Worthless

And to make it even more sickening, the Quebec students who have been protesting forever.. are now demanding more money because they ran out in their protesting efforts. Apparently no spare cash for lattes as Dr. Roy puts it.

The recent purchase of Instagram (13 employees, 2 years old) by Facebook for $1 Billion provides an interesting insight into the mindsets of different people:

Small-C Conservatives: Wow! I need to figure out what the keys to their success were so I could do the same.

Leftists: That's not fair. I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy and my wife has a Master's in Social Work. We have more education than the founders of Instagram so we should be making more than them.

Radical Leftists (aka Occupiers): Let's surround the Instagram offices and demand they share their wealth with us. We deserve it!

.. only worthless if nobody is willing to hire them. The public sector hires them.

Four years and $80k in borrowed bucks to get a BA in Transgendered Tree Hugging Progressive Aboriginal Grievance Mongering & Gaia Worship and even Mickey D's thinks I am not qualified to ask people if they want fries with their order.

What did I do wrong?

Heh heh....

A long time back I adopted the practice of putting PA after my signature.....

A coupla years back an attorney took the bait in court.....I responded "irrelevant".

That hooked the Judge....who demanded an answer...

"Professional A......e...."

Judge remarked..."you're not a lawyer...."

"No but I serve legal stuff...processes...."

Judge..."that works....."

"only worthless if nobody is willing to hire them. The public sector hires them.marco"

I agree,and that's why our taxes are so damned high,because government bureaucracies operate on "the more employees,the more important is the department",so they hire layer upon layer of paper shufflers.

I've said it so many times,even I'm getting tired of hearing/saying it; Get a trade,the world needs tradesmen.

CTV once again shows how useless their so called educated 'junkalists' are: Paul Workman(???) and dopey Sandy choose the USA Republican nominee for president!!

'Is their nothing that msm in Canada can't do?'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=vUK00kbMpts

Is it possible to make themselves look less competent? Why, yes there is, here is one of the men that the two fools claim does not exist: Dr. Ron Paul. Thousands of people cheering for someone who is not running for President? Hard left couch potatoes from CTV don't get out much, is Workeemanee sitting in the hotel bar all day?

http://youtu.be/1VZh0TlVAXI

The other man, still in the race, is Newt Gingrich.

Both of the CTV ignoramuses have been sitting on the comfy Liberano fur 'fer' way too long. CTV dumbos with egg all over their faces..once again...making all Canadians look foolish too. Some Americans probably think that our msm reflects the Canadian people they would then believe that we are all stupid or that do not have any live communication infrastructure!

BTW CTV, you don't speak for me re: love affair with the 'present' President. He creeped me out from the day I saw his mug at the Demo convention for his 'made in' teleprompter land screech in 2004.

"Worthless" is a very good book. It is inexpensive and costs next to nothing in Kindle form. It is important, for anyone who wants to know how our society works
in the present day.

To quote from my own review on Amazon,
"This book takes deadly aim at the various dishonesties which infest modern higher education, and provides at least some guide to assist the entering student in avoiding the worst, most costly pitfalls - these being going deeply in debt for degrees which are both intellectually and financially WORTHLESS.

"Most of the book works for Canada as well as the US, though the funding system is different. For example, Clarey assigns low value to foreign languages, which is undoubtedly realistic for people in the Midwest, but not so accurate for Canadians. Clarey discusses grade inflation, but not quite with the vehemence the the subject deserves. And while discussing various academic slimeballs (quite accurately I might say - some of these I must call colleagues), he doesn't go into the invidious role that Boards of Governors/Boards of Regents play.

"I hope this book saves a few from the depths of debt and frustration. However, lay people think they know everything about the subject, and some never realise that they have been had."

Wonder if all those American/ Canadians with worthless degrees are ready to take up some of those jobs that “American’s won’t do”?

Oops, sorry they are full up now.

They can’t even drive a taxi anymore their full up with doctorates from India. Very sad.

How do you figure $80k for a BA? Even UofT - probably the most expensive option - has fees of $5,500/year, maybe $1,000 for books if you must buy new, much less if you buy used, and $10G's for room and board if you stay in residence, much less if you share accommodation off campus.

Quick look on google showed shared houses in London for ~$400/month. $200/month for food, and you get just over $11k (tuition/books/room/board) for the eight months. That's $44k for your BA, assuming 1) you borrow every single cent of it, and 2) you spend your entire summer watching TV in your parent's basement. Geez, two shifts a week at the local McD's pays your rent and food; three shifts puts a little pin money in your pocket.

All my friends studied engineering, which meant 15+ hours of lectures, and 10+ hours of labs/tutorials each week, plus homework, yet almost all managed to hold down a part time job during the year, and no one's social life suffered in the least. No one had student loans of any consequence to pay back.

Today's kids must have zero ambition or drive, or they drink a lot and/or do recreational substances.

But, as I've said before, the purpose of a BA is supposed to be to teach you how to think - how to read and process ideas logically, how to discuss them, and how to recognize patterns and create new ones. It's not supposed to be vocational training, like apprenticing or community college technical courses.

And, since the greatest lack we have to today is people with the brains to figure out what to do with all the surplus people we have laying about, I'd suggest the value of a real BA is higher than ever. It's a pity more universities don't offer them, instead of the force-fed pablum and regurgitation that's become the norm.

