Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It is a combination of both, off the top of my head close to 60% of kids are enrolling in colleges after graduation these days, and there is just no way enough white collar jobs are being created to support that.
Both: too many people in college, and too many useless majors.
A person with a certification in welding will find a good job faster than someone with a degree in literature.
A good friend of mine worked as a welder during the Big Dig project here in Boston. With his union wage and overtime he was making over 150k a year. He ended up saving his money, buying properties in South Boston and turning them into rental units and is now retired in his late 40's.
I think that there are too many people in college.
In opposition to most of the posters on this forum, I believe that there is a lot of value in non-STEM majors. Many good paying professional careers do not require that you have a degree in a STEM field. You should however be well-rounded and competent to a certain level in all fields. And this is where I believe many colleges are failing.
Because colleges and universities (particularly in the US) are cash cows, many have severely "dumbed down" the curriculum in order to increase enrollment. Even with these measures, the graduation/retention rate in higher education average range from about 50%-60%. In the last generation, it has become clear that colleges and universities care more about the financial bottom line then the success of their attendees.
It is estimated that 60% of job openings will require a college degree by 2018. However it's not like the skills required to do these jobs can only be learned in college. More so, it's a function of competition. As more people earn college degrees, and you have more applicants than jobs, it just becomes another point that HR can use to whittle down the candidate pool (if you lack a degree).
The mistake is in thinking of college as vocational training. I don't know of any undergraduate major that actually teaches you how to do a job. Even most of the graduate programs don't. The ones that do, like medicine, teach it by placing you in internships, residencies, etc., where you really learn the work.
What college does--or should--teach is critical thinking. If you learn X from situation A, you should be able to apply what you learned there to situation B. Be it STEM or humanities, the ability to think analytically is what creates job success. The key is to learn to think and then learn a field on the job. Which means taking low-level jobs out of school, and progressively learning from there.
The problem is that college has become so expensive that people come out with deep debt and no skills to earn the kind of income needed to pay that debt off quickly. So it becomes a longer-term burden. But without that ability to think analytically, the kind of career growth that gets you that income is often capped.
And then there's the issue of whether students actually graduate with those critical thinking skills.....
I think it's both. Many majors have a non-positive ROI, as well as many schools. Is a theology degree from $30k+ private college going to have a positive ROI? No. Is a nursing degree from the same school going to have a positive ROI? Probably not for a long time, if ever.
Fewer people need to be in college, and of those who remain, many weak public schools and all but the best private schools ought to be closed.
The problem is not how many people are in college or what program they are in. The problem is that people who go to college for a job don't require a "job guarantee" when signing up at college. People should be allowed to go to college or any other type of educational institution just for fun. But if you *expect* to get a job you should not go for training unless you're sure you'll get a job.
Imagine this:
You stop at a restaurant because you're hungry. The waitress says I can take your order and your money but there is no guarantee you'll get any food.
"I don't know of any undergraduate major that actually teaches you how to do a job. Even most of the graduate programs don't. The ones that do, like medicine, teach it by placing you in internships, residencies, etc., where you really learn the work."
Accounting and finance do. I'd argue for others as well.
Critical thinking is more of a cop out. Anyone can think critically because that is after the fact. Framing on the other hand is different. I'd recommend DeBono's work Edward de Bono - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I wouldn't say that schools are dumbed down either because frankly the knowledge didn't exist back then that exists today. Just because something took longer doesn't mean it is a better product. I had a comprehensive exam where most of us typed out practically 30 or so pages. An older guy I know wanted to know if it was by hand. If it was by hand what would that have proven? How many accountants still use green sheets and paper ledgers?
It reminds me when some argue that youths need to learn job skills but frankly do not indicate what they mean by that. Balancing a checkbook? Banking is all online these days so how hard is that? Typing? A 6th grader knows that.
Yes there were a number that made a fair amount doing welding. I used to work for a company where a welder made $75/hr about what was cited. However, they'd only need him for four hours a week! Highly skilled yes but he couldn't bs work for another 36 hours.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
