Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College?

I would like to see historical trends for the same data before making a judgment about your argument, which on the surface seems short-sided. What were these statistics during periods of economic boom? My guess is that, on average, those who had college degrees were better off than those without. Once the economy improves, and history tells us it will improve within our lifetimes, those who already have a college degree under their belts will be better equipped to take advantage of new employment opportunities than those who don’t. Perhaps not because of the actual knowledge obtained through their degrees, but definitely as an offset to the social stigma that still exists for those who do not attend college. A college degree may not help a young person secure professional work immediately – so new graduates spend a few years waiting tables until the right opportunity comes along. So what? It’s probably good for them. But they have 40-50 years in the workforce ahead of them and need to be forward-thinking if they don’t want to wait tables for that entire time. If we stop encouraging all young people to view college as both a goal and a possibility, and start weeding out those whose “prior academic records suggest little likelihood of academic success” which, let’s face it, will happen in larger proportions in poorer schools, then in 20 years we’ll find that efforts to reduce socioeconomic gaps between minorities and non-minorities have been seriously undermined.

Perhaps some of these “underemployed” degree holders are working in these areas to support a vocation — art, writing, etc.
This article also presumes that the purpose of higher education is merely to train one for a career path and enhance future income. This devalues the university, turning it into a vocational training institution.
There’s nothing in this data that suggests that they are “sophisticated complainers”; that’s an unwarranted inference.

I hope that 17M people went to college in the United States to secure our Democracy. Call me old-fashion. Civic engagement is a most valuable net return on the college investment.

On 60 Minutes a few weekends ago, it was mentioned that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would like 80% of American youth to attend and graduate from college. It is a nice thought in many ways. As a teacher and professor, intellectually I am all for it (if the university experience is a serious one, which these days, I don’t know).

But students’ expectations in attending college are not just intellectual; they are careerist (probably far more so). As it happens, I am now living and teaching in a country, South Korea, that meets the Gates’ standards. Right now, about 75-80% of Korean high school students enter a university. The 20% of Korean youth who do not attend university are mainly poor rural youth. Given the Koreans’ diligence, it is not surprising that the vast majority of university attendees also graduate, many with majors in scientific and engineering disciplines (“soft” degrees like marketing are not as popular here). This is a dedicated country.

But you know what? They can’t find jobs. It was reported in the Korean media a few weeks ago that according to the latest government figures, only half of recent Korean university graduates have found full-time work. Even the country’s best university, Seoul National, only has a 70% placement rate.

Now, Korea is experiencing an economic downturn, but not as bad as America’s. This employment issue has more to do with levels of training and subsequent levels of expectation. When a Korean student emerges from 20 years of intense study with a university degree, he or she reasonably expects a “good” job — which is to say, a well-paying professional or managerial job with good forward prospects. But here’s the problem. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, a society in which 80% of the available jobs are professional, managerial, comfortable, and well-paid. No way. Korea has a number of other jobs, but some are low-paid service work, and many others — in factories, farming, fishing — are scorned as 3-D jobs (difficult, dirty, and dangerous). Educated Koreans don’t want them. So the country is importing labor in droves — from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, even Uzbekistan. In the countryside, rural Korean men are having such a difficult time finding prospective wives to share their agricultural lifestyle that fully 40% of rural marriages are to poor women from those other Asian countries, who are brought in by match-makers and marriage brokers.

Since young Koreans almost invariably live at home until marriage, whether they are working or not, it is routine for the young unemployed to do so. Their parents, who have a lot invested in their children’s successful outcomes, discourage them from taking low-level, part-time, or contract work, even just to get a start in life. As is usually the case, the only way they can see of improving their lot is not by lowering their expectations, but by improving their qualifications: by scoring well on English tests, getting additional certificates, and so on. But everyone else is doing this, too, so the competitive field remains the same. What will happen to these youths? The more years they don’t work, the less chance there is that they ever will. They become tainted, and possibly a permanently disenfranchised minority.

