:huhldup: Gawker: We Need Fewer College Graduates

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

We Need Fewer College Graduates
Hamilton Nolan

Raising the percentage of Americans who have college degrees is a major component of the Obama administration's education goals. It's a policy that can swing many billions of dollars towards the higher education industry—an industry that is growing every more conscious of the fact that its financial foundation is not solid. "Promoting higher education" sounds like a good cause, in the abstract. But it may be a huge waste of money.

A new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity points out that, technically speaking, a whole lot of bachelor's degrees are going to waste in the job market.

About 48 percent of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests requires less than a four-year college education. Eleven percent of employed college graduates are in occupations requiring more than a high-school diploma but less than a bachelor's, and 37 percent are in occupations requiring no more than a high-school diploma...

Past and projected future growth in college enrollments and the number of graduates exceeds the actual or projected growth in high-skilled jobs, explaining the development of the underemployment problem and its probable worsening in future years.

So, at a time when our collective student debt level is dangerously high, when nearly half of college graduates are not in jobs that require their college degrees, we are actively, as a matter of government policy, trying to raise the percentage of Americans who get college degrees—even though the supply of college grads is already projected to exceed the supply of jobs that might require a college degree.

This naturally raises the question: why the fukk would we be encouraging more people to get college degrees? It sounds like we should be encouraging fewer people to get college degrees.

Education is good. And going to college is nice. But sending millions upon millions of our young people to college comes with a cost: a huge financial cost to the public that subsidizes those degrees, and a huge financial cost to the students themselves, in the form of student loans. (There is also the opportunity cost of all those kids spending those years in college when they could be doing something else more productive.) Having spent billions upon billions of dollars getting all these extra college degrees, the graduates find that when they leave school, they are forced to get the same jobs that they could have gotten without a college degree. At best, we are simply inflating the resume requirements for menial jobs; at worst, we are pursuing a woefully misguided policy that expends great effort and financial resources producing a bunch of indebted graduates that no one has a productive use for. It amounts to a pointless government subsidy to the higher education industry. It also displays an irrational fetish for credentialism. If the government wants to invest in public education, there are many more economical ways—free online classes, more funding for libraries—than funneling more students towards unnecessary bachelor's degrees.

Would it be nice for every high school graduate to get a college degree? Sure. It would also be nice for every high school graduate to take a year off and travel around the world, to expand their horizons, at no cost to themselves. But you don't see a massive public movement to subsidize such a program, even though you could make the same arguments for its benefits to the minds and souls of young people as you could make for going to college.

College is not magic. It is a system of education that costs money, and it exists based on the assumption that that education will ultimately pay for itself on the back end. If it becomes abundantly clear that such extended periods of schooling do not pay for themselves, and that they are, on balance, detrimental, what with their penchant for locking wide-eyed idealistic young grads in prisons of inescapable debt, then we should not be promoting it as a matter of policy! Do not fall prey to all these silver-tongued college administrators! They've spent decades honing their crafty rhetorical tricks!

Going to college is great, assuming you put your degree to use one way or another. (Going to college just for fun, or just for the sake of reveling in the beauty of knowledge, is also great, but it is a luxury, and like any luxury, it goes only to those who can afford it. We do not as a matter of course recommend that people ruin their financial futures in order to indulge in momentary luxuries.) There is absolutely no shame in not going to college, if you want to do something in life that does not require a college degree. We should not be subsidizing colleges in order to provide America with a desperate, indebted class of future temp workers. It does not make sense.

[CCAP. Photo: Getty]

 

[88m3]

sigh

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

WHAT IS SOHH GOOD ABOUT A COLLEGE DEGREE?

 

[Serious]

Dope article. This should be common sense by now though.

I'd be down with subsidizing a program like this

Would it be nice for every high school graduate to get a college degree? Sure. It would also be nice for every high school graduate to take a year off and travel around the world, to expand their horizons, at no cost to themselves. But you don't see a massive public movement to subsidize such a program, even though you could make the same arguments for its benefits to the minds and souls of young people as you could make for going to college.

Not going to front, I do have the luxury of going to school intrinsically as well.

 

[Hood Critic]

Even as a person who didn't finish college, I wanted to disagree with this article and sentiment. But I can't deny some of the cold hard truth thats laid out:

"...At best, we are simply inflating the resume requirements for menial jobs; at worst, we are pursuing a woefully misguided policy that expends great effort and financial resources producing a bunch of indebted graduates that no one has a productive use for..."

