This generation of kids...

[Miss Neecerie]

With all due respect Miss Neecerie I was educated in a very different educational system to that which you have enjoyed, no doubt in a very different discipline with significantly different expectations. My university education was also a long time ago. In spite of my 'BS' education I am fortunate enough to be considered the leading expert in my field in this country.

So... I can almost guarantee that your limited experience would have ill prepared you to comment on the "BS" of my education.

And you just made a rather large assumption that

A) I was personally commenting on your education, rather then the general statement it was

B) That I have no expeience with educational systems beyond my countries shores.


Neither of those are true.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Look at it this way: You're hiring new workers. You have two applicants fresh out of school. One has a high school diploma the other has a college degree. The one with the diploma may think that college is a waste of money. He may be able to do better in college than the degree guy if he actually goes. Or he could be an half-literate product of a broken public school system who couldn't make it two weeks at a university. You just don't know. What you do know about the fellow with the college degree is that he at least did well enough in high school to get into a college and that he was able to get himself up and to class (probably with a terrible hangover) and study enough to at least get a C average.
So if the job is some generic management position that requires a certain amount of decision-making and critical thinking skills - you'd usually not take the greater risk.

That's where job interviews, background checks, and pre-employment screenings come in handy. I doubt there's any responsible job in any responsible company anywhere that hires someone solely on the basis of what it says on their resume. If there is, they deserve exactly the quality of staff they're likely to get. When I was hiring reporters in my radio days, I'd interview people with journalism degrees, and people who didn't have them, and I made my decision on the basis of how they conducted themselves in the interview. I'd throw random questions at them, try to shake them up, see what kind of poise they had, see how they were at dealing with the unexpected. That told me far, far more about how they'd perform under pressure than anything they could list on their resume.

 

[James71]

I think that it is safe to assume that when you directly and immediately paraphrase something that I said in a post, using the same terms, and then deride it that you were referring to what I had said and I was thereby entitled to reply.

You have a lot of experience in Australian universities of the late 1980's?

Im impressed. One of the Sydney universities or a different state?

 

[Miss Neecerie]

What you do know about the fellow with the college degree is that he at least did well enough in high school to get into a college and that he was able to get himself up and to class (probably with a terrible hangover) and study enough to at least get a C average.
So if the job is some generic management position that requires a certain amount of decision-making and critical thinking skills - you'd usually not take the greater risk.

Unsurprising that the minimum qualification for management is the ability to go to class hungover and still get a c.

 

[Mav]

Personally I have seen more business go out of business or be put out of business being run by people with degrees than non-degreed people.:eusa_doh:

Same here. That's an interesting twist on the education issue- IMO, it's got to do with over- education, and the resulting loss of personal experience at a formative age (early to mid- twenties.)
No offense to any MBA's here, but businesses are starting to think twice about hiring them, especially young ones.

 

[Geesie]

Unsurprising that the minimum qualification for management is the ability to go to class hungover and still get a c.

Well it certainly puts them above those who can't.

So what is your opinion on why college degrees have been the ticket to better-paying jobs and better job security for the past few decades?

 

[scottyrocks]

When I went to college, one of my most influential professors - not even a professor, a grad student - told me (well, the class) not to do college just for the money, that it's better to go because you want to learn something. Thus, a history major was born. My own personal motto is, "Never let reality and common sense get in the way of a good idea". Do what you want and life has a way of making it work if you try hard enough. I went to college because life is all about acquiring status symbols. If I'm anything, it's materialistic, even more so than arrogant. I judge myself on my accomplishments, and most of those are things I wanted that I got. I have a degree. I don't aim to use it. I just wanted to have it. My employment is my own destiny. My degree is mostly to say, "Yeah me too," when someone starts bragging about their education. I hate being 2nd.

Boy, am I on the complete polar opposite end of the stick.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

When a degree in say underwater basket weaving gets you a management job in an unrelated business, then that to me is happening because the system is broken.

The current notion, for better or worse, is that to have succeeded in gaining a degree - it ain't easy, whatever the discipline - suggests a certain tenacity and will to succeed that can be applied generally to life/work. Therefore employers perk up when they see it, when appropriate, on a CV. [edit] not that i'm saying that those without degrees do not have these qualities.

For those worrying about the numbers in the graphs about earnings, those are generally presented as averages. Most people in each grouping fit a normal distribution around the mean. Therefore some people in the "lower earners" group will overlap or exceed the earnings of the higher earnings group. There was one on the BBC website just yesterday, which placed people with 5 good GCSEs at high school at zero (read into that what you will; I have no issue with my own Marxist leanings), had University graduates at +67% and those without 5 good GCSEs at -70%. I don't quite know what to make of these numbers.

I can assure you that most of the people I went to University with now live back in our small little country town and are earning less or equal what our peers who did not go to University are making. They have had no real boost, at least in terms of earning potential, as a result of their University education. Those that opted to do apprenticeships are raking in the cash, and rightly so; we are seriously lacking in skilled tradesmen. I did my apprenticeship in the academic system, and i am similarly well off, relatively. As one of those i the PhD category, I can tell everyone that the rewards are palpable, and were I choose to enter industry rather than acadaemia, they would increase exponentially.

bk

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I think that it is safe to assume that when you directly and immediately paraphrase something that I said in a post, using the same terms, and then deride it that you were referring to what I had said and I was thereby entitled to reply.

