More Money Than Brains

I just finished reading More Money Than Brains by Laura Penny, which I won a few weeks ago from the #cbc140 contest that the cbcbooks twitter feed runs on a semi-regular basis. It's sort of funny that this happened to be the book I won, given that Laura Penny is not only local, but gave a handful of my first year university lectures.

It was a very interesting read. She expressed some ideas that I already agreed with, such as that business/engineering/otherwise career-related programs should be part of the college system, not universities; that it's ridiculous for people who have no interest in academics to go to university just because you need a degree to get a job these days; and that streaming people into technical/university paths like the European system does is maybe not a bad idea; and that standardized testing is a meaningless practice, among others.

She also tied her discussion into a much larger picture, however, one that includes politics and the media and the economy. The problems with the education are both a symptom and a cause of much larger-scale problems in the world in general.

The money-makers gonna bring us all down.