16 ms·

America's Reverence for the Bachelor's Degree

220 points by elberto34 10y ago

bonesmoses 10y ago
Is it really a "reverence" though? When practically everyone and their dog has one, it's the new minimum.
- RubenSandwich 10y ago
  I wouldn't say 'practically everyone' has one. Only ~30% of the US population holds one: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-bachelors-degrees-at-record-level.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-bac.... Just most of us on HN run in social circles were that number is 85%+, that we feel like everyone has one.
  - bonesmoses 10y ago
    Isn't 30% is more than enough? If 3-4 people apply for a single position and 1-2 of them have a degree, then it's a fairly reasonable decision to ignore the other two. And the ratios I've seen are far more than 3-4 applications per position.
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      3-4 applicants per position does not imply 3-4x as many people than jobs. (It's not a pigeonhole problem.) If you were laid off or moved cities, how many jobs would you apply for? How many of them would you be able to hold simultaneously?
    - taxicabjesus 10y ago
      > If 3-4 people apply for a single position and 1-2 of them have a degree, then it's a fairly reasonable decision to ignore the other two. Years ago I found a copy of "The Screwing of the Average Man" at a thrift shop. According to Mr. Hapgood, getting preferential consideration for jobs was always the reason wealthy families sent their children to college. After WWII the proletariat class got congress to subsidize college so they too could access jobs that had traditionally been reserved for the upper class. Thus began the college price spiral.
  - throwawaylalala 10y ago
    What percentage of those actually participating in the workforce have one?
  - freehunter 10y ago
    I would argue that "everyone has one" is inherently "everyone in my career has one", which the number that matters. If a heavy equipment operator doesn't have a bachelor's degree, well that doesn't really matter to me because I'm not competing for his job and he's not competing for mine. What matters if, what's the percentage of people competing for my job that holds a BS? Because that is the only determining factor of whether or not I should get one.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  The problem is that everyone and their dog has their grade 12. Or at least that a Grade 12 education no longer guarantees that a Grade 12 no longer guarantees basic skills in reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and reasoning.
  - war1025 10y ago
    Both of my grandfathers went to school through 8th grade. Both were quite successful and able to raise large families and retire well. At some point, we need to stop believing that more schooling is the only way for people to find their way in the world.
    - politician 10y ago
      Then again, your grandfathers (and mine too!) weren't competing in a global economy where labor is fungible, but were able to rely on generational stability in smaller local economies.
  - rosie666 10y ago
    Even Ricky.
- Raphmedia 10y ago
  Even if you ignore careers such as plumbers, dental hygienists, electrical technician, the entire construction industry, etc., ... a lot of web developers don't have one.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  If it is used as an arbitrary checkbox, then yes, it's reverence whether everyone has one or not.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
brightball 10y ago
I always wonder if this is a symptom of a bigger problem that we created. As soon as having a bachelors degree became almost an expectation, not having one became a problem to be avoided. We have people borrowing money to go to school because they think they have to...not because they necessarily even need to. Many of the best programmers I know never even went to college...they are just interested in the subject and taught themselves. At the same time, we have a public school system that after 18 years with a child...has not actually prepared them to get a job. That's borderline criminal IMHO. I always wonder what the effect would be of transitioning public high schools to a structure closer to Cornell's one-course-at-a-time approach (http://www.cornellcollege.edu/one-course-at-a-time/ http://www.cornellcollege.edu/one-course-at-a-time/). It seems like giving kids the opportunity to deep dive into one thing (actually, learn it instead of memorize stuff) would be more effective. At the same time, scheduling of classes that taught real skills would a lot simpler. Just imagine a gardening and cooking class where you could teach: 1. Plant biology and genetics of seeds 2. Chemistry and Soil Biology, Composting, Decomposition. 3. Use geometry to design raised bed frames 4. Learn some vocational carpentry to build raised bed frames 5. Plant in different environments, track growth, production, measures in a scientific experiment 6. Learn to cook some different recipes with what you've grown as well as how different temperatures affect what you're cooking (caramelization of onions, etc) In a single intensive class you can bring together so many subjects and life skills that seem otherwise unrelated on their own. Heaven forbid you take it to the next level and get into programming a farm bot.
- irrational 10y ago
  >Just imagine a gardening and cooking class where you could teach: 1. Plant biology and genetics of seeds 2. Chemistry and Soil Biology, Composting, Decomposition. 3. Use geometry to design raised bed frames 4. Learn some vocational carpentry to build raised bed frames 5. Plant in different environments, track growth, production, measures in a scientific experiment 6. Learn to cook some different recipes with what you've grown as well as how different temperatures affect what you're cooking (caramelization of onions, etc) One of my kids attends just such a class in high school half of each day. What you have described is pretty much exactly what they do. They have a carpentry shop, a huge garden, a kitchen, a science lab, etc. It sounds great, but the teachers suck. All the students hate it and are encouraging other students not to sign up for it next year.
typetypetype 10y ago
Somewhere in the solution should be encouraging gap year(s) after high school.
