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Training, College, and Citizenship

Updated: Apr 10, 2023

John McWhorter, linguist at Columbia University, has argued recently in The New York Times that college shouldn’t be the default activity after high school. In fact, students shouldn’t be encouraged to finish high school if they can get into the workforce at age 16. We should no longer make a college diploma necessary for responsible and lucrative employment.


I can sympathize with the view that some credentials inflation has been dysfunctional. As a student of philosophy, I realized that I’d need a Ph.D. to get a job. This requires original research, usually in arcane subjects with little relevance to teaching. None of my undergraduate students needed to know about the 18th century philosopher Georgy Berkeley’s views on abstract ideas, my dissertation topic. What’s more, some of the best teachers could be those with less specialized expertise, yet they’re barred from the profession due to excessive credentialism.


McWhorter is correct, too, that almost all useful information is now available in easily-accessible digital form. But his conclusion from this – there’s less need for formal education – is mistaken. As the world gets more complex, increasing formal education is necessary to enable people to protect themselves from organized, predatory deception.


There’s a significant statistical difference between more educated and less educated people believing absurd conspiracy theories or former president Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. One reason is that formal education after high school improves critical thinking skills.


As Mark Twain noted, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Knowledge from a history course required for a college degree reveals similarities between Trump and Mussolini in public demeanor and teaches that big lies are the staple of authoritarian leaders. Political science shows the relationship between widespread frustration in life with unscrupulous leaders making scapegoats of “the other,” whether Jews, blacks, gypsies, or immigrants. Literature displays commonalities amidst differences among people, thereby demystifying “the other.”


Psychology and epistemology remind people to be skeptical of evidence they find convincing, because we’re all susceptible to confirmation bias, the tendency to notice and believe whatever confirms our current beliefs and to ignore or dismiss contrary information. We can combat this tendency, but only if we know about it and consciously make the effort to seek evidence that undermines our current convictions.


College courses also require that we organize our thoughts and put them in writing so that others can understand them. This facilitates intelligent discourse on public matters. Almost all courses teach at least informal logic that bolsters common sense. This may be why it’s more difficult for college educated people to believe that Democrats who supposedly altered ballots to switch Trump votes to Biden wouldn’t have done the same for Democratic House and Senate candidates. People trained (forced) to write college essays lose tolerance for bizarre narratives. If you haven’t been trained (forced) to write, however, it’s demands don’t grab you; you can more easily believe what makes no sense because you feel less need to explain it.


The skills and habits of mind acquired in a college education are of great commercial value as well. Communication is crucial in most large organizations, so college-improved communication skills help our economy as well as our democracy. What’s more, innovation comes mostly from trained minds which have been challenged to work through problems, whether in chemistry or literature.


There’s no opposition between education in college and training for a job. Those who have college-level mind training can more easily learn many other skills needed for particular jobs, so it’s reasonable for employers to favor them and pay them more.


Schools in Illinois are required to include a media literacy unit at all stages of public education, but those who’ve not experienced higher education will probably be less likely, for reasons given above, to put media-literacy education into practice as adults. They’re more likely to succumb to confirmation bias and just stop looking when they’ve found digital confirmation (no matter how flawed a trained mind would find it) for what they already believe.


Higher education isn’t a guarantee of discernment. Some highly educated people, such as Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, use their skills to deceive others, and this succeeds with some percentage of educated people. But the percentage of those duped declines with higher education. Trump had about 40% support in the country at one time. Had it been 60%, our democracy would have been lost. Higher education is a practical need for national defense.


High school education became the norm generations ago. It’s time to give equal public support for two more years of education, thereby helping people to make comparisons, recognize rubbish, question first impressions, and interrogate received ideas. Sending 16-year-olds out into the workforce without even completing high school, as McWhorter suggests, would create cannon fodder in the info wars and jeopardize our democracy.


You can respond by e-mail at wenz.peter@uis.edu.

1 Comment


meredith.cargill
May 10, 2022

Who is this “we” who determines that we “make a college diploma necessary for responsible and lucrative employment.”? If the local bank wants to hire 16-yr-old dropouts as loan officers and investment analysts, they are presently free to do so. If the local fast-food joint decides to hire no one but MBAs and MSNs as grill cooks, they are presently free to set that standard for themselves. The government’s effort to promote college education is a response to, not control of, the employment market.


What the Ph.D. gives a person is the credential as a member of a particular discipline. A Ph.D. in philosophy means “this person is a bona fide philosopher, certified by the coven of professional philosophers to…

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