Higher Education: From Enlightenment to Vocationalism
The recent presentation by the Tennessee CEO titled "Building a Brighter Future: 2024 State of Education Tennessee" (which, notably, took place in December 2023) reinforced a growing and troubling narrative about higher education. The discourse continues to shift from fostering enlightenment to serving as a pipeline for vocational training. This shift has dominated the conversation since the early 2000s, reducing the perceived purpose of higher education to workforce alignment rather than intellectual development.
Throughout the presentation, priorities were framed around aligning education with "local" job markets while simultaneously transferring education costs from the state to students. Institutions were criticized for "runaway costs," and disciplines without clear job-market demand—like anthropology—were deemed expendable. This rhetoric signals a fundamental misunderstanding of higher education’s role and creates a false dichotomy between intellectual growth and economic utility.
The Vocationalization of Higher Education
The expectation that college should only prepare students for specific jobs oversimplifies its purpose. Colleges are not vocational training centers; they are spaces for intellectual exploration and the development of critical thinking, cultural intelligence, and empathy. My own liberal arts education in the 1980s exemplifies this. Students were encouraged to explore diverse disciplines—such as history through the lens of Native American tribes or Middle Eastern conflicts narrated by Syrians, Palestinians, and Israelis—before committing to a major. These experiences did not directly train me for a job but profoundly shaped my critical thinking and adaptability, which proved invaluable throughout my professional career.
Even technical fields like medicine require a foundation of general education before transitioning into specialized vocational training. Yet today’s narrative positions non-technical disciplines as “useless,” ignoring their essential role in fostering lifelong learning and adaptability. In truth, companies have historically required degrees not for job-specific skills but as indicators of work ethic, writing proficiency, and the ability to navigate complex tasks—qualities cultivated through a broad-based education.
Misplaced Expectations and the Fallacy of Guarantees
A troubling aspect of today’s discourse is the implied guarantee that a degree will lead to a desired job. This oversimplified messaging disregards the complexities of the hiring process, economic factors, and individual effort. Receiving a degree is not a transactional guarantee of employment; it is an investment in personal and intellectual growth. Yet this false expectation fuels dissatisfaction, as graduates who fail to find high-paying jobs blame institutions rather than considering external factors like labor market dynamics.
The idea that students are merely "paying a tax" for a job reinforces this transactional view, devaluing the intrinsic worth of education. Knowledge—unlike material possessions—cannot be taken away, and its value extends far beyond immediate job prospects.
The Economic Disconnect: A Tale of Shareholder Value
The growing reliance on H-1B visas highlights the disconnect between education and employment. High-prestige graduates with IT degrees, once considered premium hires, now face competition in a labor market where cost-cutting often trumps quality. Since the 1980s, corporate focus has shifted from optimizing product and service value to maximizing shareholder profits, often at the expense of employee wages. By increasing the supply of workers (e.g., through immigration policies), employers depress wages, prioritizing lower costs over investing in talent.
This shift challenges the positioning of college as the gateway to economic success, creating a disconnect between graduates’ expectations and employers’ profit-driven realities. The narrative of education as job preparation obscures the broader systemic issues at play, including the growing power imbalance driven by the 1%.
Reclaiming the Purpose of Higher Education
Higher education must reclaim its mission of enlightenment and societal impact. The fear of being labeled "woke" has stifled institutions, but they should embrace their role in waking society to the realities of systemic inequities and fostering critical thought. By owning this mission, colleges can inspire individuals to recognize and challenge the forces shaping their lives and communities.
It’s time to move beyond the rhetoric of college as mere job training and reaffirm its role as a transformative force for individuals and society.
