It’s well-publicized that we have a higher education problem in the United States. Whether it should be as necessary as it right now is a matter up for debate, but as long as it is, we have to address accessibility and affordability. It’s interesting, then, that our current proposals all have to do with shifting rather than addressing the cost.

Have the government pay for college for everyone. Have the government pay for college for some people. Have the government pay for some of college for everyone. Or my personal solution: make college less of a requirement and more of an option. It doesn’t particularly matter where you fall on that spectrum because we’re covering something different. None of these suggestions, including my own, look at the main factor: the cost.

I can understand why that might be. With the large numbers they employ nationally across the United States, combined with their massive revenues, colleges are a formidable foe. Change-resistant and seemingly insulated from public criticism in the debate that rages around their problems, they somehow avoid being in the conversation about higher education. Politicians would be foolish to publicly threaten such a well-armed opponent.

Luckily, there’s one thing I have never been and never will be: a politician. So let’s look at this the way we would any other enterprise: realistically. And realistically, the college curriculum, business model, and methodology are woefully outdated and relatively unchanged in the last century or so. No wonder the institution is out of touch with the modern world.

Fortunately, one simple move can cut costs for future students immediately.

The well-rounded student myth

Ah, the well-rounded student. Harkening back to the days when all the information in the world wasn’t easily accessible in 30 seconds or less, the concept of general education courses as part of a degree program was widely accepted. It would give students access to other topics and expose them to areas their actual degree of choice may not.

They also make up about a full year (or more) of a four-year degree and thus represent 25% of the cost of college. They should be done away with for good.

There is a portion of our population that just loves formal education. I’ve met them, I’ve spoken to them, we’ve hashed out this argument for hours at hotel lobby bars during overlapping conferences back in my drinking days. Even they have privately conceded that these courses are unnecessary when we have such a major financial problem with student loans.

If you really want to learn, in a formal environment, about all sorts of things that have nothing to do with your degree program, you’re welcome to. You can stay in school taking courses for as long as financially feasible through government loans, trust funds, or cash. If you think it’s worth it, all the more power to you.

But we shouldn’t force it on all students. Let’s face it: about half of college students don’t want to be there in the first place when you get down to it. Hell, even half of the parents don’t want their kids to go straight to college any longer (a fact which delights me, I’ll admit).

This latter group is in college because they’ve been told their entire life they’ll be failures if they don’t attend. They’ve chosen a degree based on practicality and job placement, not the love of learning, and want to keep their head down and get through this mandatory exercise as quickly as possible. If they happen to be able to survive on their salary when they graduate and not default on their student loans, it’s a win.

So, for this practical group, what’s the real situation? You’re forced to do this thing you don’t care for, and you’re going to take out what amounts to a full mortgage in order to do it. You’ll have to pick a field more or less at random with little prior exposure to it, which is going to set the course for the rest of your life. Oh, and we’re going to make it 25% longer and 25% more expensive than it needs to be by requiring courses that neither you nor any future employer will care about at all. Sound good? Great.

Helping no one; stuck in the past

This does a disservice to everyone. Employers who pay for college often carve out requirements like: “Must be a course directly related to finance, business, accounting or a similar discipline.” So even those who are getting some help are left on their own to pay for the most useless courses in their program.

Forcing something on a student never really results in an eye-opening experience either. They need to come to it naturally over the course of their daily lives. In today’s day and age, anybody with even a modicum of curiosity has gone down a Wikipedia rabbit hole or something similar on a topic of their choice. That is how people come to education, not being force-fed for $25,000+ a year.

It does a disservice to the professors who love those topics, as half their environmental history class is filled with condescending finance students who are trying to duck out of a general education requirement. The actual environmental history students must share their learning space with people who don’t care about the subject and detract from the environment. Does all of this sound like a justified and useful way to spend tens of thousands of dollars?

It serves no practical purpose either and is even more laughable in the information age. I’ve never interviewed a candidate for a job and said the following:

“Well, I see you got your finance degree at TCNJ. That used to be Trenton State, right? Yeah, that’s a good school. I’m glad your degree is in finance but let me ask you something: can you explain the overarching theme of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed? No? I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to go in a different direction for this position.”

Sure, that could make for an interesting conversation, and I’d be more than happy to discuss literature outside of work. But employers couldn’t possibly care less. Back in the day, the anti-college rhetoric was that the knowledge you obtained wasn’t anything you couldn’t get with a library card and $1.50 in late charges (per Good Will Hunting). I’m not sure if that’s true overall, but it certainly is for the general education requirements. Except you don’t even need the library card anymore, provided you have the internet.

A modest proposal

And not of the Jonathan Swift variety, either. I believe what I’ve suggested here is perfectly attainable and logical. We could easily go even more narrow: a finance degree could be trimmed of general education and marketing courses. Similarly, a marketing program could drop calculus and corporate finance, etc.

Against my own deeply held convictions, I’m also leaving the colleges themselves alone in this. I’m not looking at bloat, duplicate positions, unrestrained salaries, poor tenure programs, and money spent more on protecting the college as an institution than serving its students. I’ll give a temporary pass on all that. If I didn’t, by the time we were done with this article a bachelor’s degree would be a two-year program at 70% of the cost per year. Even I might entertain finishing a degree in that environment, but it will never come to be.

Instead, my proposal is simple. Getting a chemistry degree? Study science. And only science. That’s what you’re here for. Finance? Business courses only for you. So on and so forth. If you want to be exposed to more things, you’re welcome to stay an extra year past the three-year graduation path. All that’d result in is the same cost you were expecting anyway.

For everyone else, let’s cut them a break. The education system that we force on our adolescents and young adults is broken enough already. Let’s give them a bit of their money back while still providing the practical knowledge they came for. Plus, they’ll get something truly invaluable to any adult: a full year of their life back.