If a college degree is so bad, then why are you using yours?

[YPestis]

The college attitude is baffling for me too. The Maxwells, with dad as engineer and parents meeting in college actively discourage their children from any form of higher education. The benefits of college goes beyond training for specific career. It opens doors up to jobs and careers that an 18 year old have not thought about yet. Yes, there are exceptions but I would like to maximize my child's chances of future career options.

Trades are fine as well. It is hard on the body if there is manual labor involved. It also means once you are trained for such and such a trade, you aren't able to convert that to anything else. I actually define legal and medical training in the same vein. Lawyers and doctors are trained in their profession only. Anything outside of that is extraneous use.

I think students needs to be sure they like the type of job trades school train for because their training will only prepare them for that career. I give the same advice to people interested in medicine. College provides general training. Employers see that and can fit you in to multiple holes. Professional and trade schools train you to do ONE thing. Employers see you fresh from plumbing school or law school, they're less likely to think you are fit for something completely different.

Fundies understand none of these. Fundies seem to only understand, attend Y program, study X book and you should make $$$. Otherwise, it's stupid and useless. They don't understand what major you pick, the types of schools you are in, they all determine your college experience. Not all college students are druggies and boozers. Education is what you make of it. It can be a horizon broadening time where you meet new friends and share experiences no amount of homeschooling can provide.

Trade school is one of the few educational criteria fundies do have an inkling of. However, I think they use it to bludgeon college education ("We don't need a degree! Plumbers makes so much more than some stupid history major!"). Fundies take this view because they see education as a commodity. It's an ends to a means. There's no concept of expanding beyond what's taught in school. In many careers, continuing education is required to move up. Those trades people who climbed up the ladder probably had to learn new techniques, keep up with old skills and continually learn in order to stand out and get promotions. Those successful college graduates didn't skate on what they learned 20 years ago. They continued to learn and expand their skill set. In order to be successful, one needs to be productive. You can't be productive as the next guy if you're stuck with skills learn decades ago.

Fundies cut off any educational curiosity. Their children, regardless of what they do, will never be able to innovate or create or get very far because they only see the item in front of them. The incorporation of other fields, of having a well rounded education, or continuing to learn...it escapes fundies. For that lack of exposure and myopic thinking, the second generation of fundie children will suffer financially. They will continue to wonder why their parents seem to do so much better than them, even though they were taught their upbringing and training was "superior" to their parents. Yeah, it will be interesting to see how that works out.

[NurseNell]

Fundies cut off any educational curiosity. Their children, regardless of what they do, will never be able to innovate or create or get very far because they only see the item in front of them. The incorporation of other fields, of having a well rounded education, or continuing to learn...it escapes fundies. For that lack of exposure and myopic thinking, the second generation of fundie children will suffer financially. They will continue to wonder why their parents seem to do so much better than them, even though they were taught their upbringing and training was "superior" to their parents. Yeah, it will be interesting to see how that works out.

And so many of these families don't allow their kids, even the adult ones, to read any books that aren't on their short list of approved books. I'd love to see what books the Duggars or Maxwells have on their shelves.

[lilwriter85]

College isn't for everyone and some people do better in the trades fields because it suits them more. The fundie attitude towards education is a stupid one overall. I remember Jessica/Latisha saying that "trade school was always better than college." I rolled my eyes at that. Not all men want to become mechanics, electricians, plumbers, etc. Some fundie lite men value college education quite a bit, but when it comes to a woman wanting a college education they are against it.

[fluttershies]

I also see more than a hint of 'trades are more manly' amongst fundies. Book learnings is for queers!

[slickcat79]

Even if you don't necessarily use the degree you obtained to get your job, a lot of times having it can make a huge difference in what you're paid as well. When I was a new graduate, I got an administrative job for which I had very little previous experience. It wasn't ideal, but unemployment was rising and I was happy to have any job. Because of my degree, I was able to be hired at the highest wage that they were paying for that job, which was some 30% more than the lowest wage being offered. It was the difference between me being able to live in my own apartment vs. renting a room in someone else's house. Plus being able to work a "normal" schedule instead of working a night shift stocking shelves. Even if my pay level had stayed the same for the last 4 years, the difference in earnings is more than what I paid for my college education. It didn't take long for the extra schooling to pay off money-wise, without even considering the intangibles that you can get by taking advantage of a college experience.

