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A post-secondary diploma (college degree) increases the probability of better earnings potential for the average person, but it is not necessary.
A post-secondary anything - degree, certificate, apprenticeship, what have you - increases the probability of better earnings potential for the average person.
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Originally Posted by Crazee Cat Lady
Although, now looking back I don't think getting a better education is ever really wasted.
(Except for maybe art majors!)<And maybe sometimes not even then!
This, a thousand times over. And those art majors - a college housemate with an art degree is now the a senior vice president at a major insurance company, directing the art departments for the entire firm. Art majors do more than sit around and paint!
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Originally Posted by roodd279
STEM teaches you how to "think" - where to find info - how to do analysis - and the fundamental building blocks of many, many things in the hope that ONE of those things will ultimately be your field.
All college degrees, by definition, teach those skills. My degree - so old it's about to crumble into dust, LOL - is in journalism, and with that came requirements for credits in philosophy, psychology, economics, political science, accounting, and science. Each one of those subject areas teaches critical thinking, analysis, research, and real-world applications. I used those skills specifically in journalism for 17 years, and then translated those skills into nonprofit management.
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Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
The people who are able to make more money than some college grads without attending college are believed to be outliers, not a credible and sizable cohort.
In the same field, yes. But I'm pretty sure my plumber makes more than I do.
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And high schools aren't preparing people for skilled occupations. The auto industry, for example, these days requires applicants for assembly line jobs to have some basic computer-based engineering skills, but our HS grads don't have that. It's the 2-year community colleges that offer that, and many don't.
That's expensive equipment most public tech high schools can't afford; I would wager many community colleges can't afford them, either.
It seems that fewer Americans believe college is essential. Story today in the WaPo has this to say.
That's the views of a university president, a former Army officer who led troops. The underlined words are my doing, i.e., education provides unquantifiable benefits to our society, but benefits just the same.
I'd just say.. Until that's the view of hiring managers.. His view really doesn't amount to meaning much. While I respect what he has to say.. He's not in a position to really do much of anything about it.
I'm sure, for those of us here who are in the IT field.. We've probably run across something astoundingly stupid before so far as requirements for a job applicant.
There was a story a while back about a guy who wrote a programming language.. I don't recall what it was, but 3 years after he released it.. He came across a job posting with a requirement that someone have 10 years experience with that programming language.
The one that had only existed for 3 years.
This.. Of course, leads to another problem. People who know NOTHING about the job doing the hiring for the job. But.. I digress.
I'd just say.. Until that's the view of hiring managers.. His view really doesn't amount to meaning much. While I respect what he has to say.. He's not in a position to really do much of anything about it.
I'm sure, for those of us here who are in the IT field.. We've probably run across something astoundingly stupid before so far as requirements for a job applicant.
There was a story a while back about a guy who wrote a programming language.. I don't recall what it was, but 3 years after he released it.. He came across a job posting with a requirement that someone have 10 years experience with that programming language.
The one that had only existed for 3 years.
This.. Of course, leads to another problem. People who know NOTHING about the job doing the hiring for the job. But.. I digress.
This is probably because there is a disconnect between HR and hiring managers. My wife got a verbal offer last week for a dream job and though she spoke with the hiring manager and several others in the chain of command, HR didn't get her official offer letter over an entire week after. This despite having some pretty rigid deadlines for putting in her notice (and they knew this--same industry). I've worked with HR quite a bit throughout my career. Some are okay, fairly knowledgable. But I don't know how many others found their way into that line of work. They don't seem to have a good grasp of the roles they are recruiting for, industry standards, talent pools, etc.
Today's NY Times carries an article that 20% of China's youth are unemployed and the nation is about to graduate 12M college students this month to add to the pool of workers.
Excerpts:
- "While the industries that attract educated young people are shrinking, the number of college graduates has been increasing. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, 11.6 million college students are expected to graduate in June, an increase of 820,000 from last year."
- "One problem, analysts said, is a mismatch between the jobs that college graduates want and the jobs that are available. In March, listings for jobs in tourism and in passenger and cargo transportation grew the fastest, according to Zhilian, a Chinese job search site. Another sector with many available jobs is retail."
So, we aren't the only nation with too many college grads and too few jobs for them while both nations have lots of non-college jobs that need people to do the work and use migrant workers to do the work.
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In the same field, yes. But I'm pretty sure my plumber makes more than I do.
That's why I said "are believed to be" outliers. The "conventional wisdom" in that regard may be out of step with reality, but the media line (like many employers' requirements) is in favor of college degrees.
I look forward to hearing from the OP again, who hopefully would contribute info about how things work in Oz/NZ. We're 8 pages in, at this point.
While certain professions do require advanced university education, like lawyer, doctor, accountant, investment banker...etc, most degree holders are doing low level paper pushing and admin type work.
40 yrs ago for example, the JD at a law firm obviously needed to be just as educated as he is today, but back then the paralegal and secretary likely werent college educated. Those jobs now usually require a degree, especially in bigger cities.
While certain professions do require advanced university education, like lawyer, doctor, accountant, investment banker...etc, most degree holders are doing low level paper pushing and admin type work.