KevinB; before I went to urnalversity I couldn't spel engineer, now I are one.

Daughter just graduated nursing a few months back. She did it on her own, has student loans and worked on the side. I don't think she is even close to 1/4 of $80k. She was employed even before her last exam was written.
BTW, you can get a job with a Nursing Degree, but can't say the same about a Barely Able.

She went back to school after spending some time in the working world and traveling a bit. That real life maturity probably accounts for a lot.

I rest better knowing that she can probably find me the better nursing home! /kidding... I think

Clarey's general premise of looking for value in a degree is absolutely correct, however, as an economist he should realize the folly of pronouncing authoritatively on fields about which he clearly knows little to nothing about. Coming from an economist, I find his disdain for finance and law schools laughable as he must surely know that for many grads of these fields their careers provide enormous financial rewards.

The bigger issue is that his utilitarian worldview leads him to overreach. In particular, the view that entering into certain programs is "immoral" and leads to a life of perdition is a very odd position. I hope this is the polemicist in Clarey coming out because it otherwise suggests a truly frightening dystopian view of society where "good" humans are only those that increase economic output in measurable units. Maybe Clarey wants to live in a world where morality is measured on the basis of the efficiency with which widgets are produced but I suspect that he can count most of the rest of us out.

50 years ago a BA got you nothing,it was the next X number of years that got you a profession.It hasnt changed in university.Trade schools give professions much sooner and cost less with the option of self imployment.

You mean like my daughter's coveted degree in Sociology.

Kevin B - you forgot to factor in the all-important money for the bar tabs. There always seems to be money for the bar tabs as they bitch about tuition fees.

Most students would benefit by 3 or 4 years work between hs and university.

Unfortunately, the degree mills have been fueled by the easy availability of credit, and the realization of many large employers, including all levels of government that to use means other than degree possession as a way to weed out candidates ( say by intelligence tests, etc ) is an invitation to be sued for discrimination. No large firm will risk their brand image, so many of their positions require BAs minimum for consideration. We can all thank the radical left for this state of affairs, as they are the authors of the present identity/grievance politics.

We'll know students are really concerned by the debts they rack up, when they give up their $80 per month smartphone habit.

slaw - Clarey's disdain for law schools is understandable when you realize that 2% of US GDP is paid out in legal awards every year, with much more indirect damage to incomes, for example, many small US communities have no obstetricians, as the doctors can't afford the $80,000+ annual insurance premium on the fees they earn.

As for finance graduates, these are the clever ones who brought down the US economy with their many bogus finance " products " such as CDO's.

It would be much better for everyone else if the those who become lawyers and finance graduate students decreased by a factor of 10, and instead learned how to run a productive enterprise that actually produced goods or services people wanted, instead.

Government needs to get out of education
In the 70's you could work a part time job and go to University.With the government handing 100s of thousands of dollars to kids (student loans)its made things much worse.Most of the money squandered on wages, fancy buildings and football teams. With things like the internet, education should be at a fraction of cost what it was in the 70's. No student should walk away with 100s of thousands in debit. It would force schools to be more competitive and do away with the useless courses. They make you take these, only to earn the schools more money, and deprive you of the opportunity of taking something useful.With every year north Americas, losing manufacturing jobs to china. With over 80 percent of the graduates never finding a job in their chosen field(US stats).We need to stop lying to our kids that an education will always lead to prosperity.We need a whole new type of education system the sooner the better.

The quality and value of education is what has changed. It used to be better than what it is now. One cannot teach the love of learning/knowledge (which doesn't need an academic institution to foster) and a decent work ethic has to be developed and enforced. Are modern academic institutions doing the latter in any degree? Everyone is magically special and deserving of everything. White collar jobs are highly prized and blue collar jobs are frowned upon.

Let's not be surprised by what we see.

Sigh...I can pnly sit back and dream about the success I would have been with an Ottawa U degree in Political Fartcatchin' and Whiffle-sniffin'.

In the seventies, you could get a room in a house in lots of Ontario university towns for $75 or less per month, $750 for tuition (and take six courses per year if you were motivated), feed yourself for $50 per month and still have money for a case of beer on Friday on your summer earnings. Didn't even need a part time job in those days.
A lot cheaper if you stayed at home and went to the local university or community college.
And end in lots of courses where there were fewer than 12 students and a tenured professor. Not much value for money these years

The local university offers an undergraduate degree in "Media, Information and Technoculture/Media and the Public Interest".

If students came out of the program knowing how to write code, that would be one thing, but they seem mostly to be reading de Saussure and volunteering for non-profits.

Just about everything necessary for an undergrad degree is free on the internet these days: lectures, tests, quizzes. For language learning, the internet is much better than a university classroom, because there is easy access to native speakers through Skype and social media. In practical educational terms, undergrad university programs are needed for labs for STEM. Otherwise, universities mainly exist to inculcate young people into a particular social culture.

I'm working on an MA in philosophy, and let me tell you, as far as hobbies go, it is way cheaper than racing dirt bikes. Give me a few more years, and it will be DOCTOR idiot why are you wasting your time, thank you very much.