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What's Your College Major Worth?
Hugh Pickens writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that with tuition rising and a weak job market everyone seems to be debating the value of a college degree. Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, says talking about the bachelor's degree in general doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because its financial payoff is heavily affected by what that degree is in and which college it is from. For the first time, researchers analyzed earnings based on 171 college majors and the differences are striking: For workers whose highest degree is a bachelor's, median incomes ranged from $29,000 for counseling-psychology majors to $120,000 for petroleum-engineering majors but the data also revealed earnings differences within groups of similar majors. Within the category of business majors, for instance, business-economics majors had the highest median pay, $75,000 while business-hospitality management earned $50,000. The study concludes that while there is a lot of variation in earnings over a lifetime, all undergraduate majors are worth it, even taking into account the cost of college and lost earnings with the lifetime advantage ranging from $1,090,000 for Engineering majors to $241,000 for Education majors. 'The bottom line is that getting a degree matters, but what you take matters more,' (PDF) concludes Carnevale." Last week we learned that dropping out of college could earn you $100,000 in start-up money for your business.
As a grad student in engineering that has seen nearly all his friends at the BS, MS, and PhD levels all able to find good paying, stable jobs, I had grown pretty tired of the stream of /. articles from Ivy League tenured professors of religion ranting about how our education system is all wrong.
What about the ones that did not find the job in their field, and are deep in .... with a debt, low paid job, insecurity, wasted time, etc.....How are they measured in this statistic?
I'm just paraphrasing some of the comments on TFA here. Some of the fields need a Masters or PHD to enter the profession. Not surprising that a bachelors degree in Psychology gets you diddly squat, if you need a Phd to get licensed.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
No shit, Sherlock.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Everyone knows that higher education is in a bubble. This type of article just show that everyone now recognizes it.
The causes are clear. The government subsidizes loans, making it easy for students to take on more debt and for colleges to jack up tuition. Companies just use a degree as a proxy for basic competency. The list can go on.
However, the real question is how will the bubble burst. What will happen? I have no idea. But it can't go on. You can't have 18 year olds wrecking their entire financial future for a degree.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
What you love doing or can cope with doing for 40 years in a row.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Here's my anecdote/data point: I graduated last August from with a professional degree from a respected state university. Immediately thereafter, I was unemployed for six moths, and as of right now, I'm doing contract work and earning less take-home pay (after you figure in self-employment taxes) than I did the summer after I graduated from high school. So for me, figuring expenses, lost wages, etc., college works out be worth about -$200,000.
This economy sucks.
FWIW, you can get a minor in what you love, and a major in what will earn. No one is forcing you to gear your entire curriculum to the Benjamins.
I did that eons ago, with a major in EE, but a minor in history. I've long since translated the engineering skills to the IT world, but the history I still have and treasure. It happens that I love the engineering side of things, so it fit me in either case (yes, I still have a bench at home, though time doesn't permit me much for playing at it).
If the field you truly love doesn't make any money, so what? Be happy with the less luxurious lifestyle, but living a life that matches your passions. FFS, if you love doing archaeology, even though the life would be pretty poverty-stricken, then by all means *do it*.
The guy who dies with a smile on his face is the one who wins, not the one whose bank account is the biggest.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
In 2002 the US Census Bureau calculated that the value of an average degree over a lifetime was $2.1 million
Has the value dropped that much in 10 years? Taking inflation into account, the value's gone from roughly $2.6 million down to less than $1 million? I know we're comparing average to median here, but I have a hard time believing Warren Buffett et al are skewing the numbers by a factor of 2.5+.
I kinda said this in another post, but I think it should be a requirement of a student loan to research and detail how you plan to turn your degree into an actual job. As you said, a lot of people getting degrees are doing so because they've been told degree = better job. This is true where degree = computer science or engineering. This is generally not true where degree = music therapy.
Not saying oddball degrees can't result in a job.. and if you are _really_ pationate about something like that, then I think people should go for it... just do some research and figure out how you are going to make a living with it _before_ getting the loan.
I would also note that the ability to live very frugally for a few years after graduating and working a McJob throughout school/summers does a lot for avoiding the lifelong crippling debt thing.
FTA: "'The image higher education carries of itself as a large liberal-arts institution where everyone sits on the lawn and reads Shakespeare," he says, "hasn't been true since the 70s.'"
Sigh... that's my major. Not that i don't love what I study, but even if I pretend otherwise, it always hurts a little bit when I get asked what my major is and upon hearing it's in the arts I get the famous, "what are you going to do with it?" question.
The point of getting a degree from college isn't to learn vocational skills, it's to more generally broaden yourself and to learn how to learn. The whole notion that your degree should directly influence your earnings is reflective of how today many people go to college to get vocational training. If you want to teach mathematics, you shouldn't get an education degree in college, you should get a mathematics degree, and then go on to teaching from there. If you want to go into business, learn some more fundamental skills like statistics and critical thinking, intern over your summers, and then go to business school for your MBA.
Perhaps even more troubling is the notion that the sole goal in life is to make more money. What about doing a job that you enjoy, even if it pays less?
