To university, or not to university?
This morning I read Jeff Rybek’s latest post on academic/career goals. (Are yours reasonable or in keeping with what you truly want to accomplish in life or defined by someone else entirely? If you just keep chasing “the next” achievement or status mark, how will you know if you’re ever done? Can you ever be really done?)
I’ve also made past the point in his book where he talks about credentialism. (He mentions it only briefly, but since I’m an anti-credentialism nut, any mention of the topic is going to be duly noted.) We are all too familiar with the problem of entry-level jobs in almost all industries “requiring” a university education. Even if they don’t explicitly state that a university degree is required, if you have a glut of recent university grads looking for any job so they can start paying off their student loans (or finally feel like “adults”), then someone with a high school education doesn’t stand much of a chance. Why not take a university grad when given the option? And so the job market skews just a little bit more every time a university graduate is hired at Second Cup.
This is why there’s a part of me that wants to scream out at people, “Why do you even want to go to university anyway? Don’t you know it’s just another round of playing the game and if you actually get something more out of it than a piece of paper, it was only due to chance?” But, that’s not very helpful now, is it? 
And, it sounds a little suspicious . . .
A lot of criticism levied against the homeschooling/alternative schooling movement a few short decades ago was in no small part because of the apparent incongruity of a bunch of highly educated people (who themselves were traditionally schooled with traditional certifications) claiming that what the youth — especially disadvantaged youth — needed was freedom from the confines of institutionalized education.
The argument of course centred around the fact that a traditional education had “obviously” helped these people themselves. (Did they succeed because of it, or in spite of it?) And, wasn’t it clearly irresponsible to rob youth of a solid educational background, and perhaps more importantly, the traditional certifications on which the young were most likely to be judged later in life?
In the same sense, how can I, who was so well served by a university education, even suggest that perhaps others don’t need one?
I’m not sure I have the answers to this one all figured out myself. But here’s what I do know:
Too many kids are going to university.
That’s not meant to be an elitist attitude. I don’t mean to say, “Too many kids are being educated at too high a level.” (Can anyone really say that?) I also don’t mean to say, “Too many kids have access to higher education.” I do mean that if university becomes the standard level of education (because nearly everyone attends) then haven’t we relegated our youth to way too many years of “compulsory” education?
Sure, you can “choose” not to attend, but society has made that a false choice. Through social stigma and lazy efficient hiring practices, the undergraduate degree has become in many ways a necessity in today’s society.
Which I guess would be ok if all those kids really needed all that “education.” But, I’m not convinced of that.
The other big issue, as I mentioned in my first post about Rybek’s book, is that universities have started catering to the diverse market of high school grads by offering an experience that is neither primarily personal development nor primarily professional development. So, no matter what your primary goal for attending university is, you’re likely to be unsatisfied to some extent.
Instead of forcing us to realize that this one option called “university” isn’t for everyone, the university has tried to become a bit more like community colleges on the one hand, and a bit more like professional programs on the other hand . . . and God help us, a bit more like high schools on yet a mutant third hand.
So, why don’t we just go with the flow and bear with the universities as they suffer through the growing pains of becoming one-stop-post-secondary-shops for the masses?
Because if every student ends up going to university, then not going to university will eventually become literally (yes, I do mean laws and everything) a non-option.
The US is already talking about consolidating all their education systems into one pre K-16 system. pre K to sixteen? How much more infantalization can North American youth (and our society and our economy. . . ) take? Aren’t some murder sentences shorter than that? How messed up do we think kids are that we think a standard practice of institutionalization until the age of 21 is warranted?
Why do I work so hard at making sure homeschoolers can get into university? Because for so long they have had a heck of a time doing so. Do I want every homeschooler to go to university? Absolutely not. I hope my work is creating more options for people, not fewer. And, I hope that my work allows homeschoolers to feel confident in the non-traditional choices they make. I hope my work allows them to feel comfortable taking the road less traveled, knowing that they have the option of hopping back on the beaten path whenever they feel like it, if they ever do.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader. If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out "starter kit" of articles. Then, click on the pages, posts or categories on the right that interest you for much more information about home school university admissions in Ontario and Canada.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment