College Is (Not) Worthless
When the what and the how are trivial, the why is more important than ever
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Some weeks, I have time to write a draft of my upcoming blog post on the Friday of the week before I post it. This week is not one of those weeks.
The clock in the menubar of my Mac tells me that it is currently 10:28 pm Pacific Time. I’m already a day late on posting this—the second week that I’ve missed my self-imposed Tuesday morning deadline! It’s been a busy few weeks in the Brake household, a product of several trips and a move. I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling the end-of-year crunch.
Tonight, the choice was whether to skip a week or jot down a few thoughts and ship it. I’m here, Coke Zero in hand, to let it rip. Maybe I’ll regret the Coke in a few hours. We’ll see. I’ll try to keep it brief, for both of our benefits.
There are definitely still limits
The question I’ve been thinking about lately is one that seems to be getting a lot of attention lately, from a variety of corners. One way of distilling it: is it worth going to college anymore?
The latest person to poke me on this is Guillermo Rauch, the founder and CEO of cloud app company Vercel. Over the weekend, he posted a patently absurd tweet that typifies the kind of thinking that starts to seem reasonable when Twitter begins to occupy too much of your mental bandwidth. College, he argues, has never been worth less.
In fairness, his point has some validity, at least if we consider what most people expect out of the college experience. In its current incarnation, higher ed operates for many primarily as a credentialing engine. Of course, students learn things and are shaped by their college experience, but many students (and their parents, future employers, etc.) approach college with a transactional mindset. Money in, degree out. Employers care about what you learn at school, but in many cases, one of the most valuable pieces of your college experience is the name on your diploma, which allows you to trade on the prestige and reputation of the institution.
Mr. Rauch argues that there are no limits anymore, and “anyone can do anything.” (emphasis mine) I’d like to humbly submit that, contrary to his logic, this is a reason that college is more valuable than ever before.
College is about figuring out the why
You see, when the barrier to build goes asymptotically to zero, some challenges disappear, but others quickly take their place. Perhaps it is now trivially easy to build things that once would have required the training that a four-year college degree provides, but now the question shifts from “how do I build it?” to “what ought I build?” and “why should I build it?”
These are exactly the kind of questions that a college education should be designed to help you answer. Yes, college is about teaching you the what and the how, but college should fundamentally be focused on helping you to make sense of the world and your place in it. The what and how should be stepping stones in service of helping us ask the deeper questions of purpose and meaning.
Never mind the fact that there are clearly still limits in plenty of disciplines that matter in our world. Yes, genAI is a general-purpose, horizontal technology that will revolutionize many verticals, but let’s not get too over our skis here. Perhaps the barrier to build a web app on Vercel has gone to zero, but let’s not pretend that the most challenging problems in the world can or will be solved with web apps.
College is not worthless. It is surely in bad shape in many corners, but this is less about college as an idea and more about institutional decay and a lack of focus on the core mission, vision, and values of what college should be about.
College is about creating an environment where you can engage in the deepest questions of the human experience, all while discerning your place in the world and building the skills to live into that calling.
Sorry for being cranky today (blame the sleep deprivation, slight head cold, and late-night caffeine), but thanks for being here to hear my rant.
I’ll step off my soapbox and go to bed now. If you’ve got a comment, please let me know!
The Book Nook
Super enjoying this graphic novel, Hidden Systems, from Dan Nott. It’s a really cool way of explaining some of the systems we use every day but so often ignore (until they are not working the way we expect!).
The Professor Is In
Finishing up fellowship interviews for the IPAI Lab this week and excited to get moving in advance of next semester.
Leisure Line
A mini Christmas tree with taco ornaments at Homestate.
Still Life
Had a meeting with friend of the show Fred Leichter at the Hive yesterday and noticed these cool remnants of the vine that used to be attached to the overhang of the roof. Pretty neat to see the pattern and spacing.
When I went to college in the 80's, it was about leaving home - physically, emotionally, intellectually, financially, and spiritually. Hard to put a price on that!
I really enjoy these posts, Josh, irrespective of the timing and level of sleep deprivation. Thanks for doing such thoughtful work.
I agree "worthless" is hyperbolic. But perhaps "worth less" is worth thinking about.
College seems like a great place to start figuring out the why. But it certainly isn't the only place. Long after leaving campus grounds (and returning from time to time), I'm still figuring out my answers to these questions. As experience accumulates, my perspective evolves. Perhaps college is the starting point that also provides us with some tools and practice in sorting things out, which we (hopefully) carry with us beyond our time there. But not every college student gets this, or gets enough of this.
College is also not the only experience where we can learn our place in the world and how to acquire the skills to flourish in it. I would argue that people develop through many things. One experience that stands out to me is immersion in learning; that focus teaches us something about the world and about ourselves. These authentic challenges may happen on campuses (and sometimes, they don't). And they can happen in other settings, too, at work or traveling, for instance.
The "worth" part of college also raises the point of cost, in dollars and opportunity cost. As tuition costs rise, I think it is an honest challenge to ask how the college payoff has been faring. Of course, there is more to it than just the brand, the skills for your first job, or the prestige of the first employer you get after graduation. But when we take all of that into account, how does it compare to what we invest, and how has this changed over time? It's also important to think about what we could have been doing.
I agree that there are many problems left to solve, and we'll need more capacity from curious and thoughtful people. At the end of your post, you do refreshingly point out that there are some challenges in ensuring institutions deliver on the promise. As someone working in the project of higher education, that resonates with me.
I think college serves many purposes for people - near-term marketable skills are part of that, and so is long-term preparation for developing our calling. College can do both of those things, and for the bill payers, it has to. As a college prof and parent, I can connect with multiple perspectives on this. I'm optimistic that higher ed will evolve and remain an incredibly valuable institution. Perhaps a good starting point is to recognize that this is not guaranteed, and it is up to us to make the option of college compelling.