[Guest Anonymous]

And so many of these families don't allow their kids, even the adult ones, to read any books that aren't on their short list of approved books. I'd love to see what books the Duggars or Maxwells have on their shelves.

Not many.

[lilwriter85]

And so many of these families don't allow their kids, even the adult ones, to read any books that aren't on their short list of approved books. I'd love to see what books the Duggars or Maxwells have on their shelves.

My guess stuff from ATI and probably conservative Christian novels. I think the Duggar kids probably read for pleasure than the Maxwells. The Maxwell are just reading the Moody books. I really don't care for Miss Princess Raquel. But at least she gets to read a bit.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Nothing wrong with trades (though as others say your career - WHATEVER IT IS - needs to be your own choice). But around here, going into the trades means applying for programs, often through the union, which are selective and then require a good few years' of specialized training. You might not be "going to college" but you're definitely getting some higher education and you're definitely mixing with the vast unwashed masses.

Oh, and when you go to apply, if you don't have decent levels of math, you might as well forget it.

So many of the fundies seem to have some weird idealized view of the trades, too, partly the "it's manly" thing no doubt but also just a sort of idea that anyone can just hang a shingle tomorrow, it doesn't really work like that. But of course those parents with their white-collar jobs and college degrees quite possibly just have no idea because they don't actually KNOW anyone living that lifestyle.

As far as the Maxwells' reading, they explicitly don't do literature in their homeschool. They've been discussed online by various homeschoolers who read "Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit" and found that one of the main reasons the Maxwells are able to squeeze their school into their touring and chores schedules with so much time left over is that their content is really not all that. As far as I know, they read the Bible (again and again and again and again and AGAIN...) and perhaps some Christian biographies, but that's it. That and maybe an HTML book or two for their business.

Reading for pleasure would be F*N and we can't have that, you should be using every second of your time wisely.

[Lady]

Mom and Dad never miss a chance to tell the kids what a waste college is and how many other ways there are to learn. Which would be fine and dandy....IF employers weren't looking for college degrees.

I agree with her parents, there are other ways to learn. For the last few years I didn't go to college, not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't afford to. I made sure I went to the library and read. I am teaching myself sign language from books and the computer. So yes, there are other ways to learn. Libraries and community centers are a huge part of this. This is why I would love some fundies to make frequent trips to the library to read books. For example, if Josh made an effort to bridge the gaps in his education I think he could be a lawyer. But it will take work.

Unfortunately, when I went to apply to jobs no one was impressed by my veracious reading or self-guided study. Accredited colleges have standards and that more than anything is what makes a degree worth more than the sum of knowledge gained from the degree. Thankfully I have been able to go back. I should have my AA in May!

[SquirrelySquirrel]

It doesn't even make sense that trade school is okay but an actual university isn't. It's still educating yourself so you will succeed in life. I get that what they really want is to keep their children from going somewhere to have their beliefs challenged and to actually have to think for themselves and be exposed to other ideals and philosophies, of course. That's really what it's about. You won't find a big theological debate taking place over learning how to rebuild a motor (and I'm not knocking that kind of work. My husband made a good living as a bus mechanic for a few years before going back to retail management) or lay pipe, or whatever else is approved in their world.

[Koala]

The control aspect just kills me.

As you know, there is a high probability that my daughters will not attend college. As far as my son, we will just have to assess that when the time comes. A piece of paper will not determine if my son is a successful husband/father one day.

What I want to know, is WHO is she to be assessing whether her grown children will be attending college or not. Why do she and her husband get to make choices and live their own lives AND make their children's decisions and live their lives as well. It is so, so, so unfair.

[Coconut Flan]

What I want to know, is WHO is she to be assessing whether her grown children will be attending college or not. Why do she and her husband get to make choices and live their own lives AND make their children's decisions and live their lives as well. It is so, so, so unfair.

