Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: chimera
Not sure if this applies in all cases. My brother-in-law worked in R&D for H-P for over 20 years, a top of the line Ph.D. in EE, and he had his job offshored to Malaysia when Carly Fiorina decided she needed a few more pennies on the bottom line to get a better private jet. Of course, she made up for that by posting a job for stewardess on her private jet. So what was that again about education?

You're right. My statement was overly broad.

Not all education makes you more valuable. Other factors come into play. But education in the right field can always make you more valuable. Those fields may change over time.

As a general concept though, more education is a good thing. It's certainly possible to pick an area which, for one reason or another, holds less value to the marketplace, and so won't necessarily help you make money.

228 posted on 10/04/2007 12:24:51 PM PDT by TChris (Governments don't RAISE money; they TAKE it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 176 | View Replies ]


To: TChris
As a general concept though, more education is a good thing. It's certainly possible to pick an area which, for one reason or another, holds less value to the marketplace, and so won't necessarily help you make money.

The problem lately is that the time and investment needed to get into a lot of different high-paying fields, is that the technology changes rapidly, AND that companies would rather engage in wage arbitrage rather than update existing employee's skills.

The upshot is twofold:

You can pay big $$ (if a US citizen; many foreign students get sponsored by their home countries) for a degree which might not pay at all (your specialization went out of favor while you were in school; by the time it is hot again, your learning is out of date), or you can hit at the hot time and have five, eight, or ten years, before which you need to start over in the next hot thing, or get outsourced.

And when you enter the new field, you have to compete against others even to get the trainging; you have to earn a living and may have a family to support, so you usually can't do full-time day studies; and when you get out you are competing both against lower-wage foreigners and against people just out of school who are younger *and* cheaper than you; and your prior training and experience is often seen as a liability, not an asset.

In the short term, good for the bottom line of the execs of the businesses, bad for most everyone else in this country.

Cheers!

315 posted on 10/04/2007 8:54:21 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 228 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson