Future of College Tuition post Covid 19

[ss20ts]

The kid with a philosophy degree with a minor in dead languages is going to be struggling until they wake up and get a MBA or IT degree. If you're going to get a degree, get one in a field where you can actually get a job. And yes that college down the street from me actually does have a minor in dead languages. WHY????

Get rid of the minors in dead languages.  It's becoming a digital world and colleges who want to survive are going to have to join the digital world not the dead languages world.

OK - that's four times. I get it. You don't like dead languages. I do. I mainly studied live ones (several) in College and University as a middle-aged adult, but I had five years of Latin before I got there. 60 years since my last Latin class, I still remember a lot of it. I enjoyed it. One of my best experiences. Why? Several reasons:

(1) Over half of English is derived from Latin - it helps to know where words came from. Written and spoken English will be better today for that knowledge. You can sound like you really know something - even when you don't, sometimes. That's a skill that could be worth having....

(2) Latin gives one an iron-like grasp of grammar. It's a lasting framework that can be applied to many other languages. The system might not be identical but you can see how things work VERY quickly.  Saves a lot of time, particularly if you're going on to learn half a dozen or more languages.

(3) There is a danger. Learning a dead language often gives you an appetite for more dead languages. On my own, I managed to learn a bit of Koine (New Testament Greek) and some Anglo Saxon. I got some exposure to Old and Medieval French in University. No, I never made a dime from it - but it has given me more pleasure than other studies that did make me money. Some things I studied for money - others for pleasure. I was 40-odd, and it was my money, so.... Also, I was never an English teacher, but I'd not have much confidence in one who didn't know at least something of those now-dead languages and how they influenced the one he/she teaches today. I was fortunate to have  some English teachers who DID know Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon and other components of English. Their knowledge showed and was of benefit (at least I thought) to students.

(4) Not everyone should have to take dead languages. Not everyone should have to take algebra either - though I'll admit it has useful applications that dead languages don't. But they need to be there for people who want - or think they need - to study them. Not everyone is cut out for a career in IT.

(5) Most (not all) European languages are of Indo-European origin. It's very interesting, if you have a few words of Sanskrit, to see how the different branches of the Indo-European tree gave rise to the languages spoken today. And right, you likely won't make any money from it, but it can be a very pleasurable and truly mind-expanding experience.

I like dead languages; I like living ones too. I even like computer languages - they have vocabulary and syntax as well. I like Ruby, Python, JavaScript, C and its variants. All good. Hey, maybe I should try some DEAD programming languages! Algol, APL, GW-BASIC maybe? Well, "De gustibus non est disputandum," as the Latin saying goes. No accounting for tastes. It was a thought....

I have nothing against dead languages. I have a problem with a college - not even a university - that charges $60,000 a year in tuition - not including fees or room & board and offers so many programs that are a waste of money and time. Study all the languages you want. Dead ones. Live ones. I really don't care. The college is hurting for money and they wonder why.....because they have soooooooo many programs that are useless in the grand scheme of life for 99% of the population. They do not offer business degrees, IT degrees, healthcare degrees, nothing useful really. It's all liberal arts most of which are obscure. This is a legacy college. Kids go there because their parents or grandparents went there. The vast majority of them are white rich kids. Most of them don't know what it's really like in the real world. Studying a language that died 2000 years ago is the least of their problems based on the drugs, alcohol, and rapes happening on and off campus.