- irrational 10y ago
  I took two years off between high school and college (I ended up with 2 Bachelors and a Masters), but I don't think that has helped me in the least in terms of employability.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    I'm not convinced a gap year is meant to increase your employability, rather to help reset your mind after high school. It helps you find out who you are, what you like and dislike, and helps determine if you really want to get that communications degree or if maybe a finance degree is more what you're looking for.
    - irrational 10y ago
      That's funny. Even after two years off, 2 bachelors, and a masters I still didn't know what I wanted to do! I have a bachelors in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, a second bachelors in Linguistics, and a masters in Educational Psychology. But I work as a web developer for the sales team of a large company. I was actually about four years out of college before I started getting a feel for what I might want to do with my life (i.e., about 12 years post high school). I'm very happy with what I do now so it all worked out.
taeric 10y ago
You could read this as "America needs to get over the infatuation of entering the workforce or college immediately." Which, I should add, I'm not against.
m23khan 10y ago
I think the answer lies somewhere in having 2-3 years of mandatory civil service for high-school grads which rotates them in various industries: Construction, IT, Mechanical works, Tool & Die, Hospital volunteering, Office clerks, building maintenance, etc. In addition, high school should have 'guest' speaker from different lines of work come in (engineer, scientist, mechanic, doctor, HVAC, florist, baker, etc.) and tell grade 12 students about their job responsibilities, how much money they make and advise students frankly about the job. Only then the kids can decide with full knowledge what they would like to pursue and their expectations would be realistic.
- 20years 10y ago
  This would be amazing. I feel a lot of high school kids are forced to decide what field they want to go in without really knowing what it entails or having experience in much of anything else.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  Lets harm all the kids who actually know what they want to do, have construction, IT and hospital work done by uninterested stoners (because what else are young people going to do when they have no options)?
  - imgabe 10y ago
    Would it really be a much higher percentage than the work done by uninterested stoners now? Lots of people already have jobs they aren't particularly excited about and just fell into. At least this way they'd get a chance to try out a few different things first.
GrinningFool 10y ago
> After three years in a college-based apprenticeship > program and three years of solid work experience, he > was still the equivalent of a brand-new high-school > graduate in the eyes of higher education. So much this. I've considered getting a degree countless times over the years, but have been prevented by the fact that my 2 decades+ professional experience in the field counts for nothing in terms of meeting educational requirements. And the more experience I get, the more painful that fact gets...
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I've considered getting a degree countless times over the years, but have been prevented by the fact that my 2 decades+ professional experience in the field counts for nothing in terms of meeting educational requirements. That's generally not all that true. While many degree programs have no formal credit for experience and have minimum "residency" (time in program) requirements, the latter tend to be substantially shorter than the normal time to complete all coursework, and many programs have, instead of the former, means to satisfy some portion of credit requirements without actually taking classes if you can demonstrate equivalent knowledge gained elsewhere (e.g., credit-by-examination.)
  - sysk 10y ago
    > many programs have, instead of the former, means to satisfy some portion of credit requirements without actually taking classes if you can demonstrate equivalent knowledge gained elsewhere (e.g., credit-by-examination.) Can you name some of those programs? I keep hearing about those but can't find them.
    - NSAID 10y ago
      Wisconsin's university system, for one. https://flex.wisconsin.edu/ https://flex.wisconsin.edu/
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Here's a few: http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/stu_info/credit_byexam http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/stu_info/credit_byexam http://admissions.utah.edu/apply/special-credit/challenge-a-course-for-credit.php http://admissions.utah.edu/apply/special-credit/challenge-a-... https://registrar.ucdavis.edu/records/grades/credit-exam.cfm https://registrar.ucdavis.edu/records/grades/credit-exam.cfm Generally, you should check with the university you'd like to get a degree from to find out if they have such an option.
blizkreeg 10y ago
I think much of the "useful" college experience can be shrunk to two years for most majors. May be not more specialized fields like aerospace, physics, or the like but even those can do just fine with a 3 yr undergraduate degree. But CS, finance, any arts/commerce majors, liberal arts should totally not need four long years.
- bonesmoses 10y ago
  Which is, almost ironically, going back to vocational training instead of standard Liberal Arts degrees. I triple-majored in Math, Physics, and Computer Science because I had to be there for the whole degree, so why not. But all I really needed, and all I use to this day, is the Computer Science portion. We could probably eventually overhaul the system to that end, but I don't envy those trapped in the transition period.
segmondy 10y ago
Yeah, America already has. The new reverence is for a Master's degree.
