I have a Worthless Degree and I Know it

As a loyal listener of the Tom Woods podcast I hear a lot of great discussions. First, Tom is one of the best living exponents of liberty around today. Whether books, lectures, or radio he is one of a handful I recommend to people who have a nagging curiosity to understand what liberty really means.  Second, the guests are always stellar. Well informed and engaging, Tom’s guests are invited on the show because they have an expertise on a subject that is topical, yet somehow timeless. The conversations with Robert Murphy could repeat every five years over the last century and always be on point. Last, but certainly not least, I have read more good books thanks to his podcast than I did during my undergraduate and two masters degrees – combined.

It is on the last two points I want to focus.  Recently, Tom had George Mason University professor of economics Bryan Caplan on the podcast. The topic was Obama’s proposal for taxpayer-paid community college. This, of course, will be a disaster. The host and guest did an excellent job of dismantling the deception behind the benefits of higher education, free or otherwise.

Countless outlets are drawing new inferences on the usefulness of higher education. Is the individual better off when half of college graduates work in jobs that don’t require a degree?  Has the graduate or employer benefited when only a small percentage of graduates have a job related to their major? And does anyone need a college degree to work a minimum wage job? In all three cases the answer is surely, no.

So who’s coming out on top?

The real winners of this scheme are the universities that continually raise the cost of tuition thanks to guaranteed student loans; banks that receive a constant source of income from individuals with a lifetime of student debt; a government that uses its public universities to churn out generations of graduates who believe in every bit of propaganda that comes from the approved elites.

The tangible tragedy of these wasted years is that students (including myself) could have been productive members of society. We could have produced things people need rather than delayed our entry into the work force. What a tragic waste for the graduate and society in terms of lost years of productivity.

Now, I loved to read in college and well into my graduate years. Notice that I wrote read, not study.  My studies would often take a back seat to my personal reading. I inadvertently gave myself a true liberal arts education while my professors and school counselors locked me into a particular program of study.

At the time, I intended to become a cop. That’s why I majored in Criminal Justice – a degree with a terrible rate of return. Thank GOD I saw how pointless that was. But, if I wanted to be a cop, why not just be a cop? Why does it take four years of studying Cesare Lombroso or Jeremy Betham? A six month course on the Bill of Rights and the American Constitution followed by an apprenticeship would have done the trick. But these questions would be largely self-regulating in a free society anyway.

I don’t want to pick on Criminal Justice majors. Have you ever heard a lawyer say that law school doesn’t train anyone to be a lawyer? Imagine how many other non-educational institutions could get away with that motto.

It was only after I left formal schooling that my education really began. When there were no more teachers to please or grades to achieve, I began to develop intellectually. Only once I entered the workforce did that itch of intellectual curiosity finally get scratched!

My instructors and professors weren’t ignorant. But I don’t think that any of them were known as “leaders” in their fields. Even the faculty at the highly regarded school I attended in South West England were not the intellectual giants I hoped they would be. In fact, I probably learned more in graduate school just because I lived abroad rather than in the classes.

Today things are much different. Over the last five years my professors have names people recognize and are leaders in their fields. We all know them: Rothbard, Hoppe, Rockwell, Woods, DiLorenzo, Murphy, Higgs, Block, Sowell, Hayek, Mises, Williams, Richman, McAdams, Stockman, Gamble, Greenwald, Scahill, Hornberger, Leverett, Paul, Kinzer. These are only the teachers I have time to read. I hope that you, reader, will e-mail me with some of your favorites.

My lessons are held all over the world and associated with just about every “institute of higher learning”: Mises Institute, Independent Institute, Antiwar.com, The Intercept, Future of Freedom Foundation, Economic Policy Journal, Ron Paul Institute, and let’s not forget all the podcasts.

We have so much knowledge available to us, mostly for free, that no one – NO ONE – needs the brick and mortar institutions to “gain knowledge, but seek wisdom”, as my father would say. We can all be autodidacts.

When an advocate of traditional education breathes their hot fire in support of formal education and the university system as the path to that education, ask them two simple questions: Are they taking courses at their local university or online? What classic work of philosophy or literature are they reading now? Chances are they are not participating in any kind of continuing education, and they are reading some “trashy paperback, if they’re reading anything at all. They have the chance to take courses at MIT for free but are any of them doing it? No!”

It’s a good point. I learned that on the Tom Woods podcast.