You have a lot of experience in Australian universities of the late 1980's?

Im impressed. One of the Sydney universities or a different state?

Oh please. The 'learn to learn' phrasing is hardly a unique thing. It is a widely held belief and that's what I was commenting on.


Please go reread what I said. I said 'beyond my country's shores'. I meant precisely that

If you want to argue that only those who share the exact same educational system can make comments and comparisons then that would in general forbid all discussions since no two of us have the same exact background.

 

[Geesie]

That's where job interviews, background checks, and pre-employment screenings come in handy. I doubt there's any responsible job in any responsible company anywhere that hires someone solely on the basis of what it says on their resume. If there is, they deserve exactly the quality of staff they're likely to get. When I was hiring reporters in my radio days, I'd interview people with journalism degrees, and people who didn't have them, and I made my decision on the basis of how they conducted themselves in the interview. I'd throw random questions at them, try to shake them up, see what kind of poise they had, see how they were at dealing with the unexpected. That told me far, far more about how they'd perform under pressure than anything they could list on their resume.

Yes, but many HR departments skip that process and require the college degree to be on that resume in order to get the interview. Time is money and if, say, 60% of college graduates are qualified vs 40% of high school only, that makes it a lot faster to get to the qualified people. Does it discard some? Sure. But it's been many a year since job-seekers weren't in surplus.

 

[reetpleat]

And, see, that brings us right back to the point Neecerie made: it's the choice itself that's being stigmatised in modern culture.

I didn't go to college for a number of reasons. One of them was because, in the culture I was raised in, it wasn't considered essential. No one in my family has ever had any kind of a degree, but when I was growing up we were respected members of the community just the same. We paid our bills, earned our living, and carried on a useful role in society. College wasn't considered a must in that time and in that place, so I wasn't pushed in that direction. The second reason was financial -- the financial aid options of that era were very different from those of today, and we just didn't have the money. And the third was personal -- I found the whole college culture revolting: the drinking, the drugs, the general sexual sleaze of the late seventies. It wasn't anything I wanted anything to do with.

So I didn't go. I went straight to work, right out of high school, got into radio, worked my way up, eventually became a News Director at one of the leading stations in the state, won a wall full of awards, went on to write a book that's been very well received in the broadcasting-history community -- and is in the libraries of most of the major universities in the US, and several abroad -- have provided research assistance to I forget how many other authors, and am quoted in practically every serious book on radio history published in the last ten years. Now, there's no money to be made in being a broadcasting historian, so I manage a theatre to make ends meet, and in *that* job I often lecture on popular culture topics to audiences full of MAs and PhDs.

*And I didn't need to go to college to do any of that.* Should I be looked down on because of that choice? Do I need to have sat in a classroom thirty years ago to validate what I've learned in the real world since? Or is the work validation enough in itself? I say it is, and it should be for anyone else who is capable of doing what I did. You can suck at the fountain of Formal Education until you're waterlogged, but it isn't the *only* way to learn, and it shouldn't be fetishized as such the way it is by modern culture.

You can see, then, why I take such a dim view of the "I can hire people who didn't go to college to sew on my buttons" type of attitude. Sew your own damn buttons on, Professor. I've got more important things to do.

Anyone who reaches a certain level of knowledge, career level, or skill is respected. But college is a door fro many careers that are just not open to someone without it, especially the technical fields. true, there are some self taught tech and computer whizzes, but for the most part, it is a big deal.

So, you did well without it. Good for you and you should be respected. But for every one of you, there are many people who are working lousy jobs and earning bad pay if employed at all.

Of course, not everyone should go to college. But let's not get carried away with the working class "college is no big deal, my old man didn't need it and neither do I and anyone who does go is an elitist" mentality.

As i have aid, college is not the only form of specialized training, but it is a big part of it, and people generally need some form of training to succeed.

Actually, you may be happy doing what you do, but with an academic career beneath your knowledge, you could well be in academia making a pretty good salary. maybe you wouldn't care for that, but it would be a good living. that you choose to not do that is fine. But then you end up trying to make ends meet. I would rather have the good income that that college degree would allow me to get.

 

[Foofoogal]

http://badmoneyadvice.com/2010/08/is-the-ivy-league-worth-it.html
-----------------------

It seems to be controversial as shown on this board and in blogs etc.

The chart posted a bit back on here was sort of shocking to me though. I would expect much more from an education to be honest.

 

[reetpleat]

And this is part of my issue with the over emphasizing of college degrees.

When a degree in say underwater basket weaving gets you a management job in an unrelated business, then that to me is happening because the system is broken.

And sorry, after two degrees, that bs line about learning to learn. Haha makes me laugh. University teaches you how to work the system to get good grades, that does not always coincide with actual absorption of materials.

