Posted on 01/25/2018 8:41:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
There has been mounting evidence that the financial payoff from the traditional bachelor’s degree is declining, particularly for men. For example, the Census Bureau data suggest that from 2005 to 2016, the average earnings differential for male workers holding bachelor’s degrees compared with those holding high school diplomas fell from $39,440 to $37,653 (in 2016 dollars)—at a time when college costs were rising.
Other evidence from the New York Federal Reserve Bank confirms that a large portion of college graduates are underemployed, working jobs traditionally held by high school graduates.
There are two interpretations of this data, one by the general American public and the second from the “College for All” crowd, the cheerleaders for higher education who believe the nation benefits from more students earning more degrees.
Turning to the first interpretation, in light of rising costs and at best stagnant benefits, more Americans are simply not going to universities. The National Student Clearinghouse reports enrollments are down for the sixth consecutive year, which is unprecedented in modern American history. Even during the Great Depression, enrollments grew.
The College for All interpretation is that the diminishing payoff to the bachelor’s degree means students need to get more degrees, specifically master’s degrees. Historically, a bachelor’s degree was a powerful and reliable signaling device, telling employers that the college-educated individual was almost certainly smarter, more knowledgeable, disciplined, ambitious, and harder-working than the average American. College graduates were special people — the best and the brightest, deserving a nice wage premium in labor markets.
But now that one-third of adult Americans have bachelor’s degrees, some college graduates have pretty ordinary levels of intelligence and the other positive attributes that employers like. The fact that American college students on average spend less than 30 hours weekly on academics for perhaps 30 weeks annually
(Excerpt) Read more at fee.org ...
I might add, I have never met as many dumb but book smart college grads as there are now. They have no common sense!
Yes, but attorneys are $300 to $400 per hour.
They start in pre med or engineering, or other productive majors then find they like to party and aren’t smart enough to compete with others that are and the switch to these worthless majors.
If we were talking about electrical engineering or chemistry...I’d be all in favor of this. The problem is....you end up with 90-percent of folks who have no interest in science, math or engineering.
It doesn’t seem to teach people to live responsibly either.
I don’t have a master’s degree, but multiple bachelor degrees in 5 different engineering fields keeps me employed and sought after.
Yup.
Masters in Philosophy. With that you can contemplate why you are a barista at Starbucks.
Compulsory education past eighth grade is a cancer destroying everything in its path.
Until non-students are gotten out of schools, nothing else matters.
This is all the result of the “equality of outcome” bunch completely misinterpreting a data set, in a classic correlation does not equal causation situation. Way back when, they looked at people who were more successful in their careers, and discovered that those people typically had at least a Bachelor’s degree. They immediately assumed that it was the presence of the degree that attracted more-lucrative job offers, rather than the capacities, abilities and skills necessary to acquire a degree back then. And thus began the great push to make a Bachelors accessible to all, on the presumption that this was all anyone needed to get a better job and a promising career.
And at first, it looked like it was working. People who had most of the capabilities, but maybe not the resources, to get those degrees were the first to benefit from the easier access to education, and they went on to do pretty well in the job market. Additionally, while there was a jump in the number of people who probably shouldn’t have been able to get a degree, those people got jobs too, because the employers still had the impression that a Bachelors was an indication that the person was pretty smart and capable.
The problem is that now, the employers are starting to figure out that a Bachelors degree isn’t the reliable indicator it once was. Additionally, the surplus of degrees had pretty much made it necessary to require a degree just to be qualified enough to apply for positions (because those who still couldn’t manage a degree even with the easier access were not generally going to be able to do the job). Add in a big cohort of kids who now just see a Bachelors as a checkbox on their way to a job, and so go for the least-rigorous program they can cobble together, and the value of the Bachelors is fading fast.
Masters aren’t Bachelors, and still have some clout. Not only do you have to be capable of more independent study, but a Masters is typically only useful within its discipline i.e. a Masters in Biology is essentially useless to someone trying for a senior information technology job. I don’t think Masters degrees will ever become the must-have that Bachelors degrees did, if only for that latter reason.
There are skilled welders who make more than most MBA’s out there.
Plumber buddy of mine makes more than most Doctor’s do.
I never thought companies valued MBA’s and I see it every day now. Skills and attitude are what propels forward these days and if you can sell, the sky is the limit.
Absolutely 100% agree!
“Where I live it will cost you $125.00 hr to get a boat motor worked on at the dealership and 185.00 hr if they come to you.HS diploma.”
Really? I have training in small engine repair. What area of the country is that?
As a father said to his son who was thinking of taking an advanced degree in philosophy, "What's the difference between a Ph.D. in Philosophy and a large pizza?"
(Answer: The pizza can feed a family of four.)
Love G&S. Great post.
This all stems from the courts and agencies declaring that any test which does not have an equal pass-rate by minorities, is racially discriminatory and therefore illegal. Thus businesses must choose education level as a proxy for intelligence and literacy.
If Trump caused this to be abolished, where employers could use results of standardized tests like the SAT and various subject-matter tests, then employers could recruit people straight out of high school, like they used to, and cause the entire Leftist academic establishment to collapse.
I think its telling that Mr. Gilbert was never knighted as Sir Arthur was. I don’t think that the swells of that era appreciated his sharp wit.
I was wondering about that.
Thank you!
I learned that song when i was in the 6th grade (1964) and it made a huge impression on me! :-)
Indeed.
His satire was very topical and acerbic!
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