Increasingly necessary? By your standards? Many people don't have college degrees and have managed to achieve "upward mobility" based upon experience and training alone. On the swing side of it, I know plenty of people with degrees who have been unable to secure meaningful employment. It's more the drive of the person. Being a democratic society, we are fortunate in being given opportunities to transcend socio-economic status. ANYONE can make something of themselves but a college education and even work experience isn't going to serve you success on a platter.... whether your education is vocational or not.
With that said, I DO think education is important in every context. Whether you strive to become a journeymen or obtain a Liberal Arts degree, the process of learning is the most valuable part of education. As we better ourselves (no matter how minute it may seem to others) we inevitably become more productive members of society.
Your point that being a skilled tradesman is not a route to upward mobility suggests that you believe us rooted by our education or training. Being a Liberal Arts BA graduate health nut with no direction or discipline is not the route to upward mobility either. It's all about individual choice and motivation.
A few weeks ago, I took on a three-part series by conservative “scholar” and author of the infamously racist The Bell Curve, Charles Murray, who argued that most Americans are too dumb for college, and that most college educations impart no meaningful skills. Clearly following my lead (I am, of course, on the cutting edge of today’s journalism), the New York Times Sunday Magazine mentions some of the same critiques of Murray’s argument.
Citing the income gap between those with and those without higher education, the piece underscores the value of a college education, and goes beyond Murray’s simplistic conception of learning. Most importantly, the article focuses on the value of education as a general signal, pointing out how the modern economy’s greatest rewards “have gone to those whose intelligence is deployable in new directions on short notice, not to those who are locked into a single marketable skill...”
A college education isn’t the end-all, be-all of a meaningful existence. As undergraduate education becomes more accessible, perhaps some of its prestige will fade and transfer to graduate education. But, the point still stands. A college education is still a worthwhile and vital component of upward mobility and the American dream, and Charles Murray is still a moron.
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With that said, I DO think education is important in every context. Whether you strive to become a journeymen or obtain a Liberal Arts degree, the process of learning is the most valuable part of education. As we better ourselves (no matter how minute it may seem to others) we inevitably become more productive members of society.
Your point that being a skilled tradesman is not a route to upward mobility suggests that you believe us rooted by our education or training. Being a Liberal Arts BA graduate health nut with no direction or discipline is not the route to upward mobility either. It's all about individual choice and motivation.