I've argued before that the "useless majors and departments" are useful for general studies, and general studies are good for everyone. Filler prereqs are a part of all of the college concept of creating a well rounded individual. In addition, the dorm life of college is a great half way step towards living by yourself. You generally hang out with people who in many cases will become your life's best friends.
I used to feel that way strongly. All of this made sense when most people could go to a state school and earn their way through with little or no loans. Today being a well rounded student with some great friends and a bit of independent living at a state school is likely to still saddle you with a 6 figure loan.
So even though I really thing the above is the right way for people to pursue an education / career after high school, it simply makes little sense for a lot of students. To the end I'd really like to see more institutions like WGU that allow you to get through school a lot more cheaply by doing everything remotely and measuring outcomes rather than measuring grades and the number of classes you took. And somehow we need to convince employers that colleges like WGU are the best alternative for a lot of really talented potential employees.
> Filler prereqs are a part of all of the college concept of creating a well rounded individual. In addition, the dorm life of college is a great half way step towards living by yourself. You generally hang out with people who in many cases will become your life's best friends.
Let the student/purchaser of the education decide this. Not middle aged university bureaucrats trying to optimize the tuition profits. Give students the time back to volunteer or spend time locally working at hobbies/clubs. Not everyone is interested in Humanities, Arts, Diversity and Multiculturalism. They likely received 100s of hours of that in k-12. Time to be an adult.
I feel like you might have missed my last paragraph.
TL;DR: Traditional college maybe made sense before college debt became an albatross around college grad's necks. Time to find more reasonable alternatives for those that don't want that albatross.
I used to feel that way strongly. All of this made sense when most people could go to a state school and earn their way through with little or no loans. Today being a well rounded student with some great friends and a bit of independent living at a state school is likely to still saddle you with a 6 figure loan.
So even though I really thing the above is the right way for people to pursue an education / career after high school, it simply makes little sense for a lot of students. To the end I'd really like to see more institutions like WGU that allow you to get through school a lot more cheaply by doing everything remotely and measuring outcomes rather than measuring grades and the number of classes you took. And somehow we need to convince employers that colleges like WGU are the best alternative for a lot of really talented potential employees.