06-16-2020, 01:43 PM
(06-16-2020, 01:21 PM)David Horn Wrote:(06-16-2020, 01:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(06-16-2020, 10:44 AM)David Horn Wrote: High degrees of education and wealth attainment are neither mutually exclusive nor inclusive. Yes, some degrees tend to track with high earning, but others don't. The purpose of an education should be enlightenment, but most of us see the education-earning link instead.
Four years of one's life and putting one's self in considerable debt is a high price to pay for a degree these days. If it doesn't come with a good shot at employment, this seems like a luxury few can afford.
Sad but true. I'm not sure we'll ever return to education-as-enlightenment, but we do need to encourage (force?) a bit of old fashioned civics and language education on the general public, or we'll become a nation of Know-Nothings. Never mind. We already are.
The G.I. Bill rewarded the many with a chance at education-as-enlightenment. Cannot say the GIs of the time didn’t deserve the reward after the Great Depression and World War II. With other country’s manufacturing bombed out and colonial Imperialism killed by the offer of lend lease forgiveness, the US could afford it.
But that was a time when America was Great, a time that may never come again. Education is not an unrewarding prize, but it is on the verge of becoming a racket, a way for mediocre schools to collect lots of cash.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
