Delusions of Education Grandeur

Accuracy in Academia ^ | December 22, 2016 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

Some public officials leave office as far behind the knowledge curve as when they entered it.

"One recent analysis found that 95 percent of the jobs created since 2008 required some post-secondary education or training," outgoing U. S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. declared at the Center for American Progress (CAP) last Wednesday. "Think about that."

"If you didn't finish high school—or even if you graduated—you can knock on 95 doors looking for a job before one opens. And everyone else without higher education will be trying to squeeze through those last five doors alongside you."

It's a heart-warming peroration until you factor in all the college graduates unable to find work over the past decade. Moreover, he didn't use the word "net," as in the number of jobs you get when you subtract the old from the new, or, put more simply, the number of jobs, period, as administration officials like to say.

"Since 2010, 15 million jobs have been created," The New York Times reported on November 4, 2016. Here's the problem with that: There are about 50 million working-age men and women out of the labor force.

And that's before college graduates even fill out their first job application.

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia. If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.

[Academiadotorg]

Apparently, some public officials won't realize we're in a Depression until they themselves have to look for a job.

[ClearCase_guy]

We need more vocational training, more apprenticeships. We have too many college graduates. We end up manufacturing disgruntled citizens with no real skills, who are angry that they are not running the whole show — after all, they are highly educated with their Gender Studies degrees.

[Steve_Seattle]

I’m not sure what the point of the article is. Is it that most of these jobs really do require a college degree (or post-secondary training), or that even menial and unskilled jobs are now being filled by people with college degrees? Are we over-educated or under-educated?

[ClearCase_guy]

I think the overall point is that Elitists in the field of education keep selling the idea that we need to spend more money on education. More education will fix everything.

Meanwhile, there just aren’t enough jobs. And a lot of the jobs that might (potentially) open up would not need a college degree.

So the calls for “more education” are self-serving for the education bureaucrats and do not in any way address the real problems of the economy.

The real solution (IMO) is regulation reform and tax reform. Get the economy moving. Create more jobs. “Investing” in more education is not central to this type of solution.

[peeps36]

The left wants as many people as possible to go through their propaganda schools. The schools don't mind taking money from people who will never obtain a degree. There was a time not too long ago when you could get a good job after graduating from high school. You didn't need two years of college to get a good job. Those jobs are either in other countries or being filled by illegal immigrants or their family members. We can thank the politicians for that.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Higher education is primarily a social engineering tool that has produced more students exhibiting the Dunning-Krueger effect than STEM students with useful skills.