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Does America Need More BA Degrees?

Posted on 07/29/2016 8:05:55 AM PDT by pinochet

If you were to give career advice to a high school student of average intellectual ability (he is not going to medical or engineering school), what kind of advice would it be?

We have a shortage of well-trained car mechanics, plumbers, electricians, painters, roofers, and the like. But we have all these BA graduates walking around jobless.


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: badegrees; jobs; skills
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To: Buckeye McFrog

A good x ray welder makes more than most drs today


21 posted on 07/29/2016 8:17:00 AM PDT by al baby (Hi Mom)
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To: lafroste

I know a guy who is a tree trimmer that made $30,000 in one month. Also a guy who made $1200 a DAY hauling hay during the season for several months.. Let those educated idiots sneer at them all they want. They have no clue what real work is. They can look down at those red necks all they want but I know whose wallets are packed and whose aren’t.


22 posted on 07/29/2016 8:18:32 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: pinochet

Back in my HS in 88 we had all the shop classes, I tool all of them. I was never good in math, sadly. I would have liked to have been an Engineer, but just couldnt do the work. I was always good at fixing things though. I work for an airline now as a mech and make a very good living with great benefits. Is it my dream job? no, but in 10 more years I will have worked here 33 years and be 52. Time to get out of here and move back out west...


23 posted on 07/29/2016 8:18:44 AM PDT by wyowolf (Be ware when the preachers take over the Republican party...)
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To: pinochet

Learn a skill or trace that someone is willing to pay you to apply. That’s what a BA used to do, but no longer in many fields. Get a job, then if you feel undereducated, enroll in an online degree program.

The four years of partying and “life experience” gained at college is a luxury most can no longer afford, and will never be offset after 4+ years living in mom’s basement without a job.


24 posted on 07/29/2016 8:19:27 AM PDT by bigbob (The Hillary indictment will have to come from us.)
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To: pinochet

Respiratory therapists, dental hygienists, medical technologists, many more with an AA degree. Good pay and benefits with a fraction of the student loan debt from a four year ultra-lib arts college. I know these jobs are not for everyone but as my dad used to say, “Put food on the table while you’re looking for that ‘fulfilling career’.”


25 posted on 07/29/2016 8:20:25 AM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: pinochet
He could get into politics like Bernie did.


Sanders being arrested at a 1963 anti-segregation protest in Chicago. He was later found guilty of resisting arrest and charged $25.

Sure he went to University of Chicago where he earned a degree in social work.

Never a shortage of politicians, and 90% of the time they do not have to even be very good!!!

26 posted on 07/29/2016 8:20:38 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: jsanders2001
Popsical stick pallet coasters saw this the other day
27 posted on 07/29/2016 8:21:09 AM PDT by al baby (Hi Mom)
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To: pinochet
To answer the question in the title: No, America doesn't need more BA degrees. Business, math, engineering and science degrees are what fuels innovation. Bachelor of Arts (BA) are useless with their myriad of worthless social studies.

Many youths are not capable of the technical degrees that have higher standards than a simple BA, so they should think of the many trade schools that provide good jobs. We see all the commercials on TV about trade schools and how they place their students into well-paying jobs.

28 posted on 07/29/2016 8:21:48 AM PDT by A Navy Vet (I'm not Islamophobic...I'm Islamonauseous. Plus LGBTQRSTUV...nauseous.)
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To: CaptainK

One is better off becoming an electrician or a lineman.(In my opinion)


29 posted on 07/29/2016 8:22:18 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: pinochet

“But we have all these BA graduates walking around jobless.”

This assumes that the unemployment among college graduates is higher than the non-graduates. Is that true?


30 posted on 07/29/2016 8:22:45 AM PDT by sagar
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To: Robert DeLong

Posting the photo of the burnie will have an opposite effect of what you are trying to convey. Protesting tyranny is NEVER wrong, even if done by burnie.


31 posted on 07/29/2016 8:24:21 AM PDT by sagar
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To: Snickering Hound
Science, Engineering, or Finance,

Add statistics, applied math to that list.

