Why do people go to college? Why invest their time and money on books and lectures? Intellectuals for years have been pondering this very thing, what is this thirst we as a society have for further knowledge? What is this immeasurable quality of higher education we seem to strive towards? What is the true meaning of life?!
Did I go to far? A little too melodramatic? Good. I don't mean to be glib... or maybe I do, but the true reason for my distaste for this topic stems from my witnessed misconception of what constitutes a higher education. Of the prejudices held against individuals that don't seem to prize the same virtues as the self-proclaimed intellectual crowd.
When one hears the term higher education, I assume the common citizen to immediately think of college --Of the intellectual individuals who set off from their homes in hopes of achieving enlightenment at the fine learning establishments set up around the country. By attending these scholarly institutes for four, eight, twelve years, they will have proved themselves worthy to be considered a person of "higher education" and set forth into society with a confidence only those ranking on the uppermost tiers of intelligence could possibly understand.
Like I said before, this is an exagerated view of what I see in today's society, but not altogether inaccurate. And I may have become slightly jaded by the classes I take in philosophy and honors courses, classes known for their pretension. However, this by no means makes this argument against the term "higher education" any less valid. As I see it, there is no true "higher education."
I don't believe in the term higher education, because it seems to suggest the existence of a hierarchy of knowledge: that some education is better, or higher, than other forms. This is just not the case.
Aristotle struggled with this same problem of education when writing
Politics. "There are no generally accepted assumptions about what the young should learn... nor yet is it clear whether their education ought to be with more concern for the intellect than for the character of the soul... and it is by no means certain whether training should be directed at things useful in life, or at those conducive to virtue, or at exceptional accomplishments."
There are so many different forms that education to take, to deem one form "higher" than another, to me, seems to be the ultimate form of arrogance and pomposity. Socrates was deemed the wisest man in the world by the Oracle at Delphi because he understood and accepted that he essentially knew nothing -a concept that the other famous intellectuals of the time seemed to have difficulty grasping.
There is no hierarchy of education. No form of education is better than another, so I think it wrong to deem intellectual institutions like universities and colleges "higher" than other forms of eduction that focus on different virtues. Instead, I argue for furthered education. No one ever stops learning, or shouldn't stop learning. The true intellectuals are those who understand what it was Socrates understood, that they essentially know nothing, but still strive for Aristotle's true enlightenment. But this enlightenment cannot be attained through mere "higher education." People should focus on the learning experiences that come from following
their interests and not attempt to compare or rate their experiences to other's. People don't prize the same virtue. They are not interested in the same things, but that doesn't make their education or intelligence any less than another's. They are merely different.
There is no "higher education", merely continued education. It is the immeasurable quality of continued education that people should strive for. Only by doing this can they hope to attain true enlightenment.