This country, in short, has, with the best of intentions, educated itself into a corner.

russhunt:

Your comment suggests that you believe that without a college education, a person will be unable to “think (or vote, or make life choices)”. History’s vast roster of thoughtful autodidacts argues otherwise.

This is hardly a new trend. In the late 80s (not a good economic time in Houston), I waited tables with an accountant, a research biologist, a man with a degree in communications, and a few degreed actors and musicians. A friend of mine during that time graduated with a degree in English and could only find work as a restaurant hostess.

Like a fool, I drew the conclusion that a college degree must be useless, so I dropped out. Several years later, in another economic downturn and with recent experience in management and bookkeeping, I could no longer find a job that didn’t involve carrying a tray or pulling pints. Employers would seem excited about my work history, but would reject me for lack of a degree. “We only hired degreed professionals,” was a phrase I heard so many times I went back to school so I’d never have to hear it again.

I work in human resources now for a public university, and I can tell you that college degrees are basically an arms race. No, you may not need a degree to perform the task at hand, but you’re competing against people who have degrees. If you don’t have one too, you’ll be at a disadvantage. Ditto raises and promotions, in which education level is a significant factor. This is true across multiple industries, not just higher ed employment.

Is it fair? Of course not. Should experience trump the framed piece of paper on the wall? In many cases, yes. But that’s not the way the world works, and national salary survey data backs this up. I don’t know what it will take to restore the employment marketplace to sanity, but there’s no arguing with the facts. A young person may not find a professional job with only a bachelor’s degree, but good luck getting that job without it!

It should be apparent that college should be about more than vocational training for professional and higher paying jobs. Although the millennial generation may be more technologically sophisticated, the young culture today seems to exhibit signs of hyper-extended adolescence. Blame it on secondary education if you like, but today’s young generation needs higher education to prepare for life.

Thank you olddean, for suggesting a combo plate (sticking with the food service imagery). I’d like to put the ideas of Vedder, apino and mark_r_harris on one platter to see which of our higher education leaders are willing to try digesting it. Perhaps whoever accepts this mess of pottage will be surrendering his birthright.

Who can gainsay the notion that more college for everybody is at least a questionable strategy for national prosperity or individual enlightenment? Among its many questionable assumptions are the beliefs that college standards are sufficiently demanding; college education routinely delivers citizenship skills; secondary education is not the place for a liberal education and job worthiness is best measured by degrees rather than by specific competencies.

“I have long been a proponent of Charles Murray’s thesis that an increasing number of persons attending college do not have the cognitive abilities or other attributes usually necessary for success at higher levels of learning.”

Ah, now Vedder’s position makes sense to me. He’s a proponent of the theories of the man who wrote The Bell Curve, co-authored by Richard Herrnstein, a man who inherited Arthur Jensen’s mantle and continued to promote the genetic inferiority of people of color. Charles Murray, and man who would feel at home at http://www.vdare.com/ (if you wish, take a look at the company he keeps).

Wow, that’s about all I can say.

Education is not only to prepare you for a professional career. It gives you tools and skills for a maximum appreciation of life in all its domains. Personal and civic. I remember an old USA postage stamp that had written on it. “Education is the best safeguard to Democracy.”

I don’t think the problem is with the many people who choose to pursue a degree either a) because they believe it will help them to prosper economically, or b) because they enjoy intellectual pursuits. I think the greater problem is that the education industry so readily dangles to its prospective customers the PROMISE of economic advantage and success. While such success may indeed come to those who complete their degree, one thing is for sure: the institution is getting paid one way or the other. And of course if their product doesn’t produce the desired outcome, they can always fall back on the platitudes about how an educated populace benefits everyone. Here’s my humble proposal. Given that universities routinely offer discounts in the form of scholarships, grants, etc., and given that universities often tout their “service” to the greater community, why don’t they structure their discounts thusly: offer government, history, and other appropriate humanities courses for free or at a greatly reduced price, and then charge “normal” tuition for those courses which are designed to provide students with the “marketable” skills and knowledge that they seek in order to get ahead financially. The way I see it, those who are in pursuit of the almighty dollar won’t mind the personal investment in their future, and at the same time, the university can broaden its influence in our endeavor to have a more educated citizenry.

