6 Reasons (+2) to NOT Send Your Daughter to College

[Teebs]

Anecdotal evidence here but I agree and see what most have said, don't have any positive stories of home schooling. Have family that are close to hardcore Christians and have daughters that they control every aspect of their lives (literally supervise every activity they do). This summer the oldest went to camp and was caught with a boy and was a huge incident that turned into multiple runaway threats. Just from growing up in the public catholic school system, though more free the same stuff happened, lots of rebellion just to be contrary, I think the more you isolate the worse it is. If anything it sends them off to college with no real world social experience and more prone to compensating for lost experience in their mind. Being open and communicating is fine but can't smother children in social or educational situations, you can strike a balance between performing well and having a satisfying childhood.

I was home-schooled for a few years (between the ages of 7 and 11), but in the UK where the impetus is generally a bit different. I found it quite a positive experience - anecdotal I know, but for me it was for academic reasons. I do remember that there were regular check-ups from the education authorities to make sure that I was learning appropriately etc. If I remember correctly those checks were fairly cursory, but I suspect that was at least partly because it would have been very clear that I was working and was ahead for my age with non-insane parents. I also benefited from the presence of a proper support network in the city I lived in where home-schooling parents met up every week for the kids to socialise and would share skills for teaching and pool resources to hire specialist teachers. It ended when my parents moved to another city with no real network which made the whole thing work much worse.

[Simon_Jester]

If they were critical of the public school system then they should have joined the local PTA or run as school governors and done something about it instead of opting out and declaring it someone else's problem.

To be brutally honest, that is nonsense. Your responsibility to your child is much more important than your responsibility to some abstract cause system like "school reform." Sure, if you run for school board and make a career of it, in ten years you MIGHT have fixed the system. By that time, your kids have already spent ten years at school under the status quo.

So if you are seriously concerned about the education of your own child, you have an obligation to do whatever is in your power to deal with that now, not to go gallivanting off to be an activist and hope your kid turns out all right in the meantime.

Oh yes, and apparently having women uneducated isn't trapping them into an ignorant and servile role, it's the degree that's the trap... because once they enter a college program they're locked into a career path. Oh yes, apparently working is beneath women, because they're already paying for the Fall of the Man with childbirth pain while men suffer through toiling to provide for their families (a claim of dubious theology and nonexistent logic.)

It is also at odds with practical economics- supporting a family unit on one income is HARD these days. Especially if you are even remotely considering kids.

Actually, the last point is addressed - it's basically the woman's fault for not choosing a proper husband.

Now, the question of how it is HER fault that HE is a sinner... now that is theologically dubious!

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I actually wish that universities would stop offering bullshit degrees; the stereotypical B.A. in Basket Weaving, as it were, should not be a thing. I would rather see the only options after high school be apprenticeship in a trade, entry-level jobs, or a serious, non-trivial, motherfucker of a degree.

What degrees would you actually cut? Which ones are bullshit by nature?

[Broomstick]

Generally when people say that they mean any degree that isn't STEM.

[Lagmonster]

In retrospect, I wouldn't have a problem with the humanities, so long as the standards for the degree were high enough that only serious students could get past year one. I've met university "graduates" who couldn't calculate the goddamn tip on a bill.

[Darksider]

In retrospect, I wouldn't have a problem with the humanities, so long as the standards for the degree were high enough that only serious students could get past year one. I've met university "graduates" who couldn't calculate the goddamn tip on a bill.

Couldn't calculate the bill as in "I know how to do this but I can't run numbers easily in my head so I need the calculator on my phone," or "I literally have no idea how percentages work?"

[Broomstick]

In retrospect, I wouldn't have a problem with the humanities, so long as the standards for the degree were high enough that only serious students could get past year one. I've met university "graduates" who couldn't calculate the goddamn tip on a bill.

See, this is why I maintain my art degree is a serious degree - we were required to pass certain basic levels of math and language to even be admitted, math and science classes were required (though they skewed towards things like optics and the mathematics of symmetry and geometry, but arguably those were more relevant to art production than some other math and science topics), and courses related to running a small business or working as a free lance artist that incorporated relevant accounting and law for our chosen profession. Certainly, not all who started at the school ever finished.

There are serious non-STEM degrees and they shouldn't be dismissed merely because they didn't require calculus or advanced physics. You don't need to understand advanced physics or organic chemistry to be, say, a professional photographer but having a solid knowledge of optics and how to use them on a practical level certainly is an asset, and arguably more relevant to the profession. (In the old days having knowledge of photographic chemistry was very important - my basic photography class, the one everyone was required to take regardless of major, involved enough chemistry to mix emulsions and developers, but these days with digital photography being so ascendant knowledge more in the computer realm is taking over as the important thing to know about)

[Broomstick]

In retrospect, I wouldn't have a problem with the humanities, so long as the standards for the degree were high enough that only serious students could get past year one. I've met university "graduates" who couldn't calculate the goddamn tip on a bill.

Couldn't calculate the bill as in "I know how to do this but I can't run numbers easily in my head so I need the calculator on my phone," or "I literally have no idea how percentages work?"

I don't know about Lagmonster, but I have certainly met university graduates who have no idea how percentages work.

Which is fucking sad. I mean, I have genuine issues with math and it does take me longer than most to calculate, particularly with pencil and paper (or worse yet, in my head), but I did do the work to learn how to do things like make change and use percentages and do other such math that really is useful in anyone's life. It irritates the hell out of me to meet people who can't do it simply because they are just too fucking lazy to learn how.

[fgalkin]

In retrospect, I wouldn't have a problem with the humanities, so long as the standards for the degree were high enough that only serious students could get past year one. I've met university "graduates" who couldn't calculate the goddamn tip on a bill.

My friend has trouble with that and he has a Ph.D in mathematics from Princeton and is a university professor.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Lagmonster]

My friend has trouble with that and he has a Ph.D in mathematics from Princeton and is a university professor.

Right, well, "can't calculate a tip" was a sound bite stand-in for "lacks evidence of a worthwhile education". The point was to reduce the incentive for kids who are not cut out for higher learning to engage in an (expensive) paper chase. My hope would be that if degrees were harder, people without would wash out quickly and/or be discouraged from wasting their time, before they saddle themselves with crushing debt.

I'd also like to see more use of paid-on-condition-of-graduation subsidies, but that's a whole different thingy.