That's one of the most troublesome aspects of this sub-culture to me. The parents were allowed to live their lives and make choices and then turn around and deny that to their own children. They had their chance so back off. The whole control freak aspect is very troubling. They don't trust themselves to have brought up their children properly so they can't trust their children. What kind of faith is that where it's so weak that it can't be tested?

Related to that was my fundamentalist (lite) neighbor who would not even go to the funeral home for another neighbor who died to comfort his wife. He had been a Mormon at one time. She acted like it was catching.

[Aurora]

It doesn't even make sense that trade school is okay but an actual university isn't. It's still educating yourself so you will succeed in life. I get that what they really want is to keep their children from going somewhere to have their beliefs challenged and to actually have to think for themselves and be exposed to other ideals and philosophies, of course. That's really what it's about. You won't find a big theological debate taking place over learning how to rebuild a motor (and I'm not knocking that kind of work. My husband made a good living as a bus mechanic for a few years before going back to retail management) or lay pipe, or whatever else is approved in their world.

Heh heh. Laying pipe.

[reds]

And men die, men walk out. Women absolutely need some kind of education and profession they can return to if necessary.

This!!!!

Also: I had to take a surveying course in college for my degree... hated it. Worst class of my life. I have respect for your daughter for making it through.

[PennySycamore]

Related to that was my fundamentalist (lite) neighbor who would not even go to the funeral home for another neighbor who died to comfort his wife. He had been a Mormon at one time. She acted like it was catching.

None of my fundie neighbors came to my daughter's funeral. Not. A. Single. One. We had the funeral in our ebil Catholic Church and that was not okay. There were friends that drove several hours to attend Katherine's funeral, but not the fundie neighbor who only had to drive 10 or 15 minutes.

[browngrl]

There is nothing wrong with going into a trade or going to college or starting your own business or working in an office etc. The important thing is: you can look after yourself. When you can look after yourself you are much harder to control and control is an absolute requirement for fundies. If people have choices then they might choose. Fundies prefer their daughters to be as handicapped as possible - so much easier to get them to stay sweet all the time when you control their livelihood.

[Kaylee]

Even with trades and skilled manual labor jobs these days, people with degrees are still shown preference and it can be a requirement to move up.

My husband has been a woodworker for 20 years and he was getting passed up for management jobs because he had an AA degree rather than a BA. Many plant manager jobs now ask for a Master's Degree. I know the stereotype is that a "real" blue collar type isn't going to have management aspirations, but around here he'd better if he's going to support a family with that job.

Even in construction, welding, and pipefitting, I know people who got at least an AA degree or are going to school while working because it gives them an advantage in getting jobs and in getting promotions or better assignments at work. As far as that goes, I have a friend who's working on his family's farm, with the eventual goal of taking the business over from his parents and continuing it. He has a graduate degree now that's directly related to farming, which is apparently pretty common for that college (NC State).

If the plan is to be an entrepreneur and start out for yourself, business classes would help with that and most people choosing between two companies or workers are going to pick the person with more training and education. One of the unspokens seems to be that the church community and people with related beliefs will help boost their business, look with the circles of bloggers who promote eachothers blogs, etsy shops, etc, but there are probably not enough people doing that to support a full-time offline business.

[ems]

Interesting question huh?

I know I have told you guys that I know a lot of fundies. What I haven't mentioned is that I am related to some by marriage. These family members aren't doing the poor fundie routine either. Nope, they live in a nice house, have nice cars, and a comfortable "nest egg" I'm sure. Both parents have college degrees. Mom stays home but used her degree to work in her field before she married. Dad currently uses his college degree and WOULD NOT have his current job without it.

