Saturday, May 4, 2013

Death By A Thousand Cuts


The younger generations face death by a thousand cuts.  Two articles yesterday in The New York Times, included below, describe opposing viewpoints of the value of education in America.  The first article paints a rosy picture of college graduates having a less than 5% unemployment rate even though the article also admits that many of these young people are working far below their educational skill level.  Tellingly, the article fails to take into account the crushing burden of debt (big surprise).  The other article reveals what most of us know from personal experiences or experiences with friends—that a greater number of young people must live at home into their late 20s and sometimes beyond.  America continues to slide to the bottom of the list of developed countries that produce young people with the ability to support themselves.

The legal field provides an exaggerated version of the indebtedness and joblessness caused by the academic industrial complex.  It is disheartening to see newspapers try to paint a rosier picture of the numbers by suggesting that a college degree is much more valuable than it actually is.  Most of us know the reality: most young people work at retail and food service jobs to pay crushing debt, often an exercise in futility.



12 comments:

  1. Not having a college degree means job prospects, any job prospects are much worse. Having a college degree means job prospects are much better, and any job can lead to better jobs down the pike. My daughters are getting ready to go to college. We looked at private and public colleges. Many private colleges are now easily as expensive as many law schools. Even the least expensive private colleges have tuition in excess of 15K per year . . and then there are living expenses. My oldest just selected a Public University. We will pay for her so she can graduate with no debt. Hopefully she will study something useful instead of just liberal arts.

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    1. The problem is that having a degree does not help you but not having one can hurt you. I would dispute the idea that having a retail or food service job on your resume will help a young person to move onward to better jobs. A degree may help to get a menial job...but most are dead ends. It is a scary world for young graduates who grew up outside of the most elite circles.

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    2. Having too much hurts you too, which is ironic.

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  2. International comparisons of unemployment are somewhat dodgy here because in many places in Europe its much easier to get certified as "disabled" due to "depression" or "stress" and go on welfare for a long time (even forever)? I'm British and I have relatives who have done this. One friend's able-bodied brother is in his 30s and has never ever worked. These kinds of people are not counted as eligible for the workforce. Such European practices will make America look worse comparatively in statistics.

    -Jim

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  3. A related problem is that much of the middle class/upper middle class is wiping out what SHOULD be retirement funding in order to send their special little snowflakes to college "debt free."

    Given the choice between putting 100k towards your own retirement or 100k towards subsidizing junior's social studies' professors' research, you'd be a fool to choose the latter. For the record, my parents were *ing fools.

    @747:

    The problem with those statistics is that the groups aren't randomly drawn. The mentally ill, felons, and general derelicts almost never go to college, while people who probably would have excelled absent college almost invariably go.

    A generic college degree absolutely DOES NOT lead to "better jobs down the pike." What leads to better jobs is either specialized education or specialized experience. With the exception of a few professions (like teaching, engineering, law, accounting, medicine, etc.), employers allow you to substitute year-for-year, so the value of your undergrad degree actually means LESS the longer you've been out of school. People care more about your experience as a whole.

    Look, I went to an elite private university on mommy and daddy's dime. I value the experience and the education, but it was a gigantic mistake and a colossal waste of money. If I had to do it over again, I'd go to community college in something tech/mathematical while working part-time and go from there.

    Even that's not right for everybody. For many people, the best thing they can do is start working out of high school, stay away from the debt/cost machine entirely, and gain industry-specific experience. Even a waitressing or line cook or retail job can be a great career starter. I know quite a few people who got promoted to management positions fairly quickly, not because of their education, but because they're trustworthy, hard workers. With management experience, far more doors open than with a social services degree.

    Of course, work and community college are roundly denounced and laughed at, even though it's the best option for 90% of the non-elites. I scored a 33 on the ACT, so I just *had* to go to a four-year college or people thought there was something wrong with me, that I was falling short of my "potential." We have to get away from this mindset and get our education system focused on real-life work experience and practical training at reasonable costs. Liberal education is a wonderful thing, but there's no reason to waste 4 years and pay out your nose for a half-assed attempt at it just because you think there's some career advantage that doesn't exist by itself.

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    1. Agreed. To sum up the law school scam is just a particularly awful corner of the higher ed scam.

      Liberal arts education should be only for people with money to throw away and hobbyists. Hopefully, with the rise of MOOCs, doing liberal arts degrees at your own pace can become a reality.

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  4. The marginal utility of college goes down for each year you spend in college.

    Paid internships are important to distinguish yourself from other candidates if you are fresh out of college. They can also teach you skills used professionally that classes are not that good at teaching.
    The important part though is that the internship is paid. If the internship is unpaid, employers are going to think that you are cheep and thus worthless, or that the job you did was not valuable and thus shouldn't count as work experience.

    The best value for money is actually an associates degree. You can get the all important Degree in only two years, from a cheap community college, and it will let you shave off time from a Bachelor's degree if you so choose later.

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  5. I agree with the spirit of these last comments. I want to reiterate that a retail job without a college degree still puts you in a hard place. Gone are the days when you can move up to the $75,000 middle management job without a degree even if we all had the experience in our teen years of a boomer middle manager boss grandfathered into her job from the olden days. Remember, for our generation the education will not help but not having a degree can hurt.

    I also agree that internships are more important than courses in many fields. My law school internships were my most important connections and gave me practical skills. I still take co-counsel opportunities for low pay and volunteer at dream job organizations to keep gaining experience and connections for future job openings. However, most student internships, especially the most coveted and valuable, do not pay - that is just an unfortunate fact.

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    1. I am increasingly in disagreement with the idea that there is much of an advantage to a degree at all. It's certainly an advantage to kids who grew up never developing any skills at any trade. They are disadvantaged and need degrees just to come out as good as electricians, plumbers, locksmiths and carpenters.

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    2. It might depend on your sector. I'm a computer programmer; in my industry if an internship is unpaid it is ipso facto worthless.
      If you have no internships, you're just another chump with a piece of paper, a piece of paper that actually is not strictly necessary. However, you need paid work experience in order to have paid work experience.

      If you want to be a lawyer though, God have mercy on your indebted or soon to be indebted soul. You're going to have to deal with the ever present need for prestige, judges who ask for moral commitments for unpaid work, and a required piece of paper that costs between $100,000 and $150,000.
      I don't know how anyone who isn't wealthy and connected survives in the legal sector.

      http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/12/scrooge.html

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  6. cognitive dissonance



    "Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the jobs slump is that the Americans in their 20s and 30s who have been most affected by it remain decidedly upbeat. They are much more hopeful than older generations, polls show, that the country’s future will be better than its past.

    Based on what younger adults have been through, that resilience is impressive. It’s probably necessary, too. The jobs slump will not end without a large dose of optimism."

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    1. Speaking of international comparisons, American youngsters rank #1 for self-confidence and rank near the bottom for skills (among developed nations).

      Someone having high confidence and low ability is the definition of a fool.

      (Im 30 years old and say this as part of this generation).

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