Posted on 01/29/2013 12:03:09 PM PST by drewh
With record numbers of college graduates underemployed in jobs that don’t actually require degrees, economists are joking that even aspiring janitors may soon have to get master’s degrees to compete for jobs.
A study released Monday by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity found that 37 percent of employed graduates didn’t need to attend college at all to successfully perform their current jobs.
The study was co-authored by Dr. Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio University and director of CCAP; Jonathan Robe, a CCAP researcher; and Christopher Denhart, an economics student at the university.
“Just as a bachelor’s degree gives current applicants for bartender jobs an edge over those with just a high-school diploma, so a master’s degree holder will have an advantage over those with a mere bachelor’s degree,” the authors write in the study.
If trends continue, graduates will become more educated in order to compete for jobs that should belong to less-educated workers, they predict.
“We jokingly predict that colleges will offer a master’s degree in Janitorial Studies within a decade or two, and anyone seeking employment as a janitor will discover no one will hire unless proof of possession of such a degree is presented,” they write.
For many workers, a degree isn’t adding anything to their necessary skill set beyond a credential, said Robe.
“If the new normal for janitors becomes possession of some sort of higher education credential, the only way to advance yourself is to continue to pursue more education, and the problem there is the education doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your actual skill set,” said Robe, in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Robe blamed government spending — such as federal student loan subsidies — for exacerbating the underemployment problem.
“Particularly recently, there have been a lot of government programs which are specifically targeted at increasing government spending on education, and increasing college attainment as a result of that spending, and what we’re saying is maybe we should question that and say, ‘to what end?’” said Robe. “If we were to, as President Obama wants to do, increase the number of Americans with college degrees, but there aren’t the jobs for them, are we actually making things worse off?”
President Obama has repeatedly pledged to make the U.S. the most college-educated country in the world by the end of the decade.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/29/study-37-percent-of-employed-college-graduates-didnt-even-need-their-education/#ixzz2JOcUXoyg
Government is the problem!
All these easy loans and grants the government is handing out is what is driving up the cost of education and simultaneously making a lowly bachelors as useless as a high school diploma.
Exclusivity is what made a college degree important. Hand them out to everyone and they become worthless.
One of our graphic design kids didn’t learn Adobe Premier, Indesign and Photoshop by going to expensive schools like AI. He learned it by downloading a copy of torrent, going to the library to borrow an exercise book on those software and Youtube. I think he mentioned he downloaded copies of Lynda.com videos LOL
And the other "occupation type" courses were supportive but not practical.
We need trade colleges or work/college programs.
37 percent of employed graduates didn’t need to attend college at all to successfully perform their current jobs
- - - - - -
How many of them needed the college degree to get the job?
DEGREE BUBBLE:
Victory of Prof’s need to earn over students’ need to earn.
1. stocks crashed
2. land values crashed
3. Lib Arts Univ. system currently crashing
I watched a debate on PBS with Charles Murray (trying to find a link), in which he argued that very thing. Most college degrees (bachelors) are basically worthless, and the time and money would be much better spent on direct occupationally related trade degree programs.
OK, none of the K-12 public school teachers are teaching anything tougher than 12th grade classes.
Shouldn't even a really smart high school graduate be able to teach others the same thing? An associate degree in education should be the max required, especially for those teaching grade school.
Public sector education groups are screwing over taxpayers with trumped up education standards.
THere are only a few professions that you “need” an undergraduate degree for. Engineering, Physician, Research Scientist, Biologist etc. being a few.
I was told to “just get that piece of paper”
so I did
I tell others to “just get that piece of paper”
because that’s what society dictates, you most likely won’t learn anything you couldn’t learn on your own.
A high school degree is worthless, a college degree is barely worth a high school degree of decades ago.
I was told that in the early 80’s and glad I have my little piece of soon-to-be worthless paper.
My Jobs out of college never required a 4 year degree - but it helped tremendously in getting those jobs.
Time for my Masters?
I guess that would include Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson. He’s got a degree in history.
another social engineering fail..why can’t the govt just leave things alone? I’m tired of paying for all their utopian unintended consequences failure of ideas.
Degree bubble is right. View college as a system of pushing as many paying customers through the door as possible, whether or not they need the product. The government gives them the means to go and because of the subsidy, college prices simply keep going up. Its a racket to make college professors and administrators rich. And it has nothing to do with whether the student/customers actually need the product.
“How many of them needed the college degree to get the job?”
And there’s the rub isn’t it. Complaining that young folks are worthless and irresponsible when the truth is that barriers are put up everywhere now. Credentialism is a great evil.
“Shouldn’t even a really smart high school graduate be able to teach others the same thing? An associate degree in education should be the max required, especially for those teaching grade school.”
Disagree. Teaching should require a degree in the subject you plan to teach. As it is you have Math teachers who never took grade 12 math.
But that should be all that is required.
>> “Complaining that young folks are worthless and irresponsible when the truth is that barriers are put up everywhere now. Credentialism is a great evil.” <<
.
Really?
Then you see no need to test engineers competency to design bridges or sky scrapers?
.
I see no need to require entry level service industry positions to have a bachelor’s degree. None whatsoever.
That’s OK. More than 37% don’t even have an education.
One thing it does do is weed out some riff raff, which is harder to do now without putting yourself at risk for lawsuits.
Which is not to say we’re not wasting a lot of people’s time, just that there are some good reasons for it. Even if they are artificial ones we’ve created.
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