Here's the problem: They have 2 kids. 1 approaching college age, and 1 much younger. The one approaching college age (a female) has essentially been told that college is a waste of money and that at most she should do the on-line college thing that all the cool fundie girls are doing. The younger one (a male) is already being geared towards a trade. If their daughter embraces this mindset (which she appears to have done wholeheartedly) she will be dependent upon a man to determine her lifestyle. She will not have a degree like her mom, and if she ever needs to support herself it will be a struggle. The son, if he embraces his parents ideas, will never obtain the level of comfort and financial security his parents enjoy. Life will probably be a paycheck to paycheck struggle. He will (if he takes the career they want him to take) do hard manual labor for the rest of his life. Mom and Dad never miss a chance to tell the kids what a waste college is and how many other ways there are to learn. Which would be fine and dandy....IF employers weren't looking for college degrees.

Which brings me to Kendal's latest post (one day I swear I'll quit torturing myself by reading her blog) *sigh*

Today Kendal is talking about college. Again. Here's what she says:

http://www.thefatherknowsbest.com/2012/ ... rning.html

Here's what I don't get. Kendal and her husband have college degrees. Kendal has used hers (and could use it again if she needed to), and her husband uses his to provide the lifestyle they now enjoy. I *think* she said he was an engineer, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, why? WHY does he use that degree if he doesn't need it to be a successful husband and father? Why not just pick a trade and forget to tell people that he has the benefit of a college education? Why did Kendal work in her field? I mean afterall, a girl can learn all she needs from other sources. They probably wouldn't have let her nurse, but maybe she could have answered phones or mopped the hospital floor. Wouldn't that have been fine?

You know what gets me the most? These poor girls will probably have more kids than they can say grace over, and they'll probably marry boys who've never set foot on a evil college campus. How are they supposed to support them? I guess they'll struggle through life while Kendal and her husband continue to benefit from their years in college. I guess that's what will happen in to my husband's family members too.

Don't get me wrong. There is NOTHING wrong with not going to college. If it's your choice. There is everything wrong with taking that option away from someone else.

Fox News never fails her! Nuff said.

As you said though, college isn't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with not going. However, that should be the individual's choice, NOT their parents'...

[pomology]

Okay, so I don't think Faux News is worth the bandwidth it's hosted on, but I decided to check out the article. It's a skewed perspective (of course) and Kendall just seems to skew it further, but at it's basis, it seems like it's making a legitimate point. That many people who go to college don't get all that much out of it in terms of critical thinking, reasoning, and writing skills, because they don't take academically rigorous classes, party all the time, etc. It also blames professors for caring more about their research than their students and not assigning work that would teach the students what they need to learn. Colleges disagree with this assessment and point out its flaws, but the point is that the basis might for some programs at some institutions have a grain of truth in them.

The article says that one of the findings of the study was "Students who studied alone, read and wrote more, attended more selective schools and majored in traditional arts and sciences majors posted greater learning gains."

As somebody who goes to a highly selective small liberal arts college where you can only major in traditional arts and sciences and there is no Greek life, the situations they discuss don't seem to ring true to my experience. But I would believe that there are some professors out there who don't care enough about teaching to plan academically rigorous curricula and some students who don't care enough about their education to put any effort into their work and that combination leads to some number of students who don't actually learn all that much in college. I am equally sure that there are students who attend large public schools and don't major in traditional arts and sciences and have an active social life and still have a superb education.

But also, small liberal arts colleges do tend to attract more faculty who are just as interested in teaching as they are in research. They do tend to have smaller classes, which in turns leads to more discussions Highly selective schools do tend to assign more reading and writing.

Of course, fundies do not prepare their children for schools like mine (or most schools for that matter). Nobody with a SODRT degree could get in. And fundies would consider liberal arts majors to be useless because they don't automatically lead to a career path. And as their obsession with College Plus reveals that they want to get degrees with minimum effort instead of completing an academically rigorous program. And therefore, for fundie children, college might be a useless venture. But that's because they want to brainwash their kids, not expand their minds.

Anyway, sorry if I sound like a pretentious, elitist snob. I know I kind of am. :-(

TL;DR: Kendall's feelings about college would probably end up leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy if her children get lucky enough to attend.

