Let your kids fail…

Megan McArdle has a new book out,  “The Up Side of Down”,  in which she posits that the  creative destruction  of free enterprise and entrepreneurship is not possible without the experience of failure.  Will the high school student afraid to take a hard subject because it might harm her grade point average be the one to produce the next Microsoft or Netflix?   Not remotely likely.   I happen to agree with her,  and also with Kathy Shaidle’s position that a college degree is unnecessary for most jobs.   My  mother expected me to get straight A’s,  which I seldom did.   My father wouldn’t tolerate D’s or F’s,  but as long as I learned something,  he wasn’t as fussy about letter grades.   None of the jobs I’ve had over the years required a degree,  but the fact that I possessed one may have impressed some of my bosses.

More than a few blacks regard requirements for a college degree as an attempt to bar them from jobs,  and I’m sure that they were right in some cases.   Unfortunately,  few modern college degrees seem to confer actual education upon their recipients. A major in women’s studies?   That is even more useless than a degree in art history,  since there are few jobs in the world where it is of even slight use.