Is College Worth It? Nope

Accuracy in Academia ^ | May 10, 2014 | Spencer Irvine

[Academiadotorg]

George Mason economics professor Bryan Caplan, at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, said that college is not worth it for both taxpayers and for low-performing students coming out of high school. He examined it with two important questions:

Is college worthwhile for the student and is it a good investment? Is college a good investment for taxpayers?

Caplan said, “Education is a wasteful arms race, the more you get, the more you need to avoid looking like a loser.” For example, “in 1945, only about 25% of Americans over the age of 25 finished high school.” One used to impress parents and others that you graduated high school, said Caplan, but “not so anymore.” The reason behind this societal change is, “not so much because the jobs that people do have changed radically, but rather, the credentials of the competition have gone up, and you need to match them in order to continue to impress.”

Caplan found that college graduates do indeed make up to 83% more in salaries than do high school graduates. Nevertheless, he avers, “high ability students tend to do the hard majors that pay well.” Thus, Caplan states, “Engineering majors not only have higher quantitative SAT scores than English majors, they have higher verbal scores than engineering majors.” Caplan calls the difference in wages between college and high school graduates “the education premium” and finds that it varies widely between “soft” studies and harder disciplines. In other words, “the education premium ranges from 24% in education majors…whereas getting a bachelors’ degree will increase your earnings by about 60%,” Caplan explains.

He noted that while most engineering students “don’t see the light of day” in college, other majors “enjoy life” on campus because “most majors are not remotely vocational,” or difficult.

[RipSawyer]

It would appear that the writer needed more education.

[RipSawyer]

“Business OJT is not pretty!”
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Having run a small business of my own successfully in the past I can vouch for your statement. OJT in business can be costly but I managed to make it. On the other hand I said later that if I had it to do over I would find a business manager and I would be the technical guy. The main thing I had to sell was my own technical ability but it probably could have been developed into something much bigger had I not been trying to be everything at one time. I suspect though that the biggest thing causing most small businesses to fail at the time I was running my own business was the propensity of small business people to overspend on personal expenses and not invest in the business. I saw a lot of people trying to “play the role”.

One fellow that I had worked with before starting my business later went into one of his own in a similar product line and struggled along for a few years until his son finished high school whereupon he turned the management over to his son before the boy turned twenty and went back to full time technical work. He told me the business fared much better that way. He said the boy was a natural business man, something that he had never been even though he was a whiz as a technician. His son actually suggested it, came up one day and said, “Dad, there is nobody better than you at the technical end but you are a lousy manager, let me do it.” The last time I talked to him he said he was very happy that he had listened to his boy.

[OldPossum]

This does not make sense:

“Engineering majors not only have higher quantitative SAT scores than English majors, they have higher verbal scores than engineering majors.”

Yeah, I looked at that one twice and concluded it made absolutely no sense at all.

[ClearCase_guy]

Engineering majors have respectable verbal scores; journalism majors ... not so much.

[RipSawyer]

Actually he meant eighth grade AT MOST! That is for math, as far as writing skills he probably meant sixth grade or less. This country is full of college graduates, many of them Freepers, who don’t know to, two and too, don’t know there, their and they’re, dont know its from it’s, use apostrophes in plurals, couldn’t select the correct pronoun if THEIR lives depended on it etc. Don’t even mention history, I can say from conversations I have had that the average recent recipient of a university degree with a MAJOR in history would have as much chance of passing my eighth grade history final as I would have of successfully performing brain surgery while designing a spaceship at the same time, standing on my head the whole while and whistling Dixie.

I forgot to say on the subject of math how disgusting it is to hear supposedly educated people, including the current resident, use such absurd terms as “2500 percent less”. If that is supposed to have a meaning I cannot even guess what it might be. It is bad enough that people who should know better say things like “25 times smaller” which is mathematically impossible yet I can probably guess what they are trying to say but “2500 percent less” defies interpretation.

[DocJhn]

What most do not realize about business is if you are a sole proprietor of a small business. You have many hats.
1. Controller
2. Director of advertising
3. Customer service
4. Operations Exec
5. Accountant
6. Payroll officer
7. HR officer
8. Logistics officer
9. Money Management officer
10. Materials acquisition
11. Inventory officer
12 Security officer on inventory (stuff walks)
13.Credit Liaison officer
14. Education officer and Director of hiring new employees
15. Vehicle management
16. Self atty for Small claims actions for non payment of goods and services.
17. The one that performs when no employees show up.
18. Liaison officer of State and Federal Agencies
19. Many more!
How do I know Been there! I have the T-Shirt!