Good article on "Dwindling Power of College Degrees"

[benali72]

A great article on the "Dwindling Power of a College Degree" over at the NY Times covers a whole lot of territory in just 2 pages. Good summary of the last 40 years. New tidbit -- the earning differential within different job categories has grown just like the differential between different job categories.

See -- https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/magazine/changing-rules-for-success.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me

[John Masterson]

Thanks, I will read this.

It is a story I have been following with interest for the past five years or so...

[benali72]

Today's "conventional wisdom," repeated ad nauseum by all our political leaders, is that the way to prosperity is education. Educate yourself! We need to educate our population! But the article exposes how that really does not solve the problem --

"One of the greatest changes is that a college degree is no longer the guarantor of a middle-class existence. Until the early 1970s, less than 11 percent of the adult population graduated from college, and most of them could get a decent job. Today nearly a third have college degrees, and a higher percentage of them graduated from nonelite schools. A bachelor’s degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability. To get a good job, you have to have some special skill — charm, by the way, counts — that employers value. But there’s also a pretty good chance that by some point in the next few years, your boss will find that some new technology or some worker overseas can replace you."

The article points out that the major reasons work has become unstable are both due to great trends (globalization, computerization) and also government policy. (Most articles seem to just latch onto one explanation or the other.)

The article is also objective in pointing out that both the floor and the ceiling on incomes has been erased by the new environment. (Most articles just emphasize either the floor or the ceiling).

[TechTalk]

The author did a good job of covering many of the problems that American workers are facing.  The primary problem I have with his article is his last sentence. 

The rest of us, meanwhile, should go to school, learn some skills and prepare for a rocky road.

Simplistic solutions will not work -or- formal education is not the panacea people are making it out to be
A university degree does NOT teach a person skills!  Most four year degree programs and above prepare you for a career in academia (e.g. law school, computer science, etc.) or they simply give you a broad overview of many specialized careers.  Perhaps the only technical degree that is highly respected and valued in the U.S. is a medical degree (i.e. a doctor, dentist, or nurse).  Lets face facts, most students attend a university for the piece of paper which might be the most expensive certification program on the planet.  They go to school because they know that a college degree acts as another gatekeeper or barrier-to-entry.  In other words, its real purpose in the business world is to help employers eliminate the so-called riff-raff.  I have read several reasons why tuition has gone through the roof in recent years.  Imo, the primary reason why this has happened is because universities know that they have their customers (i.e. students) by the balls.

The 'C' students run the world -or- 'C' students start their own business while 'A' students work for someone else
Everyone knows that intelligent and extremely wealthy people such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, etc. made it big despite dropping out or never attending college.  These individuals should not be used as examples of why someone should not attend college.  Instead, they should be used as examples or evidence of what is wrong with employer hiring and promotion practices.

[The Gorn]

Today's "conventional wisdom," repeated ad nauseum by all our political leaders, is that the way to prosperity is education. Educate yourself! We need to educate our population!

It's a combination of tendencies in our society.

First of all, it's a well learned habit, based upon the economy of the past that all of us over the age of 40 grew up in: a college degree at one time was the absolute bare-minimum credential that would allow you to plausibly apply for a professional job at a "good" company. It's really hard to unlearn that reflex. And it plays well in politics.

Secondly, it's yet another way of kicking the can down the street. If you say "this segment of society requires more education, then they can hope to find employment" you shift responsibility back onto them, and you also defer the choice of which training/education is appropriate. Again, it sounds great, and it sounds virtuous.

Even if it is inherently not correct due to 2 factors: the supply:demand nature of offered jobs will change when those re-educated people finally pop out of the system, so narrow vo-ed "training" always tracks a moving target; secondly, as stated on this board earlier, you're just teaching the proles to compete against each other for the same limited pot of jobs.

I get what you're saying exactly - but most individuals in our society barely understand how the society itself works, much less how to create value for others on their own.

IE: if you gave the same civics test to natural born Americans that immigrants much take in order to become citizens, I bet a large majority of us would wash out...

[HiredGunn]

Had Thankgiving dinner with niece and her boyfriend.  They waited tables over summer so now they understand a little bit more and value their opportunity to study at school.  But evolutionary biology wont cut it I think.  Last time I met one he was eventually told to 'make more money' so he became a DBA - a darn good one too.

Talked to sister company today about letting me have my DBA back and they informed me they have given up finding an experienced mid-level ( pronounced cheap ) DBA.  Instead they are flooded with people who know linux sysadmininstration and have downloaded open source databases, how hard can Oracle be ?   No college required ( pronounced cheap ).

[Carrie Cobol]

It's all about cheap these days, even more than in the past.  They still want experience and mad skills but they dont want to pay more for them.

[Walter Mitty]

Do you go to school to learn things, or to get a degree? 

