HIRE Education

In the USA we focus on higher education instead of hire education. This has led to use having a veritable army of educated idiots who cannot do much of anything and have very few marketable skills. 

With the creation of the federal Office of Education in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. 

Then in 1941 the Lanham act and in 1944 with the GI Bill, there became a lot more money pushed by the federal government for 4-year universities and the boom was off. Universities started popping up everywhere and offering easier and lax degrees to cater to those who now had money, but did not have the intellectual capabilities to obtain a degree with meaning and substance. 

This was only spurred on in 1958 with the NDEA as an American response to Sputnik.  The intention was to create a more educated populace that could invent and build the newest technology and beat the Russians to the moon and into the future. The intention was to create more machinists, tradesmen, engineers, and inventors. What happened is even more people were crammed into the higher education system which had to lower its standard to ensure more money would keep coming in and students could complete their degrees.

Then in the 1960’s and 70’s the equal rights acts pushed even more money into universal education and 4-year university higher education. The passage of laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, respectively made civil rights enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act launched a comprehensive set of programs, including the Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas. And in that same year, the Higher Education Act authorized assistance for postsecondary education, including financial aid programs for needy college students.

What was the results of these programs? Universal education and the requirement that all students attend high schools that were forced to teach a 4-year university emphasis educational program. This means that 100% of students were now on a path for a 4-year university degree and they were required by law to attend or their parents could be fined. Even if this was not the intent, this eradicated the apprenticeship education in America and decimated the trades and skills based career paths. 

In 1979 when the Department of Education was created and the Secretary was given a cabinet level position, there was so much money in the Department of Education and funds flowing to 4-year universities and think tanks pushing 100% of youth towards taking out loans on expensive high education institutions that would supply a degree that offered little more than a verification that students could be indoctrinated that there was not stopping this bloated bureaucracy. Yet - this increase in pressure to go to University did do one thing, it drastically increased the cost of this education.  

Now we spend around 1.15 trillion USD each year on the Department of Education yet we have seen our standing in the world drop with regards to education, we see fewer and fewer children receiving an education that leads to them getting a good paying job once they complete high school, and we see one of the lowest satisfaction rates in the teaching profession of any industrialized nation in the world. Yet we spend more per capita on education than all but three other nations (Luxembourg, Austria, Norway) in the world. Remember - the 1.15 trillion USD is just the federal expenditures from the Department of Education. Each state has its own resources as well as each school district gets funding from real estate taxes paid locally. It is estimated that $640.0 billion or $12,624 per pupil is spent annually on k-12 education alone.

This is trumped by what the USA spends on post-secondary education which is $34,500 per student. Only Luxembourg spends more than the USA on post secondary education. 

With all of this spending, why are there considerable job vacancies, in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics? 

We have a glut of students with degrees in: political science, liberal arts, international relations, psychology, sociology, environment studies, gender studies; which are undoubtedly interesting degrees to pursue but don't necessarily end up with employers flocking to the university campus to hire the graduates and often results in the graduates continuing to work at Starbucks.

The most striking unintended consequence is the increased burden on low-income households. Because the new low standard to gain entry to an administration job is to have a college degree, now those who can least afford higher education are obliged to go to university instead of opting for a hire education in internships or apprenticeships.

Where do we go from here? Can we reverse this trend in the United States for universal education for all children under the age of 18 being forced to go to a feeder academy for 4-year universities pushing high education? Can we adopt a system successfully used in many other WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) societies? Can we introduce technology, trade, medical, and industrial training back into the secondary education system? Can we focus on hire education?