A Masters and you might can work a BK or KFC.

Imagine if the person running that press underwent continuing education, so that the operator had modest but formal exposure to electrical and mechanical engineering, robotics, information technology, cost analysis and time management, geometry and trigonometry, chemistry, and so on.

Pretty soon, that drill press could be making parts for a "midwife device" that can build an open-source three-dimensional printer which in turn capable of making and assembling all the parts needed to replicate itself...

...AND THEN I SHALL CONQUER THE WORLD, HAHAHAHA!

Yeah, I didn't know where I was going with that. Never mind.

....or merely opening up a door for everyone to have the opportunity should they desire to want to go?

Santorum is an asswipe and deranged and I think most of the natural, reasoning world can figure out that not everyone wants to go to college and there is nothing in any comment made by Obama, that is compelling anyone to go to college who doesn't want to go.

IN ADDITION...for those that suddenly revere and are promoting the plight of factory workers, school teachers, shrimp peelers, WalMart greeters and garbage collectors etc as critical to society, I've never seen a more hypocritical bunch. Pay them minimum wage, treat them like crap, but suddenly when it suits a talking point, those workers are now important and critical for the smooth running of society? BULL CRAP on that type of manipulation of the topic at hand.....why not treat those workers like they are important today...not when it suddenly is a political talking point.

You know. The ones that used to be here.

The righteous righties know that santorum has really stepped in it with his idiotic snob comments about college so they're resorting to remarking off the cuff, something they're terrible doing. One good thing was that Chris Jansing didn't let Cupp off with her remark lightly indicating that President Obama's speech talked about all post-high school education - vocational, community college, certificate programs, etc.

The fortunate thing is that most republics I know have found frothy's comments to be completely stupid and over the line - esp knowing his educational background, that of his parents and the fact that he's got 2 kids in the University system.

all sending everyone to college does, it make it necessary to have a college degree to get any job

prior to the 1960s, it was noticed that people who went to college were more successfull, but this was for a lot of reasons, they were more likely to have wealthier parents, have a family business and the connections that go along with that, boys in fraturnities could 'trade' those connections etc.

in other words, the population that went to college was more likely to be more successfull in the first place (even though college still could ad to that)

sending everyone to college to emulate them is like saying 'we went to the moon, and now we have Tang-tm'. But the doesnt mean you had to go to the moon to get Tang.

we have entered an educational arms race, where everyone needs higher and higher education just to economically stand still (which you dont, when you figure in the time and tuition lost to attend college)

to become a computer programmer, my grade in rhetoric studying 'Three Penny Opera', could affect whether i got a job, via it's influence on my GPA. But why? what does it have to do with programming? Was it necessary to fit in culturally? I bet the guys from India who ended up taking over the systems I wrote on my first job didnt study it.

I think in many ways, there has been scope creep in our educational system, from being an enabler to running a protection racket that must be paid to gain any employment. And it makes foreign nationals cheaper to hire, because they dont have to be paid as much to reach the first day of positive cash flow on their educational investment. Sadly, there are too many students in the US who will NEVER reach that day

I worked as a boilermaker in the 70s for almost 5 years with the equivalent of an associates degree and I knew MANY co-workers who had full degrees and worked in the yards.

Of course in that area at that time (thanks to the unions), it paid pretty well even compared to "college educated" work. But it was a hell of a lot harder and more dangerous.

e/s

But I know what you mean.

(Didn't he graduate from Penn State?)

Oh right, Santorum and the right-wing idiots.

A real and viable chance to go to college for all who desire to is what sane people think he meant.

I know I will be blasted for this, but we need to educate and counsel people on what is best for them. Sadly, too many people already go to college because it is the thing to do. My freshman year (1995-1996), we had 88 people living on my dorm floor, of which 22 finished their first year with 0.0 GPA's. These people pissed away a year of their life and have nothing but 5 figures of student loans to show for it. There are many opportunities out there beyond going to a 4 year college. I love it when Obama talks about trade schools, as we don't do enough educating students on these opportunities.

in hiring decisions

because when you make a college degree a requirement for working in a call center ( a perfectly honorable job, but doesnt really need a degree), what you end up doing, is shipping the jobs overseas to palces where people dont have to make as much to make a living, startng with paying back their student loans

once we do that, THEN we can advise young people to think twice about whether a degree is really necessary. but not before

Either you have money, education, power or you are nothing. Of course this message is supported by people with money, education and power.

This harkens back to the day when reasonable people existed on the right--this reasonable article is from the American Enterprise Institute, which provides an exception to their usual unreasonableness. It's a legitimate question that INDIVIDUALS should ask before deciding to go to college. Today, we see big-government-Santorum spreading his ridiculous rhetoric instead of adressing the issue in, yes, a reasonable way.

http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magazine/are-too-many-people-going-to-college

And industry has never needed the dummies, educated or otherwise.