Diehl – great sentiment, but the reality is that the academy, with a lot of ridiculous requirements does little to prepare graduates for civic responsibility. We should get back to that in higher education. Despite good points above aboutreductionist rationale, the fact remains that American colleges and uiversities have generally divolved over the last 40 years into machines which produce college educated workers, not people who can think at an elite level. I would offer, what is the value of a college degree if everyone has one? Not only doesn’t everyone need one, most everyone doesn’t need one.

I think these numbers are wonky or there’s something else going on. From the table+the numbers in the article: waitstaff are more than twice as likely as janitors/cleaners to have bachelor’s degrees, but janitors/cleaners are substantially more likely than waitstaff to have PhD/other advanced degrees. That’s weird. I wouldn’t expect that. That makes me want more information. Like: what kind of advanced degree – does some type of professional certification count? Or: does this count people who own/run janitorial/cleaning businesses? Did the janitors get their degrees in other countries and have language or other barriers that keep them from working in their profession here?
If the numbers are right, can we see them for these various other job categories, and is there a BLS link?

nevermind..

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_111.htm

Thank you @emilysomething for the proper link and I agree with your initial comment.

If the initial table hadn’t already grouped “doctoral or professional degrees” I would blame the author for the misleading use of ‘or’. Here’s an equally true statement:

“5,057 Presidents of the United States, PhDs or professional degree awardees are janitors.”

Who are we talking about here? The BLS only defines a first professional degree as *usually* requiring 3 years of academic study, but this is still vague. The examples provided are lawyers, physicians, and dentists, but the class is much, much larger. For example: Acupuncturist (MSOM), Clergy (BD, BTh,MDiv, STB, STL), Minister (Christian) (BD, STB, BDiv, MMin, MDiv), Naprapath (DN), Naturopath (ND, NMD, BSc, BHSc, BNat).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_degree#First_professional_degrees

These people you might imagine (clergy especially) would need money in the form of janitorial duties possibly as a part time job to sustain a largely minimalist, non-material life.

The article borders on yellow journalism by conjuring the image that surgeons, scientists, engineers and lawyers are cleaning bathrooms and not naprapaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists and clergy.

Another interesting thing that happens when you educate a lot of people who might not “fit the mold” – one of them could start a company that becomes huge, employing thousands of people. I’ve got to imagine that the likelihood of this happens increases as you expose more people to higher education. So you might not be able to justify it for every individual person, but you may only need 1 in 100 to justify it.

There is a point here.
All of you have had students that clearly do not belong in a college class room (although, who knows, 10 years later they might).
As well, there are people who can find happiness in doing real work.
We have spit on the laborer over the past few decades and that has got to stop.
I am in academia and I’ve been a manual laborer and I am here to tell you that that mechanics and carpenters are no less intelligent that professors and medical doctors. There is some self-discipline difference certainly and lack of clarity for a certain sort of thought, however there is a clarity of thought in other ways that the intelligentsia lack.
Merit is a lie.
A brilliant mechanic is as smart as a brilliant physics professor, we need both, and so there should be room in our culture for both to be respected.
Not every 18 year old should go to college.
Let them live outside of an institution for a few years. Jeez, we throw our kids in school at 5 or 6 and leave them there for 17+ years, it is crazy.

The high-level academic attention has turned its focus upon this problem and only now — and hesitantly at that — concludes — nay, merely suggests — that a population exists which is — only perhaps — unsuited for higher learning and that — again, perhaps — the cost is too high for the quality of the product delivered. I delight in the irony.

In this spirit, allow me to provide a vocational training-level summary reply: “Well, duh.”

