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For Businesses, the College Degree Is the New High School Diploma
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that a college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement for getting even the lowest-level job. Many jobs that didn't require a diploma years ago — positions like dental hygienists, cargo agents, clerks and claims adjusters — increasingly requiring a college degree. From the point of view of business, with so many people going to college now, those who do not graduate are often assumed to be unambitious or less capable. 'When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,' says Suzanne Manzagol. A study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce found that more than 2.2 million jobs that require a minimum of a bachelor's degree have been created (PDF) since the 2007 start of the recession. At the same time, jobs that require only a high school diploma have decreased by 5.8 million in that same time. 'It is a tough job market for college graduates but far worse for those without a college education,' says Anthony P. Carnevale, co-author of the report. 'At a time when more and more people are debating the value of post-secondary education, this data shows that your chances of being unemployed increase dramatically without a college degree.' Even if they are not exactly applying the knowledge they gained in their political science, finance and fashion marketing classes, young graduates say they are grateful for even the rotest of rote office work they have been given. 'It sure beats washing cars,' says Georgia State University graduate Landon Crider, 24, an in-house courier who, for $10 an hour, ferries documents back and forth between the courthouse and his company's office."
Really, does it take 4 (or is it 5 now!) years to train people to be file clerks?
'When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,'
As one professor pointed out in an econ class - the real value of a degree is the signal it sends - you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it. Simply put, it takes some of the workload off of the person looking to hire.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
What a fine way of guaranteeing every citizen massive debts (public or private) for the privilege of a job.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
...than have a massive pile of debt that I don't expect to pay off until I'm 50 and still making car washing wages.
Over qualification, if somebody is actually requiring a college degree to scan groceries (clerk), they can go shove it. Then again according to this article the people at the NY Times only have HS diplomas, so should anybody really listen to them?
Also, based on the example given, Landon Cider sounds like he went for a law degree and rather than becoming the billionth lawyer, he got stuck as the water boy.
I wouldn't use the NY Times to line a birdcage.
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
"joining The Times, Catherine wrote for the Washington Post editorial pages and financial section and for The Chronicle of Higher Education"
* The Chronicle of Higher Education
* 1255 Twenty-Third St, N.W.
* Washington, D.C. 20037
So this is basically a lobbyist for higher ed encouraging everyone to take out education loans.
No thanks.
Can we mod an entire article down? How is this news for anyone?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I guess I'm just lucky then? I have no degree and get $20 an hour. This place isn't even the best paying company in the area either. I'll skip the indoctrination and keep earning double what these college kids get.
the real value of a degree is the signal it sends
Very true!
you are someone who at least can stick to something long enough to finish it.
That is not the message a modern degree sends.
The modern degree sends a message that you are a herd animal, to the point that you will stay with the herd even to the point of your own financial ruin.
There's no question that to some companies a docile herd animal with no instincts for self-preservation is a valuable resource. I'm just not sure I'd want to work for them given the likely expectations.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Two months ago, Hugh Pickens writes: "Just Say No to College" and today he's relaying to us 'your chances of being unemployed increase dramatically without a college degree.'
... Hugh Pickens wants everyone to be unemployed?
*head explodes*
So
My work here is dung.
It is inefficient to make everyone spend 4 extra years in school just so lazy recruiters can save themselves a couple hours, to say the least.
Unfortunately, it is also a reflection on the ease with which a lot of people make it through high-school without ever having to learn much in the way of responsibility. For example, when you work, your employer actually expects that you will show up on Monday morning and be somewhat functional. The college degree is no guarantee to the prospective employer but it usually has required more self-discipline than high-school.
The military has many programs and partnerships to help you get your degree while you are serving but most are from little unknown colleges. The oppurtunity is there though.
I could have got a Nuclear Technolgies degree using my military training, experience, and background and nothing but a few cleps. I slacked off and never did it. That was 15 years ago and I never thought i would need it. I got out of that field and I am now the network manager at a large international company. Even though I made it this far, I see our hiring practices changing to require degrees. Even off the wall degrees that have nothing to do with the job come past me. I personally still consider past work experience in the area we are hiring for as the most important criteria and military experience and college degree second but our HR department does not.
