Must knowledge be demonstrable to be valuable?

Alan Bennet's drama and the subsequent film adaptation of The History Boys features a scene in which two of the boys vying for Oxford and Cambridge suddenly get up and begin enacting a dialogue in front of the other boys in the classroom. Having learned this scene (and other shrapnel pieces of cultural knowledge: Gracie Fields' "Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye" and the difference between the conditional and the subjunctive tenses in French), the boys are trying to justify another teacher's "General Studies" class and its goal of creating "well-rounded individuals" by acting out their knowledge. Their teacher Mr. Irwin remarks, having figured out what they are quoting, "God knows why you learned Brief Encounter."

The title of today's blog post comes from a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edlife/edl-24masters-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me) asking whether the Master's degree is the new Bachelor's. In today's economy, the answer is, unfortunately, 'yes.' Reading the article, we find that Master's programs are becoming hyper-specific; we are professionalizing degrees. Who is benefiting from this scenario? Certainly not students who are putting themselves deeper into debt. Answer: schools and companies. Schools fill more seats, make more money. Companies connect with schools, scoop up their best students. The key word here is 'professionalized.' It is not to say that the English or Anthropology Bachelor's doesn't make you qualified, it means that all your knowledge, especially your unquantifiable knowledge (reading The Atlantic, trivia guru, your ability to act out all the melodrama of Brief Encounter) does not fit into the corporate ideology. In sum, because 'the market' is penetrating the walls of 'the institution,' this ideology has infected universities.

If this system didn't involve collusion between businesses and schools, it would be easier for consumers (e.g. students) to change the system, to refuse the status quo. Nonetheless, the system will change. Inevitably, the inflationary value of education will collapse in a tulpenmanie moment. It will only come when the overall educational ideology of the U.S. stops holding college professors on a pedestal as paragons of success and shifts towards an embrace of creativity and individuality. Then, and only then, will corporate ideology shift toward the notion, popular in Residence Life departments, that differences are good; differences make us successful.

Truth: my love of books might not translate into direct profit for my employer. But, my ability to connect with co-workers who also love books might make me a happier employee, a more productive employee, a leader through my creation of strong group dynamics, etc. It is the aforethought to see "random" knowledge" as "indirect" profit.