Are Colleges And Universities A Scam?

Democrat Socialists who took out huge student loans want to be bailed out of their student debt. I figure they must be Democrat Socialists because somehow they think it is the responsibility of American taxpayers to bail them out after they bought into the College scam that says "Everyone should go to College." And worst, they bought into the College scam that says even a worthless degree in Liberal Arts will be a benefit when looking for a job.

Sadly, they listened to their high-paid teachers in College and their Leftist professors in Universities who are making big salaries -- those who push useless degrees. Degrees that are labeled as "useless" are considered "high-risk" by employment analysts because they don't offer a path to getting a job. Those degree typically specialized humanities, certain social sciences, and fine arts majors. 

Examples of degrees that are considered "useless": 

• Gender and Women’s Studies degree holders have very few entry-level jobs available that require this specific credential. 
• Ethnic and Civilization Studies degree holders, including degrees in Black History or Chicano Studies, does not lead to employment because of a lack of technical training or direct corporate pipelines to find job placement. 
• Interdisciplinary Studies degree holders find that they were not trained for a clear profession. 
• Art History and Fine Arts degree holders suffers from high underemployment rates, often exceeding 50%. 
• Performing Arts and Drama degree holders do not see corporate employment. 
• Philosophy and Creative Writing degree holders aren't employable because those degrees are used in the technical job market and often require graduate school to see a financial return. 
• Anthropology and Archaeology degree holders rank high in post-graduation unemployment and underemployment surveys. 
• Sociology degree holders often lead to jobs in the public-sector or entry-level administrative roles with lower median pay. 
• General Psychology Bachelor's degree, they won't find practical career placement in counseling or research until the get a Master's or Doctoral degree.

Understanding the above situation regarding the unemployability of those degrees is important since I was contacted by a University professor about degrees and their employment value. At least he said he was a professor, though he did not say where he teaches. 

He wrote to tell me, "Educators genuinely believe Universities are for intellectual growth and personal enrichment, not just a gateway to a job. No, they are not scamming anyone. Promises of employment are not made. Employment upon graduation is not ensured. The traditional view of educators at the College and University level is to emphasize critical thinking, have civic engagement, and experience a sense of lifelong learning, over mere vocational training."

Believe it or not, there are faculty members and administrators dedicated to that way of thinking. The problem that I have with it is that is goes against the realities faced by today's graduates who don't see such idealistic crap paying the rent or putting food on the table after they pay their student loans. The academic idea that "success is measured by personal growth and cultural enrichment, not starting salaries" does not pay one's bills.

Being pragmatic escapes such people as the professor who wrote me. Because of how high tuition costs are, and how student debt have interest attached to them, most families thinking about sending the kids to College or a University see a degree as an economic investment, as a stepping stone to making great money in the working world of reality. They expect a direct return on investment (ROI) via career placement and financial stability.

It's said that Universities don't make explicit, legally binding contracts guaranteeing jobs, but their marketing materials frequently showcase high employment rates and successful alumni. 

This is why many people think that College and Universities are a "Scam." Maybe  not literal criminal scams, but they do promote a very expensive path to take, elude to high employment rates in the marketing for students, yet downplay the risk of under-employment. This feels like a very deceptive way of doing business -- especially considering students will be faced with decades of debt payments.

Of course, if you think Colleges and Universities are scams, that really depends on how you view spending your money on a useless degree. Because of rising costs, administrative bloat, and low job placement for certain degrees, modern higher education looks like a scam. And worse, it's a financial trap for many students who are too ignorant to stay away from taking out loans they can't afford.

And yes, people call College a scam because the cost to attend has outpaced starting salaries of graduates. That's part of the reason many graduates have heavy student debt and poor job prospects. 

Average public university costs exceed $30,000 per year, while private universities can cost up to $90,000 annually. This leads to massive student loan debt that can take decades to repay. To me, what Colleges and Universities are doing smells of a con game that has been going on for years. Frankly, the con game is never-ending.

College tuition has increased by over 200% since the 1990s while starting pay for graduates has grown by only 16%. So, students who are not-smart-enough to know that you don't borrow tens of thousands of dollars that you can't afford to pay back, put themselves in a deeper hole by taking out more loans.

For some reason, there are lots of College students who might be too ignorant or just plain lacking experience, wisdom, to understand that the loans they took out -- in fact came with high interest rates that cannot be easily cleared. 

And yes, there are the "extras" such as luxury dorms, gyms, and campus parks that do not improve a student's career path. It's called "Administrative Bloat." If this were a con game, this is when the con artists' associates show up. 