- vocatus_gate 10y ago
  Masters is the new Bachelors.
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    So, in 10 years, the PhD is gonna be all the rage?
    - lumberjack 10y ago
      Lots of people just get a Ph.D to have a higher starting salary and avoid a possible glass ceiling later on. I'm planning on doing exactly that. It depends on the job market in your location though.
    - vocatus_gate 10y ago
      That's the (hope|fear)
mywittyname 10y ago
I don't understand American's new-found fascination with vocational training. Why is it they expect education to now provide people with narrowly focused job training over the more traditional broad education? Yes, college is expensive and I absolutely think something should be done to resolve that. And certainly not everyone needs a BS to be productive citizens. But societies "reverence" for the Bachelors degree was earned. Historically, these programs equip people with the background and education necessary to advance their careers. Like many people here, I have a BSCS, and if computing became obsolete tomorrow, I feel entirely confident in my ability to transition into many other technical careers. My feeling is that a BS should be designed to open up entire classes of career options for people. But I also feel that people who opt for technical training in lieu of general education shouldn't be upset when they find out they can't transition as easily into other fields that require skills they may have never learned. I honestly think this article serves as a cautionary tail to reinforce Bachelors "reverence" more than it does to dispel it. A person who spent years learning the depths of Italian cooking shouldn't be surprised when people don't want him managing their businesses. Knowing how to field for truffles and prepare them in a traditional way is nice, but it's not analogous to knowing how to run the logistics of a business.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  I think the problem isn't that a Bachelor's degree is good, but that it is becoming a basic job requirement for any decent job right now, which is rough. Not everyone is capable or has the desire to be a high-level manager or executive. Many just want to do their job and collect that paycheck. Why should a degree be required for a job like that?
  - mywittyname 10y ago
    Companies are completely entitled to ask for proof that a person can perform the job requirements and they feel like having an education is important to performing at the level they need. I wouldn't walk onto a construction site and expect the foreman to give me a job as a carpenter without some proof that I can do the job.
pascalxus 10y ago
Also, there's this strange belief that getting more people through degree programs will increase the number of people with higher paying jobs. The number of high paying doesn't change simply because we're increasing the number of degrees per capita - it merely devalues the degree - just as printing money devaules currency leading to inflation. Companies don't just decide to hire more candidates just because there's more of job candidates available. Utlimately, they hire to create value based on market demand for their products.
- gozur88 10y ago
  So much this. Training a bunch of people for jobs that aren't there is expensive and cruel.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  > The number of high paying doesn't change simply because we're increasing the number of degrees per capita It should. Not necessarily in proportion to the number of degrees, but having more degrees out there should increase the number of high paying jobs. Superior education should make people both more intellectually malleable and capable of creating value in unforeseen ways. If it doesn't, it would be evidence there's something very wrong with the degrees.
  - pascalxus 10y ago
    What your saying may have been true hundreds of years ago when the number intellectual jobs was much smaller and far less diverse. But, today, professions are far more specialized than people realize. How much of what you learned in your degree do you still remember? 1%? of that 1%, how much do you actually use on a daily basis? and of that subset, how much of that knowledge is things you couldn't have easily learned on the job.
hectorr 10y ago
The stock photo for this article is an interesting choice. The graduate paid zero dollars for his quarter-million dollar education, and was guaranteed a job at graduation. In return, he owes them a full commitment for five years of work, and partial commitment for another three. The organization that promised to hire him ran the admissions process, set the curriculum, and after training screened him into a particular path for at least the first stage of his new career. He was surrounded for four years by people who will be his professional peers for the entirety of his career. He knows that the likelihood of him reaching the pinnacle of his profession is increased substantially through this network. Obviously the military is well set up to do this. I am surprised though that other industries haven't attempted to build schools to train their respective employee bases.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Here's a school run by McDonalds which teaches you how to manage a fast food restaurant: http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/corporate_careers/training_and_development/hamburger_university.html http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/corporate_careers/trainin...
- ghaff 10y ago
  In part, it's probably because other industries have a limited ability to toss you in the brig if you decide to give your notice after a year. There are trucking schools, mechanics school, cooking schools (as in the article). But the trades in general tend to be more of an apprentice system. Finally, some specialized companies do have extended in-house training. But this sort of thing is definitely less common, in part because people skip around jobs a lot more so there's going to be a lot of free-riding on a company offering expensive training.
