On Institutionalized Education

I found this document from a folder that contained some documents I wrote in college. I am posting it here in case someone wants to see the progression in my thought. Skip it if you want to save time. It was probably written in fall 2017.

I am about to get a degree from a relatively fine institution, about to be unemployed, at least in my degree field. The problem is that the goal of a college is to produce servants. The corporate world wants servants, so colleges teach servitude.

There are people who believe that real education has philosophy, politics, physics, literature, etc. However, an institution has to quantify success in order to claim credibility. Higher student GPA and better job placement rates are some quantifiable measures of success, regardless of their validities. [Therefore, they don't focus on real education]

Let me build an analogy. I can be extraordinarily determined, resilient, open-minded, intellectual, understanding, but none of these can be quantified on a resume. To sell myself, I can take a course in psychology or culture to get a degree in open-mindedness, regardless of whether I am open-minded or not. This is exactly what colleges do to remain in business. They focus on proving success in quantifiable terms. Since real education is not applied sciences but abstract theoretical fields, colleges cannot advocate them. They end up teaching corporate slavery [or glamorize fields that really are trade skills].

Hereby, I conclude not going to college. Read college textbooks to acquire wisdom. If you cannot read by yourself, then learn to read by yourself. With the money and the time you save, you can build a business (at least in the US).

Basically, stop doing what people do, in general. Build your life around your goal. If your goal requires you to get a degree, only then utilize college. For example, to be a lawyer or a doctor, you need a degree to be certified. If you have a farm and you want to increase your productivity, then it is a good idea to involve in research at a college. Even in that case, I would suggest joining a private research firm that is serious about what it is doing. Again, a public institution is a socialistic model. People’s goals may not co-align.

Now, I will address the income difference myth. There is an income difference between high school graduates and college graduates. However, I wouldn’t be so quick to attribute it to going to college. Consider the two explanations below -

1. People who did not go to college were rejected by colleges because they could not quantifiably show they were good enough. For the same reason, they faced problems securing high-paying jobs.

2. They were actually not developed enough to go to college in the first place. They did not know much or had bad abusive families. They had other problems and difficulties.

The only way to solve these issues is to find out people who went to great high schools, had supportive family and friends, were accepted by colleges and given generous scholarships, rejected college, and later ended up making just as much money as an average high-school graduate.

The best education can be self-administered. Students study themselves. They seek teachers only when they do not understand. This encourages students to learn more. This also reduces the cost of teaching. Teachers can spend more time researching rather than teaching repetitively. This also eliminates the access code I hate to pay for.