Posted on 09/11/2011 12:13:03 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
More and more Americans are going to college, but that doesn’t mean they’re learning valuable skills or improving the economy. Professor X on the ridiculous premium placed on a B.A. in this country.
Is there really such a thing as a "college premium," the increase in earnings over a lifetime that one can expect to get with a college degree?
A recent report, “The College Payoff,” examines the data and not surprisingly answers the question resoundingly in the affirmative. I say "not surprisingly" because the study was sponsored by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. What possible economic interest could the folks at Georgetown University have in promoting ever-increasing levels of college attendance? As the authors tell us in their introduction, they "are honored to be partners in [the] mission of promoting postsecondary access and completion for all Americans."
They might have wanted to tag this statement with a big SPOILER ALERT. This study couldn't have turned out any other way.
"The data are clear: a college degree is key to economic opportunity," the report concludes, "conferring substantially higher earnings on those with credentials than those without."
Some of what the report reveals is obvious. Workers who never finish high school often don't make all that much money. Workers with professional or graduate degrees sometimes make a boatload of it. It's good to be a doctor or a lawyer. And as for the vast swath of jobs in the middle, the ones between janitor and cardiologist, workers with a bachelor's degree will indeed earn more than their less-educated counterparts. A human-resources manager who has not attended college can expect to earn $1.9 million over the course of a working lifetime; throw in a four-year degree, and the figure increases by a cool million. A food-service manager can expect to take home $1.2 million in a 40-year work life; that same manager with a bachelor's can pull in $1.8 million. A college sheepskin will boost the figure for a paralegal or legal assistant from $1.7 million to $2 million, or about $7,500 a year, figuring an employment span of 40 years.
OK, so the college premium exists. That doesn't make it necessary or right.
What the study reveals inadvertently is most interesting: just how many positions are currently being filled by those who never made it past high school.
Some numbers will come as no surprise: 71 percent of janitors have only high-school degrees. Fully three quarters of all pest-control and grounds-maintenance workers are in the same situation. A little more than half of barbers and cosmetologists have a high-school diploma or less; the same holds true for 67 percent of tobacco-roasting-machine operators.
But did you know that 11 percent of "chief executives and legislators"—the study's categorization—have been only to high school? The figure jumps to 23 percent with an associate's degree or less. Eighteen percent of general and operations managers never attended college. Education administrators—now that might seem a highly educated group, but 5 percent have seen no reason to pass through the gates of higher education, and 14 percent have only some college. Claims adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and investigators—18 percent haven't gone beyond high school, and twice that don't have a four-year college degree. Fourteen percent of advertising salespersons went to high school and then called it quits. High school only: electrical and electronics engineers, 4 percent; industrial engineers, 8 percent.
ome of these percentages might not be large, but their very existence demonstrates the fact that those without college, or without a completed college degree, can probably do their jobs just fine.
American colleges would have us believe that the skills they purport to teach, the critical thinking and higher levels of reasoning and all that, are crucial to competent performance in the workplace. This is baloney, less a line of reasoning than a sales pitch rooted in academic snobbery—a naked appeal to our intellectual insecurities.
Do we want to extend the argument, and say that those lacking a Bachelor's degree are the absolute worst at their jobs? Twelve percent of financial managers have only a high-school education—are they the ones who plunged the country into the recession we can't seem to climb out of? Perhaps the 14 percent of human-resource managers who didn’t go to college are the ones who are keeping our unemployment rate hovering at 10 percent. The 4 percent of miscellaneous engineers, including nuclear engineers, who didn't get past high school—did we dispatch a delegation of those Homer Simpson-like nincompoops to help set up the safety systems for Tokyo's nuclear reactors? I guess we should blame the bottom 8 percent of securities, commodities, and financial-services sales agents for designing all those toxic-mortgage instruments.
The surgeon and the rocket scientist require specialized training, but most occupations are not brain surgery and not rocket science. The students I teach as an adjunct are pointed toward midlevel careers. If not for America’s lopsided love affair with higher education, none of my students would really require the B.A or B.S. degrees toward which they labor painfully. High-school literacy math skills would be quite sufficient. Four years of college are, for them, a waste of time and an economic burden. According to the latest figures from The Project on Student Debt, it’s fair to assume that more than 60 percent of them will graduate with student loans, and those debts will average about 25 grand.
The college premium exists, unfortunately, but it's an artificial construct. Colleges have inserted themselves squarely in the occupational world. Industry and academia march hand in hand to a song of credential inflation: young people who aspire to working at anything beyond fast-food assembly won’t get a look without the college diploma. Most B.A. degrees say little to employers in terms of specific skills; they are a marker, like a hand stamp that gains one entrance to a nightclub. They point to little more than a willingness to pay college tuition and complete degree requirements. Those lacking higher education find themselves ineligible for promotion, herded to lesser career tracks.
There are more college graduates in the United States than ever before. Are things running noticeably more smoothly?