It does the job nicely, no?

Seems to me, jtsgrandmom, that if us native-borns want that “preferential” treatment the “foreigners” get, all we have to do is learn some foreign languages, like Benjamin Franklin did (on his own), like we’ve been urged to for decades, and like most of the rest of the world does in the elementary grades.

As for the comments about the non-monetary rewards of education: absolutely, it is a wonderful thing to go to college, even if you plan to be a stay-at-home parent or are independently wealthy and don’t need to work. If you’re capable, and eager to attend and learn, college can have benefits even if it doesn’t “pay off.”

But for those who really need the money, college had better provide a substantial monetary advantage, or else it is simply not worth the cost, the debt, and the time lost that could have been spent earning and gaining work experience and trying to move up in a career.

The problem of no jobs for college graduates results from 50 years of discrimination against that segment of our population which has been responsible for the spectacular inovations which have fueled our economy and made ours the most prosperous country in the world, white males. Our Government’s discriminatory policies such as affirmative action, free tuition and scholarships to selected “victims” of real and imagined past discriminations has filled our colleges and universities with the less than most qualified candidates, most of whom either can’t, or won’t, excel at anything. It’s little wonder most of them cannot find employment other than in jobs they would qualify for without all the extra funding for advanced education and self esteem counseling. As a result of government policies, our colleges are graduating unqualified self esteem enhanced minorities and women who now staff corporation and government offices, while our best and brightest are relegated to make work jobs or joining the military in hopes they will survive the wars and “police actions” perpetuated by the less than most qualified people who are now running things, long enough to get some kind of education or training that will qualify them for a job in civilian life. The cult of divirsity and self esteem at any cost, and the attempt to prove nature wrong, and that the strong and intelligent are not the ones who survive, we have allowed these social planners to take over our colleges, universities, government and every aspect of our lives. If we continue to allow our best and brightest to be sacrificed on this altar of diversity and “social justice”, we will be accellerating our slide into third world status. The saying used to be “Cream will rise to the top.” But we have now homogonized our education system so that the cream is either shut out altogether or dumbed down to the lowest common level. Unless we regain our sanity, stop demonizing white males, and devote the same amount of time and resources to identifying our truly gifted and intelligent students, regardless of race, and encouraging them to obtain advanced degrees, we will continue our slide into oblivion as our high tech industries either move overseas where there are qualified workers or bring more of the foreign educated workers over here to fill the few positions left in this country. If our schools promoted the idea that any other segment of our society, other than the now demonized white males, were worthy of such descriminaton and abuse, and that all whites are evil because they were descended from evil men who abused, genocided, mistreated and stole everything they have from others , there would be a loud hue and cry demanding they be charged with child abuse. Yet we allow our white boys and men to endure such treatment on a daily basis. Our country does indeed have a death wish. The moral of all this is: You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” or in modern terms: “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”

Damn, no kidding, marktropolis. There are arguments against grade/degree inflation, affirmative action, and the culture of self-esteem that (unlike amgam’s) don’t utterly discredit the arguer as a total bigot, but that door is closed now! And although we all err now and then, anyone so concerned about the
“dumbing down” of our education and our society should probably take the time to check the spelling of “inovations,” “divirsity,” “accellerating,” “homogonized,” and “descriminaton” … not to mention the grammar.

That the market rewarded degree holders was a happy coincidence. What was implied became explicit and then taken for granted. We never questioned the inherited notion of “degrees mean a job, a better job, a better income.” We never once thought about how the inception of degrees came to be or what benefit really to an employer a degree holder represents and how traditional Industrialists were able to pay significantly more for the snob factor and the real reasons they did. We simply took for granted what was told to us in school : Get good grades = smart = degree = better pay.

Never once did we question that tradition so how can we even begin to argue something intelligently if we do not know the real context behind? We assume and inherit a lot of things but we never questioned them yet we think of ourselves as clever simply because we know how to criticize. And to imagine this is a publication about higher education!

