Antipathy Toward College Educated (geography, pay, graduates, major)

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

There has always been bad blood between those with and without college eductions. ...
It runs the gamut. ...
This is not new. It may well be worse now, but not new. ...
But this is not new. I would just call this "the latest round".

"the latest round" tends to get progressively worse, because fewer and fewer workers are doing more and more of the 'tangible' work.

Look around... there are very few people who are actually doing the work, and fewer still who are responsible enough to desire to do the work.

We've kicked the can down the road about as far as it will roll. In the end... if something needs to be accomplished, YOU may be stuck doing it. (That will include paying off the loans from students who made very poor choices to spend time and money educatiing for careers that were non-existent, or they had no interest in doing).

[Northrick]

Educated Idiot


That derogatory term for someone with a college degree has been around for as long as I can remember.

[MKTwet]

The expectation of college education has changed, if college education is required similar to High school and provided for everyone instead of costly tuition then more access equals less divide. It shouldn’t be that college diploma be required to get certain jobs, it should be a minimum 2 year college education required for all especially if those people expects to collect social services as a trade. Without proper education, we shouldn’t be just giving hand outs.

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by KCZ

TBH, I think a lot of animosity toward recent students who are benefiting from loan forgiveness comes from older college-educated people who paid off their students loans themselves through their own work. However, I can certainly see why non-college educated people resent paying for someone else's college education, especially since their tax dollars are already paying for K-12.

You mean back when you could achieve a bachelor's degree from a good university for 25K-30K? Try it at double or triple that amount at a salary not much higher and double the cost of living (or more). Not exactly tit for tat...

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by springfieldva

I think that people who do not have the benefit of a college degree are sick of hearing "highly educated" people whine about their student loans and how haaarrrdd it is to make it in life. The sense of entitlement is unreal.

I have have a Bachelor’s degree and I deplore the college grads that cry and whine that they can’t pay back their student loans. Are there special circumstance people with this problem, sure. But the masses…GET TO WORK.

[Hemlock140]

I'm seeing another twist in this issue of degrees. My employer of 2,200 has actually eliminated the degree requirement for some of the lower level jobs ($50k-75k range) to make our employment "more inclusive." Since that move I have hired 3 people, two of them did have degrees anyway, the 3rd did not, but had 4 years of good experience. Unfortunately, she will be hitting a dead end in the promotional ladder when a future step does require it.

[kj1065]

I think antipathy has progressed to open hostility.

[jtab4994]

Originally Posted by kj1065

I think antipathy has progressed to open hostility.

LOL when I think of "open hostility" by workers against the upper classes, I think of the Bolsheviks, Jacobins, and Khmer Rouges, not people complaining about student loan forgiveness on the internet.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Retroit

It's different for those with a technical degree, like a doctor, engineer, scientist. I think they always have been respected by the non-college educated.

Not quite. In a large lab, it's accepted cultural-lore, that the technicians will look askance at the degreed engineers, as flighty and pompous nincompoops, who can't solder, can't weld, can't turn a wrench or use a set of calipers.

Originally Posted by tnff

... This country has a huge animosity toward education, justified by a lot of myths that don't match reality.

Indeed. American society has always been skeptical of “the elites” or of academic knowledge. By “elite” we don’t necessarily mean the wealthy or the well-connected, but the well-educated, or what in Europe might have been termed the “intelligentsia”. Writers, poets, journalists,… and their counterparts in the theoretical hard-sciences (physics, math,…). Taking the point further, just imagine how much animosity there is, towards people with PhDs!

Some of the most reviled jobs today, are college-professor. They get labeled as being arrogant, out-of-touch, and ultimately clueless and parasitical.

[Babe_Ruth]

Related to this thread.. It kills me when a young college graduate boasts about being the "first in their family to graduate college". So what?

They may have accomplished something unique within their family (fair enough).. But it implies (to me), they feel like they've done something better than their ancestors. Which I don't believe.. All the veterans, good parents, skilled tradesmen, that may have comprised their family tree. But they're declaring they've secured a college degree (sometimes in impractical fields, etc). It's not as (relatively) meaningful as the accomplishments of your ancestors. It strikes me as an overstated accomplishment, and implies that simply from a degree, they've somehow bettered their ancestors.. just a pet peeve of mine, not a fundamental antipathy toward college education.

I mean you never really hear welders boasting about being the "first in their family" to weld. But that's a very practical, useful skill. And they can make a lot of $. A college degree is not a unique feat to gloat.. even tho society does seem to impart that lesson.