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Most of them do something else or go on to higher levels, as you suspected. On that note, I will stop procrastinating (my last Art History paper of the semester is due today) and get back to work. And no, I'm not in Art History (however, as I've said somewhere above, my major is just as useless), but my major includes some flexibility and offered an honours seminar that I couldn't resist.
Nursing is an interesting example of this problem. 5-6 years ago the industry was screaming for help, so tons of new nursing programs opened at universities and were quickly filled. Today, those nursing grads are having a horrible time getting work. It's not like you can just put your chosen career on hold for 2-3 years while the economy recovers.
Dropping out of college might be good for some people, but....
and maybe I am dumb, but I learned a LOT my last two years of college. Those were the hardest years (as far as my major was concerned), and also where I got to take the most interesting classes like AI and compiler design. I strongly suggest not dropping out of school. On the other hand it worked for Bill Gates.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
All undergraduate degrees are worth it? Bullshit. Worth it compared to what? Averaging the earnings of high school graduates with college graduates, and then concluding that the college degree was worth it is complete BS. The choice is never "high school" or "college" (since neither are generic career paths). Even worse is then comparing the breakdown of different majors compared to the entire aggregate of high school grads. (Hint, there's delineation of earnings within High School grads. Some people work as plumbers, and some people work as ditch diggers).
"was it worth it" is an extraordinarily complex question to answer, even if you base it just on earnings. It can only be answered by the choices the individual has, and certainly not answered using aggregate statistics. If you want to make economic decisions based on career paths, that might be useful. I think we all know stopping your education at High School and deciding to wait tables the rest of your life at Perkins is going to be a bad economic choice. But what about becoming an electrician, plumber, or roofer compared to getting an undergrad in psychology and being a counsellor earning (apparently) 29K a year? I'd guess the skilled trades have the undergrad in psychology beat.
The point being, there's a hell of a lot more choices beyond "do I go to college, or not".
Develop a technical bent and become a technical writer?
Develop a journalistic bent and become a journalist?
Become a secretary, writing out reports on behalf of, and to be read by, people with other skills?
There's an astonishingly large number of very bad writers out there and the one thing a BA in English MIGHT be able to convince people of is that you're able to string sentences together.
The idea that a college education is an interim between high school and a career is foolish. I've only completed my Associates' degree up to this point, and i know it's worthless in the current job market. School isn't just a stepping stone in my career. I went to the local community college on grants and scholarships. I took classes that I'm interested in, and I came away with an A.S in Information Science. During my time in school I found other people like myself who enjoyed what they were doing and excelled in their learning experience. I also encountered other people. These people viewed their coursework as a means to an end and plenty struggled with it. Some people struggled until they broke down and quit.
I understand that there are careers out there that require strong backgrounds in the maths and sciences. That should have a prerequisite of rigorous study in those topics. However, jobs outside that domain are better served by individuals with experience. For example, I think a person with years of retail experience is more beneficial in a lower to middle management position at a store than someone who has a degree in management but never manned a register or stocked shelves. There are certain nuances of retail culture that can only be gained with experience. This applies to any other profession as well.
Im currently in the market for a position on an IT support team. I've seen numerous job postings that require a bachelors' degree with a "we train" clause. Or a minimum wage position that requires a degree + x years of experience. C'mon, a high school grad with a mild interest in computers could man a tier 1 support line. I'd expect most BA/BS candidates to scoff at a minimum wage position.
Frankly, it's taking a fair amount of discipline not to get four or five degrees, simply because I haven't run out of fields which absolutely fascinate me. Along the way, I'm finding very few classes I don't actually enjoy, and it's certainly more fun than real work.
If I was just in it for the money, I'd be a mainframe expert -- it's easy, but there are few enough of them (because no one wants to do it) that it's also very well paid. But then I would hate my life. As it is, I'm likely to end up in some sort of software development, but that's not going to stop me from studying the more interesting bits of biology and cosmology, because the universe is awesome.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
well, I believe some sociology major with mod points just went over the comments here, thus you can see the results....
You can't handle the truth.
once you get past the race and gender tables. The actual facts about the comparative values of various majors starts around Table 30.
The problem with looking at this from a race/gender perspective is that the data tells us almost nothing about why there is a difference between these categories. For example, the study reveals that Petroleum is a specialty major, that 100% of the people who majored in it are men, and that this major has the highest median income.
OK, facts noted. Does this mean that men are better suited to be Petroleum Engineers than women? There's no way to tell from this data set. Maybe women would be great petroleum engineers, but they don't choose it because it sounds like it would be uninteresting or unpleasant or too inflexible.
What we _can learn from the data is that if you want a major that will bring in a steady, terrific income, Petroleum Engineering and other specialty majors are pretty awesome. The Study makes it pretty clear that people with "hard" majors make about twice as much as people with "soft" majors, so if money is your thing, pick a hard major. Put another way, if what you love to do is a soft major, prepare yourself for a life where you will never be tempted by the siren call of enormous wealth.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
There are a few Tech / IT apprenticeship / training / programs out there that are not your Tech school / University of Phoenix type school. But are a real training / internship. As there are a lot of people that are not cut out for College or can't pay for it. There needs to be more hands on and less tech the test / the book type CS classes. Also in 4 year College there is way to much math that has little use in IT. Electrical, HVAC and plumbing is not 4 years in a class room loaded with theory no it's mixed class room with real on the job! and the class room is a lot hands on as well.