40 yrs ago for example, the JD at a law firm obviously needed to be just as educated as he is today, but back then the paralegal and secretary likely werent college educated. Those jobs now usually require a degree, especially in bigger cities.
I noticed this as well. Becoming a principal now requires a doctorate instead of a master's degree. Police officers now must hold a bachelor degree. Dental hygienist now need bachelor degree. Once advanced education became the expected norm and college easier to finance, the bar was raised.
OP never returned to the thread after the opening post. We'll never find out how things work in Australia/NZ, I guess. Too bad. I was curious, since the OP suggested a comparison, but never elaborated.
What scares the beejeezus out of me is articles like this one yesterday, along the lines of no matter what our nation needs all those Chinese STEM majors as we can't seem to get enough of our own citizens to get a real education.
" ... frenzied concern about Chinese influence threatens America’s ability to attract the top talent it needs to maintain global leadership in science and higher education."
" ... The damage caused by the Department of Justice’s now-disbanded China Initiative still reverberates. Designed to counter economic espionage and national security threats from China, it resulted — in some cases — in researchers and academics of Chinese descent being placed under house arrest or taken away in handcuffs on charges of hiding ties to China, cases that ended in acquittal or were later dropped."
" ... The program resulted in few prosecutions before being shut down last year. But it upended lives and careers, and created an atmosphere of fear. Some ethnic Chinese scientists disproportionately feel that their ethnicity and connections to China inhibit their professional progress and their chances of obtaining — and willingness to apply for — research funding in the United States. A survey of scientists of Chinese descent at American universities released last year found that significant percentages of respondents felt unwelcome in the United States, with 86% saying the current climate makes it more difficult for the United States to attract top international students than it was five years ago."
The NY Times article links to this Associated Press story: "New China committee debuts, warns of existential struggle." (open source, click on link)
Key excerpt:
"A special House committee dedicated to countering China began its work Tuesday with a prime-time hearing in which the panel’s chairman called on lawmakers to act with urgency and framed the competition between the U.S. and China as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”"
This existential struggle is not so much about just "the science" itself but just which nation is going to be king of the hill and be the dominant nation in the world with all this science. The xenophobia of the prior federal administration has caused significant degradation in our ability to attract and retain top talent.
Still, it bothers me that we don't seem able to grow our own talent, in a nation of 330M people.
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One thing I have always heard perpetuated by Americans on social media, In the media itself since I was a kid was that you need to go to College to not end up impoverished....
Is the College obsession in the US really a thing or just something we see In the media? It's just something I'm alien to and wanted to see if it's actually a thing.
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Originally Posted by Ice_Major
In modern times, degrees have become a way for employers to filter the applicant pool. It's easier to find an individual with a certain level of aptitude, drive, and discipline from a college educated pool than the general population. Besides these traits led these individuals to pursue a college education which is time consuming and expensive.
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Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
A post-secondary anything - degree, certificate, apprenticeship, what have you - increases the probability of better earnings potential for the average person.
At this point, I'm not certain that Americans are fully in favor or supportive of a college education. I would favor a complete overhaul of the education system k-12 and beyond, but that is not the point of this thread.
Several other points...
My perception and opinion is that often times real education is wasted on the young. They are mostly socialized and tamed and learn basics in k-12. I think our present social and cultural condition has the effect of delaying maturity, certainly when compared to earlier times.
We have a sizeable portion of students, and parents, who don't even value education enough to complete HS. Generations earlier that was okay -- not now.
Some complete HS and stop -- and manage to find work, maybe they join the military and gain training. The military will usually lead to an accelerated maturity in most but might not always lead to a civilian job.
A post-HS education with a community college certificate or AA degree will provide training and some discipline. It will often be sufficient for successful gainful employment. A lot of students could stop there.
In a four-year college situation, the progress is different. There are a couple years of more advanced classes in "the liberal arts": writing, math, logic, etc. adding to the basics acquired in HS but offering some proficiency in communication, writing/presentation skills, problem solving and maybe a consumer's knowledge of math and statistics. That leads to independent and critical thinking skills. That is followed or accompanied by more specialized or detailed chosen field. That will lead to a career. Some fields will require a post-graduate education degree (medicine, law, librarian, public or business administration, etc.).
When an employer requires a college degree, they might not care too much about the major in many cases. It implies that the candidate has some level of discipline, communication, problem solving, writing and thinking skills. Certain jobs will require specialized training. Some will require a graduate degree.
I'm not convinced that one's earning potential is automatically advanced with a college degree. A skilled trades worker in high demand might earn as much or more. I do think that as a nation, we need educated citizens with critical and independent thinking skills and the ability to discern truth from fiction and the reliability of sources. I don't think HS students are getting that in the vast majority of cases. We need citizens who are civically aware and willing to participate at a reasoned level.
The cost of a college degree, and the debt that comes with it, is a national disgrace. My state recently initiated free public tuition for instate residents -- but there are other expenses: books, housing living expenses. I think there are other states that do the same. I don't see why a student would pass that up to go to some high-priced private or ivy-league school without a full scholarship and accrue crippling debt.
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