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Frankly, I find it disturbing. There are few good fields for work today, so the remaining good ones just get bombarded with people who spend tens -- sometimes hundreds -- of thousands of dollars and many years trying to bulk up their resume with enough education and certification to compete with everyone else who wants to do it.
There are two possible outcomes when that happens:
(1) If it's a field with enormous barriers to entry, it just becomes more competitive to enter and wages stay high. For example, there is a limited number of medical licenses given out every year so that keeps the medical profession lucrative in terms of compensation and competitiveness. And it keeps getting more competitive every year.
(2) If it's a field that anyone can try to enter, it just gets saturated with qualified applicants and very few of them actually make a good living. This would be the case with Law. Everyone is going to Law school and few lawyers are making a decent salary because the market has been flooded with Law degrees. Everyone started trying to ride the Law gravy train because, I guess, it used to be a decent profession before everyone tried to do it (It seems like all the Political Science majors who don't know what they're gonna do say, "Oh, I guess I'll go to Law school.").
This nonsense leaves a lot of people in limbo when they don't make the cut for their intended career path. They have to spend years backtracking, reapplying to medical school, getting new certifications, etc. Lots of them give up and just become the stereotypical barista with a Ph.D. in Philosophy.
I was just on the Indeed forums today and there's a big thread of unemployed graduates of pharmacy school. They all heard about how pharmacist is such a good job these days, but now they're finding that there aren't nearly enough positions for all the people who went to pharmacy school. I guess that gravy train has ended.
Thoughts on all this?
Education is a business these days.
The more degrees and graduates and even dropouts from online, state undergrad, or even law or pharmacy school can churn out these days, the more $ they make.
MY question is ... since so many more people are going for higher education, the tuition $ is going into someone's pocket. They're not hiring any new teachers and adjuncts get paid peanuts.
Its a lot more nuanced than the OP laid out. Focusing on the glut of lawyers doesn't tell the whole story. As far as medical licenses go, the AMA has been depressing the supply of doctors for about 50 years now. Nothing new there.
Well, what's new is that it's more competitive than 50 years ago. With the "send everyone to college" strategy being played out, every high schooler just goes to college and declares himself "Pre-Med" or "Engineering" because he knows those fields are the ones that pay the most right out of college. And since everyone does that, those fields just become more competitive to enter. Which is great for businesses because they're getting universities to train an elite squad of workers. But the college students who don't make the cut into the elite workforce are losing out.
Considering that even having a college degree is no longer proof that you're literate and can do basic math, I think more certification is often desirable. But REALLY overpriced. Now, if you have a dirty-fingernails education in your field with proven competence, that should probably count for more than a degree.
More concerned about the fact that we have an under-educated workforce. We've gone from being one of the best to one of the worst developed countries in two generations. It really does frighten me what we'll look like by the time I'm retiring in another two generations. Seems like you'll have a society of 30-40% of people who are productive (educated, skilled trades) and the other 60-70% won't be capable of doing anything more complex than retail jobs.
No you will not make. There will be law in 2 months that will ban people at tourist visa apply for university. It is written from similar German law.
And hard work while you study is one of fundament of ours western civilization. No one expect from Indians to work anything hand on.
What is system of values in this country if someone publicly declare that will bring here 8 kids from India to engage in criminal activity (study at expense of US tax payers)? And what Immigration service do here if someone can say that openly at forum?
Something is really wrong with you, Fox viewer. I'm not indian. All 8 kids were educated abroad and we're all in IT in different countries. We had a plan to take our place in the US, we worked studied and worked hard for it abroad. What did you do with the opportunity you had being already in the US? We have paid more in taxes than we get out of the US government just fyi. I probably paid for your schooling. You're welcome.
The military has always been an option, the option if schooling is too expensive and no one else can take this job from Americans. Are you being set up by the republicans in power to make sure there are plenty of poor people to be soldiers? If you don't want to think about that then keep yourself distracted by Fox News.
Well, what's new is that it's more competitive than 50 years ago. With the "send everyone to college" strategy being played out, every high schooler just goes to college and declares himself "Pre-Med" or "Engineering" because he knows those fields are the ones that pay the most right out of college. And since everyone does that, those fields just become more competitive to enter. Which is great for businesses because they're getting universities to train an elite squad of workers. But the college students who don't make the cut into the elite workforce are losing out.
How do you figure that everyone is majoring in medicine and engineering? If you can graduate with an engineering degree fom a reputable institution, you're hardly "losing out" based on average starting salaries.
If you have no discernable skills you will certainly lose out in today's economy.
More concerned about the fact that we have an under-educated workforce. We've gone from being one of the best to one of the worst developed countries in two generations. It really does frighten me what we'll look like by the time I'm retiring in another two generations. Seems like you'll have a society of 30-40% of people who are productive (educated, skilled trades) and the other 60-70% won't be capable of doing anything more complex than retail jobs.
It was a summer job, and if you think it is a bad job for a kid to have who wants a future in designing buildings then you are one of the ones doing a disservice to those kids.
My parents insisted on all of us kids getting a job by 16 up to then all of us boys helped in the auto body shop that my step dad owned and used as his hobby, and I was raised in a house with 6 kids, a total of 8 years apart. The least successful of us right now built a career as a construction foreman marrying the owners daughter and making very good money, when he got divorced he lost his house and job, now he is a warehouse foreman making a little over $60,000. So I would say that considering we are all in our 30s, I would say that actually working for what we wanted was only a benefit to us all plus it kept us busy enough we did not have time to get into much trouble.
I think part of the problem too is that people get degrees that later they realize they can do nothing with, and up having three bachelors and a master's while going to Law School.
I have a BS and MS, my BS is working well for me, my MS I'm still trying to use it to move up. But I have friends with BS/MS/BA/MA, etc degrees back in school.
I think people need to think "what do I want to do, okay now what do I need to get there, etc?"
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