A firefighter with a college degree can expect to earn, in his lifetime, $600,000 more than his counterparts without. When my house is burning down, when I'm trapped on an upper floor, I want simply the best firefighter to come to my aid. I want someone brave and true and skilled in the art of rescue. I have no interest in reading his research paper on Maslow's Hierarchy or his final exam comparing To His Coy Mistress and My Last Duchess.
“The truth is, however, that many employers require a bachelor’s degree, at the least. They see it as a sign that the applicant for a job has some ability to stick to a task for four or five years. If you want a job that’s indoors, clean, safe, at a desk, you need to have a degree.”
If that is the case, then the solution is to go to the school closest to home, and simply pick up the easiest degree to get. That is not terribly expensive, and at the end you have a BA job ticket.
The only reason to go anywhere else is if the knowledge imparted by the degree is critical to your success in a profession. And by that I mean the true professions — medicine, engineering and (maybe) law. Most of the rest of the careers that are touted as “professions” — including things like journalism and teaching — are gussied up trades that you can learn the basics of in six months, and that have 3-1/2 years of fluff added to make up a four-year degree. (Yes, even teaching. The armed forces train an instructor in six months. It may take long to master the subject you teach, but BA in Education is not about mastering the subject. It is about mastering the art of teaching.)
A BA in anything isn’t worth going $100,000 into debt for, and damn few BS degrees are worth going into debt for. I’ve told my kids do not borrow more for education than you expect for a first-year starting salary. My oldest two did just that, and my youngest is on track to do the same.
“Ramped-up education and creeping credentializing requirements are rampant. How do you land jobs when you have to have a license and certification for even blue collar work these days (think plumbing, electrics, barbering, etc.)? How do smaller towns and institutions fill slots requiring this crap when they must hire at above-average wages to fill slots with such folks to begin with?!?!”
I personally don’t see the rationale for states requiring a teaching certificate to teach. I have a 4 year degree in my subject. I’m perfectly able to do the job, but the credentials say no.
“Yes, even teaching. The armed forces train an instructor in six months. It may take long to master the subject you teach, but BA in Education is not about mastering the subject. It is about mastering the art of teaching”
I don’t really see the point of an ed degree. I can take an actual subject and learn something and still teach.
That's the problem. You often need a degree even when the job doesn't require it. It's probably due to a combination of lowered high school standards and the advent of corporate H.R. cover-your-ass-never-take-a-chance hiring policies.
Too bad. It's creating a lot of wasted effort and money.
An education degree teaches you the skills you need to cram a lifetime of liberal claptrap into a skull full of mush in a limited time frame all while removing pesky morals and family values.
Liberals want the government to decide in public schools the track for each child - college, career training, etc. They want the workforce quotaized and centrally controlled and planned.
So although it is true that Americans are paying too much for college degrees, Liberals will take the football and run with that problem to hell, if given the chance.
Yep there are problems with universities. Mostly because the liberals control them.
How can a conservative support the govt preventing people from going to college because too many people get degrees?
If fewer Americans go to college then more foreigners will take their spots.
That is fine with the citizens of the world squatting in leadership positions here.
No way would I support that! But it is what socialsits want the power to do. Imagine socialists having the power to decide who gets to go to college and who will dig ditches based on State (voting), race, sex, and religion. They would make Texas the ditch diggers of the globe.
I knew this when I joined the USN at 17!
Exception for grads in hard sciences. (real science)
Never stopped me. I've had many jobs that required a BA--not preferred, required. I applied anyway, and if I got an interview, I had a good chance of closing the deal.
People want someone who can communicate effectively, who has get up and go. That's why I'm not scared of any economy. I don't care if unemployment goes to 20%, I'll be fine, because I'll outperform someone in that 80% of employed people.
If you can communicate, if you can sell, if you can hustle, you can find a job. I've always ignored the job requirements. I just want to get to the interview, then I'm golden. These people who don't apply because they don't have all the listed requirements are passive and set to fail. Make THEM reject you. Never reject yourself.
We knew you were a hustling BS artist from your posts here. No need to confirm the obvious...
Bitter badgers, ankle biters, and excuse makers wouldn't understand.
My advice is go for what you want. Don't let anything hold you back. Never rule yourself out.
But Mencken, having more drive than the average drone, kept working his day job, and showed up at the newspaper office asking for an assignment everyday for six weeks. That's right, for six weeks in a row.
Finally, he was given an assignment, and went on to be a legend of American letters. THAT is hustle. And no, Mencken did not go to college.
So stuff it, loser.
Its faker dweezles like you that can make the work environment real "interesting". We usually can spot the climber/fakers like you real quick.
Brag all you want, jerk.
A number of years ago I was executive director of a rather small but technically important agency. Several times when we went searching for only one employee I ran into young people and a few older ones interviewing for the job who seemed to be very apologetic for their education and experience. In most cases when I sensed this I would tell them never to downplay themselves as to all they had to offer even if we could not find employment at the moment. In one case I chose a young man who admitted to prior drug usage. However he had qualities that seemed to want to bust out to do excellent work. I gave him the same speech at the interview. He gave me tremendous effort for over 15 years and continued for many years after I left.
That explains it. Yer wittle ego got hurt. LOL.
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