popa:
I don’t know why you think it is impossible to value seminary and to make a generalization that it is a waste of money.
I do not know what you mean by that, but as far as I can make out, that is not what I was trying to say.
Nor do I know why you think it requires a close and objective study for people who are living in that world.
I believe the exact opposite. I have no relatives that attended seminary, and wasn’t even entirely aware of what it was until I was in tenth grade. In fact, around that time, I was rather biased against it, being that so many people were being so ridiculous and hysterical about it. I looked into the matter further, though, and came to the conclusion that while it is easy to be dissuaded by the enormous amount of silliness and ill-judgment that most invest in it, it is something that is impossible to make any definitive judgments about. There are too many factors involved (admittedly, the most important being the silliness of the subject). Being surrounded and personally affected by that silliness has colored your view of this.
In a world where your wife, your sisters, your mother, your sisters-in-law, your wife’s friends and co-workers, etc, have all gone to seminary
And perhaps all of your relatives were in the “total bust” category of my earlier analogy. I think this supports my ideas more than it refutes them.
VM:
I readily admit that the hashkafah and halacha that girls learn in seminary is not something that I value at all, mostly because I believe that it’s not legitimate halacha or hashkafah.
[…]it is not susceptible to “objective” studies because it does not purport to offer anything “objective”.
My point precisely!
And as PBA pointed out, my mother, wife and sisters all went to seminary and I saw nothing in their experiences that justified the stress and financial strain that it involved.
See above.