Posted on 05/30/2016 9:19:41 AM PDT by Lorianne
I can believe that, so long as one focuses on the classics...at the same time, how was one with such an education expected to get a job? (Seriously.)
It was forced by an early 70s SCOTUS decision, Griggs v. Duke Power. As you described, “testing” by potential employers was declared ‘discriminatory’.
Which leads to greater wage depression among non-college graduates, because there is preference for the degree holders even when it is irrelevant to the job.
Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame is pointing this out. There are millions of skilled trade positions that are unfilled, which illegals without skills can’t do and college graduates don’t know how to do.
And all these people who flunked out of college should have been trained to do, while the employers often offer to pay for the training to get new people into them, from diesel mechanic to CNC machine programmer. Semiconductor manufacturing, for example, is a one year training program.
“The prime of life, when you should be learning valuable skills—learning how to talk to people, negotiate, communicate, get along with difficult people, etc. Wasted as he sits inside on the internet and playing video games.
It’s unbelievable that parents would enable this.”
You might be surprised how a parent can subtly impose this mindset over time. Most parents want to help their children succeed and become independent...others see them as a resource to be exploited for their own ends, unwittingly or otherwise. Sad, but true...I’ve seen it happen several times.
Yep, it’s called credentialism and it has run amok.
Like you said, even a bachelor’s degree doesn’t mean anything anymore, it’s little better than a high school diploma. Experience and motivation means little.
The good thing is that all this is not sustainable so it will come to an end, but not before a lot of people are hurt.
After you studied the classics, then you can go to law school or you can go ahead and get a doctorate and become a professor in college.
Or back in the days, you came home to take over the family business after a "top notch" college education.
You have certainly identified the trend we see in the economy. Most of the “old school” way of managing things, especially any R&D work, has now gone towards the Scrum -Agile methodology of working. You have Sprint cycles of 2-3 weeks where teams of people, ideally with the right mix of skills/experience, try to work to efficiently turn the ideas of the business into profitable improvements in products/processes. On average those enterprises that do this successfully will thrive while those that don’t will not. The Information Technology industry seems to have been leading the way on this as so many of the ways that enterprises can improve their products/processes is through software development/maintenance work. However we’re seeing it brought into other disciplines too. Why? Because its simply more efficient/profitable, especially where the world is full of laws/regulations that make it very expensive and risky for companies to hire “lemon” employees.
Another important thing for people to remember is that the middle managers running the enterprises (i.e. in-house managers - including in HR & Accounting) are best off in making sure that they define the roles & manage staffing so that people are more interchangeable. That way they can’t be held hostage by any employee that demands a pay raise. And more importantly, they can make sure that if someone does leave that whatever they were working on can be transitioned to others without excessive loss. In addition, these “middle managers” themselves are in process roles that are interchangeable. Thus the only ones who really are “mission critical” are the “owners”. And who are they? Typically they are either the entrepreneur who came up with the brilliant big ideas in the first place that have resulted in the enterprise or they are some proxy for investors.
The problem with universities is that they haven’t adapted well to the way the global economy has changed. Their benefactors (i.e. federal government, state/local governments, endowments, student loan programs, etc) are harming their ability to adapt by shielding them from reality. They don’t seem to really well understand that the Agile-Scum has changed things. They don’t seem to really well understand how its so easy for the rest of the world (particularly India/China) to produce the needed skills/experience in young workers to get them started on success at much lower costs than they can. And for obviously self-serving reasons they are fighting the reality that so many ivy towers and sacred cows in their institutions really don’t have any economic value anymore. For examples on this you can probably just look down the list of most tenured liberal arts professor positions.
The streaming system of Europe doesn’t exactly deliver that way. It all but mandates a way of life based on what number you got on an exam, with very little room for movement.
The European (and similar) systems trade cost for rigidity. Being one number off shunts you to an ill-prepared track, while being inordinately lucky to pass by hair does the same. This is the system that we would get if Sanders were to have his way.
The US system gives institutions more independence for admissions and funding.
Abuse of guest worker programs.
The ironic part is that there’s no problem training non-citizens while asking citizens to be perfectly competent individuals.
Guys in the trades have told me that braceros are hired for jobs for which they have no training or experience; they learn (somewhat) on the job and the only Americans wanted by the companies are those that will train & supervise them.
I like Mike Rowe’s show but the reality is nobody is going to invest time & money if somebody will be trafficked here to do the jobs instead. Our young people learn this quickly, so our colleges recruit overseas instead...
Depends what type. Video game software and hardware design? Or, agriculture and bridge design?
“When do I start and how much pay and vacation time do I get?”
There’s an apron in the back. You are getting 7.25 an hour. I’ll toss in another 50 cents an hour to help pay for your degree, but you must work on both May Day and Labor Day.
Excellent point.
Of course, white collar types don’t normally face that issue but are in danger of being replaced by new talent. Anyone that’s unemployed starting around 50 has a hard time finding work.
I guess I shouldn’t hold out for $250k, stock options and 8 weeks paid vacation my first year, amiright?
“I guess I shouldn’t hold out for $250k, stock options and 8 weeks paid vacation my first year, amiright?”
I wouldn’t hire you because you didn’t go big enough. What about the Escalade and first class travel when you are on the road? The fact you left these things out means I cannot trust you will be able to negotiate with your counterparts.
Sorry. Starbucks is hiring.
I didn’t say that stuff because it was implied. I wouldn’t want to work for someone who can’t see the forest for the trees.
:)
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