Colleges are churning out too many liberal arts majors. Liberals are unqualifed to get jobs.

[Bruce Mankow]

So why are real wages declining for new college grads?
Economists point to a variety of factors, including two
recessions in the last decade, the continued loss of jobs
offshore and automation that has affected even white-collar
fields such as law and technology. Some contend that colleges
are churning out too many liberal arts majors and not enough
scientists.

Meanwhile, college debt is soaring. Last year, students took out
$117 billion in new federal loans, pushing the total outstanding
to above $1 trillion, according to the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-college-graduates-
earning-less-than-a-decade-ago-20120518,0,5813483.story

Liberals are lazy-assed cockroaches. If a class is too hard
they find a way to skip it.

Liberals without jobs are driving up the cost of education and
the national debt.

[Ed Huntress]

On 19 May 2012 06:40:46 -0000, "Bruce Mankow" <bma...@tech.cbs.com>
wrote:

The largest major area of study in US colleges is science and
engineering (17.8 million enrolled, not counting social sciences or
psychology). Business is 11.6 million. Education is 8.0 million.
Liberal arts, including communications, is 9.8 million. That's as of
2010.

There are more engineering students, alone (4.513 million) than social
science students (4.501 million)

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_B15010&prodType=table

You picked up the comment from your article, "Some contend that

colleges are churning out too many liberal arts majors and not enough

scientists," and you believed it without question. You jerked your
knee high enough to do a backflip.

And, for God's sake, it was the L.A. Times that you quoted.

--
Ed Huntress

[Frank]

I think the problem is that there are too many college graduates and/or
the demand for a college education has made it expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_attainment.jpg

The more money that is made available for education, the more the
colleges will charge. Physical plants and educators salaries are
escalating. Some university presidents, even those of state schools,
are making over $1 million/year.

Then an excess of college graduates in the job market is lowering
salaries.

[Ed Huntress]

That's true, and it's something that has to be dealt with. At the same
time, employers have been telling us for years that their problem, and
a reason for so much offshoring, is that we don't have enough
well-educated job applicants.

And the unemployment rate among college graduates is half that of the
population as a whole. It's hard to argue that we have too much higher
education going on, either from the students' perspective, or that of
employers.

>
>Then an excess of college graduates in the job market is lowering
>salaries.

I think you'd have a VERY hard time supporting that. Look at the
salary and unemployment rates by level of education:

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

College graduates have much higher incomes and lower rates of
unemployment. Business is constantly carping about our low educational
attainment levels and the corresponding lack of innovation.

You have an uphill path with that argument, Frank.

--
Ed Huntress

[Jeff M]

You might want to read what some major corporate CEOs have to say:

"George Bush may be the first president with an MBA degree, but U.S.
business is run by CEOs with a hodgepodge of degrees in everything from
atmospheric physics to French literature.

Carly Fiorina said a study of the past gives the present perspective.
Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a medieval history and philosophy
major (Stanford '76), says her curiosity about the transformation from
the Middle Ages to the Renaissance folds neatly into the digital
awakening that she must now address.

"A century of sustained and enduring human achievement" long ago leaves
her confident that "we have, in fact, seen nothing yet," Fiorina says.

Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner never took a single business course as he
earned a double major in English and theater (Denison '64). He has
nudged his three sons into liberal arts. He was reminded of a favorite
English professor, Dominic Consolo, when reading the script for "Dead
Poets Society", a movie about a passionate poetry teacher starring Robin
Williams. Eisner considers it to be one of the best movies Disney has made.

"Literature is unbelievably helpful because no matter what business you
are in, you are dealing with interpersonal relationships," Eisner says.
"It gives you an appreciation of what makes people tick."

Ambitious college grads peddling offbeat degrees in a job market gone
sour can take heart that such success stories are far from rare.
One-third of CEOs running the nation's largest 1,000 companies have a
master's of business administration degree, according to executive
search firm Spencer Stuart, many others do not.

Certainly, many CEOs take a more conventional educational path: Cisco's
John Chambers added an MBA to his law degree, and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay
added a Ph.D. in economics to his MBA. But for every CEO who takes a
businesslike approach, there are those who follow pure interests and
trample practicality on the way to the top.

