A Degree of Insignificance (College Degrees getting to be useless nowadays)

WorldnetDaily ^ | 12/29/2007 | Phyllis Schlafly

[SeekAndFind]

.S. News & World Report, which has made a name for itself by ranking and announcing the best colleges every year, is now ranking and listing the best careers for young people. A comparison of the latest lists shows a shocking disconnect and makes for dispiriting holiday reading.

While the price of a college education has skyrocketed far faster than inflation, many careers for which colleges prepare their graduates are disappearing. U.S. News' Best Careers guide concludes, "college grads might want to consider blue-collar careers" because bachelor's degree holders "are having trouble finding jobs that require college-graduate skills."

Incredibly, U.S. News is telling college graduates to look for jobs that do not require a college diploma. Among the 31 best opportunities for 2008 are the careers of firefighter, hairstylist, cosmetologist, locksmith and security-system technician.

Where did the higher-skill jobs go? Both large and small companies are "quietly increasing off-shoring efforts."

Ten years ago, we were told we really didn't need manufacturing because it can be done more cheaply elsewhere, that auto workers and others should move to information-age jobs. But now the information jobs are moving offshore, too, as well as marketing research and even many varieties of innovation.

The flight overseas includes professional as well as low-wage jobs, with engineering jobs offshored to India and China. Thousands of bright Asian engineers are willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages, which is why Boeing just signed a 10-year, $1 billion-a-year deal with a government-run company in India.

Society has been telling high school students that college is the ticket to get a life, and politicians are pandering to parents' desire for their children to be better educated and so have a higher standard of living.

[stuartcr]

That’s certainly not true in the tech/engineering world.

[familyop]

Corporates get what they want from their universities.

The following are Fortune 500s that filed briefs in favor of “affirmative action” in the Michigan “Grutter v. Bollinger” (Michigan University) case.

http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/legal/gru_amicus/32_internatl.pdf

3M
Abbott Laboratories
American Airlines
Ashland
Bank One
Boeing
Coca-Cola
Dow Chemical
E.I. Du Pont De Nemours
Eastman Kodak
Eli Lilly
Ernst & Young
Exelon
Fannie Mae
General Dynamics
General Mills
Intel
Johnson & Johnson
Kellogg
KPMG
Lucent Technologies
Microsoft
Mitsubishi
Nationwide Mutual Insurance
Nationwide Financial
Pfizer
PPG
Proctor & Gamble
Sara Lee
Steelcase
Texaco
TRW
United Airlines
General Motors Corporation

http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/legal/gru_amicus/gru_gm.html

[bannie]

Maybe it should state: College degrees are as necessary now as high school degrees once were.

[Chode]

yeah... if it has a STUDIES after the name they don't!!!

science and engineering will ALWAYS be use full.

[TruthConquers]

Read later.

[dfwgator]

A college degree gives you nothing but a “foot in the door.” The rest is up to your own personal initiative.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Yeah, but those student loan$ are every bit as real as ever.

[1rudeboy]

Yeah, this article (if you can call it that) is a little short on the facts. Chemical Engineering beats Sports Physiology, and it always will.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

That’s certainly not true in the tech/engineering world.

Yeah, but those are real degrees.

Education, communications, general studies, etc. are just certificates of attendance.

But the student loans the dumb suckers are saddled with are real.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

My grandson has been accepted at Iowa State and Rose Hulman. He will be studying engineering.

Is the degree from Rose Hulman worth that much more than the degree from Iowa State?

[Maine Mariner]

Students with egineering degrees are getting summer COOP jobs and earning $15,000-$20,000 for about 3 1/2 months work.
They are getting 4-5 offers with starting salaries of $55,000 to $60,000.

[speekinout]

The implication that the college grads having trouble finding jobs are engineers is really misleading. The ones who have the most trouble are the ones who major in something like “Women’s Studies” or “Multiculturalism”. The only jobs available for those degree holders are teaching in the University system.

There are a lot of useless degrees these days, but engineering degrees (with the possible exception of software engineering) are not among them.

[fuente]

No. RH is a fine school, but it is not really better than a recognized state school.

[GinaLolaB]

I recently received a Master’s Degree in Accounting and I cannot find a good job. The degree seems to be worthless. I think George Bush eliminated the accounting jobs and outsourced them to India. He has been such a disaster for the USA. I voted for him twice and I now I realize that he sold out the USA. I can’t wait till I never have to hear the name Bush again. (the only thing I got from the degree is a great big student loan to repay. I did not receive any of the money, the shyster college kept getting loans for me and taking the money for tuition. The teachers at my college sucked! I cannot pay the loans because I cannot get a job.)

[dsc]

“When are we going to call a halt to the way globalism is destroying U.S. jobs by foreign currency manipulation, theft of our intellectual property, shipping us poisonous seafood and toys, and unfair trade agreements that allow foreign subsidies (through the so-called Value Added Tax) to massively discriminate against U.S. producers and workers?”

That’s exactly the same way England threw away its empire and its status as a world leader.

[familyop]

"science and engineering will ALWAYS be use full."

...especially after oil goes over $200 (think freight fuel, wars).

[sionnsar]

Confirm that with daughter about to graduate with MS Mech Eng; one (large) company has been practically begging her to quit school and come to work NOW.

[dsc]

“A Duke University spokesman said that 40 percent of Duke’s engineering graduates cannot get engineering jobs. A Duke University publication suggests that the best prospect for good engineering jobs is for the U.S. government to start another major project like going to the moon.”

[sionnsar]

I think George Bush eliminated the accounting jobs and outsourced them to India.

"Bush's fault!"