Antipathy Toward College Educated (BSN, county, schools, wage)

[AnywhereElse]

Originally Posted by Solere

Do you think there is more resentment towards the college educated from older (50+) or younger non-college educated people?

Age doesn't make a difference, as it is just who one has to listen to bragging about their college education, and then going on to complain they can't find a job and need loan forgiveness. The ones that "know it all"! College educated is not "smart" or "intelligent" as both of those cannot be achieved with a college education, you either got it or you don't!

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.

Yes, whining about not being able to find either a job or one that pays what they "think" they are worth.

Originally Posted by Solere

Reasonably intelligent people would find it difficult to question the veracity of an actuary or Certified Public Accountant's professional opinion.

"Opinion"? I always question the "opinions" of others!

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

I can tell you that there was a point in my life when I was very jealous of blue collar workers.

After 6 years of college and 2 more applying for jobs during the Reagan recession, I finally got an engineering job and was sent to a construction site to oversee the work.

The Foreman was younger than me and already owned his own home after 6 years collecting union wages. Meanwhile, the entire time he was making money, I was destitute and paying for college.

I was plenty jealous at the time.

I think that in this case, and it applies to most people, we can be jealous of the "success" of a person, and not their "college education".

Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah

Why all the hate for "liberal arts"?

These "people" Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site are using geography and that's liberal arts.

Basically, if there is antipathy, it may have been put into their heads by a media that may not know what they are talking about.

So, how many jobs are there in the world for people that graduate with a degree in "liberal arts"? These are the most likely people to be whining about not finding a job. If they were not smart enough to choose a field where they could get a job.............

Originally Posted by kj1065

How so? What is not "real world" about having a degree?

No job experience, or life experience is usually where a degree has no use in the "real world".

Originally Posted by sheena12

+ 1. For some reason the US is an anti-intellectual country. I find it sad.

We are talking about "college educated", not intellectuals. A college education doesn't make one intelligent, and with the constant lowering of standards in education, a college degree means less all the time. I don't see where people get the idea that someone with a college degree is anything more than someone who passed courses, many of them a repeat of high school.

Originally Posted by sheena12

Well, they HAVE accomplished something better than their ancestors. And their parents. They do have a right to gloat. Most of their parents are equally proud.

No, they have not necessarily accomplished something better than their ancestors. Just because someone has a college degree, it does not make what they may accomplish "better" than their ancestors. In reality, most of our ancestors were far superior in accomplishing things of far greater importance to themselves, their families and others than those that got a college degree.

I think of many, many people that have accomplishments without a college degree, that make those college degrees look like just a piece of paper.

The arrogance of the "college educated" just might be the reason that those that are not college educated are finding unbearable!

My husband and myself both paid back our student loans, as we are responsible people. We have little use for the "college educated" that want to mooch off of people like ourselves, and those that went to work out of high school (not taking on debt).

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

How could you have so twisted around and misunderstood what I wrote?

No, as was clear to everyone but you, the vast majority of kids who were the first in their families to graduate from high school were male.

Which means, again to anyone else that understands education and education policy, that there were generations where the boys dropped out while the girls generally did not.

That still makes no sense. If a male student has a female relative who graduated from high school before he did, then the male student is not the first from his family to graduate from high school.

[TamaraSavannah]

Originally Posted by AnywhereElse

........So, how many jobs are there in the world for people that graduate with a degree in "liberal arts"? These are the most likely people to be whining about not finding a job. If they were not smart enough to choose a field where they could get a job.............
.........

Depends on how they apply themselves, I suppose.



One of my girl friends, a double major in English and French, ended up first doing logistics for USMC aviation.....she's now working for he VA with a PhD in psychology.

[redguard57]

I'd like to know SPECIFIC examples of degrees being "useless." Such as, do you know anyone who got a degree and LITERALLY never used it.

I worked plenty of service and retail jobs. A lot of my former co-workers were IN college, but EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. moved up to management or moved on to other jobs when they graduated. I talked to my Uber driver just today. Bounced around a lot of jobs. No degree. I frequent coffee shops all the time & talk to the baristas. Again, a lot of them IN school and some taking their sweet time toward finishing, but very few graduates. The job I helped pay for college with was Wal-Mart, and when my store management learned that I had earned my degree, they practically ordered me to apply for salaried management, where, once you get past the first tier, you make pretty good money. I would be making about double my salary now had I just stuck with WM. I'd be nearly 20 years in and would surely be co-manager or store manager by now, and they can make 150-200k.

I talk to service people all the time. The ONE bartender I talked to that revealed he had a degree was in psychology, but he was happy as a bartender. He wasn't trying to get other jobs. He admitted though, that he didn't really try to put his degree to work. Another friend of mine has an anthropology degree but she CHOSE not to use it because of family obligations. Now she has a job that requires a degree & pays mediocre but it is more because of her constrained options foisted on her by family.

My experience is that your degree doesn't matter to jobs at practically any time in your life. Even when I was FIRST on the job market, all the degree meant was that I had completed a program. My first interviews post college asked about what JOBS I held while in school. They didn't seem to care about the degree except to the extent it checked a box.

It seems to me there's this mythical gender studies major that never learned to do anything useful & works in low end service for the rest of their lives. I have never actually met a person that fits that stereotype.

I have a pretty good test case of the value of "useless" degrees since I have 3 of them. The 1st time I was very focused on a specific city and jobs that were honestly higher responsibility than my background justified. I didn't get what I wanted and was frustrated. The 2nd time I went on the job market I literally applied for hundreds of different types of jobs across the entire country. 205 apps, across 27 states randomly everywhere. I still have the spreadsheet where I tracked them.

I was open to any job that paid me a professional salary and offered growth potential although I did have a preference for field and job type. This was during the recession in 2011-12. Basically I got about 1/10 call-backs to my apps, and there really wasn't a rhyme or reason behind what type of job field called me back. Some were ones that I wouldn't have expected at all & I didn't even think I was qualified for but took a shot. I would tailor each app; they would take me hours each. I spent about 6 months working on the whole search process.

[sheena12]

One of my sisters has a degree in Liberal Arts. No designated major, she couldn't make up her mind. She has a high paying position at Sephora in NYC, which she loves.

Requirement for the interview was "a degree in the liberal arts, art, or social sciences" along with "excellent written and verbal communication skills".

Make fun all you want. She bought herself a BMW - 330 series for her birthday in August.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by redguard57

I'd like to know SPECIFIC examples of degrees being "useless." Such as, do you know anyone who got a degree and LITERALLY never used it.

Yes, my wife. She has a PhD in political science and was literally never able to get a job. So I’m stuck paying her student loans. She applied to everything from professorships down to menial retail jobs. The colleges all said she was underqualified. And everyone else said she was overqualified.

[gf2020]

Over 40% of the US adult population has a college degree. I don't believe for a moment that there is an aversion to college education.

[TamaraSavannah]

I recall the president of our psychology honor society coming back to talk to us after graduation and she was working in Sales because......she knew how to talk to people, to get them to buy. Where does this insistence come from that if you aren't working in your degree then it is useless as oppose to using your degree to work?

[Babe_Ruth]

Originally Posted by sheena12

Well, they HAVE accomplished something better.. They do have a right to gloat. Most of their parents are equally proud.

Sheena, hi.. if you're still in this thread, I'm curious to hear you elaborate on your thought. I stated why I don't think a kid getting a college degree (while taking off all summer, often living off Pell grants, then being supplementally supported by parents in to their 20s, etc) is a more laudable achievement than a young person who doesn't attend college and goes straight to supporting themselves, and participating in the workforce etc.

Your opinion, by what metric is a frat guy doing something "better" than a young person who is not pursuing a college degree, but is already plying a trade, serving in the military, etc?
The only explanation I've ever heard of why attending college is "better", is that it increases someone's earning potential. Which signals to me that the celebration of college is fundamentally about material greed. It's not really about intellectualism, which can and does exist without college credentials..

[Igor Blevin]

I hope I don't derail the thread here, but I am going to make a personal observation -- just an anecdote -- that may not mean anything, but...

It is mostly the non-college educated among the people I know, who believe in what I consider to be outlandish and non-sensical "conspiracy theories". This includes things like...

- We never landed on the moon. It was faked by shooting on a Hollywood set.
- 9/11 was in inside job by the US government to pass the Patriot Act.
- "Q Anon" is real (some top intelligence officer leaking political secrets.)
- Strong factual belief that UFOs are ETs and the evidence is hidden at Area 51.

This also goes on to a higher likelihood of belief in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and ghosts.

Just a personal observation.

This, as opposed to hard factual data such as, college educated people are less likely to smoke than non-college educated. That are more likely to wear their car seat belts. Just two quick examples of how a greater body of the non-college educated are either less informed or less motivated to reduce risky behavior that is dangerous to life and health.