What TV Teaches Us About Higher Education

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about the notion of undergraduate education is a bit of a racket. The reason I believe this to be so is largely because we award degrees to students for completing a degree but we rarely have any deep understanding of the subject matter of our major. Most people don't necessarily use their degree to work in the field in which they are allegedly supposed to be "masters." Rather, I believe undergraduate education is designed to essentially reward those who can afford (or are willing to take on the debt) to attend college to get a degree in something. For instance, my second career was in public relations and those working in the field had degrees in English, Journalism, Business and other degrees that did not necessarily prepare them for a career in PR.

That haven't been said, undergraduate education is still important. And that was underscored in an episode of the new NBC show Parenthood in its second episode. In it, Sarah, played by Lauren Graham, is out of work and looking for a job. Through nepotism, she gets an interview with a company who ultimately chooses not to hire her because she doesn't have a college degree. (Skip ahead to 21:45 for the interview and 28:40 for the post-interview/decision call).

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So it begs the question, what's so special about a college degree? My opinion is that it is a way to weed out less desireables. In every way, Sarah on Parenthood seemed to be qualified -- except that she doesn't have a college degree. That college degree kept her out of the club, even though she had the experience doing what she was being hired to do. The deficiency? She didn't have the stamp of approval from an institution of higher learning to show that she had paid a lot of money (or gone into a lot of debt) and "paid her dues" in order to gain admittance into "the club."

I believe that the educational system is rife with classism. But what TV shows like Parenthood teach us is that if we want to get ahead, we have to play the game. Afterall, the income disparity between American workers and CEOs, while down, was still 317 to 1 in 2009. And there are few CEOs that don't have college degrees.