[Something] a BA in English MIGHT be able to convince people of is that you're able to string sentences together.
...and more importantly, that you, the English grad, are able to cohesively and concisely compose documents that are easy to read (for the target audience), convey meaning appropriately and in the order intended, and that your strung-together sentences comprise a greater whole than the haphazardly-strung-together sentences of someone without your knowledge and experience.
To
It should be kept in mind that most of this is, of necessity, old data. It probably doesn't have a lot of relevance to a time in which college degrees are, in many fields, simply losing their relevance.
By definition, old data cannot keep up with rapid new trends.
what about the guy who dies in debt, which he could never pay out, because he went to a university based out of fear, that is instilled into anybody today, that without a degree, he won't find any job, never mind a job in a field of their liking?
My point is that it is totally unnecessary to go to a university for most people, they are pressured into it, that's why they take courses that are pointless and useless - they never should have been in the university in the first place!
They are there, because of government printing and handing out money to them via students loans, but in reality those are not student loans, those are wealth transfer to those colleges and students are used as collateral in this war on common sense and value of education and fiat currency and economy in general.
The value of the diploma is diminished also because the quality is suffering from this artificial demand, which give anybody a loan, and then the universities grade on a curve, because you know what? Majority of the people there need to FAIL, goddamn it, they are not there because they like any of it, they are there to conform to this stupid requirement that society now puts in front of them.
And another thing: now that the unemployment is so high, it's likely somewhere in 25-35% in reality, all those students are staying in school longer, taking on more loans, getting more of this so called 'education', so that they only don't have to face the terrible job market. Guess what: it's not going to get any better.
Anybody who doesn't have real aptitude and passion for something, that really requires to go through the years of college, should instead keep their sanity, stay away from the debt and go get a job offering their services at like 10% of the asking price. In 4 year they'll have no debt, they'll be working, getting real experience, maybe having an average salary and some savings (especially if they live at their parents'), and the new college graduates will be coming into the terrible job market - without skills, with huge debt, competing with everybody across the world for those same jobs.
Also while these kids are at college, they take the money and they blow quite a lot of it on shit, they shouldn't, just because they have the cash, while what they really could do is take the loans, buy some gold, buy some dividend paying stocks from China, buy renminbi and go get a job somewhere or maybe study on their own, while making interest and beating inflation.
But you know what is going to happen, right? QE2 will be replaced with SE3, then with XE4 and then at some point the students also will be bailed out by the government, so you can even not only beat the inflation, but also even beat having to give the money back, even whatever worthless money it will be at the time.
Before you plunge yourself into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt in this economic environment, you may want to step back and think it over and make the best decision of your life and NOT go to college.
You can't handle the truth.
that of all possible career paths, education has the lowest financial incentive? What does this portend for our future?
College studies don't help that much, but not having the sheepskin now hurts a lot as it is used to filter on conformity, race, parental investment, age, and some other things, many of which are now illegal to ask about on job applications...
Lots of links here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
Also, google on "college bubble".
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
It's not clear from TFA, but it doesn't appear that they have taken mortality into account. So they're selling the 'lifetime payback', but that assumes you have a lifetime.
..if you don't like your job. (no, not salary)
Agreed, on many, many fronts.
I know folks in the IT realm (in many disciplines) who have nothing more than a high school diploma and a couple of industry certifications, but (years later, mind) command one hell of a salary due to experience and demonstrable levels of skill. I have a former student who has nothing more than a 2-year degree, but is pulling in six figures working for Juniper as a high-end technical consultant.
Certainly, folks like the Intel Corporation will shred your resume w/o a second thought, unless they see an engineering degree in it somewhere (yep - worked there, seen it happen... unless you're an intern, don't bother). That said, most businesses that aren't IT- or tech-oriented are more than happy to take on employees who know what the hell they're talking about, with the references (and/or for programmers, publicly available FOSS code) to prove it. Even on the admin side, I've had many interviews where they ask me why they should hire a spark-chaser, but after showing them (with a metric ton of references) that I am happier in IT and have pursued it with more than enough competence, they tend to come around rather quickly on the topic.
Long story short, you;re absolutely right - especially in this climate. OTOH, it's a decision that will take research, talent, and more than just a little work... sort of like life, really. :)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What about my bachelor's in human services that's the equivalent of an MSW for the feds?
Do you REALLY want someone taking care of you/your kids/your parents WITHOUT a college degree?
Get a trade profession
That's actually pretty good advice - quite a few of the financially successful folks from my high school either went trades or smaller programs (one works in insurance, only needed two years of coursework to get started).
In practice, a degree is as good as any other, unless you need a specific degree for your career path (doctor, lawyer, librarian). So do what you're interested in.
Uh, Bill gates and Sergei Brin were smart enough (and worked hard enough in school) to get into the most selective undergraduate, and graduate programs in the world.
