Is college still worth it? According to Newsweek, millions of Americans are just saying “no.”
Why? Because, according to a new poll, many see universities as a place where political agendas replace useful skills, and they walk away with $300,000 in debt that cripples them for life.
In fact, college enrollment is down 2.5 million since COVID-19, while the share of 18- to 26-year-olds working in the trades has gone from 25% pre-pandemic to 31% today.
Meanwhile, a recent Gallup survey found only a third of Americans—of all ages—say they have confidence in universities: 32% said they have little or no faith. That’s a big drop from just a decade ago, when 57% had faith and just 10% did not.
Of those who lost faith, 41% said liberal indoctrination has taken over, while 37% said college doesn’t teach relevant skills. The rest cited the cost.
It’s a theme that people are figuring out that colleges are just indoctrination factories. While there are a few good ones (see the story posted below) and there are a few degrees needed for advanced education, the social bullshit they put students through is being exposed as not worth it.
Also, in the theme of woke that I’ve been on, people are tired of it and a lot of it starts with colleges.
Delusions of Adequacy 
After 10 years in the Navy as an electronics tech, another 14 as a junior naval officer, and 16 of teaching drama and lit and poetry along with the core courses of comp and tech writing to young adults, I have mixed feelings about college-level education for most people.
I’d LOVE for everyone in our society to be familiar with Kant and Shakespeare and Voltaire and Schopenhauer and Pope and Wordsworth and Maya Angelou and Woody Allen and Sophocles and Homer and on and on and on.
I mean, the veneer of culture and enlightenment grows thinner and more ephemeral with each generation these days. Plus, we simply cannot afford to extend adolescence into the mid-20s. Sooner or later young adults HAFTA start contributing!
But advanced degrees in women’s studies or African culture or 19th century Belgian lesbian poetry just don’t feed the bulldog, and we’re in danger of becoming a nation of talkers instead of tradesmen, of protestors rather than producers, of whiners in place of welders.
Do schools even OFFER shop classes any more? To me, an 18-yr-old needs to know how to read and understand what he’s reading; how to determine which mathematical formula for what problem and have the arithmetic skills to properly use it; how to balance a checkbook; how the engine in his automobile works; what to do when the icemaker in his fridge craps out; how to choose the proper hammer to drive the proper nail into a properly cut piece of wood without splitting it; what basic principles his air conditioner works on; why different sizes of wires are used in different situations; how to compose an effective business letter; you know, stayin-alive stuff.
My guess is that over half the advanced degrees in our society today are about as useful as a fifth wheel on a Buick. We need to get back to makin stuff, fixin stuff, operatin stuff and knock off the protestin and philosophizin and politickin. Trade schools and think tanks, not talk shows and safe spaces.
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