Well with initiatives like "No child Left behind", where you really have to work at failing for the school system to let you, a college diploma is the only standardised ubiquitous way that a HR person can tell if someone is likely not a complete waste of space.
Non-college graduate here.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It isn't what you know, it is WHO you know.
Stop answering job ads by filling out forms and sending them to HR drones. Find a way to make direct contact with people who make hiring decisions. Network. Schmooze. Volunteer at charitable events -- especially charity golf events.
When I was out of work I volunteered to update the web presence of an exclusive downtown executive club in a big city. It was a horrid mess of Cold Fusion and Visual Basic -- the old kind, before dot Net. Fixing it wasn't point. Getting free invites to attend functions at the exclusive downtown business club got me to rub elbows with people who made hiring decisions -- and needed competent IT employees.
Getting ahead without a degree can be done. Yes, it is harder, but alternate paths do exist if you try. And then there is the "I have no student loan debt" benefit.
You'll also be surprised how many of the people who own their own successful businesses at those exclusive clubs never finished college.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I own businesses in the Midwest and South Florida. When I post a job listing (usually through Craigslist), I specifically request people with no degree apply.
In the past 9 years, 100% of people I've hired were undegreed. These were the people I wanted, because they specifically weren't indoctrinated into the college mentality. I want self-starters, people I can later on invite to become a business partner. I also don't want political correctness, feminism or any of the other progressive mindsets in any of my businesses. Those people can hit the road -- I don't even want them as customers.
I also hate having employees with major debt.
I pay better than average wages, and I purposely look through applications for the non-degreed folks.
I'd love to see a job search website that focuses on people bright enough to skip 4 years of college and just hit the employment roles.
Of course, I don't have HR departments, I would never hire an MBA, and I go out of my way to work with the millions of entrepreneurs out there who also didn't go to college but are earning bank.
Maybe with luck society will separate into two groups: the politically correct nauseated degreed folks and the self-driven and determined entrepreneurial type.
Actually, I graduated without a dime in student loan debt. I worked full time and went to school full time (with a very understanding employer). Now, I am a hiring manager in the world of IT. I value experience, but a degree shows that you have some soft skills to go with your knowledge. A degree with business courses also shows me that you will understand other functions of the company, and not just your own job. An engineering degree shows me you are able to solve complex problems and have learned to research well. Even a liberal arts degree at least shows me you are able to meet deadlines and focus. Certifications will get your foot in the door, whereas a degree will move your career path along.
The educational system in this country is BS at this point. I dropped out of college 3 times - the first time, to pursue an internship which my university didn't officially endorse, then again after returning to that same university, and then again from an online college. I began to realize that what I was learning was in no way going to help me in my chosen field, and I have a perfectly fine job which could not possibly benefit from a degree anyhow.
The problem is not that people should need a 4-year degree for basic jobs, but that the K-12 system is no longer sufficiently educating many graduates - and that HR departments are either lazy or overloaded to the point where they just slap a 4-year degree down as a minimum requirement (whether the position really needs it or not). Because I graduated from a very good private high school, and actually tried during those years, not just sliding by, I have plenty of knowledge, skill, and experience to hold myself just fine in the sorts of jobs that interest me.
I've held my current job for over seven years now, which is a good indication of interest in a career, rather than just a paycheck - and ought to be plenty of proof to any future companies I might want to work for that I can 'stick with something'... when it is worthwhile. Frankly, any company not willing to look over my full resume and consider my value without regard to my college education is one I wouldn't want to work for anyways.
William George
Slashdot is a news aggregator. The posts don't necessarily reflect the ops opinions. I for one appreciate the opportunity to hear both sides of the story.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I have no degree and get $20 an hour.