What "human services" would be taking care of me, my parents or kids exactly? Because by the time any of that will need to happen, there would be no government to do it, no money for it, and there would be plenty of cheap labor as well for the same reason.
As to your question: I don't care about your degree at all, it doesn't even enter my thinking process as long as you can show me that you can do the freaking job.
You can't handle the truth.
...you can sure as hell vote, die for your country, get tried as an adult, and make a huge decision (i.e. where to attend college + what to study in college) that will affect you for the rest of your life!
Short answer: Writing.
Seriously - copy writing and editing, proofing, speech writing, public relations. There's a lot of jobs out there for someone who can make things sound good. I have two friends in that bent - they work for political parties, non-profits, that sort of thing.
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge
have earned me this useless degree
I can't pay the bills yet
'cause i have no skills yet
The world is a big scary place.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Well, I know with what I do in computer game programming, I wouldn't hire an apprentice. There is simply very little work for those who are not bringing their own expertise, since doing takes seconds but figuring out what to do takes hours, people are there to figure out what to do, not to be shown what to do. Resignations and redundancies are so close that training someone for more than a few weeks makes very little sense from an economic perspective. Guys who are good, especially really creative programmers tend to be impossible to work with until they are in their mid 20s, if someone doesn't believe they are God at 19, they've probably not got the meager talent required to impress themselves and aren't going to be much good anyway. Best that someone goes to university where they get plenty of challenges, people to share with, qualified teachers and plenty of time to practice their trade rather than being stuck doing the boring work, probably badly in a team that doesn't need them.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Seriously? People have been taking care of other people without a college degree for millennia.
I dropped out of University and eventually persued vocational and on-the-job training. I now earn the equivalent of US $175,000 a year and consider myself reasonably comfortable.
While getting a degree could be considered a nice 'lift' up the ladder early on, graduates are often considered rather green in industry and often the type of people who won't like to get their hands dirty - to be honest, in these economic times, that isn't what employers want!
There are lots of jobs out there that open up just because you have a degree. Several of the managers at my work turned out to have weird degrees like art history rather than business. Even though a friend of mine is good with computer and has experience, he was only eligible for his current job because he had a history degree also. My uncle with a degree in fine arts ended up the plant manager because he had a degree and the other candidates didn't. While the most important things in getting a job are connections, experience, and then education as last, a degree, any degree, is often a bullet point on many jobs and if nothing else will put you ahead of those without. If you have the connections and the experience, just about any degree of suitable level will do.
Do you _need_ a BA in English for that? I have one Bachelors and two Masters degrees in engineering/math related fields. I like soccer and I like writing. I wrote in depth soccer reviews and analysis for a popular soccer website for two years. I'm pretty sure I can be a technical writer or a secretary as competent as a major in BA.
But I can also write code for sophisticated data analysis on multicore systems - and that pays many many times the above.
What terribly useless degree did I get? I got a B.S. in biology. I have a Masters in genetics. I'm currently in a top PhD program in biology. I have two publications, both from undergraduate research. But my qualifications have no relation to my argument - I learned that in philosophy 101, reasoning & argument.
The more relevant point: I went to a small liberal arts school. I took classes in music, English, philosophy, the sciences, foreign languages, economics... and I'm a more informed, well-rounded person because of it. I'm also a better critical thinker, and I can write coherently and express ideas (something not taken for granted these days, unfortunately). If I choose to go the academic route, the pay will pale with respect to the amount of time and effort I'll put in, and I'll be okay with that because I enjoy the subject.
Of course you're going to learn skills and knowledge that pertain to your field of interest while in college. My point is I didn't go to college to become a biologist, I went to college and came out prepared to become a biologist (hence the graduate school afterwards), and also an educated member of society. The field of biology is poised to undergo some of the biggest changes yet, and any set of skills that I'll learn today (microarrays, sequencing gels, etc.) are bound to be out of date in 20 years. Those aren't the important skills that I learned, but that's what a vocational training teaches.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Do you REALLY want a STRANGER taking care of you/your kids/your parents WITHOUT a college degree?
Sure, people can do it. I do a fine job of carving up deer, and was always great in anatomy class, I can cut apart frogs and cats like a pro. You probably won't let me perform surgery on you.
I know this is an exception rather than the rule but a very close friend of my brother studied History of Art as he was passionate on the subject. He published several graffiti magazines (all profitable) during his degree and as part of his studies published an art book - photography of derelict urban sites, old hospitals, prisons, mental asylums, train yards, factories, etc. That was also rather profitable.
A degree like that gives you time to pursue something outside of the degree, something related perhaps, or something completely seperate.
Doing something you are passionate about, especially if you have the means, is much more fulfilling than doing a degree that you hate just to get a job.
That said, I studied Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics and now work as a Trader. I hated my degree (went from boring, to tedious, to purely abstract - Something I would enjoy as a hobby, but not on a schedule) but every bank wanted a degree to consider you for employement. I love my job, though lack of free time is a bit of a drain (and my bonsais have suffered, as has free time to dabble with computers) and am constantly challenged. My brothers friend is currently in washington working for Al Jazeera (he is a proper, proper Brit oddly enough) and loving it too. Different paths but both ending in careers that we are both happy with. Albeit by very different routes.
