In This Recovery, a College Education Backfires

The New York Times ^ | March 14, 2004 | LOUIS UCHITELLE

[martin_fierro]

"Symbolic analysts are in ever greater demand in a world market that places an increasing value on identifying and solving problems"

"I've analyzed your issue and determined that you do want fries with that."

[KantianBurke]

"Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a powerful figure in the Democratic Party, is trying to push his party back in this direction. "We must create new and meaningful jobs for all Americans," he declared in a recent speech. "And we must do this by recognizing once again that government - an enlightened government - has an extraordinary responsibility to assist in this task."

Contrast this speech to that made by the idiot economic advisor in the Bush Administration who said that "outsourcing was good for America." Ask yourself which kind of speech the unemployed and the young would vote for.

[Montfort]

That statistic of non-working folks 25 and over with college degrees will include a lot of people who inherited money in their forties or fifties and decided to stay home. (this is not a tiny number these days, as many elderly folks without glamorous jobs did well in the stock market and with their home appreciation).

It also includes a large number of folks who have decided to stay home and take care of their kids. Many college-educated women are home-schooling their kids, which does not count as working for most statistics. A lot more women are getting college degrees than ever before. Hmmm. Perhaps we should do some conceptual thinking and see that there might be a connection.

[sarcasm]

Sir Greenspan sayeth:

Although in recent years the proportion of our labor force made up of those with at least some college education has continued to grow, we appear, nonetheless, to be graduating too few skilled workers to address the apparent imbalance between the supply of such workers and the burgeoning demand for them.

[Jacquerie]

This is just another negative, election year employment story. Expect many more through election day. Should J "Effing" Kerry win, the job picture will magically become bright again.

The Times reads more and more like Pravda and has even less credibility.

[metesky]

Has Robert Reiccccchhhhh ever been right about anything? If so, I'd like to see the proof.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Ask yourself which one that Lenin or Stalin would have voted for...

[knarf]

"Although in recent years the proportion of our labor force made up of those with at least some college education has continued to grow, we appear, nonetheless, to be graduating too few skilled workers to address the apparent imbalance between the supply of such workers and the burgeoning demand for them."

I've never been to college, but being a native Bostonian I've grown up? around the college crowd.

The best education to be had on planet earth is by pan-handling at Park St. Station.

IMO ... unless one is to specialize in a given field, the liberal arts "education" is little more than womb to tomb conditioning for good little worker bees.

There may be some truth to the numbers of college grads, but what did they get for their four years?

Whispering 'plastic' in a grad's ear is passe' and all of the video games have been invented.

[1rudeboy]

That [a college degree] is your immunization against the outsourcing, offshoring and downsizing that frighten so many workers today.

Since when? Does the NYT ever send a reporter into the REAL world?

[raybbr]

Although in recent years the proportion of our labor force made up of those with at least some college education has continued to grow, we appear, nonetheless, to be graduating too few skilled workers to address the apparent imbalance between the supply of such workers and the burgeoning demand for them.

Perhaps Bush heard this and that is why he has initiated the "guest worker" amnesty/program. It has been all too clear to me that the education industry has brainwashed Americans into believing that the only way to success is through their program - an ever more expensive and lengthy stay at an institution of higher learning.

They told us that when it came to the menial tasks of the trades, that those positions were beneath us. We would be the management, developers, engineers, lawyers and doctors and would all be well-off if we just did it their way. Now there is a glut of those "educated" and they are not finding the riches they were promised by the educational elite.

How ironic it is when the many on this forum will bash the education system in this country and at the same time point to it as the only way to success.

I find the education system in this country to be close to worthless. Not because the student it teaches lacks education but rather they lack the type of life skills from their education needed to survive in this highly competitive world.

Also, the trades have been so denigrated by the very education elites that are condemned, yet people will still not tell their sons and daughters that learning a trade is honorable and can make you successful.

[sarcasm]

Perhaps they have noticed that Reuters is offshoring jobs to India.

[1rudeboy]

How ironic it is when the many on this forum will bash the education system in this country and at the same time point to it as the only way to success.

Claiming that higher education makes one more upwardly-mobile (not an "immunization," as this writer claims), and bemoaning the state of higher education in this country are not mutually exclusive.

[reformedliberal]

Ask yourself what is the actual critical thinking quotient of the actual college graduate of the past 10 years? Having survived 4+ years in the inculcation camps of university undergraduate classes, they reject anything not carrying the imprimateur of the left as right wing rhetoric.

Anecdote (not data):

I know a couple of these wonders and they are now in 2 different law schools where, for the first time in their lives, they are struggeling to maintain a C.

I know 2 people w/bachelors' in chemistry. One is self-employed in a succesful promotion firm in the NYC area and one is self-employed as a consultant and real estate speculator in the Great Plains, having moved there from a major urban area by choice.

I know another graduate w/teaching certification who makes her living in real estate.

2% less have jobs. 2%. You don't think maybe at least 1% are now entrepreneurs?

The poster who mentioned inheiritance has a good point. This covers people in their 30s and 40s. Let's call them another 1/2%, just to bend over backwards to be fair (I know so many of them personally, that I think it is higher).

The other 1/2% may very well be between jobs at the moment and really looking. Or they may be temping.

This is just another journalist for Kerry and the left, IMO.
See
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush%20Kerry%20Fundamentals.htm
You won't like Bush's economic numbers.

[raybbr]

Claiming that higher education makes one more upwardly-mobile (not an "immunization," as this writer claims), and bemoaning the state of higher education in this country are not mutually exclusive.

I didn't say they were.

[1rudeboy]

Then I misunderstood. Sorry.

[Jim Noble]

A college degree used to be a surrogate marker that identified someone who was smart and hardworking.

Now that that is no longer true (anybody can get one), why would it have employment value?

[KevinDavis]

What has happend is that there is a glut of people getting a college degree. Also just because a person has a degree, it does not mean a person would automatically get a high paying job in their field. There is no right of a high paying job.

[shrinkermd]

The whole problem here is the egalitarian belief that if people graduate from college they are smart and productive. Unfortunately, the bell curve distribution of intelligence augurs that only about 20% of white, Europeans have an I.Q. of 110.

An I.Q. of 110 is the usual cutoff for someone who is expected to do difficult academic tasks including math, science, English and so forth. Actually, people who are very smart (I.Q. 140 and above) are rare and make up only a few percent of the population. This is why the Intel fellow could not find many smart people in his class.

Everytime I quote these basic statistics I receive heat from all those who wish a more egalitarian society. It just won't happen. If you reduce college standards to permit 40% attendance and 27% graduation, you will have a considerable number of people with college degrees without a college education. Nature trumps wishful thinking every time.

Having a high I.Q. does not guarantee academic success. Geniuses flunk out routinely; however, having an I.Q. of 85 to 100 will make it impossible for you to be a rocket scientist.

Since I am a very old man, I can remember when even public education took notice of the wide range of cognitive abilities. Now there is a definite, political thrust to make equality an issue of results not just of opportunity. Reich is a good example of someone who is torn between knowing what is what and what he wishes what is what.

[Gritty]

There are too many chiefs and not enough indians, plus a lot of the college degrees the chiefs have are worth little more than a high shool education a generation ago. Just what do you think a degree in "Women's Studies" or "Queer Literature" is worth?

Without a strong and expanding manufacturing base all we can do is do each others laundry, hold each others hand, flip each others burgers, teach each others children, shepard each others lawsuits and bank each others decreasing supply of actual money. The genuine revenue stream in the common pot just gets smaller while the population (if you include illegals) gets larger.