More on the college hype

To a casual reader, and perhaps to any colleague who might wander into this blog, it might be quite a surprise to read my posts on how all over the world we are hyping up the college degree--and this criticism coming from an academic whose job security depends on the hype! When two graduating students asked me to recommend a book for them to read in the transition to their next phase, I suggested Shop Class as Soulcraft.

In a review of this book in the Chronicle, the reviewer writes:

Skilled manual labor is far more cognitive than people realize, Crawford argues, and deserves more respect. That is especially true during tough economic times, when an independent tradesperson can make a decent and dignified living, and — this is important — can't be outsourced. (You can't get your car fixed in China.) "The question of what a good job looks like — of what sort of work is both secure and worthy of being honored — is more open now than it has been for a long time," he writes.

Crawford believes that Americans, in their frenzy to send every kid to college in pursuit of information-age job skills, have lost something valuable. "My sense is that some kids are getting hustled off to college when they'd rather be learning to build things or fix things, and that includes kids who are very smart," he says in an interview.

Crawford's phone has been ringing, and the blogosphere abuzz with lively discussions about working with one's hands, since an excerpt of Shop Class ran in The New York Times Magazine last month.