College administrations put out cash to associates in the "Administration Bloat" phase of their operation. In fact, "Administration Bloat" is built into their system. It is when tuition money goes toward everything else but a students education. Imagine that. For example, it's when tuition funds goes toward those "extras" in the form of luxury amenities, sports complexes, and "large non-faculty staff salaries" rather than direct academic instruction. 

It's the way most old fashion con games work. All of those people involved in "Administration Bloat" have roles that someone might say makes them look a lot like "shills" in a con game. 

While I'm not saying they are, the people running the luxury accommodations, the folks who operate the sports facilities for students, and even those "non-staff" members who are getting paid large salaries, seem to all be getting a piece of the action. Just as in most old fashion con games, it's traditional for all of the shills involved with helping the con artist take the suckers for everything they have -- get a "taste" of the haul. 

Remember, a shill is important to making the con game work because they make the victim feel good about the experience. As I said, one could make the case that by providing students who are already heavily in debt with such things as a sports complex is one way of taking their mind off how much of their tuition money may be going to "extras" that they can financially do without.  

A shill is an accomplice to a con artist. They are the con artist's cohorts who usually pretends to be an ordinary outsider. They are part of the scam to trick others. They are there to help the victim, also known as the "mark" or the "sucker," believe that he or she isn't being scammed when in reality they are. 

A shill is planted in the scheme to bilk people out of cash. The shill acts like an independent buyer, player, or audience member. They act as an outsider when in fact they are working directly with the con artist. 

In Carnivals, a shill is someone planted in the crowd. He or she pretends to win the rigged Carnival game. They help set the trap. They use crowd psychology to make victims feel good about losing their money. 

And come to think about it, can Liberal Arts professors who know that they are teaching classes for degrees that won't benefit their students be considered shills for working with a University that's scamming students? If College or University teachers and professors know that his or her school is taking advantage of naive students who keep taking out student loans, and getting further and further into debt, just to get a degree that may not help them in the future, if not a shill, what part of the scam are those teachers or professors playing? 

In the age old "shell game," the "shell" in a con artist's shell game refers to the con artist using three walnut shell halves to hide a pea or small ball. A shill is an accomplice who pretends to be a winning bystander. The shill is their to help keep the victims interested in the game by showing him how easy it is to win.

We know that College and University marketing staff members work for the schools to lure students. Some might say they are shills to keep students in the game -- even though they know that their high employment claims after graduation with Liberal Arts degrees are lies. Modern online marketing is notorious for using shills as online reviewers and influencers who secretly gets paid to promote a product while pretending to be neutral. 

Though it might have been the case once upon a time, today a College diploma no longer guarantees a high-paying job or career security unless it's a technical degree such as in Engineering or a degree in the Medical field. Because of this, some people say many graduates who were scammed into pursuing worthless Liberal Arts degrees, end up in low-skilled jobs that in most cases don't even require a degree.

Of course the question that's never answered is a simple one that has to do with integrity on the part of the Colleges and Universities. That question is this: "Why would a College or University allow students go into huge debt to pursue worthless degrees when the schools know full-well that there are little to no jobs for those degrees?"

Integrity says they should be honest, and say its because Liberal Arts degrees are an easy scam. Other than salaries, the fact is that Liberal Arts programs don't take much money to run. Liberal Arts classes don't need the expensive labs and machines that Science or Engineering classes need. That makes Liberal Arts cheap for schools to offer. 

Like the con artist and his shell game, all he needs are three walnut shells and a pea to run his con game. It's very cheap to run and the "marks" always lose. That's why they are called "suckers."

Of course, Liberal Arts graduates, unlike Nursing or Engineering graduates, often find that they need extra training, internships, or networking to find good roles because job prospects are so low. And yes, that's part of the reasons why some people view College as a risky financial bet rather than a guaranteed investment.

While a degree is essential for specialized fields like Engineering or Medicine, poor student choices and low-value majors are still being taken by students who are scammed into pursuing those worthless degrees. 

So why would people call College a "Scam?" Besides tuition prices outpacing wage growth, leaving many students with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt that takes decades to pay off, and the low return on the investment (ROI) in some Majors, a lot of graduates struggle to find good-paying jobs in their field of study. 

The fact that a lot of graduates struggle to find good-paying jobs in their field of study after getting deep in debt after spending many years in College, that is the reason that some people think College is a scam.

I understand that University marketing and admissions offices focus on recruitment and making promotional promises, but why don't Colleges and Universities have the integrity to stop students from making mistakes with their lives? Why did ther career counselor explain to them that their useless degree will only add them to the huge number of underemployed "College Grads" with worthless degrees?