All things being equal, i would rather hire someone who shoed the ability to stick through 4 years and get a degree in something, especially something rigorous, even if it is not directly applicable.

ure, some people do the same without college, but good luck proving it. Employers can not be blamed for going with the easy assumption that someone with a college degree will be better suited than someone without.

 

[AmateisGal]

Hi, that chart is from 2008 and we probably aren't going back there. Secondly and more importantly, those numbers can't be true for all Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees. Unlike American's degrees aren't created equal. My starting salary as an engineer was $2,000 more a year than one of the Assistant History Professors at UIUC in 1983. He had 10 years experience and I worked with him as a security guard. He needed the money and he made thousands of pages of copies of his books to send to prospective publishers...

For at least 75% of the degrees currently available at major universities, there is no ECONOMICAL reason for them to exist at the current price. NONE. English Literature, History, Poly Sci., Geography, Education, Music, etc. They're all interesting, difficult, and it takes a lot of work to get one, but they don't pay off. I have no clue what happened to my old college, but a family of 4, making $75,000 a year shouldn't have to rely on scholarships, or loans to go to a state school.

Later

Boy, isn't that the truth.

I have a BA and a MA in history - and I work as a copywriter for a financial marketing firm (and I barely make enough to pay my bills AND that huge student loan bill). Not what I had in mind when I went to school. But things change. What gets me is paying back my student loans and knowing I'm not using that degree in the way I had planned. Part of it is my own fault - I should have gone for the more practical museum studies program instead of just history. I wouldn't trade the experience, though, as it made me realize I wanted nothing to do with the ivory tower mentality of the history department (though I have nothing against those who choose a profession in academia - just wasn't for me) and gave me a deeper insight into the professional study of history. It also sparked my deep interest in World War II.

I've tried to combine my writing with my history in my fiction (which hasn't paid off...yet), but I'd also like to land a spot on the editorial board of a history magazine some day - but so far, no such luck.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

All things being equal, i would rather hire someone who shoed the ability to stick through 4 years and get a degree in something, especially something rigorous, even if it is not directly applicable.

ure, some people do the same without college, but good luck proving it. Employers can not be blamed for going with the easy assumption that someone with a college degree will be better suited than someone without.

Sure they can.

When they pick a new college grad as a manager over a dedicated long term employee who knows the office and company well, merely because there is a ticky box next to 'has degree' then sure. They can be blamed for having no sense.

And it's an indicator to me of a broken system.

 

[Lady Day]

Wow, is this really becoming a conversation of higher education verses not?
Come one people.

I am a devout believer in higher education because I come from a family where that was often deprived from them. It was a higher lifestyle in my family and my brother and I always heard, "when you get out of college" as a preface to just about anything we wanted to do in life.

My mother was one of the first in out family to get a degree, and later a masters in special education. That didn't make her any less hands on as say someone who didn't have a diploma, but there was a foundation there, a structured and by the numbers foundation. I feel thats what you get from higher education.

Not saying that there are not a lot of immediate kin who didn't go to college and are doing well owning their own home or business or what have you. I still talk with them and some regret not going/ being able to go, if for no other reason that discovering a new dynamic about themselves.

LD

 

[LizzieMaine]

Actually, you may be happy doing what you do, but with an academic career beneath your knowledge, you could well be in academia making a pretty good salary. maybe you wouldn't care for that, but it would be a good living. that you choose to not do that is fine. But then you end up trying to make ends meet. I would rather have the good income that that college degree would allow me to get.

Meh. I can think of nothing I'd like less than being surrounded by the kind of postmodernist intellectual onanism that infects the Media Studies field these days. I've read enough of that stuff to know that I couldn't ever teach it with a straight face, and if you *don't* teach it, and at least pretend to believe it, you don't get to be a member of the club. So I'm afraid they'd have about as much use for me as I have for them.

I figure it this way -- I'd rather make what I do now doing what I do now -- managing the theatre and doing research at my own pace and consulting and writing on the side -- if it means I don't have to live in a world that depends on coming up with a fresh ration of pretentious doubletalk each year. And if that's not the kind of life I want, what possible reason could I have for wanting to spend the time and the money to get there? Sure, I'd like to make more money, but not at the expense of my self-respect.

Although, I do get a kick when some of these Media Studies types quote me. If only they knew.

 

[Foofoogal]

? Is the chart shown take home or before taxes?

 

[reetpleat]

Sure they can.

When they pick a new college grad as a manager over a dedicated long term employee who knows the office and company well, merely because there is a ticky box next to 'has degree' then sure. They can be blamed for having no sense.

And it's an indicator to me of a broken system.

but who says this happens. Many companies hire and promote from within, and with on line education, many employees can get degrees and use that to boost themselves into higher level positions.

 

[Pompidou]

Wow, is this really becoming a conversation of higher education verses not?
Come one people.

It's an argument as old as higher education, itself. The only thing that's changed is the definition of higher. Why, go back 100 years or so, and you'd find people arguing that you didn't need no high falootin' educashun, 'cause ol' pappy did derned well fer 'imself on the farm. And that was just grammar school and high school. There was quite a while when even highschool wasn't mandatory. Soon, college will be. We're in that grey area now.