Gernot Wagner is the author of But Will the Planet Notice? How Smart Economics Can Save the World. He teaches at Columbia University and is an economist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Five years ago, top Harvard College graduates flooded Wall Street. They were small cogs in a race-car engine, except the car was speeding over a cliff. It’s no wonder that today’s graduates are reconsidering their career choices.
They should start with economics.
Do you think colleges should be required to prominently post a College Report Card on their Web site?
The Washington Post’s Vivek Wadhwa will debate PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel Wednesday evening regarding a subject the two have disagreed on for some time: Whether America’s youth should attend traditional colleges? Wadhwa argues that America’s next generation cannot afford to abandon the nation’s colleges and universities for customized, self-directed education. Thiel, who has offered 20 individuals $100,000 to drop out of college, argues that college has become overly expensive while providing students with few — if any — of the tools they need to become entrepreneurs.
But what do you think? Is it time to do away with the traditional college experience? Or, as countries such as India and China begin to see rapid expansion, is it time to push harder for more widespread, traditional schooling?
Teenage patients often ask Megan Moreno, assistant professor of pediatrics at University of Wisconsin, if they have to drink alcohol when they go to college. These patients are often not yet aware of the dangers of alcohol addiction among college students, she said.
“We shouldn’t limit ourselves to whether résumés will replace transcripts. We should be asking: What yet-to-be-seen innovation will replace both transcripts and traditional résumés?” - Dale J. Stephens, “The traditional transcript and résumé are dead.”
