I have been railing against the prevailing idea of over-qualification for years. But it is a self-perpetuating circle of compulsion. I'll be interested in seeing comments on this post---they should be enlightening.

Higher Education
The highest form of education has neither applications for admittance nor any tuition at all. It is the school of life the self-taught, which is truly the better Way to learn to be.
We've made our institutions of education with brick walls; to give them some kind of structure some strength. And sentence our poor children behind those walls for some 12 to 20 plus years.
Inside our children?s schools of confinement are the complex lessons of uncertain theories and faiths and all that is known. We show them the shadows of knowledge back lit by artificial light alone. Outside those walls that divide them is the true light of answers to the entire unknown.
There is a better Way to teach them, the Way of simplicity. It is the Way less traveled that has made all the unity, nature?s truth, simply me.
We have taken away our children?s freedom and it is time to give it back, we can?t take them to the Promised Land, but we can free them and allow them to find it, to find our own true selves.
?Let Freedom Ring!?
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MJA

I left, waited and came back. For a moment. I don't understand how you can tolerate unilateral, metaphysical morons, while rejecting thinking,rational beings. No matter, really. I'll miss you---some.
" And, oh, Mama---can this really be the end---to be stuck inside of Mobile, with the Memphis blues again."
Don't get it? Do your history. Hint: what do Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and New Orleans have in common?
Answer: they all have statues of Winston Churchill. The edifice in KC, I am told, includes Churchill's wife, Clementine. Oh, my darlin...

The comment was made by Mitchell Stevens that in the past 25 years "priviledged people" have worked harder than ever, which condescendingly insinuates that the rest of laborers, who make up the majority of the work force, do not. It also insinuates that 'ordinary' people who graduate with a 'lesser' degree from a non- ivy league school do not, which is nothing but hyperbole because it is the 'average' worker who works so hard to make the things people either need or want. It is an understatement to say this is disingenuous at best, and reeks of elitism at best. And it leaves me asking, when one considers how pathetically greedy and corrupt the system has become, what is it the priviledged have been focusing so hard at 'making'? Money, not tangible things that benefit society. I challenge anyone to debate this in today's current Friedmanesque capitalistic climate.
Case in point? In this same program, John Perry appears to exclaim proudly that one of Ken Taylor's past
students "made $50 million dollars in one day", emphasizing again that that is what is most important in our culture, money over what really matters. As if those high school students haven't already been taught the capitalistic mantra of 'money brings happiness', which we all know is BS.
This program was preaching to the choir of 'chosen' students by an elite school that has everything to gain by preaching Elitism...and the shallow money mantra.

Surely this is, at least in part, an example of the winner-take-all phenomenon that Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook popularized in their book, The Winner-Take-All Society. Indeed, Prof. Frank points out as much in a working paper, "Higher Education: The Ultimate Winner-Take-All Market?" (http://inequality.cornell.edu/publications/working_papers/RobertFrank1.pdf). (By the way, Profs. Frank & Cook weren't the first to develop the key ideas of winner-take-all markets. See Moshe Adler's 1985 American Economic Review paper, "Stardom and Talent.")

We?re pretty sure it?s not a healthy thing.

Education
We make our children work a 40hr work week in a brick box sitting in a chair. We tell them that it?s not good enough and make them do some over-time homework when they are set free. Free? We tell them not to go outside because it?s too dangerous and if they're lucky and have the desire, we allow them to play a team sport supervised by more adults telling them where to stand and how to play. How to Play? Hey kids, this is how to play a game, and you?ll do as I tell you, I?m the coach!!! We overload them with books that we call important but show me one that truly is? The Bible, the Koran, Jack and Jill? We confine and control their youthful exuberance to the breaking point and if we can't break them we give them meth amphetamines and call them problem children with ADHD. We judge them and grade them and divide them and wonder why they are having trouble in school, why they?re not normal. We measure them, pass them and fail them. Fail them! But who or what is really failing here, is it us or them? Education is nothing but child labor, child bondage, imprisonment and we wonder why thing have gone so wrong. We are what we are taught and surely the trouble we have today is a direct result.
Education reformation anyone?
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I was lucky to go to college on the GI Bill in the 50s - my reward for serving in the military during the Korean War. My tuition at Ohio State was $61.50 (close) per quarter. My room in a local rooming house was $25.00 a month. Books cost about $30.00 a quarter. I had several thousand dollars in savings when I entered OSU and I didn't buy a car, so as not to eat into my savings. Thus, I was able to finish college in 4 years incurring no debt en route. My heart bleeds that 'for profit' people have captured every dimension of college education. Our sad leadership permitted it. I hope 'for profit' operations can be controlled - since educated people are necesary in our country - but I worry. Many lives are now being ruined. Millions are being denied careers they could qualify for - if given the chance. I'm 80 now. My life was great. I worry, however, that the U.S. may never get out of this hole that it has dug for itself. I'd pray, but I'm an atheist! RWA