Education at YC: Is It Just a Show?

"As of now, I feel as if a diploma is just a certificate that I need in order to get the job that I want.  I know that I am not the only student who feels this way.  With the technology I have access to, most of the situations that can come up where school is useful can be googled.  It is getting to the point that there is no real point in school.  It is just for show.  Are students really there to learn or to receive a certificate so they make more money each year?"

This came as a response to an assignment in a "critical thinking" class I'm teaching this semester.  And it was not from a traditiionally-aged student.  My response was manifold.

My first reaction was that of a sense of failure.  What have I done or said to make this (or any other student) think that the ONLY reason for education is to increase their annual income?  By expressing this, I'm not at all diminishing to importance of the economic rewards of education!  I certainly feel that's a very important part of things.  But this student (and evidently others) seem to feel that the goal is to "check off the box," get a piece of paper, and move on.

Another simultaneous reaction was one of shock--but not of surprise.  Shock that this sentiment, which we've all heard before, was scrolled in black and white!  There is a boldness to the statement that rattles me to the core.

Perhaps most of all, I felt a deep, deep sadness in reading the student's views.  A sadness that kind of sounds like, "Is that what higher education has come to?  Just a utilitarian hoop through which to jump?  What about all the other glorious insights about myself, others, and the physical and social world that can be experienced in the classroom?  What about the relationships that can be made with fellow students and professors?"

I also had to ask myself if some of the messages we are sending as an institution encourage such a shallow view of learning?  Pathways, retention, completion, dual enrollment, "early start"--all of these have value, IF considered in the larger context of learning and personal development.  But have we emphasized these to the point that the love of learning is being lost?

I know--part of this attitude is a result of the "conditioning" students have undergone in 13+ years of "compulsory" education before they get to us, where for the most part they sit in desks in rows, and see themselves (rightly or wrongly) as vessels being force-fed full of information.  With "Google" at their fingertips, I understand that they may feel college is more or less useless, IF accessing information is all it entails.

But is there more?  How do I, as an instructor, communicate that "more."  And how do we, as an institution, escape for our "institutional trappings" and communicate that "more"?

I wonder.