The Higher Education Scam

Can you be fired for doing a great job, year after year, and in fact becoming nationally known for your insight and performance? Yes, as in the case of Marilee Jones, who was the dean of admissions at MIT until her dismissal last week, when it was discovered that she had lied about her academic credentials 28 years ago. She had claimed three degrees, although she had none. If she had done a miserable job as dean, MIT might have been more forgiving, but her very success has to be threatening to an institution of higher learning: What good are educational credentials anyway?

Jones is hardly the only academic fraud. The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas estimates that 10-30 percent of resumes include distortions if not outright lies. In the last couple of weeks, for example, “Dr. Denis Waitley Ph.D.” --as he is redundantly listed in the bestselling self-help book The Secret, where he appears as a spiritual teacher-- has confessed to not having his claimed master’s degree, and the multi-level vitamin marketing firm he worked for admits that it can’t confirm the Ph.D. either.

All right, lying is a grievous sin, as everyone outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue knows. And we wouldn’t want a lot of fake MIT engineering graduates designing our bridges. But there are ways in which the higher education industry is becoming a racket: Buy our product or be condemned to life of penury, and our product can easily cost well over $100,000.

The pundits keep chanting that we need a more highly skilled workforce, by which they mean more college graduates, although the connection between college and skills is not always crystal clear. Jones, for example, was performing a complex job requiring considerable judgment, experience and sensitivity without the benefit of any college degree. And how about all those business majors – business being the most popular undergraduate major in America? It seems to me that a two-year course in math and writing skills should be more than sufficient to prepare someone for a career in banking, marketing, or management. Most of what you need to know you’re going to learn on the job anyway.

But in the last three decades the percentage of jobs requiring at least some college has doubled, which means that employers are going along with the college racket. A resume without a college degree is never going to get past the computer programs that screen applications. Why? Certainly it’s not because most corporate employers possess a deep affinity for the life of the mind. In fact in his book Executive Blues G. J. Meyers warned of the “academic stench” that can sink a career: That master’s degree in English? Better not mention it.

My theory is that employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one’s ability to obey and conform. Whatever else you learn in college, you learn to sit still for long periods while appearing to be awake. And whatever else you do in a white collar job, most of the time you’ll be sitting and feigning attention. Sitting still for hours on end—whether in library carrels or office cubicles-- does not come naturally to humans. It must be learned – although no college has yet been honest enough to offer a degree in seat-warming.

Or maybe what attracts employers to college grads is the scent of desperation. Unless your parents are rich and doting, you will walk away from commencement with a debt averaging $20,000 and no health insurance. Employers can safely bet that you will not be a trouble-maker, a whistle-blower or any other form of non-“team-player.” You will do anything. You will grovel.

College can be the most amazingly enlightening experience of a lifetime. I loved almost every minute of it, from St. Augustine to organic chemistry, from Chaucer to electricity and magnetism. But we need a distinguished blue ribbon commission to investigate its role as a toll booth on the road to employment, and the obvious person to head up this commission is Marilee Jones.

Comments

[barbara]

Marilee Jones was a scam artist. If she so desired to make a positive impact in the world, then she should have taken a job at a crappy no-name school and bring it up to the level of MIT. Otherwise, she is just riding on the coat tales of MIT reputation with her lies. Don't support old lying women more than you'd support old lying men. I've noticed that women in their 50s+ support other women blindly despite all the negatives of anyone in a corrupt power position.

[Masters Degree Didn't Help]

I happened to hear about this while browsing online. I am a victim of this scam. I've always been the student who was pushed to go to college. I had excellent grades, and was involved in sports and other activities.

So I decided to go to an art college with open admissions. Big mistake. I was in classes with people who would have been in remedial classes in high school. In fact some were students who could only get into open admissions schools. I spent 4 years in some general education classes where students were sleeping, and others that were like honors classes I took in high school. I graduated with a degree in communications/marketing.

So then I decided to go to a public college to get a masters so I could teach in junior colleges. I get my masters and the only jobs I was offered were things like assisting, internships, telemarketer, etc. I took a job that I later found out was a lie. I was told I was hired as a training specialist, hred to develop computer programs. Instead, I was hired as a training assistant. On top of that I endured severe racism, sexism, and corruption. I later got downsized and now I'm unemployed.

The kinds of jobs I get interviewed now? Call centers, retail stores, restaurants, etc. Jobs I have zero interest in. Jobs I did before I finished college. I didnt mention this before, but I have additional experience besides my degrees. I design websites, for example, and teach computer programs. None of this seems to matter to employers, and they offer me the same jobs they offer high school graduates. It's frustrating knowing my degrees are worthless. I'll probably go back to get a teaching certificate (what I should have done) because I don't think my degrees will mean anything.

I'm over $40,000 in debt (was over $50,000) for nothing but a piece of paper.

[Dee]

All I can say is.. RIGHT ON!

My dad, now in his 70's and retired, never went past 6th grade! And he held good jobs all of his life, staying long periods of time at these jobs. His last job lasted twenty some years.

Well, his job now requires - you guessed it - degrees based in mathematics. Go figure (pun), huh?

So that means if he was a young man now, and did the same thing, it's the poor house for him! No matter if he knew the ins and outs of the job like the back of his hand (and the math, obviously).

Odd times. Senseless times.

[mieuox]

College is totally useless and a waste of money generally unless someone is taking very specific classes to gain very specific knowledge for a very specific field of work. First of all private liberal arts colleges should all be abolished, state schools do a good job for less money, and then certain majors like Women's studies, African American or African Studies - anything that ends in studies basically, anthropology can just be thrown out, dance, theatre, totall waste of time and tuition.

I have a bachelors and I am going for a masters, the only reason I am going for the masters is because other people will then think I am better qualified for the job I want (plus I am changing careers), so I am going along with the lie because it's what's going on currently in the world, and also I find going to school luxurious and entertaining, otherwise I think that college is generally a waste of time.