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Lord, won’t you buy me a BSEE? Oh, never mind
April 27, 2007
I'd like to present a song of great academic and professional import.
It goes like this:
“Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a college degree?
“My friends all got masters; I want my PhD.
“Worked hard all my lifetime,
“Never got less than a D.
“So, Lord, won’t you buy me a college degree?”
(Credit for these alternative lyrics to “
Mercedes Benz” goes to New England-based singer
Anabel, I believe. Oddly enough, they don't seem to appear anywhere on the Web.)
If the Lord didn’t buy you a college degree, you, your parents, or both probably had to pay for it, or perhaps your college or other organization contributed in the form of a scholarship. But is college worth paying for at all?
Consider this from today’s Boston Globe: “The most celebrated and outspoken admissions dean in America, Marilee Jones of MIT, has resigned after acknowledging that she fabricated her academic credentials.” When first applying for a job at MIT 28 years ago, “Jones said she had degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Union College, and Albany Medical College, all in New York State. She does not have a degree from any of them.”
The Globe notes that “Jones's fall from grace is full of irony. She made it her life's mission, speaking at schools and conferences around the country, to combat the rising admissions frenzy, telling high school students and their parents that it is more important to be happy than to get into the most famous college or to have the perfect resume.”
What’s really ironic is that Jones was able to rise to the top of her profession without benefit of having completed a formal collegiate program. And she’s not alone in achieving success without a college degree; here is a list of others, with Bill Gates at the top.
It really makes you wonder if money spent on college is money well spent. Of course, a university is unlikely to appreciate the irony of Jones’ situation.
Update, April 30: Responding to the Globe article, letter writer Mark Weisz says, “I suppose there are many lessons that could be learned here, but the only one I see is that you don't need a college education to be a productive, successful adult. You can learn to educate yourself and save hundreds of thousands of dollars…No one was harmed by Marilee Jones's misrepresentation…”
Posted by Rick Nelson on April 27, 2007 | Comments (3)