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Best of both worlds.
Got a job right out of college that paid (the then) astounding salary of $25,000 a year (yes, I am pretty damn old). Never worried about work that paid on the high end of the salary curve since.
While the mathematics were primary, i devoted much of the Arts potion of my degree studying the history of Mathematics.
Balance. All things.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What does the interest on the loans add up to?
What percentage actually complete the degree?
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I wouldn't expect two people to skew a median value significantly when dealing with a population size many orders of magnitude larger than them.
You'd better pick up a minor in business for that grow op you're learning how to run.
I looked through the stats in the pdf, and it looks like only about 40% on average graduate.
Presumably they did however take out loans while they were studying so you have millions out there with student loan debt, but not even a degree to boost earnings.
Does indeed seem like there might be a problem.
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What the hell does the college degree have to do with taking care of people? If you can do the job, you can do the job. If you can't, you can't. This isn't engineering, where there's a very specialized body of knowledge that you're useless without.
Yes! I would mod you up if I hadn't commented earlier. Studying something you are passionate about gives you time to do stuff related to your degree, while also providing the tools to do so or it simply stimulates you to pursue interesting side projects. However, sometimes it is not just about the "journey, " like in your case, which resulted in a good job (and living situation) down the road. Thank you, very well said!
Math is of little use. I'm the only guy in my department with a bachelors, and took all the math and physics required for any of the engineering degrees (there was only one major that required more math than I had, and it was the math major). And so, when we did new stuff, satellite and wireless, I lead the group because no one else could work their way through a wireless link budget. No one else could understand, much less calculate, a Fresnel zone. Sure, plenty of people do that stuff with no actual knowledge of the math behind it. But the math does help. As does the math when looking at the Ethernet specification and understanding why half-duplex fails just past 100m. Or when thinking about encryption.
Sure, you don't need a math and science background for IT, but it helps. It's the difference between an IT engineer and just some tech.
Learn to love Alaska
Because if you think you can do the job, you'll probably appear serviceable at it to yourself and your clients.
Then, 10 months later, Grandma can't get her pills because you helped her find the wrong Medicare prescription drug benefit, and now she has bedsores because you thought it was OK to not move her - she didn't want moved!. And Junior is still pissing the bed, only now he's too ashamed of himself to go to school because you thought it was just a problem of encouragement or "letting him grow out of it" and he never did. Wifey commits suicide because it wasn't really medication like she said, and you didn't know what signs to look for anyway, and Hubby goes away for it for life because you didn't know where to find fee-reduced bereavement help or support group, and the cops got him to sign a false confession.
Junior ends up on the street because he's 16 and you didn't know the foster care facility would only give him 6 months to find a job and the hit the road. Your untrained colleague gives him $75 too much a month in food stamps when he applies at the welfare office, because had she been properly trained, she wouldn't have assumed a 16 year old was too young to be homeless and independent. The gubmint finds out, and tosses him in federal prison for a few years for welfare fraud.
It isn't engineering, but there is a very specialized body of knowledge that you can cause major damage without. You don't just learn these things "on the street," if you're going to call yourself a professional (I'll even accept tradesperson), you need to be trained.
As a grad student in engineering that has seen nearly all his friends at the BS, MS, and PhD levels all able to find good paying, stable jobs, I had grown pretty tired of the stream of /. articles from Ivy League tenured professors of religion ranting about how our education system is all wrong.
No. You are taking proof that education pays as proof that our education system is not wrong. I'm sorry to say, but that's not how logic works. I'm the recipient of post-grad education, which IMO was really excellent. I know that it opened a lot of doors for me and has allowed me to command a very (very, but very) good salary.
But that doesn't change the fact our education system is wrong. All you have to do is take your average HS grad and ask him what the square root of 36 is, what a/b + c/d equals to. On a much less esoteric and far more practical front, what exactly our education system equips HS students with?
Our education system is wrong in that it makes no provision for vocational training at the HS level (as found in say, the German or Japanese models of education.) It also makes little provision to college-level vocational training (as in AS degrees.)
Our education systems works on the assumption that the only road for success is in getting one or more college degrees. It ignores the fact that in practice, every economy has a threshold over which it cannot absorb more college graduates. It makes no provision for building a skilled, blue collar work force.
It is absurd for a college educated person like yourself to be completely oblivious to that fact. And just because you or I have been the recipients of a good college education (and that we are bound to reap the benefits), that does not mean that is is working for society. That is not how logic (and economics for that matter) works, and you as a grad student should have (or should have had) sufficient analytical acumen to come to that realization.
Those mistakes are all indications that you can't do your job correctly. They're not indications that you really need a college degree to do the job. Yes, you need to be trained, but is a four-year university education the best way to do that?
Degrees where the job is in demand get better pay.
News at 11.
My point definitely wasn't that people should choose their education based solely on what is going to make them the most money. You spend a huge chunk of your life at work, so I think it damn better be something you like.
My point was more that the long term goal of said education should factor into it. The whole exploring yourself thing is all well and good, and in the long term works out for a few... but it's a pretty damn big chunk of money to spend on personal growth with no idea what you are going to do with it. Unless of course you have rich parents or something.. then go nuts!
