Posted on 11/01/2018 10:42:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
* According to the survey Freelancing in America 2018, released Wednesday, 93 percent of college-educated freelancers say their skill training is more useful in the work they are doing now than their college training.
* Sixty-five percent of children entering primary school will end up in jobs that don't yet exist, reveals the World Economic Forum.
* The result is a proliferation of new, nontraditional education options.
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Twenty million students started college this fall, and this much is certain: The vast majority of them will be taking on debt — a lot of debt.
What's less certain is whether their degrees will pay off.
According to the survey Freelancing in America 2018, released Wednesday, freelancers put more value on skills training: 93 percent of freelancers with a four-year college degree say skills training was useful versus only 79 percent who say their college education was useful to the work they do now. In addition, 70 percent of full-time freelancers participated in skills training in the past six months compared to only 49 percent of full-time non-freelancers.
The fifth annual survey, conducted by research firm Edelman Intelligence and co-commissioned by Upwork and Freelancers Union, polled 6,001 U.S. workers.
This new data points to something much larger. Rapid technological change, combined with rising education costs, have made our traditional higher-education system an increasingly anachronistic and risky path. The cost of a college education is so high now that we have reached a tipping point at which the debt incurred often isn't outweighed by future earnings potential.
Yet too often, degrees are still thought of as lifelong stamps of professional competency. They tend to create a false sense of security, perpetuating the illusion that work — and the knowledge it requires — is static. It's not.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
“Yet too often, degrees are still thought of as lifelong stamps of professional competency.”
Sorta depends on WHERE that degree is from doesn’t it?
65%? Sure, that’s a number they can predict with accuracy!
I graduated from high school in 1972. The most useful class I took was touch typing. :-D
I find it fascinating because I took that course as an “easy A” class and for no other reason.
A plumber, electrician, welder, mechanic, or carpenter, with a bachelor's degree in business administration is a win-win.
If that Duke Power vs “??” court decision could be rolled back/overturned it would be a huge step in that direction!
Those degrees are also a substitute for the aptitude test employers are not allowed to administer.
If you want to work in one of those fields...
As has always been the case, and why all the hand-wring over “robots will take all our jobs” is silly. Not that many years ago someone who it Python proficiency on their resume would have bben considered to be a circus performer, and Physician Assistant meant “nurse”.
For many years now, the IT profession has been undergoing a shift from college degrees to certifications. I see this slowly spreading to related fields. For example, IT to cyber security and now into risk management. I am sure than this will proceed to other fields as well.
Project management now has the Comptia project+ and the PMP. In the business space, Certified Business Analysis Professional and Certified Supply Chain Profession. Finance as the Certified Financial Planner and health care has a long history of certifications, though there is normally a degree requirement as well.
A college degree is worth its cost if, and only if, it’s received as a part of a plan to qualify its recipient for a career where it will be essential either in itself or as a prerequisite for post graduate professional education. Engineering and accounting degrees, for example, are necessary for one to become an engineer or accountant. A liberal arts degree with a history major, OTOH, is a good foundation for going to law school, but not worth much to an individual who has no plans to use it as a basis for seeking post graduate education.
(b) they are giving college degrees away these days.
(c) all a four year degree really tells me is that this person may know a little more than the next guy, but mostly that they can successfully manage a four year project; themselves.
cuban leaf wrote: “I graduated from high school in 1972. The most useful class I took was touch typing. :-D”
I graduated high school in 1964. Went on to get an engineering degree and a masters. My father insisted on two things for his sons. One, they go to college. Two, they take typing in high school. I’ll have to agree that I’ve used the typing class far more than calculus.
They just now figured this out? Unless the Major is in Engineering or Business, the degree is useless you want to be a teacher. A degree is not worth $100K+ anymore at all. Go to a Tech school and learn a trade/skill.
I was an Info-Tech Mgr/Dir from 1995-2015 and I found that around 2005 Colleges stopped turning out the people I needed to hire. I got what I needed from 2 yr Tech Schools w/ experience.
there is no magic answer. most IT certs are trash as well. you really have to know what you’re looking at.
it is amazing how many interviews a PMP will get you, but my PMP flatly didn’t make me a better project manager.
Technology has evolved very simple primitive systems into highly adaptive networked systems with very complex controls.
‘If you want to work in one of those fields...’
How do you address a wannabe artist: “Hey waiter”.
My son went to college for 2 years and said it’s not for me. I don’t want to spend my life behind a desk. He then went to trade school and got every kind of welding certification you can get. He also learned Autocad and CNC machine operation. He now designs and builds race cars. He can make anything out of metal at 27 y/o.
Fact is, most people don’t need to go to college.
I’d say, that’s always been the case.
But a college degree is proof that you have a certain amount of training and skills. And that tends to open doors for you to gain more skills.
You can compete without it, but you are at a disadvantage until you have a really solid work record.
The most important thing you can do in college is to network.
Just studying for four years without making contacts in the real world the whole time won’t do you much good.
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