Is Education An End In Itself?

Is Education an End in Itself?
By Daniel G. Jennings
Perhaps the worst aspect of our modern American education system is the way in which education has become an end in itself rather than a means to an end.
Too often the goal in our educational system is not to learn something but simply to acquire education. Not because education will improve the students’ mind or life but simply so they will get education.
We see this in the mania to give everybody a college degree whether they need one or not. Or the related drive to send every kid to college to get a degree even if the majority of those people will never use those degrees.
The biggest manifestation of this is in the way we evaluate students through grades. The students who get the best grades and earn the most honors are not those who learn the most but those who do the best job attending school. That is those who conform most to the educational environment get the grades, not those who actually learn.
For example we can take two students at a university, student A takes the easy classes she knows she’ll pass so she’ll get a high grade point average. Student B takes tougher classes he’ll learn more from. The two eventually graduate, Student A has learned less but student A gets the high GPA which helps her get a better job. Student B has learned a lot more but he can’t get a better job even though in actuality he knows more about the subject and is better qualified.
Then there is our university system in which large numbers of students are expending money, time and effort to study subjects which are only of interest to people in the university system. Ethnic studies and women’s studies come to mind here. The only jobs you can get with a major in these subjects are positions teaching those subjects.
In other words we are expending lots of resources to educate individuals in subjects of little or no value. Subjects that are often little more than rehashing of topics covered in other courses like philosophy and history.
What of course can we expect from a university system where a large percentage of the education is designed to educate educators. Not to study the world or its problems or to prepare people for careers and lives in the real world.
Even worse is the fact that fewer resources than ever seem to devoted to teaching people useful items. We now face a shortage of skilled technicians like plumbers, auto mechanics, carpenters etc. because people aren’t being educated in those trades. We also see a shortage of science, mathematics and engineering students in our country. Not to mention a nursing shortage.
Our education system obsessed as it is at handing out grades no longer seems capable of teaching people to do practical things. A frightening development because our machine dependent society desperately needs practical people who can build, repair, maintain and operate the machines that make our civilization possible.
What’s the answer? I don’t know but perhaps we should revaluate our obsession with grades and degrees. Maybe a good start would be diverting money from colleges to technical schools. Another would be to eliminate the scholarship system in which grades are the basis of college financing and replace it with one in which we underwrite the college or tech school education of all who want to go like they have in parts of Europe. That might reduce the prestige of a college education and of grades, but at least make learning and not the mindless acquisition of letters and numbers on paper the goal of our education system.