The fact that I've had the opportunity to learn about a broad range of domains in addition to my technical focus has allowed me to not only have a better understanding, appreciation, and direction in my interactions with the broader world, it lets me draw parallels between similar scenarios in distinct fields, learn from the experiences of others, see novel solutions to entirely distinct problems, and all in all have a more holistic view of <insert hand waving> Life.
I would not be the engineer I am today if I did not spend a portion of my time learning about "what native Americans lived in Virginia" (Would heavily recommend Ken Burns's "The West", speaking of similar topics, that man is a hero to the presentation of american history), and as such I'm a strong advocate for giving _everyone_ the opportunity to learn about things that may not have any direct benefit, not only because you don't know until you've tried (and benefits as I said can be very transitive) but also because learning in and of itself I see as very central to the human experience.
If you could cut a full year off the work needed for a professional degree by losing "which native Americans lived in Virginia", and thus spare millions of students the expense of a full year in college, you would be materially helping not only current college students but also people who are forced to debate whether or not to attend because of the expense.
I agree wholeheartedly that the opportunity cost of that learning should be taken into account, but my earlier point was made with the implicit assumption that there are methods that don't come with such an overhead. (e.g. choosing to take Latin during my CS degree would not have meaningfully changed my costs had I cut it out, and the benefits have become increasingly clear over the years. Most of this learning, however, I'd say has taken place outside of any institution that incurs a monetary cost, and the minor time-cost is largely what I was defending)
That all depends on how you measure better off.
Knowledge, understanding, wisdom are goods unto themselves. No doubt, we need to eat, but I'd rather know Latin, Norse mythology, Anselm's ontological proof, the Platonic solids, and the major players in the Glorious Revolution than not. And I'm better off for simply knowing them.
You can get the first two for free on a library.
You are making a mistake when you compare the knowledge, understanding and wisdom you would get in College against nothing and then decide that College is better than nothing. You should compare it against all the other things people could be doing with that time and money. The opportunity cost.
With respect to the original article, yes absolutely.
I was responding to the parent comment who described people 'no better off' for knowing versus not knowing.
Maybe they will acquire work experience, life experience, pragmatical knowledge about how real world works, that kind of thing. Why is knowledge about covalent bonds intrinsically more important than that?
Sure.
But expecting some body to pay you just because you know all of that is tad bit too much to ask.
The right question to ask here is after all that, how employable are you?
Because you need skills to be employed. The ridiculousness of the situation is such a plumber is probably spending their time more valuably than say who studied Norse Mythology. Note I'm talking more in economic terms only. Sure the person who studied Norse Mythology knows more than a plumber, but you need a plumber more often than you need some one who knows Norse Mythology.
>>Why can't you say just the same thing about, say, teaching people to read?
That sets the basic platform for other stuff. You build on top of it.
>>Fifth-grade literacy is probably enough to do many jobs, so maybe we should toss out high school too.
If I was spending $X00,000 on a degree and expect a job in return which some one with fifth-grade literacy can do. I'd be seriously worried about my choices and decision making skills in life.
Consider climate change. I believe climate change is happening and needs to be addressed. But I don't really understand the mechanics. Neither do the people who think it doesn't exist. Rather, I've been socialized to trust experts and scientists when they speak on their area of expertise and they have not.
People who dislike Trump don't do so because they know facts he doesn't. They dislike him because they have different values than he holds (or purports to hold).
I suspect that the majority of believers in all cargo cults don't independently come up with the same idea, someone will think of it and the rest will follow them. The followers were in a clientelist relationship with the leader and want that to continue and keep providing them with the cargo in future.
Maybe we need to look at the education of the kind of people who end up as our leaders.
Right. I believe in the Golden Rule and Trump thinks it's not a big deal.