Some people shouldn't be in college?

I try to read the Wall Street Journal regularly (I paid for it, so it's too late to back out now). Charles Murray has recently been writing a series of topics associated with education. His bit on "our culture put[ing] a false premium on the college degree" intrigued me greatly.

Here's a tid bit from his article:
If you want to do well [in college], you should have an IQ of 115 or higher. Put another way, it makes sense for only about 15% of the population, 25% if one stretches it, to get a college education. And yet more than 45% of recent high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges. Adjust that percentage to account for high-school dropouts, and more than 40% of all persons in their late teens are trying to go to a four-year college -- enough people to absorb everyone down through an IQ of 104.

I asked my LSAT class what they thought about this article. Their response was as intriguing as the article itself. One girl argued that college education is "impractical." More courses that pertain to "real job" skills should be taught (haven't we heard this one before?). In response, another girl adamantly opposed, arguing (just as Charles Murray did) that college isn't a vocational school.

I attended a small liberal arts college in New England. The closest thing to a "real job" skill that I've obtained is learning to speak Chinese. Otherwise, my course load was inundated with philosophy, politics and history readings. Some may argue that my college education was "impractical" and a waste of money. But I disagree (not quite for the same reasons as Charles Murray).

Liberal arts is a term derived from the Ancient Greeks. "Liberal" education wasn't meant for "slaves," but for those who are "free" and "unrestrained" from the practical necessities of life (i.e. worrying about where and how my next meal will come). As Plato and Aristotle would have it, even pigs and dogs pursue these necessities, but only humans can stand on "higher ground" and deliberate about the "supernatural" things of life. US college education enables students to mimic this Ancient Greek tradition through the liberal arts - when else can a teenager be so self-centered and careless about life?

But honestly, this Ancient Greek image always bothered me. Socrates was able to "deliberate" day and night because his slaves took care of all the "necessities." So if via liberal arts education I am Socrates, then my parents (who worry about the necessities of life on my behalf) are the slaves?

Beyond Greek connections, there is something to be said about studying what you want to study without having to worry about "my future occupation." This of course doesn't make obsolete the need to think and meditate about one's future goals and purposes.