# 022 April 11,2009
Why is a College Degree Required in Today’s Society?
By: Allen Wells
No, the title is not about the value of a college education, or how beneficial college may be for us, or how important a college education is for our future. What I am talking about is the value of a real education in the real world.
One of the [many] problems we face today is that no one wants to work and pay the price to learn a trade or a business. Everyone wants to jump out and own a business, run it successfully, make millions of dollars and take every weekend off, get off at 5 o’clock during the week and have vacations and health insurance, etc. but not take the time and effort (often years) to learn the basics of the business, how to operate a business, and put their heart and soul into the business… you know the old shoulder to the wheel and nose to the grindstone…
What happened to the commitment to make the sacrifices it takes to learn, run and operate a business? How did others in the past learn trades, business principles and concepts and the value of consistent hard work, without a college degree?
In the past, we had something called apprenticeship positions or “apprentices”. An apprentice was a person that committed years of work and study under a skilled employer, to learn a trade or business before they were able to work individually in that trade, or even own the business. We no longer have a program of true apprenticeships in this country.
Apprenticeships have been replaced by college and trade school degrees. It seems the word “trade” has become a bad word in our society, invoking pictures of blue color day laborers doing menial manual labor. Witness the changes in the trade school names. We no longer have “trade” schools. We now have “Technical Colleges”. This sounds so much better and sophisticated, doesn’t it? I wonder, does the new name cause graduates to be better workers than the graduates from the old “trade schools”?
We now have internships… which are mostly unpaid positions. It seems that virtually every college that offers a degree program now requires “internships” in the chosen field prior to graduation. These unpaid positions are basically one semester long and provide free labor for the company or organization that hires the intern (I guess you call it hire, even if the person does not get paid). This makes me wonder, how much ability and experience can a person get in one semester of unpaid work?
The concept of working for years to learn a business or trade is lost on our society. People are no longer willing to spend years, sometimes even decades to build a business or to learn their trade. We’re told, “get a college education so you will be assured to get a good job when you graduate.” Of course, that lie is crumbling at the feet of thousands, no hundreds of thousands of college graduates.
Those preaching the mantra of “get a good college education and you will be successful” have diminished our productivity and defeated the concept of hard work and success. Our young people have been fooled into believing that by spending 4 – 6 years in a college classroom they will be able to walk out into the real world and be a success. The truth is, many of these graduates are no more prepared for the real working world when they graduate than they were when they started college (some even less).
I’ve spent many hours at college campuses all over the U.S. recruiting graduates in Construction Management programs. I have interviewed and hired literally hundreds of Construction Management graduates. These [mostly] young hardworking males graduate thinking they are ready to go out and build the world. Most found within weeks of starting their new job in construction management as superintendents, project managers, and estimators, etc. that college left them woefully unprepared for the job.
Yes, they may be able to tell you how to calculate gross margin or figure man hours of labor, but the ability to manage trade contractors, inspect construction with an eye for detail and to negotiate with customers and vendors is completely missing from their training or scope of knowledge. Of course, that Physical Education requirement from college gave them the ability to talk about their golf game or tennis skills…
With the small exception of a few that worked their way through college, these new hires had no comprehension on how to run a business, much less how to manage a construction project. What we had was an eager, motivated, ready to work employee (that had spent 4 – 6 years putting themselves into tremendous debt with student loans, sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars), that had little practical knowledge, generally no more than anyone else we might hire. Truthfully someone that has worked in the construction industry for 4 – 6 years has far more knowledge and ability than a recent college graduate in Construction Management.
I’m not saying they did not learn anything in college. I’m saying that the ability to do the job was NOT taught in college. That is as simple and succinct as I can put it. Certainly there are some careers that require a college degree. My point is that most careers do not. There is far more to be learned with a practical 12 – 24 month training program following by an apprenticeship, as opposed to 4 – 6 years of college with electives and other time fillers, wasting the productive years of young adults lives (and costing them or their parents tens of thousands of dollars).
What college cannot teach is “hands on” practical knowledge. College cannot teach you how to act in the face of adversity. The experience that comes from seeing, touching and feeling and doing can only come through actualization on the job. This cannot be learned in a classroom or in a semesters worth of internships.
I can take a Construction Management graduate and ask them how to square the sides of a rectangle. Most (not all) can quote the Pythagorean Theorem, but put them in the field and ask them to square a foundation and they are lost. Why? Hands on experience is very, very different than book knowledge.
My question, “why is it almost an absolute requirement today you must have a college degree to get a job in today’s society?” Do we really believe that the information learned in college today is that vital to our future success?
I mean, really… do you believe this?
Wouldn’t paid apprenticeships, a job position that teaches a young person how to do the job, how to understand the job and how to succeed in the job be better than 4 – 6 years of paying thousands of dollars a year listening to a tenured professor teaching information they will never use again, be better than the educational system we have today?
How did we get where we are, how did we lose our apprenticeships and training programs and how do we get back to where we need to be?
Stay tuned for Part II – Why Have We Lost the Value of Real Education?
With warmth and regards (as always),
Allen
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