[I D Shukhov]

The article's main point is that the old "rule" that you could get ahead by getting a college degree has changed.  What's changed, regarding job destruction, is that automation, outsourcing and sheer world population growth which swells the supply of labor (okay, the article completely left this out -- I added it) now requires one to up their game. 

Ironically, the article maintains that you still might want to consider going to college as is stated in the last sentence: 

The rest of us, meanwhile, should go to school, learn some skills and prepare for a rocky road.

   But one has to be clear about what you're doing.  What you should be doing is stated earlier: 

A general guideline these days is that people are rewarded when they can do things that take trained judgment and skill — things, in other words, that can’t be done by computers or lower-wage workers in other countries.

Robert Reich says something similar about going for as much high-level training as you can get in The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism, where he makes the case for being a "symbolic analyst" -- i.e. a highly trained professional like a doctor, architect or (real) business leader.   I think that a correctly-managed career in IT would be fine too, if you can avoid the tar pits.

If you can't be a high level professional, then try to do something that can't be automated, offshored, or done by cheap labor.   I.e. no commodity programming, house painting, manufacturing assembly ( not that the latter is even an option....).    If you can't be a high-level symbolic analyst, then a option would be a highly-skilled repair profession like car repair or a mechanical/electrical engineering technician job in factory automation.  Note that automation design is an engineering job which certainly qualifies as being a symbolic analyst.



 

[John Masterson]

Do you go to school to learn things, or to get a degree?

Unless you are independently wealthy, it's to get a degree in order to get a job, of course.

That's what the university/industrial complex  is selling: future earnings.

[TRexx]

Do you go to school to learn things, or to get a degree?

Unless you are independently wealthy, it's to get a degree in order to get a job, of course.

That's what the university/industrial complex  is selling: future earnings.

How times have changed.

I remember the "Welcome to College" speech from the dean on my first day.  He mentioned that some people criticized the school because they awarded BA degrees instead of BS.   They were concerned that graduates might have a harder time finding employment if they were competing with BS grads from other schools.  He said:

"You are not here to be trained to get a job.  You are here to be educated. If all you want is a job, go to a trade school"

[TechTalk]

Unless you are independently wealthy, it's to get a degree in order to get a job, of course.

Or to be eligible for a promotion.  Some people are returning to college to hide out from this crappy economy as well.

A couple of months ago, I was talking to a secretary at my insurance agent's office and she has an undergraduate degree!  Note: she actually works for several agents who are located in the same building.  Anyway, she told me that many employers now require it.  A two year degree I can understand, but a freaking four year degree in order to answer the phone and fill out paperwork?

We Need A Pass/Fail Grading System
The problem nowadays is that students feel that it is imperative to graduate with a high GPA which has resulted in mass cheating and complaining when a final grade doesn't meet a student's expectation.  Also, students have learned that if they do exactly what the instructor tells them to do (but no more than that) then they will receive a good grade.  As a result, many students are not really learning a whole lot in many of their classes and I bet many students do not even bother reading their textbooks unless it is necessary to complete assigned homework.  Of course, I am talking in generalities here because the STEM degree programs (i.e. lots of math and science courses) tend to still be very demanding which helps explain why many American students want nothing to do with those type of degree programs.  Who wants to work their ass off and graduate with a B- or C+ GPA?

One of several published books out there that is critical of colleges is Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.  According to the book authors, 45% of college students don't learn much of anything in their first two years of college, while more than one out of three students graduate with no improvement in writing and analytical skills.  Among the students who learn the least in college are social work, education, and business majors.  In contrast, the researchers found that students majoring in the humanities, social sciences, hard sciences and math do relatively well.

[DG9]

The four year college degree has become the new high school degree, which still leaves people less literate in some basic skills than graduating the eighth grade did years ago IMHO...

Signed,
Grumpy Old Man 

[unix]

What about the unexplored option of having your own business?

Here in DC, there is a lot of 'money' (i.e. tokens) not just in IT, but also in other, stupid businesses, like firewood, etc. You can make just as much with stupid stuff as in high-tech IT.

[TechTalk]

What about the unexplored option of having your own business?

Well, there are individuals who own or started at least one business and don't have a college degree.  How successful they are as an overall group is anyone's guess.  I personally know about 5 individuals who fit this description and are millionaires (at least on paper).

I suppose another option is to get a degree in entrepreneurship if a decent university in your neck of the woods happens to offer one.

Here are some useless stats that I happen to have lying around
Of the 286 million entrepreneurs worldwide who launched new ventures since the mid-1990s, only 19,000 were financed by venture capital firms, which raised only $59 billion, versus the $271 billion provided by family and friends operating as angel investors.  Family-owned and family-controlled firms account for approximately 90 percent of all incorporated businesses in the United States, where approximately 17 million family firms (including sole proprietorships) operate.  In the United States, family firms account for 64 percent of the gross domestic product, or approximately 85 percent of private-sector employment, and about 86 percent of all jobs created in the past decade.