In the first post of this series about the nature or meaning of College, we talked about the history of the concept of college. College, emerging out of the Middle Ages, was to provide a path to learning, to knowledge….not about jobs. Yet today, one of the leading critiques or concerns is precisely about jobs. I hear students all the time more concerned with finding a certain major that will lead to high paying jobs. Reports abound about the top majors to land the best job. New types of Colleges have emerged in the past 20 years claiming to help students get through the experience faster—college then becomes merely something to endure, to complete and finish so as to more quickly get to the job.
Previously, the “workforce” would be peopled by the many who completed high school. The major concern about an “unskilled” labor force were those students who did not even complete high school. Some look at that fact, particularly in the latter 19th century, and then conclude that there was some socio-economic discrimination that prohibited poorer students from attending. In general, this was not true—most did not attend College or University because they had already entered the workforce. And, perhaps not surprisingly, many of them were generally happy with their lives.
Now, certainly, in those days from the 1400s to the 1900s, worthy students of the lower classes were most assuredly denied access at points. And, some of the students who were admitted were only in because of pedigree. There was some bias and discrimination, but happily in the 20th century, we have made strides beyond that, especially through the Land Grant schools and Community Colleges. By the 1970s for sure, if not earlier, most higher education schools in the US were largely open to most, at least open to apply.
Still, the point up till the 1940s wasn’t about getting anyone a job. However, after World War 2, that all changed as the Military-Industrial complex heated up, fueling our overall economy, which then provided money and goods for our newly exciting consumer world, more “good jobs” were coming into being. Still, in between the war and the 1980s, due to many factors, a high school graduate could still get a “good job” working in the many factories of our nation.
Then the 1970s brought all of that crashing down, and thus began the start of the myth that to really get a good job, one needed College. But, with that myth came a new definition of college. No longer was it about learning deep thoughts, expanding the mind in order to create those who could think on their feet, communicate well, think critically, or solve complex problems….now it was merely about getting a piece of paper to prove to HR departments to “hire me.”
By the late 1990s, Clinton’s “Roaring Nineties” (a decade where the President exemplifies the low morality, high “me-factor” decade of yuppies who were also corrupting our definition about the “American Dream,”) began the attack on what college was about. But, as we all remember, in the first decade of the 21st century, international and domestic events conspired to reveal the deep cracks in our society.
As the economic vise constricted from 2002 forward, as more and more Middle Class families realized that their buying power had declined over the previous 40 years, the myth that College was the place of magic powers to get one a job took hold in earnest. Thus, families and students were willing to take on massive amounts of debt because of the myth. Unfortunately, the myth was going to hit reality and find out that reality would punch back viciously. Come back next week to see what that vicious punch would look like.