Wow, $20 an hour. Impressive. [/sarcasm] That's about what, $40,000 per year if you work full time? The average starting salary for an engineering graduate in 2011 was around $61,000
I'll skip the indoctrination and keep earning double what these college kids get.
You make barely more than an engineering intern gets while still in school. You're really showing them how it's done.
" 'It sure beats washing cars,' says Georgia State University graduate Landon Crider, 24, an in-house courier who, for $10 an hour, ferries documents back and forth between the courthouse and his company's office."
I work for a full service car wash as a supervisor. I wash cars. I don't have a college degree. I both make more than $10 an hour and would rather be washing cars than sitting at a desk. So this quote in the summary really made me laugh.
So where should one obtain related work experience without already having related work experience?
A college education is the single greatest value in the modern world. Nothing else even comes close. Dollar-for-dollar, nothing else delivers more quality of life to the individual -- nothing. People who complain about its cost have no idea what they are talking about.
That's just not true any more in the US. It's true for the top 10 colleges, and maybe the top 50, but as you go further down, the return on investment of a college degree goes negative now. In 2011, 85% of college students moved back in with their parents.
We should cut the work week to a few hours. Advances in automation means that it takes less work to produce the same level of goods. Since there's a limit on how many goods we actually want to have, and a limit to our planet's ability to deal with rampant resource consumption and waste, the answer is not constant growth. We should not be harnessing every advance in automation into building more shit and filling our landfills with more trash. Constant growth is an impossibility because we are limited by the resources of the planet and not by manpower.
This is especially troublesome for US. US student has to get into hundreds of thousands dollars of (non-dischargable) debt in order to get his degree in order to have a job in a corporation (even if it means flipping burgers). On the other hand corporations are sucking nearly every bit of fresh air and war between big and small business is pretty much open nowadays with big business winning this war (as mr. Buffet told us that some time ago). In such environment getting a decent job without becoming a debt slave becomes harder every passing day. Welcome to a new feudalism.
In addition, requiring college degrees for mindless jobs ensures that the person you hire will be unhappy with the job. "I have a college degree and I'm asked to sweep the floor? I quit!" But then, this works in favor of those doing the hiring, doesn't it? A job position that keeps coming up open means they have work today. Hiring people actually suited to their job would quickly put the HR person on half wages.
I come here for the love
This is what happens when you have created a pay-to-play society like here in the US.
Education these days is nothing more than another form of corporate profit and requiring college degrees for even menial jobs is nothing more than a method to force people into a form of indentured servitude.
How's that you say? Well debt == enslavement and where is most people's largest amount of debt outside of their home? Debt which can not be discharged by declaring bankruptcy? Student loans.
Now be a good slave and get in line to get your expensive degree so you can work at McCrapphole corporation.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
I wish I had a dollar for every tech job posting I've seen that required more years of experience with a certain language or skill longer than said language/skill has been in existence.
"'When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,' "
The goal is not to filter resumes. The goal is to find the best applicant for a given amount of search effort.
The problem is, companies are decidedly unserious about putting in the effort to find someone. For all the talk about how hard it is to find qualified applicants (let alone the best), companies are busy filtering resumes for typos, the currently unemployed, and past periods of unemployment.
What does going to college tell you about a persons character? It tells me they're submissive to authority and lack initiative, which is great for many roles. A person who rejects the idea that he should sit at the feet of the wise old professor and learn and instead go out into the world and get to work making waves might not suck up what you give them and ask you if they're doing ok.
Mediocrity and reliability go to school. The worst and best reject it.
You can go about making your waves. Make big ones - I genuinely hope you do and you have a great time.
I analyze and evaluate the structural performance of supersonic fighter jets, which make waves, but of a different type entirely. My values and goals simply don't match yours.
Those of us who wish to be movers and shakers in STEM must first know the basic building blocks, and those are easily learned from the wise old professors who built these things before us. I strive for reliability in specific ways and pick an choose which authorities it is in my best interest to submit to. If you think my peers and I lack initiative and must be "mediocre," I think you need to open your eyes to different ways of viewing the world.