Michael Eisner said literature shows how people tick. No one disputes
that there is a place for the traditional MBA. Miramar Systems just
hired a Harvard MBA for business development. But CEO Neal Rabin, who
majored in creative writing (UCLA '80), says chief executives who learn
at the knee of Harvard case studies know too many ways that companies
fail. They find themselves paralyzed by fear, he says.

Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Computer, was a pre-med biology
major at the University of Texas before dropping out after his freshman
year.

"I took one course that was remotely related to business:
macroeconomics," Dell says. "One of the things that really helped me is
not approaching the world in a conventional sense. There are plenty of
conventional thinkers out there."

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates also left college without earning a degree
� Harvard's most famous dropout had been studying computer science. More
typical, however, are executives who completed school but whose course
of study now seems irrelevant.

These CEOs say their offbeat majors have been anything but irrelevant.
Some say they still apply the knowledge learned in pursuing those
degrees in making day-to-day business decisions. Others say the degrees
helped launch their careers where economics, finance or business may
have not.

Any good education would have been enough to get a foot in Corning's
door 37 years ago, says CEO John Loose. But it's unlikely he would have
been chosen for his first big international assignment without a degree
in East Asian history (Earlham '64).

"To have an understanding of the history and culture of Koreans,
Japanese, Indians and Chinese was invaluable," says Loose. Even today,
Corning continues to court Asia as a rare bright spot in the depressed
fiber-optic market.

Likewise Sue Kronick, now group president of Federated Department
Stores, majored in Asian studies (Connecticut College '73).

Her rise from a Bloomingdale's buyer was helped by understanding India's
economic system so well that she found ways to slash the cost of imports.

"My background served me well," Kronick says. "You tend to get more
narrow in point of view as time marches on. Liberal arts is about
approaching problems from a different point of view."
John Chambers said business and law degrees can pay off.

Unlike President Bush (MBA Harvard '75; BA history Yale '68), 87 percent
of Fortune 300 CEOs did not attend an Ivy League school, according to
Spencer Stuart's Route to the Top survey last year. Corning's Loose got
his degree from Earlham College, a 1,200-student school founded by
Quakers in Richmond, Ind. Denison University, attended by both Eisner
and history major Terry Jones ('70), CEO of Sabre Group/Travelocity.com,
is a 2,100-student college in Granville, Ohio."
http://home.honolulu.hawaii.edu/~pine/libart/ceolibarts.html

[Jim Wilkins]

"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:9u9fr7dic6k8faprs...@4ax.com...

>
> That's true, and it's something that has to be dealt with. At the
> same
> time, employers have been telling us for years that their problem,
> and
> a reason for so much offshoring, is that we don't have enough
> well-educated job applicants.
>

> Ed Huntress

Irrelevant groups snipped.

Wherever I interviewed they seemed to want someone who already knew
their specific job without training. My father, a senior NH state
official, came back from a seminar with the concept that degreed
business professionals were interchangeable prepackaged skill modules
that you could contract for as needed, then let go until next year.

Even at Mitre, a semi-academic research organization, when the
engineer who hired me left and I switched departments I was on my own
to become a microwave radio technician after working on digital logic
prototypes. I got a ham radio license through a retiree there, and
took night school classes that they paid and provided TV-linked
classrooms for, but no one showed me the details of my complex new
field beyond very brief demos by another tech of how to use Spectrum
and Network Analyzers and assemble RF cable connectors. Then I in turn
had to instruct new engineers and co-op students.

For the 10 years I was there they had an open req for another Senior
Technician to do the same job, and never found anyone close to being
qualified. 1990's ex-military techs had become board-swappers. In
1970-71 the Army taught me how to quickly figure out the proper
voltage and current for every single component in a large rack of
complex communications gear. We could almost have designed it.

When my chemistry class was about to graduate the professor told us
that four years of intense coursework hadn't made us chemists, only
prepared us to understand the explanations when industry hired us.
Then it turned out that industry had almost no openings for new
chemists anyway. "Life" magazine printed a photo of a chemistry Ph.D.
grad who had covered his entire ceiling with rejection notices. The
field had been seriously oversold after Sputnik and provided new
opportunities only for professors.

jsw

[Gray Guest]

"Bruce Mankow" <bma...@tech.cbs.com> wrote in
news:JI2CZMA74104...@reece.net.au:

You forgot:

There is little need for Masters in interracial transgendered oppression
studies.