This is a serious problem: how many people do you know who hate their jobs but feel stuck? I know many of them.
Quite a few, and most of them either didn't get an education, or got a degree in something with zero employability and ended up in a shitty McJob. That music therapy thing wasn't something I pulled out of my butt.. I actually know someone who got an education in it. For a free internet, what do you think they are currently doing. I actually know very few people who chose a career based soley on economic outcome... and the few I do are probably better off.
We also have a fairly large art school in this area... why I don't know.. from what I've heard the only employment in this province is pretty much teaching at said art school.
in our society, 18 year-olds embarking on a university education are still children
I always consider myself very lucky in that regard and I'm sure a lot of the slashdot crowd can relate to this. I knew exactly what I wanted to do going into high school. Hell I knew long before that, I just hadn't really started looking into the education/career side of things. I find it very hard to relate to making it that far in life with no clue what you want to do. Surely in 18 years _something_ has to have occurred where you said "hey, I could do this for a living". At the very least it might occur to people in their last year of high school that "hey, maybe I should think about what I'm gonna spend the next 40 years or so doing". Obviously I know this isn't the case. Most people seem to randomly pick... which results in the mess we are all familiar with. Just not something I understand.
The problem with this argument either for or against college is that, in today's sound-bite society, it will never get the consideration it requires. There are a lot of great reasons to go to college and better pay is pretty good motivation but I went to college for better work and a more interesting career than the guys I worked with as an engineering technician. I know guys with less schooling and experience in the same field that make more money than I do. I also know folks that wish they were where I was but never took the college money that was part of our benefit package. They left the money on the table. I know a supervisor who is struggling to keep staff because the techs stay long enough to get 30 or so credits to finish the undergrad and split the department for a better job. It's all a matter of interest, what the student is there for and personal interest.
If you are in for the money alone you will have a hard time in the long run. Anyone remember the dot-com bust? Not that long ago was it? I finished anyway. I did it because I wanted to and there would be jobs out there eventually. I landed in the same field I started in; the aerospace industry. The work is well regarded, the pay is good and I get to work with some incredibly smart people every day. I won't get rich on what I make but I make quite a bit more than almost all of the hourly and non-exempt staff. My background is electronics, my degree is in Information Systems and my job is as an industrial sensors (multi-discipline) engineer. My degree was helpful in learning some of the things I have to do but it was hardly what I would think of as a vocational school. That is the other option: Go part time on a company benefit plan while working full time. Get an Associates Degree to get a job and then finish from there. It takes longer and its hard but you end up with the degree minus the debt and that can't be over stated for most of us. You don't have to slog out a degree straight through the traditional way. For those of us from middle income families that is impractical at best and stupid at worst.
I also have to admit that the general education classes I initially dreaded sort of grew on me over the course of my studies. Mythology and the Joseph Campbell books were sort of cool. Philosophy, American History, Psychology, a course in parenting with a Sociologist as the lecturer. While the core courses were the meat and potatoes of the education the general education requirements were a chance to look into things I would otherwise never have considered. By the time I was taking that stuff I had taken all of the math, physics and chemistry along with the software and hardware courses I needed for the BS degree. I still needed the general education courses and I was enjoying it by then. While I did take a few on-line courses over the years in the summers, the networking and people I met, going over the material with other adults (without multi-tasking) for a whole thee hours of so a week came to be something I looked forward to. The job I have now I owe to a course I took at UMUC in the 90's. It's only a waste if you really don't care about it and you don't expect much. If you care about the nature of both work and learning then you put more into it and get more out of it.
bob@Osprey:~>
Guys who are good, especially really creative programmers tend to be impossible to work with until they are in their mid 20s, if someone doesn't believe they are God at 19, they've probably not got the meager talent required to impress themselves and aren't going to be much good anyway.
I think you're missing out on something here. There are plenty of people who are very intelligent but who lack self-confidence, perhaps the guy/girl you're talking to was bullied throughout their younger years and has come to look at anything he/she does as simple and useless or perhaps they are merely comparing themselves to the best of the best, I know I sure did that in my teens, I didn't compare what I could create to the things my peers created, I compared it to what the "legends" of the computing world created. And when you're comparing your own little 2D game to Quake and some little utility program you just wrote to something like TeX or the Linux kernel it's easy to feel like you are completely unskilled.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
A good engineer makes that in under 10 years.
As an English guy at the age of 19 doing a CompSci degree at the University of Leicester (1st year almost done), I can't comment on the value of the degree for the price I'm paying, and even if I could, it'd be irrelevant for people deciding in the future here as it tuition fees are going up massively soon.
That said, I am really, really enjoying my degree. The people, the course, the whole experience. Yeah, I'm sure I'd get some of that working, but it is a great thing. If I don't take massive monetary value out of my degree, in knowledge and enjoyment, I'm hoping to take a hell of a lot.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Age discrimination is also a problem. What they don't tell college students is that the engineering degrees have an expiration date on them. The closer to retirement you get the less companies will even hire you. If you suffer a job loss in your late fifties your expensive degree isn't worth the paper it is printed on.