32 posted on 07/29/2016 8:24:59 AM PDT by ladyjane
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To: Borges
A lot of employers require an undergrad degree.

BINGO! There is the nub of the problem. Employers have drunk the Kool-Aid and now see a BA as the MINIMUM requirement to even get your foot in the door.

Is even worse when the company is large and resumes go thru the hands lf HR staff who themselves all have worthless BA degrees.

Is even worse if you went to an Ivy League school or other elite university. At that point competence or ability hardly even matter. They see that on your resume, they have their multiple orgasm, then they write you a check.

I agree. Employers are a HUGE part of the problem.


33 posted on 07/29/2016 8:25:58 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: ladyjane

I would remove most science degrees unless you want to get a PhD.


34 posted on 07/29/2016 8:26:54 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: A Navy Vet

“Business, math, engineering and science degrees are what fuels innovation. Bachelor of Arts (BA) are useless with their myriad of worthless social studies.”

Bingo! Earning a degree in STEM will almost guarantee you that you will have a good paying job. Unless you want dirty jobs, as somebody has to do it so don’t get me wrong, going into STEM means a white collar high paying stable job.


35 posted on 07/29/2016 8:27:39 AM PDT by sagar
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To: A Navy Vet

Problem today is that for every math, science or engineering grad we have at least ten Liberal Arts grads who have glommed onto Government jobs and who now regulate the math and science majors.

(full disclosure: I was a History major)


36 posted on 07/29/2016 8:28:08 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog

I believe that general aptitude tests are illegal. You can only test a job candidate for skills that directly related to the job they are being considered for. General aptitude tests were seen as an offshoot of ‘Literacy Tests’ that excluded black people from voting etc.


37 posted on 07/29/2016 8:28:10 AM PDT by Borges
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To: pinochet
Here's a century-old, interesting take from a guy who was friends with great industrialists and scholars and writer. Orison Swett Marden had a medical degree from Harvard as well as a law degree:

"Self-faith helps inferior men to accomplish results by eliminating fear, doubt, and uncertainty, the great enemies of most men’s achievement. The mind cannot act with vigor in the presence of doubt. Wavering in the mind makes wavering execution. There must be certainty, or there is no efficiency. The ignorant man who believes in himself, who has the faith that he can do the thing he undertakes, often puts to shame the college-bred man whose overculture and wider outlook have brought with increased sensitiveness a lessening of self-confidence, and whose decision is weakened by constant weighing of conflicting theories, whose prejudices are always open to conviction.

The ignorant man with great self-confidence, strong, vigorous self-assertion, lacks the finer sentiments, but is spared the finer suffering of a more sensitive, cultured mind. His brain powers have not been weakened by theories or by the knowledge of how much he does not know. He simply plunges ahead where a cultured man would hesitate.

The weakening of self-confidence, the development of timidity, is often an unfortunate result of a liberal education. I have known boys to enter college with unbounded confidence in what they could accomplish, with strong powers of self-assertion, who have been graduated with those qualities almost eliminated. They have been replaced by the gradual development of timidity, and a shrinking from positive statement of fact which seriously crippled the men’s executive faculties.

Great scholars are proverbially retiring, shrinking, timid natures, often lacking almost entirely the executive faculty. Their self-assertion has disappeared, giving place to self-effacement. Unassuming humbleness, patience, and tolerance are very desirable qualities in their right places, but very unfortunate when they are not subordinated to vigorous self-faith and an aggressive self-assertion. These lovable qualities make the scholar more companionable, but less practical and less successful. The aggressive, executive faculties should be preserved intact at all hazards, or the career will be cramped and limited."

(Every Man a King, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1906), pp. 155-156.

38 posted on 07/29/2016 8:28:42 AM PDT by AC Beach Patrol
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To: EEGator

“I would remove most science degrees unless you want to get a PhD.”

You can get BA in Physics (which requires a good math background) and be employed as a programmer. Or you can invest a couple of years more to get your PhD and become a data scientist, among other career choices.


39 posted on 07/29/2016 8:29:21 AM PDT by sagar
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To: pinochet

Yes. More science and engineering degrees.


40 posted on 07/29/2016 8:30:15 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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