--
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to
be sure.

What I like about this attitude is it works equally well for Iran and the
Democrat National Covention.

http://nukeitfromorbit.com/

[Hawke]

The last time I saw figures on unemployment people with college degrees
had an unemployment level of around 4%. When you consider that compared
to everybody else that's working it's pretty clear that if you have a
degree of any kind you probably have a job. You can't say that about
other workers. So if you want to be sure to have a job even when things
are really bad you better have a college degree, even a liberal arts
one. But only about 25% of the public has a college degree. So too bad
for all of you in the other 75%.

Hawke

[Ed Huntress]

I'm not sure what your point is there, Jim, but the fact remains that
college graduates have an unemployment rate of around 4.5%, and those
without a college degree are running over 8%.

--
Ed Huntress

[Karl Townsend]

...

>I'm not sure what your point is there, Jim, but the fact remains that
>college graduates have an unemployment rate of around 4.5%, and those
>without a college degree are running over 8%.

I believe the point is to be careful and educate yourself in a field
with actual job demand. My son got two associate degrees, one in
machining and a second in CAD/CAM. He's had two really good jobs and
can move any day if he needs. OTOH, his cousin has a degree in Russian
history. His prospects aren't as good.

Karl

[geo...@ptd.net]

On Sat, 19 May 2012 09:01:39 -0400, Ed Huntress
<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:


>>fields such as law and technology. Some contend that colleges
>>are churning out too many liberal arts majors and not enough
>>scientists.

>The largest major area of study in US colleges is science and
>engineering (17.8 million enrolled, not counting social sciences or
>psychology). Business is 11.6 million. Education is 8.0 million.
>Liberal arts, including communications, is 9.8 million. That's as of
>2010.
>
>There are more engineering students, alone (4.513 million) than social
>science students (4.501 million)

An engineering degree doesn't prevent you from being unemployed. My
son has a masters in electrical engineering and was unemployed for a
year. He finally got a position early this year when the economy
looked like it was turning around.

[Ed Huntress]

Well, sure, a degree is never a guarantee of anything. We're talking
about statistics here, and having a college degree, in general, puts
one in a far better position for employment. There really isn't any
question about it. But a degree alone is no assurance of a job.

There are multiple stories playing themselves out simultaneously. One
story that still sticks in my mind, from six or eight years ago, came
from the owner of a high-tech company on the west coast, who was
complaining about the unavailability of good graduate engineers in the
US. Then he said he'd sent some of his design work to India, where he
was getting all of the good engineering services he wanted, from
engineers who were working for (then) $10,000/yr. He planned to do
much more of it.

So what was he saying to kids in the US? If I were a college student,
he would be telling me that he wanted more engineering students to
apply at his company, but that he wouldn't hire them if they did,
unless they were willing to compete with engineers in India at
$10,000/yr.

He was talking out of both sides of his mouth. I've interviewed a lot
of bnusiness managers over the last three decades, from companies
large and small, and he was more typical than we would like to
believe. They aren't being untruthful. They're just talking through a
conventional narrative that is in conflict with many of the business
imperatives that they have to follow.

That isn't a criticism: businesses have to follow the imperatives of
finance, of markets, and of costs and competition. But the real story
about employment is not as simple as their narratives. Your son
apparently has had that experience. I'm glad to hear he got a job.
I'll bet that some of his classmates, even those who did well in
college, probably don't have jobs in their field. My son, too, is one
of the lucky ones. He graduated two years ago and he's been working at
a good job in his field for over a year and a half. Many of his
friends from college are not.

My sense is that the kids can see these contradictions, and they're
wary about job prospects, while at the same time knowing that their
chance of being unemployed will be half as great if they get a degree.
So they keep plugging. More power to them. As for what they choose to
study, they aren't going to buy into the simplistic stories they've
been told. They can read the statistics, which really are quite simple
but which most people haven't bothered to study at all. I think they
can see the gap between the conventional wisdom and the real story
about who is being hired and not.

