It all begins with an admission ticket
Pathway to success: Bachelor degree as an entry requirement
What is the purpose of post-secondary education? In one of The University of Toronto convocations, Professor Deep Saini, vice-president and principal of the University of Toronto Mississauga campus, noted that a university degree, while helping students build a successful and fulfilling career, was about much more — it was also about how to be good “global citizens” and “make this world a better place for all of us.” The purpose of obtaining a degree is not about becoming competitive members in “the global market place,” but about becoming concerned citizens of the “global village.”
Professor Saini’s speech reminds me of a recent Disney movie, Big Hero 6. In the movie, Tadashi persuades and redirects Hiro, his younger brother, to stop creating robots for illegal robot fights and go to university for legitimate robotics education. “When are you going to start doing something with that big brain of yours?” They both suggest that education is where we could make the world a better place. A place to receive proper recognition.
This beautiful interpretation might be true at times. But the reality tells us the opposite.
The purpose of higher education is, indeed, a general requirement to build a fulfilling career as well as to be competitive members. Put in other words, the purpose of post-secondary education is to obtain an admission ticket. It is like going to a theme park, you must have an admission ticket. Pursuing a bachelor degree is like obtaining an admission ticket to the competitive job market in today’s world. Like Disney World, the ticket system features in different levels (i.e., Gold, Silver and Bronze), today, a bachelor degree could only get you a general admission ticket. Not gold, not silver, not even bronze. A general admission ticket.
About the Admission Ticket System
The mechanism of the admission ticket system begins around the time of Enlightenment, when revolutionary idea of public education is introduced. Education became compulsory for everyone instead of exclusive to the wealthy. Yet, the wealthy was against to this idea, finding public education a waste of money because they find lower classes labours are incapable of learning to read and write. The concept of “wealthy people are the ones to be educated,” and the reverse, “being educated makes you wealthy,” circulates. The social structure, or model continues. Academic associates with smart people, while the non-academic are mostly the non-smart people. The association reflects on education, type of jobs and the salary. Education promotes wealth and social status (i.e. fulfilling career), and is, indeed, an admission ticket in order to earn more.
In the following TED Talk from RSA Animate, Ken Robinson explains the mechanism of the education system and lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools’ dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. Most importantly, Robinson points out that our entire society is based around a factory line model, “our education is modelled on the interests of industrialization, and the image of it.”
Schools are organized on factory lines, with ringing bells, separate facilities, and specialized into separate subjects. We still educate children by batches, putting them through the system by age group. “Is this the most important thing? The date of manufacture?” Robinson asks and suggests that the education system is about conformity with standardized testing and curricular. The certificate is what matters.
Ticket Prices and the Inflation
According to Statistics Canada, Centre for Education Statics, Ontario university students pays the highest tuition fees across the country. Ontario undergraduate tuition fees for full time Canadian students are increasing from CAD$6,316 in 2010/2011 to CAD$7,539 in 2014/2015 on average. For the 2015/2016 academic year, full-time students in undergraduate programs paid 3.2% more on average in tuition fees this fall than they did the previous year. The increase is slightly lower than the 3.3% rise observed in 2014/2015. However, a constantly increasing trend is observed over the past few years.
Tuition fees is a fear for many Canadians who realize the pressures that are being placed on students and their families trying to afford post-secondary schooling. According to Toronto Sun, a Bank of Montreal study released in 2014 found that “almost half of Canadian parents expect to foot the bill for a major chuck of their kids’ post-secondary schooling.” As an international student at the University of Toronto, I understand the stress that is placed upon young adults to attend a post-secondary institution in today’s society. In the program that I am studying, Communication, Culture & Information Technology, it is deregulated and tuition increases year by year. “For the 2013 Cohort, the Year 2 tuition fee for the CCIT/Interactive Digital Media programs in 2014–15 will be $34,540, which represents a 10% increase over the 2013–14 Yr 2 fee of $31,402.” For the 2014 Cohort, tuition fee increases 11%, while 2011 and 2012 Cohorts, tuition fees will increase by 5% relative to the previous year. There is even a fee schedule outlining the upcoming increase of tuition fees as if this is a normal practice. Program fees increases as market demand goes higher in the particular field.
Once graduated, “entry-level” positions in various fields sound like the starting point of careers.
