What does it mean to be college educated anyway?

COVID-19 has upended our lives in so many different ways that most of us would never have ever imagined.  How many among us imagined a situation, for instance, when students of all ages would be forced to be in their homes because of closure of all schools and colleges?  And on top of that, they would learn remotely?

In higher education, remote learning has compelled teachers to think about what exactly do they want students to learn from their classes and, therefore, how they should go about teaching it.

Now, pause for a minute and forget the coronavirus.  Shouldn't teachers have always been thinking about what exactly do they want students to learn from their classes and, therefore, how they should go about teaching it?  Isn't that fundamental to teaching?

I think so. I believe so.

But, not all teachers did.

I even tried to engage in discussions on what exactly it means to be college educated in the 21st century and, therefore, what does it mean to be a faculty in the 21st century.  It was a disaster, with most colleagues pooh-poohing it all.  Of course, it could be that the messenger was the problem, but I think it was more than that.

When I became a full-time academic, within a couple of years it became clear to me that the traditional approach to college was not working.  In fact, it was often counter-productive.  I have even blogged in plenty about it here in this blog.

I wrote in this post, for instance, "One would think that all these mean that now is a real good time to seriously think about what it is to be educated."  And that was in April 2013.  Seven years ago, to the date, almost. The missed opportunities; what a shame!

The following is from April 27, 2013, unedited:
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Even if I am a total dud in helping students in my classes understand and appreciate the materials, I bet there are very few who doubt my commitment to liberal education.  If they paid attention to me, then they also know that even as they go through a rigorous liberal education, they have to keep thinking about their career plans as well.

In this structure, problems are in plenty.  Universities offer such a diluted and distorted version of liberal education that we insiders are the ones giving liberal education that awful stink.  Here is an example: at my university, a student can major in the social sciences and minor in geography, and successfully graduate with not even a tenth of the requirements coming from the sciences.  This is merely one of the gazillion possibilities of students legitimately avoiding being liberally educated even as they earn their diplomas at the colleges and universities all over the country.  Not the well-rounded liberal education at all.

My point has always been that such an education is a waste of time and money.  We might as well merely offer professional training.  We should stop referring to what we do as liberal education.  Why call it liberal education and offer something else?

At the same time, we have been completely marginalizing professional education too.  Instead of providing career and technical education to those students who might prefer that, we put that down as some kind of an inferior option and we force all students to go through the hoops of whatever that is we do at four-year schools anymore.

No wonder then we are finding ourselves all twisted trying to figure out the "real payoff of a college degree." To a large extent, Ronnie L. Booth, president of Tri-County Technical College, near Greenville, S.C., articulates the points that I try to get across to people:

A vocational degree is not for everyone, he readily admits, but many of his students are arriving with four-year degrees in hand, looking for something practical. In coming months, he will direct Tri-County's academic counselors to more aggressively steer students away from fields and majors that might prove a bad fit. Don't like the sight of blood or the smell of bodily fluids? Nursing might not be for you. Interested in engineering? Let's have a serious talk about your grades in algebra.
"Better to find out on the front end," he says. "I believe in truth in advertising."
More parents and students, he says, need to "understand that someone has to pay the bills." In his region, he frequently meets waiters and waitresses who have four-year degrees, and he has a friend whose daughter went to college to study dance. She is working in retail.
"That is not what Daddy had anticipated," Mr. Booth says in a Southern drawl. "I believe in a broad educational program, things that make you a good citizen, but I am not sure that it is necessary to rack up $50,000 or $100,000 in debt to get that—and then not to be able to get employment. I have told my children that one of Daddy's goals is to get you off my payroll."

In healthcare, which has been one of the fastest growing sectors, ""It looks like B.A. is now entry-level, or it's becoming that way."  The jobs that didn't require a four-year degree are rapidly evaporating:

The erosion of midlevel jobs goes beyond nursing. Experts say several forces are at work. Automation has eliminated many transcription and clerical jobs. Cost pressures have led hospitals and other health-care providers to push many routine tasks onto medical assistants and other lower-paid workers.
Pharmacies, for example, increasingly employ a mix of licensed pharmacists—who now often need a doctorate—and technicians who fill prescriptions with only limited training.
The shift to electronic medical records, meanwhile, has eliminated many traditional jobs maintaining patient records but has created a wealth of new opportunities for those with coding skills.
At the same time, the increasing complexity of medicine, along with an increased focus on measuring and improving patient care, has raised the bar on educational requirements for some jobs. An Institute of Medicine committee in 2010, for example, recommended that 80% of registered nurses have bachelor's degrees by 2020, meaning nurses with associate's degrees may soon find themselves in the position LPNs face today.

The system is so rigged that the youth seem to have no choice but to get a college degree, even if it means that they will be underemployed:

In the short term, we're still obviously digging out of the jobs hole left by the recession. Unemployment for college graduates is higher than normal. Underemployment is more prevalent, though it's less severe than college critics portray, and perhaps no worse than during the Reagan days. It's the long view that's cloudier. Maybe, as the recession's impact fades, the economy will naturally go back to quickly churning out more jobs for high skill workers, and academics like Beaudry and his colleagues will be proven wrong. Or, perhaps they're right, and we'll need to wait for another great tech revolution before the market for educated workers goes back to growing the way it did 15 years ago.We can't say for sure. But we do know that young people are safer with a degree than without one.

One would think that all these mean that now is a real good time to seriously think about what it is to be educated.  Here is an example: how much math should we require that students do?  Or, even if we think that the math will do them good for critical thinking skills, which I believe it does, should we reconsider how we teach math?  We need to look into such questions because "less than a quarter of U.S. workers report using math any more complicated than basic fractions and percentages during the course of their jobs.":

And, here is the interesting aspect of it all.  Remember how we systematically treat technical training as some kind of a second-class option that the young should be discouraged from?  Ahem, they need math!

Upper level blue collar, e.g. craft and repair workers like skilled construction trades and mechanics

Lower level blue collar, e.g. factory workers and truck drivers

So, quo vadis?