--
Ed Huntress

[J. Clarke]

In article <5shgr7ha3ot1vn16f...@4ax.com>, huntres23
@optonline.net says...

The thing that bugs me is the politicians who go on and on about how we
need to "improve science education", while at the same time they pull
the plug on every research initiative around. If the Congresscritters
don't think it's important enough to spend money on, why should anyone
else think it's important?

[J. Clarke]

In article <rbagr7t3pc2582c7p...@4ax.com>, huntres23
@optonline.net says...

And the major doesn't really matter as much as the fact of the degree.
I used to teach classes in network adminstration. The people who
struggled the hardest in them were engineers. Musicians, for some
unfathomable reason, seemed to pick it right up with no trouble.

[Jim Wilkins]

"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message

news:5shgr7ha3ot1vn16f...@4ax.com...
> ...>

> Then he said he'd sent some of his design work to India, where he
> was getting all of the good engineering services he wanted, from
> engineers who were working for (then) $10,000/yr. He planned to do
> much more of it.

Did he realize he was outsourcing his own job as well?

> I've interviewed a lot

> of bnusiness managers over the last three decades, ...

I first read that as brusiness and thought you had created a clever
new word.

jsw

[Jim Wilkins]

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote in message

>
> And the major doesn't really matter as much as the fact of the
> degree.
> I used to teach classes in network adminstration. The people who
> struggled the hardest in them were engineers. Musicians, for some
> unfathomable reason, seemed to pick it right up with no trouble.

Are you right- or left-brained?

jsw

[dca...@krl.org]

On May 19, 2:40 am, "Bruce Mankow" <bman...@tech.cbs.com> wrote:
> So why are real wages declining for new college grads?
> Economists point to a variety of factors, including two
> recessions in the last decade, the continued loss of jobs
> offshore and automation that has affected even white-collar
> fields such as law and technology. Some contend that colleges
> are churning out too many liberal arts majors and not enough
> scientists.
>

The reason real wages are declining for college graduates is fairly
simple. It is supply and demand along with the global economy. The
demand for unskilled labor is less than the supply. Ditch diggers
have been replaced by back hoes. And now the same thing is happening
to college graduates. Lots of jobs have been eliminated because of
computers. Finding obscure facts. Do you ask a librarian or do you
go to the internet? Right not as much demand for librarians. Making
a part, now one engineer will design the part using cad and use cam to
actually make the part. Where did that draftsman job go? Want to
check on a purchase, welcome to the automated phone system. Buying a
stock, Lots of low priced brokerage firms that use computers and
charge low commissions. The computer has made skilled workers more
efficient so fewer skilled workers are needed and the supply of
skilled workers has grown because countries as India , China , and
Korea can do a lot of the skilled jobs.

So what is the solution? It sure isn't to not go to college. The
demand for unskilled labor is worst than the demand for skilled
labor. No the answer is to work like hell and be better than the
other skilled workers. There is still demand for those that are
really smart, but the demand for someone who skated through college is
low.

For those that graduated recently and are not in the top 5 % of their
class, the answer is to get some experience which may mean working at
wages that are not great. So maybe join the military as an officer
and get experience leading people.


Dan

[Usual suspect]

On Sun, 20 May 2012 01:12:29 -0400, "J. Clarke"
<jclark...@cox.net> wrote:

>
>The thing that bugs me is the politicians who go on and on about how we
>need to "improve science education", while at the same time they pull
>the plug on every research initiative around. If the Congresscritters
>don't think it's important enough to spend money on, why should anyone
>else think it's important?
>

Congresscritters SAY things that appeal to voters. Congresscritters DO
things for their constituents who are the people contributed big money
to their campaign funds. Voters get BS contributors get results.

[Ed Huntress]

On Sun, 20 May 2012 07:27:45 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
<murat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message
>news:5shgr7ha3ot1vn16f...@4ax.com...
>> ...>
>
>> Then he said he'd sent some of his design work to India, where he
>> was getting all of the good engineering services he wanted, from
>> engineers who were working for (then) $10,000/yr. He planned to do
>> much more of it.
>
>Did he realize he was outsourcing his own job as well?