"...If the government wants to invest in public education, there are many more economical ways—free online classes, more funding for libraries—than funneling more students towards unnecessary bachelor's degrees."

"College is not magic. It is a system of education that costs money, and it exists based on the assumption that that education will ultimately pay for itself on the back end. If it becomes abundantly clear that such extended periods of schooling do not pay for themselves, and that they are, on balance, detrimental, what with their penchant for locking wide-eyed idealistic young grads in prisons of inescapable debt..."

 

[Scustin Trillberlake]

Y generation got fukked in the ass

 

[Serious]

Even as a person who didn't finish college, I wanted to disagree with this article and sentiment. But I can't deny some of the cold hard truth thats laid out:

Real talk all the information needed, is literally finger tips away:

Want a Liberal Arts education?:

Spoiler

cengage

I read books from here all the time. I got enough ebooks for the rest of my life...

 

[mbewane]

I've been saying this for a couple of years now, and even though it's politically incorrect, I still think it's true. High education is very expensive, and a society only needs so many geographs and people holding a PHD in medieval litterature. Now is culture/education important? Yes, and I STILL support free education, but a balance should be struck somewhere. n Belgium now, it's the high educated who have a hard time finding a job, because in that segment of the economy you have to be VERY highly educated, and there aren't enough jobs anyway. At the same time plumbers are working extra-hours to meet the demand, but no one (including myself) wants those "manual" jobs anymore.

@Serious the EU has recognized the importance of "non-formal education" and youth exchanges in other EU countries as well as subsidized Volunteering is a fact around here, even though not nearly enough. It does offer a great alternative (and actually less expensive) to "formal" education: one can learn a new language, skill, interpersonal and intercultural aptitudes, and generally grow as a person. I participated in one of those projects in Italy, and it was great. Problem is: it's still not fully recognized but the private sector as a worthy experience, and with the crisis funds have lessened. I personnaly think that subsidizing time abroad should be a priority as an alternative to higher education (as an EU supporter I also believe it will bring EU citizens closer, but that's another debate).

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

I think kids need to do 2, maybe 3 things before college

- travel
- do some form of national service
- get some working experience

Real talk I would rather subsidize 4 years of that (esp since 2/3 of that is labor anyway) than 4 years of school. Kids need experience, kids need breadth, kids need vision.

 

[CrimsonTider]

I think kids need to do 2, maybe 3 things before college

- travel
- do some form of national service
- get some working experience

Real talk I would rather subsidize 4 years of that (esp since 2/3 of that is labor anyway) than 4 years of school. Kids need experience, kids need breadth, kids need vision.

Kids need money

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Kids need money

All the more reason to stop + think seriously about getting a degree

And if all the stuff was subsidized kids would have money

 

[Suicide King]

All the more reason to stop + think seriously about getting a degree

And if all the stuff was subsidized kids would have money

Exactly.

There is not much you can do about underachievers and the unmotivated taken up space in college and not living up to their full potential when they graduate. There are college graduates that I can think of that are either doing entry-level jobs, retail, or government jobs that don't require a college degree. College was not a means to an end for them, it was something to do, but can anyone really argue there is a benefit to an uneducated society.

I think anyone should go to college if it makes it easier to reach their goals in life. There are two groups of people who probably won't get much from a college education: 1)those who are self-made and go getters (probably do not need the structure and critical thinking skills that college provides) 2)the other group are people who are not cut out for college. So I believe we STILL gotta look at it case-by-case.

 

[Crakface]

So i guess you guys want the government to tell you what jobs they need you for and train you in that specialty.

Of course they dont need too many people educated. Whos going to flip burgers?

 

[Serious]

true ^^^

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Can't cosign this. We should direct the kids to get useful degrees like medical, engineering,ect. Too many kids go to college and spen a bunch of money getting a degree that would never get them a job. I know a girl with a bachelors degree in modern dance

The problem isn't that too many people are paying for school. The problem is too many people paying for school that won't help them make money in the future.

And furthermore if we are gonna talk about school being too expensive, that's the fault of American capitalism. It doesn't cost a college 10k a year to teach each student. Schools should not be in the business of making money, an educated populace is essential for a successful future. Schools should quit looking at students as $ and start looking at them as investments in our future.