[Political Junkie Too]

Here is the most recent post of my boilerplate on universities.

---

Because colleges today are putting out a product that nobody wants. They are producing buggy whips.

I wrote this piece in 2020 from the perspective of college graduates not being able to pay off their expensive university degrees.

---

I believe the problem is that universities are putting out a product that there is no demand for.

I believe it's a three-fold issue.

1. The job market isn't paying the salaries.
2. The students aren't pursuing the marketable degrees.
3. The universities are cranking out graduates without regard to whether the job market is there for the graduates. In other words, they are graduating buggy whips.

The causes for #1 are two-fold:

1. The jobs are being off-shored to lower-cost geographies.
2. The cheaper workers are being imported via H-1B visas and are displacing our graduates.

The causes for #2 are two-fold:

1. The students are choosing social-justice degrees with no anchoring in reality.
2. The K-12 schools are socially promoting students who either aren't ready for college or are better suited to trade studies.

The causes for #3 are two-fold:

1. The students have been socially indoctrinated to believe the only way to succeed is with a college degree, so everyone must now go to college.
2. The change to government-sponsored student loans has made it easy for universities to pad their enrollments in order to get the funding to sustain their tenures and research programs.

I believe that if there is a market balance between supply and demand then the price paid will equal the cost plus profit. If the universities were balancing the supply of graduates with the demand for graduates, this would mean that the graduates were being paid a salary that allowed them to pay off their loans plus their living expenses.

The fact is that the university degree market is completely unbalanced and out of whack. Young students may be making good decisions to pursue a degree, but many are too uninformed at that age to understand that the universities are glutting the market right now. The universities have built up a capital investment in professors and manufactured an inventory of graduates that can't be sold.

The university result will eventually be the same as a business selling unwanted products: their inventory of unsold graduates will lose their value (in terms of alumni donations, university brand reputation, etc.), and the university might eventually go out of business if they can't get new student enrollments because the word is out that their graduates are unemployable.

Is all of this the fault of the student loan scam? Is it the result of students making bad career decisions? Is it the fault of businesses that are looking for cheaper workers or exporting jobs? Is it the fault of universities hungry for students flush with loan cash that they keep taking them in regardless of the ability of the job market to absorb the graduates?

---

---

This was written before the avalanche of "wokeism" has overthrown free speech and exposure to new ideas on our college campuses (it was starting, but not the frenzy it is now). It's a sad state that today's students think they know better than the professors.

-PJ

[Carl Vehse]

"In other words, they are graduating buggy whips."

They graduating "morlocks and eloi".

[SauronOfMordor]

I think one MAJOR issue is that a college diploma is no longer a guarantee that the graduate can read, write, and express himself clearly at what used to be regarded as college level.

Employers won’t pay for crap merchandise.

[Tired of Taxes]

I would add that many students go to college for the social experience. So, they accept the loans and grants, and they choose any major that interests them.

Here’s what I’d like to see happen:

(1) End the system of Federal Student Aid (both grants and loans) offered to students of any major.

(2) Replace it with a system of scholarships for STEM majors only.

(3) Allow low-cost community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in other majors. *

This way, more students would consider STEM majors. Those who do not could earn degrees at lower-cost commuter colleges. The universities could offer non-STEM majors, too, but the federal government would not fund those degrees.

* Many university professors also teach at community college. The only reason community colleges are limited to associate degrees is that universities have lobbied hard to stop them from offering higher degrees.