I don't know what he was thinking. I wish I could remember who that
was, so I could look into what he and his company are doing now.

>
>> I've interviewed a lot
>> of bnusiness managers over the last three decades, ...
>
>I first read that as brusiness and thought you had created a clever
>new word.
>
>jsw

I make a lot more mistakes with these newer keyboards that have
flatter keys and shorter keystrokes. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

[Lookout]

On Sat, 19 May 2012 09:01:39 -0400, Ed Huntress
<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:

Typical ignorant conservative. He reads the article and STILL can't
get it right.

[Lookout]

The answer it to get the world out of the recession that bush caused.

[dca...@krl.org]

On May 20, 1:47 pm, Lookout <mrlooko...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> The answer it to get the world out of the recession that bush caused.

Technically we are not in a recession. The Obama recovery has been so
gentle that it seems as if we are still in a recession. But the
demand for unskilled labor will not change when the recovery is doing
well, and the demand for college graduates may never change a lot
either. Certainly the top 5% of college grads will be in demand, but
the bottom half of the class may be in big trouble. Computers are to
college grads as back hoes are to ditchdiggers.


Dan

[F. George McDuffee]

==============================

IMNSHO this appears to be a correct analysis, and at one
level is an old science fiction story plot of what happens
to a culture when a "Star Trek" replicator is invented.

It is also a warning that the old economic panaceas,
poultices, elixirs, potions, chants, mantras, spells, and
catch phrases such as "get a job" are no longer operational
in that there are increasingly no jobs to be had for the
majority in the more developed countries. Indeed, the
continued application of these quack/folk remedies appears
to be increasingly counterproductive, at the least,
producing no positive results but at increasingly great cost
in time and money, while diverting attention away from the
actual problems largely the result of the abandonment of
high value added economic activity. One example is the
current obcession in the EC to "cure"
recession/depression/deficits of some of its member states
with IMF mandated "austerity." It did not work for Bruning
in Weimar, it did not work for Hoover, it did not work in
Argentina, and its not working now. It did however manage
to throw those economies off the financial/fiscal cliff in
another more human sacrifices to "Mr. Market"...

The socio-economic meta-narative [which people keep
repeating in their head about how the world should be] is,
for most people, now largely based on an obsolete [or
mythical] economic model, generally based on some version of
transnational global corporatism operating under the magical
effects of a benign "free market" and the "invisable hand."

What a new operational economic model (most likely there are
several) will look like is not yet clear, but a massive data
collection/correlation effort and critical analysis is
required, just to define the problems in objective and
measurable/quantifable terms.

In many cases the required data exists in real time, such as
credit card transactions and exchange trades. Other data is
slightly delayed such as IRS/Treasury Department receipts.
The federal government has the resources of trained manpower
and necessary equipment to sift this mass of raw data for
trends, patterns, correlations and other traffic analysis,
for example the NSA. ==>What is lacking is the will to do
so,<== possibly because the urgent/critical need to do so is
not yet understood (and most likely won't be until another
economic/financial crash occurs, at which point it will be
too late). One example of the patterns and correlations the
NSA (or other tasked agency) should be looking for is the
manipulation of the commodity markets, particularly food, by
"banging the close." There are many others.
http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/EducationCenter/CFTCGlossary/glossary_b

With closely tracked data/information, it then becomes
possible to apply an old optimization technique called EvOp
or "Evolutionary Operations." No particular understand of
the intricaticies of the process are required. Small
perturbations are made in the inputs to the process, and the
results are accurately noted. Variation of inputs that
result in positive changes can be kept or expanded. Changes
that result in negative changes can be eliminated or even
reduced below the base line. A few of the changes in inputs
for our economy could be a few cents increase in the minimum
wage, slight changes in the income and capital gains tax
rates, slight changes in the FICA withholding, slight
changes in the prime/discount interest rates, etc. Indeed,
changes like this occur all the time, ==>but the effects are
not currently tracked or correlated.<==
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVOP

A major problem is the simple word "better," as different
groups have different perceptions of what a better outcome
or result is. Indeed, a "better" aggregated outcome may
well result in a reduction in the income/importance of a
particular economic sector or activity, e.g. "financial
engineering."