It is a massive financial commitment for families putting their kids through College. And frankly speaking, knowing that your school's graduates are entering the real world with heavy debt and few job prospects looks like dishonesty on the part of the College or University. The fact that they do not intervene has to make folks believe that they are scamming students because of the financial incentive to be dishonest.

Is it all simply about securing funding, about making money? While that is sort of ironic considering these are institutions that are indoctrinating students to want Socialism and Communism, and subsequently everything for free, Colleges operate like businesses that rely heavily on tuition dollars to fund campus operations, administrative salaries, all of the "extras," and of course high-paid facility members.

Academic departments must maintain minimum student counts to secure funding, keep their majors alive, and prevent faculty layoffs. While it sounds like they run their Leftist institutions like free-market Capitalism, does any of that justify a scam to bilk students out of thousands of dollars? It seems to me that Colleges and Universities apparently believe it does.

I have a hard time with the University professor who wrote to me to say that "Educators genuinely believe Universities are for intellectual growth and personal enrichment, not just a gateway to a job."

Maybe that's true for what used to be called "Career Students" who don't work and have either milked the system for all its worth in funding, bled their parents dry, or don't care about how much they owe in student loans because they didn't have any intention of paying it back anyway.

But for people who go to a College with the intention of being able to further themselves in their present job, or for people who go to a College with the intention of having a degree to help them move up the selection ladder for a position they are seeking, the idea of spending years of study only for "intellectual growth and personal enrichment, not just a gateway to a job" is bullshit. It's a a way of Colleges and Universities of attempting to justify their scam. But it doesn't pass muster.

Here are degrees that are considered "valuable":

• Medical Doctors (MDs) focus on human anatomy, physiology, and pathology. They diagnose illnesses, perform surgeries, and prescribe medications for people. Many train further in fields like pediatrics, cardiology, or neurology.
• Veterinarians (DVMs) study multiple species, including domestic pets, livestock, and wildlife. They must understand how different diseases affect various animals that cannot describe their own symptoms. They protect the human food supply by inspecting livestock and preventing animal-to-human diseases (zoonosis). They contribute heavily to biomedical research, vaccine development, and pharmacology.
• Inspection Technology graduates are critical to public safety, quality control, and regulatory compliance across major industries. They bridge the gap between engineering designs and real-world execution. They are needed in the Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Construction, Manufacturing industries, and for Infrastructure Inspection. Using NDT (Non-Destructive Testing), their regulatory knowledge and deep understanding of OSHA, ASME, and AWS codes, Advanced Tooling, and Risk Mitigation, graduates often secure lucrative roles quickly due to niche technical skill shortages.
• Civil Engineers design and build public works like roads, bridges, and water systems. They need at least a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering to find great employment.
• Mechanical Engineers build and test mechanical devices, thermal sensors, and engines. A bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering is mandatory.
• Electrical Engineers plan complex electrical systems for buildings, grids, and technology. They require a dedicated engineering degree. 
• Environmental Engineers solve ecological problems concerning waste, pollution, and public health. They must hold an undergraduate degree in an environmental or civil engineering field.
• Registered Nurses (RN) provide direct patient care and manage medical treatments. They need an Associate degree or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) plus a state license. 
• Nurse Practitioners (NP) diagnose illnesses, order tests, and prescribe medication autonomously. They require an advanced master's or doctoral nursing degree. 
• Nurse Midwives deliver specialized reproductive and postpartum care to women. They require graduate-level clinical training and a postgraduate nursing degree.
• Accountant / CPA analyzes financial records and prepare taxes. You need a bachelor's degree in accounting or a related field.
• Actuary assess financial risks using math and statistics. Most workers hold a bachelor's degree in an analytical subject like mathematics. 
• Pharmacist dispenses prescription medicines and advise patients on drug safety. This role requires a specialized Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree.
• Occupational Therapists help patients recover daily life skills after an injury or illness. You need a graduate degree and a state license to practice.
• Registered Dietitian plans medical nutrition therapy and food programs for patients. You must complete a bachelor's degree in nutrition and dietetics plus supervised practice.

Of course, there are folks who are returning to Vocational Trade Schools which I whole heartedly support. And yes, it's also why people are looking at alternatives such as learning specific technical skills online at a very low cost without attending a University. Students who want to earn money get technical degrees and find great paying jobs. Those that do are smart enough not to accept the scam that everyone has to go to College. 

Tom Correa