Vedder’s point is this : There are 2 kinds of people that traditional Industry have no need for : The “liberal arts” kind and those who feel as if they do not need to upkeep a material life to conform to social expectations.

The “liberal arts” people have too many ideas of their own and the fact that they chose those subjects reflect a mindset that these are not people who will accept or conform to the prevailing social order, or worse, question and condemn it. These are not good order takers.

Then those who have no materialistic ambitions give Industry no choice of dangling carrots in front of them. If a person is not tempted by material ambitions then they are hard to entrap in an illusion of false security. Without entrapping employees with a “sense of job security” Industry will see a high turnover, a difficult to manage workforce (this incurs higher costs) and together this unpredictability will affect forecasts and thus the entire output machinery. That is why Government works hand in hand with Industry, through schooling, to produce conformists or dumbed down people full of insecurities who are more pliable as workers.

If everyone is subsidized or easily gets a degree you can no longer tell apart those who have had to make significant sacrifices to obtain a degree. This is important when hiring workers because you need those who are most insecure about themselves to dangle the best carrots, get the most obedient worker – those who don’t ask questions. Industry also needs to know the mindset of a worker whether this is a person willing to make significant personal sacrifices and has a lot at stake in the course of pursuing a degree or simply someone who obtained a degree without financial or personal duress.

That Vedder mentions “cognitive abilities” simply means that those in power are only comfortable among people who share their brand of intelligence – Left Brain thinking. If Industry were to hire and promote the next generation to replace them they would only select from their own “kind”. We all know that Intelligence is diverse, that a brilliant mechanic is as much clever as a brilliant physicist as stated in one comment above. So it is clear to me that what Vedder is implying is about the Old Order and their need to perpetuate their elitism.

While I believe Vedder’s point seemed ambiguous to most it is only because he is held back from saying what he truly intended to say. So what if degrees no longer reflect elitism? He is trying to discourage people from taking them saying it’s a waste of money. I too, believe degrees are a waste of money because they cost too much. They should only cost as much as a family spends on automobiles and holidays.

For the record, I was responding to “bystander – October 25, 2010 at 4:17 pm.” The subsequent post came in while I was typing, and, well… I still can’t figure out what he’s trying to say.

amgam parrots the same thing minorities in Malaysia parrot : when a human being perceives a threat to their economic well-being they resort to racist drivel. We’re talking about economic policies that are not based purely on merit. Anyway, that is that.

You won’t be able to figure out what I’m trying to say until you can figure out what Vedder is really trying to say. In brief :

(1)The Old Order has a narrow definition of Intelligence and an even narrower idea of Elitism. People like Vedder and Charles Murray hope to defend their concepts of Elite American in this age and time.

(2)IMO, we cannot argue other virtues of college within context of what Vedder is saying in this article because that is not his point in the first place.

However, I believe strongly that everyone is entitled to a true university experience regardless of economic background or scholastic capacity. It is just very heartbreaking that people bought into the illusion that degrees offer more money and put themselves through the grind jumping hoops to gain one entry after another. The teaching of wealth creation and education on financial investment and management should be the job of private companies. People who aspire to make more money should instead go to these courses.

It is very wrong of universities to remain silent about the misconception that degrees automatically lead to better pay. It is not the degree itself that leads to better pay and employers and corporate decision-makers know this. This misconception misleads Americans into debt and the winners again are the bankers. That Higher Education projects an image as a Trust Authority makes their silent participation in this bubble the more appalling.

I hope Americans and the rest of the world come to realize that the idea of education (culture) must be separated from Business, that learning is not for increased income or wealth. Once you can see that clearly you will pursue both relationships and gain freedom from both. First you will pursue education to improve your mind, your culture and have freedom to learn what you love. Then you will pursue the knowledge of wealth creation and become financially free. Eventually you will be able to contribute to society by funding your own ideas coming from your examined knowledge or funding them together with like-minded VCs.

