Engineers and scientists that can’t write an essay are going to have a hard time writing persuasive presentations, proposals, and other materials. They’re also going to have a hard time participating effectively in democracy if they can’t comprehend and analyze what they read.

Similarly, political science majors won’t be able to effectively analyze politics and government if they’re unable to do even the basic math required to understand things like progressive taxation. They won’t be about to effectively participate in democracy, either.

I agree with you up to a point, although the level of essay writing needed be an engineer and the level of mathematics needed to understand progressive taxation shouldn't need to be taught at university by experts in a field. Not everyone goes to university (nor should they without substantial changes to what is meant by university), so it's really not the right place to teach the tools to function in society.

Political science is not a subject I'm claiming doesn't need any maths, but hatred or fear of mathematics shouldn't prevent someone from studying languages or history, just as a hatred of writing essays shouldn't prevent someone from studying a science. Obviously nobody hating or fearing either mathematics or essays is what we should aim for, but until we get there, don't prevent people from doing the things they excel at.

> While I believe everyone should love mathematics and keep learning it as long as possible, forcing adults to study it is counter-productive. Lack of inclination to study maths also shouldn't stop people from attending university

The writer mentions that allowing students to slip by without math limits them to mostly economically unproductive majors. If they are going to limit themselves to only these majors, are they getting value from attending college at all compared to the debt they will be saddled with?

The idea that it's the purpose of college to prepare someone for a career is misled. I say this as someone who loathes institutionalized education, didn't go to college, and won't send my kids. It's your job to prepare yourself for a career. It's college's job to teach you what you pay them to teach you.

If they're going to college and getting a degree that isn't going to pay off, that's the fault of the schooling they've had up until that point, for not teaching them a damn thing about cost and benefit, and for pumping it into their heads that college is a ticket to an easy life, that you'll be a burger flipper til 65 without it and that sort of thing.

I agree with the author that helping people take out loans to learn something they should've learned in 8th grade and pretending it's higher education is extremely unethical, but if someone's going to college when they can't afford it and don't need it, the blame lies with the people that educated them about the world up until the point they made that decision, not with the college. Doubly so since those people were responsible for teaching them I'm the 8th grade.

I knew people in undergrad that could not add or multiply fractions— Something they should have learned at age nine.

If somebody had the reading level of a 9yo, we wouldn’t give them a degree. But with math, we just let them through