If you sort the graph from highest median salary to lowest, you will see that the people who are care about the future generations (educators, counselors, social workers, etc) are paid the least while people (like me) that help drive our unsustainable culture are paid the most. That is not really something to be proud of.
I have a BS, so I'd have to say yeah, making one a more well-rounded person and exposing them to cultures and an environment other than their own would help them to more effectively deliver services to, well, a population that's of a culture and environment that is totally different than their own. If you want to be wishy-washy and take bullshit classes, sure, a humanities degree is worthless. But my knowledge of the human body, especially in regards to mental health, rivals most of the nurses that I went to school with, and I learned and became fluent in Spanish from scratch at university.
I look at a road and don't see why you would need a four-year degree to make it, either. Highway, sure. Surface road? Not so much. Yet, they keep hiring P.E.s. If an accident happens because the P.E. was not properly trained, the same results occur as if I did MY job wrong: Bad shit that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Hell, if you really want to go there, the 3 CS/EE majors I lived with would have ME repair their computers. What's their degree for, then?
They do offer 2-year programs, and some social services do not require that their practicioners hold any degree at all. Hell, my internship supervisor had a degree that was 3/4 "life experience." She knew her shit, but would she know what to do if someone brought their kid in with a cracked head? I'm serious! It HAS happened. I've got a first aid certification because I was an RA.
But, like I said, my 4-year BS is the equivalent of a master's degree in social work for some federal agencies. Mine was a multidisciplinary major, focusing on applying only proven, academically reasoned and tested programs. You would be surprised the amount of effort that some social workers put into making sure that the programs that they administer are proven to show results, work on a shoestring budget, and are (hopefully) applicable across a wide range of populations. As an undergrad, I designed nutrition research: Survey some po' kids, survey some normal-to-loaded kids, see what they eat for snacks. Then, go to another campus and feed one group of kids the po' boy snacks, the other the rich kid snacks. See who's fatter.
I guarantee that some "on the job" training or "life experience" would not allow you to come up with a testable hypotheses, design an experiment, and statistically analyze your results. We do things the same way you guys do, only it's fuckin hard to design our experiments. Humans are fickle.
In our society, 18 year olds are still children because that is what we train them to be. They spend 7 hours a day in rooms with 25 other 18-year-olds and one adult, and then they get home and spend all their time socializing with other 18-year olds. Why should it surprise us that they don't learn to act like the few adults in their lives?
The fact that people consider it strange to expect an 18-year-old to have some idea of responsible adulthood shows how far we've come. College in most cases is just a way for parents to feel good about prolonging their children's childhood - it does little to benefit kids in the long term in many if not most cases. I'd never cosign a student loan or fill out a financial aid form unless my kid could provide a very strong argument as to why that education will have a positive return on investment. I don't expect MBA-level analysis - just a measure of common sense.
Aren't co-dependent variables the kind that go on daytime TV shows?
Find your love in school while you are still in it. If you wait until working outside to find your other half, all you get is gold diggers.
Of course there are people who still want to go this route because it saves you money during college, but then make sure you get a pre-nuptial to protect your assets.
New Economic Perspectives
Yeah, because rich parents have NOTHING to do with ANYTHING. lol
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Maybe it's about time you guys start electing people who are ready to make radical changes to the education system.
In the UK the recent changes to the higher education sector have made changes to allow universities to decide on tuition fees (something I strongly disagreed with), but thankfully imposed a 9000 pound cap. Maybe you guys across the pond should consider something similar to prevent the spiralling costs? Allowing something as vital as education to be governed by greed is asking for trouble.
If you can't get work and you are highly educated why not volunteer your time in exchange for a bed, food and some life experience? Do some aid work abroad! Help out on Japan, Haiti, if you're feeling adventurous - north Africa.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
What kind of voter are you if you can't think critically, or if you don't understand politics and science? Can you manage your financial decisions without and understanding of math and business? Think about what a better neighbor, parent, and traveler you would be, if you could speak a foreign language.
Answer: an ethnocentric American Republican.
Aristotle could afford not to worry about making a living, because he was an aristocrat with slaves working for him. We aren't.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
The issue is that not all engineers like writing and are competent at it. For those that aren't, it might make sense to outsource the task to an English major.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
And what percentage of 17-19 year old incoming Freshman have any clue as to what they want to major in or what career path they would like to take?? I changed majors 2 times and would have been totally screwed if I had to write an essay when I was 18 to obtain a loan for school.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
"The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it." --Alan Saporta
India is developing since you can exploit Indians via caste system.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/03touch.htm
China is developing since you can exploit Chinese by abusing human rights.
http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-apple-workers-forced-to-sign-no-suicide-pledge/20110504.htm
Americans are suffering since US regime is letting Chindia exploit their people via outsourcing.
US visa system/outsourcing should be linked to caste system in India and human rights in China
Globalization is exploitation unless US issues World Passport to citizens
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Some engineers are competent writers, but many engineers are not.
Additionally, it might be a better use of company assets to have the $100,000/year Engineers engineering things full time, and letting the $45,000/year technical writers do the technical writing.