And then, finally, like me, you can choose to become a janitor with a PhD when you reach 45.

This is what I meant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded

As someone who still operates within the Matrix (but who is soon leaving for greener pastures), I assert unequivocally that the American higher educational system is broken. Instead of educating, we merely train; rather than teach others how to teach themselves, and thereby put themselves in positions to better their lives, we create subservient, dependent folk who are, at best, equipped upon graduation to be unthinking, servile middle-management types rather than the leaders of tomorrow.

However, with the American economy plunging to depths from which it will never fully recover, increasing numbers of graduates are finding themselves working at Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Wal-Mart, assuming they can find work at all. There may be light at the end of the tunnel, but it will be a while before we see it.

I have long awaited this article.

The fact is, many of the 18-year-olds who enroll in university programs have no real reason for doing so. Fresh out of terrible American high school programs, they have no idea what to do with themselves. So, mindlessly following the instructions of society (their parents, in particular) they begin the process of obtaining their Bachelor of Arts/Science degrees.

Now, don’t get me wrong – for those who have a specific career direction in mind, university is a great way of getting started. Those who seek employment in the fields of medicine, engineering, law, banking, teaching – university is where you need to be. My primary complaint is towards those students who enroll into higher education with no real career plans, choosing “easy” programs and essentially coasting through four-year stints of hangin’ out and partyin’ on mommy and daddy’s dime. These are the ones who should not be here.

Unfortunately for our society, a college degree has become the new high school diploma. People give you weird looks and wonder “What happened?” if you don’t have one. This shouldn’t be the case. If a college graduate is employed in one of the fields on the BLS chart above – guess what? You wasted four years of your
time and money (most likely mommy and daddy’s money, but the statement still stands).

Let’s consider an incredibly simplified case: a 22-year-old has just graduated with a B.A. in, say, Sociology, and accepts a position as manager of a clothing store. That’s cool and all – good for him. However, was it really worth getting that degree? He spent four years paying to take classes (at about $10k/year for public schools, or $35k/year for private schools) and living and eating in a dorm (another $10k/year that could have been invested into property/real estate). All this to come out and get a job that he could have been promoted to after working for two years at that SAME clothing store, meanwhile EARNING money instead pointlessly throwing it away. Alternatively, he could have enrolled at a trade school, gotten out in two years and instantly found much better-paid employment as an electrician, radiographer, engineering technician, etc.! Why go to university? Oh, right – because his parents told him to.

The above situation is essentially the opposite of mine. I am currently in university, but I have a definite direction I am heading and an application for my degree there. I get great grades, work part-time during school and did an internship over the summer at a Top 25 Fortune company. University is providing me with a REAL future, which I would be unable to pursue without it – the same cannot be said for, apparently, 17 million others.

I’ve heard many arguments about the unnecessary association between education and employment, but let’s face it – the point of going to school IS to get a job. If that retail clothing manager genuinely wanted to learn about sociology – just go to a library, for FREE, pick out a book, and read it. He’ll have plenty of time to do this after his shift at J.C. Penney. If your goal is “to learn”, you don’t need to spend four years of time and money to do so – there are plenty of ways to do so free of charge, without graduation requirements, and without being constantly bogged down by assignments and exams.

The result: not only do we have a bunch of college graduates sitting around working mindless jobs, but we have also decreased the value of a college degree in general. The term “university graduate” used to be impressive – now, it’s the norm. Many kids who truly belong in the trades, military, or labor force themselves through higher education, only to find themselves right back where they started. Kids, before going to university, think about whether it’s really right for you. And parents – do the same.