REMEMBER -- THE SOCIETY, CULTURE AND ECONOMY WE SAVE IS OUR
OWN AND OUR CHILDRENS'.


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

[Gunner Asch]

Well...are we really..really recovering?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/still-crawling-out-of-a-very-deep-hole.html

....What distinguishes this jobs recovery from others is the sheer scale
of the job loss that preceded it. The economy has regained 3.6 million
jobs since employment hit bottom in February 2010, but it is still
missing nearly 10 million jobs — 5.2 million lost in the recession and
4.7 million needed to employ new entrants to the labor market. The
Economic Policy Institute estimates that at the average rate of job
creation in the last three months, it would take until the end of 2017,
fully 10 years from the start of the Great Recession in December 2007,
to return to the prerecession jobless rate of 5 percent. ......


Then there is this one..which has ramifications that really suck....

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/01/07/obama_unemployment_magic_trick_indefinitely_detain_4_million_people_from_workforce/page/full/



--
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry
capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency.
It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an
Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense
and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have
such a man for their? president.. Blaming the prince of the
fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of
fools that made him their prince".

[Oglethorpe]

"Hawke" <davesm...@digitalpath.net> wrote in message
news:jp93s8$if3$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

Look again. Recent grads are much higher than that.

[Ed Huntress]

On Sun, 20 May 2012 20:02:55 -0700, "Oglethorpe" <anti...@go.com>
wrote:

Well, of course they are. They always have been. The 4%, or 4.9% (as
of 2011) figure is for all college graduates over 25 years old. For
those with only a high school diploma, the unemployment rate is 9.4%

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

The unemployment and underemployment rate for college graduates under
age 25 hit a low of 41% in 2000. Then the IT and telecommunications
jobs dried up, and the rate currently is 53.6%. "Underemployment," as
the term is used here, refers to those with college degrees working at
jobs that don't require a college degree, as the Labor Dept. defines
them, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.

--
Ed Huntress
>

[Frnak McKenney]

On Sun, 20 May 2012 21:32:20 -0400, Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 20 May 2012 20:02:55 -0700, "Oglethorpe" <anti...@go.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Hawke" <davesm...@digitalpath.net> wrote in message
>>news:jp93s8$if3$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>> On 5/19/2012 6:54 AM, Frank wrote:
>>>> On 5/19/2012 9:01 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>> On 19 May 2012 06:40:46 -0000, "Bruce Mankow"<bma...@tech.cbs.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> So why are real wages declining for new college grads?

[...]

>>>> I think the problem is that there are too many college graduates and/or
>>>> the demand for a college education has made it expensive.
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_attainment.jpg
>>>>
>>>> The more money that is made available for education, the more the
>>>> colleges will charge.

[...]

>>>> Then an excess of college graduates in the job market is lowering
>>>> salaries.
>>>
>>> The last time I saw figures on unemployment people with college degrees
>>> had an unemployment level of around 4%.
>>
>>Look again. Recent grads are much higher than that.
>
> Well, of course they are. They always have been. The 4%, or 4.9% (as
> of 2011) figure is for all college graduates over 25 years old. For
> those with only a high school diploma, the unemployment rate is 9.4%
>
> http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

[...]

The primary reason I've heard given for encouraging high school
students to go on to acquire college degrees -- and for passing along
much of the costs of this to the taxpayers -- is that the increasing
intellectual demands of the expected job market will require more than
a simple high school education, just as in previous decades a high
school diploma went from being "useful" to almost universally
"required".

What are the odds, I wonder, that if we achieve a 100% college
graduation rate this will result in 100% of those graduating actually
having _learned_ the same amount as those graduating from college this
year, or (say) a couple of decades back? Or would educational
requirements in colleges and universities be "dumbed down" in order to
maximize the graduation rate (and income from tuition)?

The twentieth century saw "high school education" open up as an
wonderful opportunity, with pressure applied by parents (and
self-motivated individuals) and resulting in a diploma showing
personal effort and clearly demonstrating a significant achievement.

Over the ccourse of the century it became a place where attendance was
required rather than optionsl, and completion came to be urged less by
parents and more by the State, Commonwealth, and Federal governments,
yielding a completion certificate -- sometimes a mere certificate of
attandance -- held by many, and no longer sufficient to distinguish
one's self on the job market.

