Posted on 01/08/2018 11:50:48 AM PST by Academiadotorg
We have been inundated for years with stories--indeed, books and conferences and seminars--in which we are told that it is impossible to find good jobs without a college degree.
If fact, Georgetown has a center dedicated to sounding that very alarm in every way possible. Nevertheless, when you look at their data, you find that, as usual, the current wisdom on that is not necessarily the case.
Amber Northern from the Thomas Fordham Institute did just that. "In looking at the national breakdown of good jobs, 55 percent of those workers hold at least a bachelor's degree," she writes. "And of the 61 percent of employed adults who don’t have a bachelor's degree, 40 percent have a good job."
"But this differs between states. In Wyoming, for example, 62 percent without the credential have good jobs."
"Overall, the share of good jobs for workers without a bachelor's degree declined from about 60 percent of workers in 1991 to 45 percent in 2015. But variation among states is wide. Thirty-four states (mostly in the South and West) added good jobs for these workers over the nearly twenty-five years covered by the study; sixteen states and the District of Columbia had fewer, and they are mostly located in the Northeast and Midwest—areas hit hard by manufacturing declines."
What is the definition of a good job?
.
Plumber, electrician, machinist, mechanic, hvac technician. Pretty much any job that requires a skill.
If you have a skill, do excellent work and are reliable, honest and punctual as well, the world should be beating a path to your door and giving you all the work you can handle. Skilled work and good workers can be hard to find.
Good grief, Charlie Brown. Any job that does not require a degree, and that is most jobs, can be a good job. It’s what you bring to the job that makes it good or not. No one ever got to the top of the totem pole by half-hearted clock punching.
The problem IMHO is that in all too many cases employers have drunk the Kool Aid and come to believe that a Bachelors Degree is the minimum qualification for even getting considered.
With the right certifications, a network engineer, systems administrator, and so on can easily make 6 figures and no degree. For the most part, in the IT world, certifications and skills mean infinitely more than a degree.
Engineering! At least if you go to Purdue University, apparently.
They way the globalists have flooded the US labor market if your jobs pays enough to feed yourself it is considered a good job.
Too many people with degrees still can not DO anything of value to others.
Who was it that said, “tis better to do ______ than lose one’s soul”.
There is absolutely a danger and high risk to continue any longer complying with academia and it’s Marxist agenda, by sending our kids to these tree lined campuses only to come out as Godless, commie nerds will net us nothing but demise.
Seems clear America is morally in ashes, led by the communist inspired but galactically stooopid, along with the over-educated, who are together trying rather openly to kill our country, poisoning us from the roots.
I started teaching at the secondary level here in Texas in 1966. My annual salary was $4,600 per year. I think I took home a little over $300.00 per month, that after various deductions.
I left in ‘73 and started a career on the railroad as a conductor, brakeman, switchman, or what was dubbed a trainman. Was promoted to conductor in ‘75 and remember grossing $400.00 in one day by tripling a run on the south end. I don’t regret working on the railroad but I had some regrets about leaving teaching. Odd thing is, I read harder on the railroad than anytime before or since.
Though having a BA and MA I soon realized there are some great jobs that don’t require them.
I’m retired now, but looking back - as I went from “disc jockey” to “DESK Jockey”, I would have been much happier as an electrician.
I had the training (military), and I could have worn jeans everyday...no suits, no ties. My Dad -rest his soul - did electrician work part time, and he wanted to put me and my Brother in the electrical business...but, nooooooooooo....I wanted to be in radio.
I could have retired from being an electrician at 40, instead of working until I was 70 and surviving on SS.
One of those “ignorance of youth” stories....
What is the definition of a good job?.....Steady? We can’t find Schoolbus drivers or truck drivers because no applicants can pass the drug test in this state.
Some warehouse jobs pay okay,
Don’t need a lot of training..but the more training the better.
You’re close - very close.
Employers started requiring degrees because they would first get flooded with resumes for new job openings, and the next get sued by either prospective employees or the Federal government (EEOC) for discriminatory hiring practices.
Why? Because a disproportionate number of applicants that were rejected were minorities. Of course these rejections couldn’t have been the lack of skills, or that the applicants were less qualified in other quantifiable ways than the persons hired. No, it was clearly racism.
Result: require college degrees, whether the job required it or not. This minimized both the volume of resumes received AND the number of actual and potential lawsuits.
There is a truck driver shortage throughout North America. The problem is, it is not a great high paying job. My Dad was an owner operator for 30 years. Long hours, away from home, sleeping in truck stops. When you are home you are working on the truck.
I hear even the railroads can not find people. That is what I would do if I was a young man today. Also, high wire electric lineman.
In our colonial days, the only people who went to college for a degree were those who wanted to become a lawyer or a preacher or a doctor or a teacher, for the most part. Young people who wanted more skills for their jobs took night classes with self-employed tutors. They would teach classes pretty much like today's community colleges without a graduation ceremony and without a large building - with classes like accounting and business. They would also teach other classes like foreign languages and Latin. Sometimes students filled in what they needed to go to college with a night tutor. The tutors would advertise in the newspapers and they were usually graduates of the colonial colleges. Most people learned their skills on the job. Lawyers would finish their skills by "reading law" at the office of a respected lawyer. Most people, until the 1900s were farmers or small business owners.
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