I haven’t read through all the comments but I hate that a college education is tied in many of them to economic return. And I resonate with segads comments that many folk who seem underemployed for their education are supporting a life’s work with this type of work. Education is not only about and maybe should NOT be about the type of economic return it can guarantee us over the course of our lives. Education — what we learn, what we seek to learn — is about our hearts and souls and our creative and intellectual passions. Or it should be, in my opinion. At the moment I am “using” my education – my PhD — in the job that provides me gainful employment, but I have done secretarial work, publishing, typing, whatever I could find in moments of low income, in times between research grants, whatever to allow me to continue to grow and contribute in my chosen field because it’s my passion. Having 17 million people or 5 billion people drawing breath with a creative, intellectual and/or spiritual purpose, whether or not they are making money in the area their degree program seemed to suit them for, is a plus for humanity, not a negative. I look forward to the day when life-long learning is universal and self-directed, and how you get the money you need to live can be something altogether different without the economists/pundists calling that a disconnect or a failure.

“Why did 17mill People go to College?” Maybe because they were duped by the educational-industrial-complex, who while cheering- on the outsourcing of jobs, was/is complicit along with the media/politicians/corporations/banks etc, in perpetuating the myth that education was/is the way to secure economic returns. All in the name of attracting revenue in the form of new enrollments and grants from corporations.
And these people with advanced degrees who are working menial jobs aren’t just people with humanities degrees. There are thousands of people of with engineering, IT, physical science degrees etc, who have been unable to find jobs for decades bec of outsourcing and foreigners coming in on H1B visas. Anyway, these jobs as bartenders and janitors are the new, “high tech” jobs in the service sector that the politicians promise. Maybe if we could get a “dirty” job making $20 pr/hr + benefits with only a high school diploma, at the Ford/GM plant like in the old days, many people wouldn’t waste their time seeking-out these degrees that have no takers in the market, unless they want to for their own sake of course.

Not all degrees are the same. I learned a long time ago from my Dad that there’s a reason why some colleges have a better reputation than others. It’s because they only admit the brightest and hardest working kids to begin with and employers know it. Their graduates are probably not in the waiter/waitress ranks.

If you look at the following Wall Street Journal story, you’ll see why I paid for my two children to go to Harvard and Lehigh respectively. Both are doing fine and my investment has quickly paid off for the family. My son (Harvard 2006) now is a successful hedge fund analyst and my daughter (Lehigh 2008) is actually being paid by others to get her Masters Degree in Pharmaceutical Science.

You’ll also note that the schools with best ROI’s are mostly Ivy’s and those that are well-known for their Engineering and Business schools. Podunk State Normal School isn’t on the list. You get what you pay for.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/06/30/top-20-colleges-that-offer-best-return-on-investment/

I kind of doubt that there are 59,409 people like the character “Peter Gibbons” from the movie “Office Space” out there working in construction–although there could be.

The career planning (‘guidance counselor’) function in secondary schools is–and has been for a long time–woefully lacking. No statistical evidence, but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the only thing these people know how to do is pass out ‘what color is my parachute’ or administer the Strong-Campbell interest inventory, maybe hand out brochures from colleges, trade schools, etc.

There is just not a very effective means of steering young people into gainful employment that suits them; and, an increasing number of them seem to feel that college is not a bad ‘gig’ for the next 4 years while they get a handle on life.

Easy financing exacerbates the problem that most young people have no financial skills and don’t realize the long term drag on their net earnings their student debt will cause. Unless they select a high-earning career field, they may well end up poorer long term (negative ROI); and, even that is no guarantee.

I find it interesting the total lack of connection that many of those posting here make between education and the need for individuals to be ‘productive members of society’ (i.e., to earn a living)! The ivory tower seems to have turned some eggheads into dunces ….

Sure … we should all be able to pursue academic freedom and research interests; but, in the real world, unless one is independently wealthy, earning a living ends up being of some consequence ….

Here is my two cents..

If U.S. is going to continue to export jobs and companies continue to hire outside labor then whats the point of people getting a college degree? College degree or not there aren’t any jobs and the jobs that are here there is stiff competition for them because so many people are out of work. Slow economy, outsourcing jobs, low wages, recession, I mean the chips are stack against everyone. Even the professional with 8 years of college is going to have a hard time finding a job in this country.

CC