In fact, more and more positions that are billed entry-level aren’t actually for people just starting out in their careers. “They’re designed for young professionals whose resumes include a few years of work experience on top of that Bachelor’s or Associate’s degree,” says Alison Griswold on Business Insider. Griswold did a quick research on entry-level jobs seeking on various online platform, and the results are as followed: Account Executive Entry Level: 2–5 years sales experience required; Design Assistant at LG Interiors: 2+ years office and design experience required; Junior/Entry Level QA Analyst & Testers at Apex Systems: 1–5 year QA experience required; and, Entry Level Implementation Consultant at MicroEdge: 1–2 years of consulting or equivalent business experience and 2+ years of relational database/technical experience required. Companies want young blood but they also want skilled workers so that no training cost is required. Apparently, a bachelor degree does not guarantee a job anymore. The market new requires four years of studies plus a couple more years of working experience. Wait, if “entry-level” positions already require work experience, how are students supposed to get a job? According to the article, the new true entry-level positions are internships, corporate apprenticeships, and other types of limited-time fellowships and residencies. Pause and think for a moment, are there really sufficient opportunities for students to work-study? Is it even feasible for students to main academics while squeezing out time to make up 1–2 years working experience? Some takes a faster route — continuing education.
Advertisements of continuing education can be founded everywhere on social media, public transits, etc.. It alerts us the raising trend as well as the importance of higher education. Universities have expanded their offerings of continuing education programs for those seeking life-long learning opportunities. In other words, to upgrade their general admission tickets to bronze ticket. As bachelor degrees becoming saturated in the marketplace, an upgrade to bronze ticket (i.e. master degree) stands you out among the competitors and allows promotion to management level. Not to mention, masters of business administration remain the most expensive graduate programs, according to Statistics Canada 2015/2016.
The Failure and the Op-out of ticket purchase
With increasing tuition rates and growing student-loan debt, college grads still make 60% more than high school grads on average. “The labour market in Canada rewards those with education,” a conclusion made on Statistics Canada in 2005, that high school drop-outs have a harder time finding work than others who were able to follow high school through to completion and perhaps to continue in education system. However, some high school graduates or college dropouts choose to op-out from the admission ticket purchase. Why?
Todd Stinebrickner, an economics professor at Western University, undertook a study on “Academic Performance and College Dropout: Using Longitudinal Expectations Data to Estimate a Learning Model” in July 2014. The simulations show that students who perform poorly “tend to learn that staying in school is not worthwhile, not that they fail out or learn that they are more likely (than they previously believed) to fail out in the future.” Building onto his study in 2012, where students who perform poorly learn primarily that they are not prepared academically, “the cautionary message for students is that poor performance may cause multiple future stages of life to be considerably less enjoyable.” As to why learning about academic performance makes staying in college less worthwhile, the study finds that “poor performance both substantially decreases the enjoyability of school and substantially influences beliefs about post-college earnings.” Why pursuing a degree which does not guarantee a fulfilling career? The future career does not necessarily pay off the cost.
The Myth of Golden Ticket
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to focus on Microsoft; Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College after a semester; and, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to focus on Facebook full time. What do these story tell us? The insanely successful college dropouts also suggest students that college is not the only path to success. While they may be outliers, they show you don’t need a degree to make it in business. These successful people confirmed and verified the existence of a Golden Ticket. An instant success through bringing innovation to our world. They introduce new ideas, original and creative, to make a difference. Are our students capable to bring innovative ideas to the country, or even the world?
University Affairs asked a similar question, “Has Ontario taught its high-school students not to think?” This opinion piece suggests that the curriculum fostered “a shift in student’s mode of learning, from one based on understanding to one based on memorization.” In the TED Talk “Changing education paradigms”, Robinson critiques on our education system, which he finds it deteriorated our capacity for creativity. By the time when we grew up and became educated, we have spent ten years of school being told that there is one answer. The gene pool of education limited our thinking while the habits of our institutions divided us into habitats that they occupy — academic (i.e. to the piggy bank) and non-academic (i.e. to the trash can).
Robinson suggests changing the paradigm, to go in the exact opposite direction of standardized education, through divergent thinking. Divergent thinking, is an essential capacity for creativity (the process of having original ideas that have value). It is the ability to see lots of possible answers and lost of ways to interpretations to a question; to think laterally, not just in linear or convergent ways; and to see multiple answers but not just one. A test of divergent thinking is given to 1500 people in the book Break Point & Beyond, among the people tested, kindergarten children scored the highest (i.e. 98%) and considered to be the genius of divergent thinking. The longitudinal test continues to test on the children 5 and 10 years after, where the scores dropped when one grows older and supposed to be better. It shows that we all have this capacity but it mostly deteriorates. Has our education taught its students not to think? When we are losing the capacity to bring innovations and changes, maybe a general admission ticket is another route linked to the pathway to success.
“…When it is time to leave, you will be escorted home by a procession of large trucks. Each one filled with all the chocolate you could ever eat! And remember, one of you lucky five children will receive an extra prize beyond your wildest imagination…”
Does the golden ticket, a short-cut to success, still exists?