[shesinsane]

Having a college education doesn't mean you won't have a job that's hard on the body. You'll be hard pressed to find any nurse who has worked in direct patient care for more than a few years who doesn't have chronic back pain. My sister is an ER nurse, 12 hour shifts, constantly on her feet. She just had her 2nd knee replaced, she's relatively young for that and she's not overweight. Teachers have very demanding jobs, both physically and mentally. My daughter is a surveyor. The field part of her job is very demanding. And she's still got 25 years or more of surveying ahead of her. My sister still has at least 10 years of nursing left.

From the Showtime series Nurse Jackie:

"What do you call a nurse with a bad back? Unemployed."

Shaker furniture is still around, but the Shakers themselves are largely gone because once in the church, sex was verboten and so they didn't produce children. The only way to get more Shakers was taking in orphans* or converting adults, and the religion sort of died out.

Keeping this in mind, are these fundies setting themselves up for failure? By not giving their kids the education to be financially successful, they're sort of ensuring their kids will give them lots of grandchildren, but also be living hand-to-mouth and not able to give any money to the church. Children are like flowers and all, but what about when your SAHD daughter and her 8 kids are abandoned by their headship because he can't stand living in poverty and the 9 left behind show up at your house for help?

*Or just unwanted kids. One Shaker documentary featured a woman who was one of three kids when her mother died, her father remarried and the new wife didn't like his kids, so he took them all to live with the Shakers. This woman was very happy as a Shaker, and didn't dwell on her father dumping her, but what an awful thing to do to a your children!

[bananacat]

I'm offended that she thinks a degree is nothing but a piece of paper. I worked damn hard for mine and learned a lot of things that I couldn't have just picked up from the workplace.

[JesusFightClub]

I'm offended that she thinks a degree is nothing but a piece of paper. I worked damn hard for mine and learned a lot of things that I couldn't have just picked up from the workplace.

This, too. I worked my fucking arse off for my degree, I am not naturally very bright. I cried when I graduated because I couldn't quite believe it was real.

You don't just automatically learn! It takes study.

[fakepigtails73]

The problem is, fundies are really screwing themselves over with the whole anti-higher education thing. The modern world runs on technology. For technology, you need some type of reliable (non-diploma no accreditation) advanced education. Otherwise they are severely limiting their opportunities for the future. It really is a self-defeating mindset.

Not surprisingly, many fundies have bought into the romantic ideal of the era before we lived in a technological driven economy. They still think we're an agrarian rural society. They buy into a culture that never actually existed but is a fiction.

I seriously wonder what the anti-education and anti-learning mindset that seems to be more prevalent these days is causing to the US's standing in the world of sciences and research?? Other countries will become #1 in these fields (if not already), while more and more americans forego university degrees. I'm sure that religion is not the only reason, but I'd be curious to see statistics re:this. If I was in the govt. I'd start to worry.

University and college is not for everyone, but to categorically say "my kids WILL NOT go to college!" is to be a grade A dumbass. What is that kid wants to and has the abilities for it? Will the parents tie her up in the prayer closet?

[Koala]

I'm offended that she thinks a degree is nothing but a piece of paper. I worked damn hard for mine and learned a lot of things that I couldn't have just picked up from the workplace.

If she truly thought that she wouldn't be spending the money her husband makes at his engineering (?) job. She would tell him to rip the damn thing up and go pick a trade.

The anti college thing is just a ploy to keep the kids ignorant. If they went to a real college, chances are they'd tell Kendal where she could shove the crazy bullshit she's been selling them since birth.

[Coconut Flan]

The anti college thing is just a ploy to keep the kids ignorant. If they went to a real college, chances are they'd tell Kendal where she could shove the crazy bullshit she's been selling them since birth.

It's this exactly. They want control over what the kids learn and think and see. A lot of kids they are told will go away to college and give up the parents' beliefs. To a lot of people that's a sign that they are becoming adults. To the fundies, it's a horror of a lost soul to people who equate long skirt wearing, never watching TV, no music with a beat Gothardism or whoeverism to salvation. They've allowed their view of salvation to become a man made vision and are completely freaked by the thought their kids may find something else.