My impression is that over the same time span the value of a High
School Diploma also underwent a change, at least as as seen by
prospective employers. At the start of the century it represented a
potentially outstanding worker, but as HS graduates were few and
industry needed many employees a HS diploma wasn't a requirement; by
century's end a HS Diploma had become more common (less often
perceived as a reliable measure of the value of a potintial hire) that
more and more the undergraduate degree was used as a major yardstick
for evaluating potential employees.

Many of the proposals I see these days regarding ways to increase
college attendance -- and the justifications I see for them -- sound
like those I imagine must have been offered in the first half of the
twentieth century regarding a HSD: "everyone has a right to it", "jobs
will require it", "it'll pay better", "it will make better citizens",
and "it will make people feel better about themselves". My concern is
that, with pressure and over time, the undergraduate degree might
experience the same "devaluation" over the coming decades, and four
years of required attendance (Pre-K-to-12 "day care" extended to 16)
replace what we currently think of as a "college education"

I hope not. And none of it seems to address the major (in my eyes,
anyway) problem of motivating (at least intermittently <grin!>) kids
to do the _work_ necessary for an education... for sixteen-odd years.
( Or about sixteen _million_ in "teen years. <grin!> )

Grump. Grump. Grump.


Frank McKenney
--
It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
-- Yogi Berra
--
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney aatt mindspring ddoott com

[Ed Huntress]

Those are all good questions, Frank, and I wouldn't try to answer
them. I can only offer a comparison of my son's experience, graduating
from college two years ago, and mine, from over 40 years ago. I
attended a big cow college and he attended a very good little private
university not far from you (Washington & Lee, in Lexington).

His studies were far more demanding than mine were. They moved faster
and demanded more of students. Some of that was the different colleges
-- W&L is very highly ranked -- but my impression is that his
co-workers now, who have backgrounds similar to his and who are all
within a couple of years of each other in age, went through the same
thing. They're all doing pretty heavy analysis and research.

It doesn't look to me like there's any dumbing-down. The same applied
to high school. In that case, I graduated from a then highly-rated
public high school (Princeton, NJ) and he graduated from one ranked a
little lower, but still very good. Again, his work in high school was
at a much higher level and more demanding than mine ever was. In math,
for example, he started a full college year ahead of where I started.

I don't know what it's like in less-demanding schools, but where the
colleges can be selective, and where the parents are very supportive
in the public schools, it can be a lot better than it was 40 years
ago.

My wife teaches and I can see some of the problems that don't get as
much attention as they should. Most of the problems that I can see
come either from parents or frustrated teachers who won't push the
kids because it leads to trouble...with the parents. But most teachers
do. They're pretty fierce about it in the district in which we live
and my wife teaches.

So all I have is these anecdotal experiences. They don't tell us much
about how it is in general or where it's going. But they do tell us
about how it can be, given the right environments.

As for getting more kids into college, it will be a challenge to give
them a good education. There are some new ideas being tried. You may
have seen the Internet projects by MIT, Harvard, Stanford and so on
that open up lectures to tens of thousands. One Stanford prof says he
has around 100,000 online students. I'm optimistic that this will
become a big deal as they work out the kinks.

But I don't doubt that it is necessary to get more kids into college
and to teach them well. It's an absolute imperative. There is no other
choice for this economy and this society.

--
Ed Huntress

[Scout]

"Frnak McKenney" <fr...@far.from.the.madding.crowd.com> wrote in message
news:l56dndAMhPQ7ByfS...@earthlink.com...

I would say it's because high school graduates lack the basic knowledge
needed to function in working society. I've seen high school graduates who
can't even make change without a box to tell them the answer. I've seen high
school seniors that can't do basic four function math with a pencil and
paper, but again need their magic box in order to figure out the answer. So
have they become more adept at other skills instead? Nope. A high school
student of 20 years ago is better able to function in the modern workplace
than is the most recent high school graduates.


Sorry, the problem isn't that the work place has become harder...it's that
they have dumbed down the schooling and now it takes a year or more in
college just to be where they should have been at their high school
graduation.

[Gunner Asch]

Very very very well stated!!!

Gunner