Higher education began with the Catholic Church. The Church realized that education was important and opened schools. The Church taught Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and the Liberal Arts, which included a lot of science. Smarter students could go on to study more deeply. Fewer people worked harder at learning.
In the 1800s, men began to automate production so that fewer people produced more. Unemployable young people were encouraged to get a “college education”, mostly just to keep them off the streets. Higher education became a magnet for self-styled “intellectuals”
Colleges became a popular way to keep people off the street. Why should people be burdened with jobs and families? Drugs, sex, and mindless drivel were said to be more important. While a few learned useful things, most students learned less and less. Standards dropped. Millions were bamboozled into taking courses with no relevance and big debts. As state support increased, higher education devolved into an increasingly expensive drink-drug-sex fest. College. Is there a better way to keep the slothful off the streets?
Slothful people learned long ago: if you don’t like working, you should teach in a public school or college. And, if you join a union, you can be paid outlandish wages and receive huge benefits and pensions.
Lazy people have turned the invention of no-work jobs, and mandating degrees for them, into a golden opportunity. Countless college teaching assistants, usually from foreign nations, are hired to work for sub-minimum wage jobs. They teach lazy people to be “qualified” with the “proper credentials” to “help” others.
Is there any reasonable replacement for the vast, slow-moving whirlpools of sloth? College. Is there a better way to keep the slothful off the streets?
Yes. With the internet, each state needs exactly one Algebra teacher hooked up to a web classroom. If he or she gets sick, a substitute or two may be needed. A good teacher is needed for each of the few hundred other classes and courses that are necessary. The cost? Maybe fifty cents an hour for each of several million students. Continual testing would keep the kids on track, automatically shunting them into whatever additional help is needed. The only actual teachers needed are in shop classes where students actually do meaningful work with their hands.
At the end of the course, if a student could pass a test given by law enforcement officers trained to stop cheating, the appropriate degree would be granted.
Costs could be further reduced by roboteachers. Why aren’t we automating education as fast as the productive areas of the economy? College. Is there a better way to keep the slothful off the streets?
Taxes would be lowered. Productive working people would be more prosperous. Students would not be burdened with a trillion dollars in “education” loans. We’d have more time to pray.
