One Problem with the Education System

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Do we really believe that we have the most optimal and equitable educational system? Is the capitalist model of higher education really the ideal? Should every future generation suffer the same hardships, debts, and tribulations that we may have faced to earn our education or is there a better way? What if instead of focusing on what we didn’t get, we focus on what we would have liked better and improve the system for others. The idea that things should remain the same because that was how we experienced it is at best antiquated and at worst vindictive. It may not have been fair that our generation had to go into extreme debt to get a university eduction, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. 

The education system has been on the path to privatization for quite some time. This privatization is a main reason why university prices have skyrocketed in the last 20 years and why students tend to go into extreme amounts of debt before their adult life has even really started. Private universities can charge any amount they want as jobs have increasingly required more education to qualify, thus ensuring a captive population that has to go to university in order to even attempt to get a decent paying job. And yet the university education that you spend a fortune on, doesn’t even prepare you for the job that you’ll eventually get.

I went to law school going into a lot of debt along the way. The class experience was invaluable. I learned a lot regarding the Constitution, criminal, and civil law. I also learned to use the socratic method, using questions to stimulate critical thinking about the topic being examined. From my educational experience before law school, as I’m sure others can relate, most of the time was spent memorising and regurgitating information. There was little need to think critically about the subjects being studied as tests were designed to determine how much information you could retain, not how you should apply such information.

So I learned a lot of invaluable things from law school, right? The high tuition, must have been worth it. So what’s my complaint? Well, the one thing I did not learn from law school was how to be a lawyer. I learned how to think like a lawyer and I learned the theory and the laws, but being a lawyer involves a lot more practical knowledge than what is taught at law school. Very little time, if any, was spent on learning how to draft different legal documents. No time was spent on how to file motions or other court related documents. If you are lucky, you may get an external internship where you may learn some of this information, however even during internships, a lot of practical knowledge is just suppose to be known without being taught. For a personal example, after being asked to file something at court and having no idea how, I asked a fellow intern to help me. On our walk to the court, I asked how he had learned to file things with the court as no class so far had taught me those skills and the lawyer I was interning for was too busy for such trivial tasks. His answer shocked me: nobody taught him either, he just had to wing it, like all other interns. Now, keep in mind that you learn as a lawyer that things have deadlines and mistakes can cost your client. So it was shocking that on things being filed with the court, with potential serious repercussions for mistakes, the accepted method was to just wing it. Yet this is how the system is designed.

So here is the problem, yes, the education I received was invaluable, however, it was education that would have been better learned at earlier stages. Thinking critically is a skill that can be developed over time and really should be taught from the start. It shouldn’t have to take going to law school, to learn that skill. (On a more practical note, critical thinking would also help to buffer the promulgation of misinformation by having a society that is better able to critically think about the information it receives instead of just blindly accepting that information.) A lot of the actual subject matter from law school should also be taught earlier, probably at the high school and undergraduate level. These subjects are important and necessary for a properly functioning society/democracy. We all live together in this country and we all have to abide by its Constitution and laws. Having a good understanding what the laws entail and the rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution would go a long way in developing a well-informed populace, better able to resolve future conflicts.

On the flip side, practical education at law school was non-existent. Attending a graduate program and subjecting yourself to the debilitating amounts of debt that come with it, should at the very least guarantee the necessary skills and practical knowledge required of that profession. If to even acquire those skills it is necessary to also obtain an external internship (typically unpaid) and then to just wing it on your own during that internship, then what even is the point of the huge amounts of tuition being paid to the program in the first place? The higher educational system is currently designed to make as much money as possible while ill-preparing the students for the workforce.

What is the solution? Well, why not have more low-cost educational training established in the form of internships or apprenticeships? Internships, apprenticeships, are already pretty much required if you want to have any practical knowledge of the job and its requirements. And since an intern/apprentice will basically be working for experience, the cost of such programs should be nothing more than time and perhaps a basic stipend/pay rate equivalent for the work being provided. The company gets low-cost labour and the intern gets valuable work experience without raking up extreme amounts of debt. This would help to create a more equitable structure as well, allowing for students from less privileged backgrounds, who may not have the ability to take out the insane amount of debt required for university, to get a foot in the door as well. So ask yourself this, why are we not doing more of this? What benefits are we seeing in our society that requires its population to either go into extreme amounts of debt in order to join the more qualified workforce or to just forego seeking more qualified positions altogether? It seems to me that we keep this structure because it’s what we know, what we grew up with, so why change it. And there are a lot of people out there making money off of it, so they have little incentive to change it either. But why not change it. People developed the system and if there is a better way, then why not find it.