As I noted in some of my other posts, I believe education, including the formal variety, is very valuable. It is only the idea that formal education will pave the way to future financial success that is flawed. If your only goal is to become rich, you are wasting your time in school. I find it disconcerting that so many will defend higher education as a way to riches when there are so many other great reasons to be there that aren't based on questionable statistical interpretations and general myths. The quest for knowledge and personal betterment should be reason alone to get people into the classrooms, no?
Type of degree matters big time. My wife and I have eng degrees and have never been unemployed. We are in mid-40's. Right now I know 4 different guys with Commerce/Business degrees that are out of work. All started after Univ with jobs selling ad space, insurance, working in banks, managing sales accounts etc.. The problem is that although they know a domain - the skill set needed to do the job is just not that hard to master - and they get too expensive. Who wants the 45 yr old sales fart when you can have some new grad for half the price. Funny thing is that my wife doesn't even work as an engineer. She is in finance and does costing/contract stuff. She gets great jobs - works in technology but on the business side. They hire her because she has an Eng degree and understands what they are talking about. The generic Bcomm schmuck can only fake it.
A study performed by an educator at an educational institution, head of another organization dedicated to higher education. A man whose various jobs depend on people paying for higher education, whose entire existence revolves around higher education.
Did anyone seriously think this study would say anything BUT "get a degree"? It's like a Coke executive doing a study on whether you should drink Coke.
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
And what percentage of 17-19 year old incoming Freshman have any clue as to what they want to major in or what career path they would like to take
- I don't know what percentage it is, but it should be the same percentage that goes to college in the first place.
You can't handle the truth.
I wonder what the relevance is, given how few of them there are.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And they had rich parents IIRC.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10154383/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/college-freshmen-face-major-dilemma/
Eighty percent of college-bound students have yet to choose a major, according to Dr. Fritz Grupe, founder of MyMajors.com. But they are still expected to pick schools, apply to and start degree programs without knowing where they want to end up. It is little wonder 50 percent of those who do declare a major, change majors — with many doing so two and three times during their college years, according to Grupe.
Seems perfectly normal for me.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
No, those are the people who should not even think about going to a college/university yet. They need to go work for a while, get some experience and then, when they figure out what they want to do and how much they are willing to spend on it (to get into debt for), then they may want to consider going to college, once they freaking know what they want.
But hey, to each his/her own. They'll make their stupid decisions once their are in the college, but they already will be half way into the poor house by then.
You can't handle the truth.
In fact, in that very article you linked to you will find this:
While it is difficult enough watching children struggle to find their lifeâ(TM)s path, it can also be costly. With tuition averaging $13,833 a year at public universities, indecisiveness can drain college savings accounts as students restart course sequences or transfer schools â" losing credits in the process. Ultimately they risk extending their college days beyond the four years parents planned to finance.
According to the College Board, five- and six-year students are not uncommon. Roughly 40 percent of those who start a four-year degree program still have not earned one after year six.
and then this:
âoeOur board took action when it noticed more of our students were taking longer to complete their education,â says Doug Bradley, director of communications for the University of Wisconsin System. They instituted an âexcess creditâ(TM) surcharge to encourage students to move on with their lives. The surcharge, which kicks in at 30 credits above the 135 normally needed to graduate, doubles a studentâ(TM)s tuition. Though assessed on a case-by-case basis, it is currently being applied, confirms Bradley. And other schools are taking note.
And that's exactly what I said, except I understood better why they are doing it:
And another thing: now that the unemployment is so high, it's likely somewhere in 25-35% in reality, all those students are staying in school longer, taking on more loans, getting more of this so called 'education', so that they only don't have to face the terrible job market. Guess what: it's not going to get any better.
and after all of this does it still seem perfectly normal to you?
You can't handle the truth.
Basically make as much as someone with a Harvard degree, get paid to go to school and retire making 85% of your working income as a prison guard in CA.
No wonder CA has budget problems.....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Okay - somebody has to defend the arts degrees here, and I guess I'll do it. A lot of people are looking at this in terms of technology work (hardly surprising, as this is a technology site), but a liberal arts degree is far from useless.
Take me, for example. I just finished a Master of Arts in War Studies with a history concentration. Prior to that, I got a B.A. in English literature, and prior to that, a B.A. in Medieval Studies. Where did this lead me? Contract defence research. The work I do will hopefully help my country (Canada) avoid a debacle like the United States had in Iraq between 2003-2005. No new graduate with a B.Sc. could do what I do.
Will a B.A. immediately lead to a job paying $80,000 per year? Probably not. But, it does tell an employer three very important things: you can finish what you start, you can work under pressure (depending on the reputation of the school), and you can think critically. All of these are attributes that are looked for in the senior positions. So, you may be making $30,000, or possibly less, right out the door, but you will be on the path to a much better senior position as you get more experience.
And, if you want to get ahead outside of the technology field, the liberal arts are important. Want to work in politics? A liberal arts degree will take you farther. Same with defence research, or working in developing countries. Or social work.
So, a liberal arts degree is not useless. It just doesn't lead into a technology field right after graduation.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive