This is Why the Universities are so Costly

The NY Times has the ability to have no insight into the obvious. Consider the piece on getting a philosophy degree and then trying to get a job.They state:

Rock music played as the students entered the school’s chapel, and then Andy Chan, vice president in charge of the Office of Personal and Career Development — the O.P.C.D., it is called — introduced his team with a video spoof of the television show “The Office.” The students played a game in which they could guess, by text, which majors had been chosen by various gainfully employed alumni of the school. (Human-capital analyst at Deloitte? And the answer is . . . German!) And a panel of students shared their own glamorous work experiences: a fellowship in Paris, an internship at a start-up....

Chan, who can earn up to $350,000 a year, raised more than $10 million, mostly from parents, for a sunny, glass career center with video displays and healthful snacks for students (“It looks like Google,” Chan told me). He likes to say he has “supersized” the career-services office, creating an elaborate Web site and hiring enough staff members — close to 30 — to offer conciergelike services to students.  

The above is one of the reasons why the costs of college is exploding; more and more VPs and salaries that exceed most college presidents.

Students should decide what to major in based upon where they can get employed, and if that is as a plumber then stay away from paying exorbitant salaries to college overhead folks.

Philosophy is wonderful, I even minored in it, it was great at mixers and telling co-eds about Sartre, well back in the 50s at least. But as a EE major it was based upon what jobs were available. Then you looked in the NY Times on Sunday, counted the number of jobs, and then chose your major. There were no jobs for philosophers. Sorry. Still there are none.

Thus this article promotes the nonsense we see ion many students; Fine Art, Philosophy, History, Classic Languages. If you come from money and are assured to be supported through your life then go do whatever. If however you have hard working parents helping out you owe it to them and yourself to find a job. That is what college is about. Getting a job, pure and simple.

Your parents should not even be there when you arrive at college. They have other things to do, like make a living. If you are 18 then you are on your own. Figuring out what to do is part of life and it may begin with getting to college on your own. Today parents treat their college age children like kindergarten kids decades ago. There is a cost to that, the cost being the salaries of "feel good" hanger on people as described above. If I arrived and saw this I would drag the young one away, sue the school for fraud, and send junior to a good community college. I would also question junior's judgement in selecting such a place to begin with!