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
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Degrees mean nothing anymore.
Too many people have a monetary interest in packing schools with people who are imminently unqualified to be there.
I think the millennial college grads just sunk the data regarding the success of college grads.
“They don’t call our boat mechanic ‘Thousand Dollar Bob’ for nothing. Thankfully I can do most of the work myself.”
So, we’re talking about big inboards, right? Not outboards?
Has the College for All crowd admitted that the first two years of college are now really the last two years of high school (to correct for the social promotes), and that college in the United States is being dumbed down as a result?
-PJ
“Thankfully, I’ve got a couple of GM big blocks on straight shafts. Very easy to work on with normal tools.”
I’m guessing it might be pretty cramped.
“My engines are located mid way, a lot of space for even my fat rear to work on.”
Man, you have the best of all worlds. Just don’t tell me you married a supermodel who is also a beer heiress.
People need to understand that higher education is Vocational. STEM degrees are vocational, so they pay well. Liberal arts degrees for the most part lack any utility, so they pay very little, and perhaps even less than no degree for those schools that are leftist indoctrination centers
Jersey Shore.Cape May County.
I like Cape May, but I don’t know if I could live in NJ again.
I moved back to PA. Kept the Jersey house as a summer place.
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