmer, then every level of executive on the ladder up. They sent him to school every time they needed him to learn something new. He never got another degree, but he learned all he needed to know..After four years of college (studying computer engineering), I left without a degree and went to work as a bicycle mechanic. I have used the knowledge I gained in college, my computer skills, and the problem-solving methods I learned at university throughout my life, both in work and at home. An invaluable four years spent among the “greatest minds of our time” as my father-in-law puts it.

I agree with Gracie to an extent. I went to college after high school with Computer Info Systems as my major because that’s where the money was. I didn’t do well and dropped out for awhile – started a family – now I’m back with a new major – social work. I know the money’s not there but it will be much more rewarding for me.

I remember when the purpose of college was to teach critical thinking and educate you about the world in which you live. Now it’s just a vocational training institute. The comment that college is a waste of investment is very sad and makes me quite pessimistic about the ability of the upcoming generation to handle problems outside their ridiculously narrow career field. The purpose of a career is to enable life, not the other way around.