  - stevenwoo 10y ago
    You don't get automatically sent to the brig for not fulfilling your commitment, IIRC, you have to pay the retail cost of your military academy education, and if you don't do that, then you are in trouble
lordnacho 10y ago
I think the problem is the idea that you spend the beginning of your life learning things, and the rest of it doing things. The current system does not leave much in the way of learning things (or at least getting credit) later on. This is a problem, because your average 18-22 year old knows nothing about what work they'll find satisfying, or what work will be in demand. You also don't know what you'll actually be learning. For instance I did management classes at a well know university. Did I expect to learn something about how to manage? Yes. Did I learn anything about how to manage? No, that's not what management class is about. I suspect many people had similar experiences with their classes. To be fair engineering classes are not about how to be an engineer either, so I don't think it's a science/humanities thing. What you do find out in uni is that pretty much anything academic can be learned if you dedicate some time to it. Read a few books about economics, and you'll know the major ideas of that field, presented in a somewhat coherent fashion. So what we need is a way for someone who's found an interest to be able to pursue that. You work a bit as a coder, and you realise you should get a CS degree. So you find a course, read, practice, do an exam. What's important is people who've discovered this need tend to be in a different life situation from ordinary college attendees. They might have work already, family, and so on. So incentives need to align to allow people to learn things without tearing up their whole life.
- ianai 10y ago
  It's one thing to read a book and be able to follow along the central themes and ideas. It's a whole other can of worms to be able to write that book.
mercurialshark 10y ago
I think the title "Reverence for the Bachelor's Degree," is inadvertently misleading. There certainly isn't profound respect or reverence for a bachelor's degree itself, from employers or anyone else. However, there is an expectation of social and to some degree, field specific exposure. Perhaps the point of the article is there are far more useful ways to gauge someone's career/field specific potential than a bachelor's degree. And if there are more practical assessment tools than not having a bachelor's degree shouldn't be a barrier to entry.
gozur88 10y ago
Employers don't really have that much else to go on. In-house tests are a legal minefield, and there are places you can graduate from high school without learning how to read.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  On-the job training?
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    Why pay for that in-house when there are programs out there that convince 18 year olds to take on loans to pay for it instead?
- _rpd 10y ago
  I think this goes to the heart of the matter. > In-house tests are a legal minefield Does it need to be though? What about 3rd parties providing tests and knowledge verification? There's been some developments on that front.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    It doesn't really matter who administers the tests. The problem is you're opening yourself up to disparate impact lawsuits. It's easier and safer for employers to use college rankings as a proxy for intelligence.
kingmanaz 10y ago
America needs to get over its collective disdain for manual trades. And yes, that includes the soft, narcissistic, effete, coffee-shop-frequenting, STEM-grad, man-child "gamers" who prognosticate on YC.
- surrey-fringe 10y ago
  Why are you being mean?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- astrange 10y ago
  > And yes, that includes the soft, narcissistic, effete, coffee-shop-frequenting, STEM-grad, man-child "gamers" who prognosticate on YC. I like this comment, it's kind of like the "brogrammer" thing where you accuse mildly successful men of every negative male stereotype at the same time in case them feeling bad makes them give you stuff.
- svnsets 10y ago
  Who is expressing their disdain for manual trades? What's wrong with coffee shops and STEM majors?
rc_bhg 10y ago
Nah. It's a good system. I fear any alternatives.
Afforess 10y ago
The government needs to change education to a protected status, like gender, religion, etc. Make it illegal for employers to ask for candidates educational background and degrees. The core issue here is that companies use degrees and education status as a filter and proxy for perseverance, intelligence, and skill, which forces everyone who wants to be employed to obtain a degree. As more job seekers obtain degrees, companies shift minimum educational requirements higher. Higher requirements cause job seekers to obtain yet more education, and neither companies nor job seekers can break this cycle. This is a market breakdown and vicious cycle which needs intervention by the government. (I fully expect libertarians to complain that the government created this mess as a result of too much easy credit in the form of student loans, and they may be right, but undoing that now is a lost cause and moot point) If the government protects educational status, then degrees can't be used to signal educational virtue, and they will cease to be obtained by everyone. University education will revert back to those who desire education for its merits and not its status.
- _rpd 10y ago
  > Make it illegal for employers to ask for candidates educational background and degrees. Would you really want hospitals hiring doctors without medical degrees?
- cat199 10y ago
  > needs intervention by the government It already has intervention by the government.. this is called 'student loans' which prop up US treasury bonds.. That the situation of requiring expensive degrees further implies increased dependency on higher paying corporate jobs, in turn further centralizes economic power, increases social pressure to purchase luxury consumer goods, and also strengthens washington lobbying dollars doesn't hurt either..
- jogjayr 10y ago
  > The government needs to change education to a protected status, like gender, religion, etc Protected classes are usually characteristics that people cannot change (eg. race, ethnicity, disability) or that it would be unconstitutional to force them to change (eg. religion). Educational attainment doesn't fit either category so that would be a hard sell, politically. (I don't actually know how protected classes are decided; this is just based on my observation and could be completely wrong) > The core issue here is that companies use degrees and education status as a filter and proxy for perseverance, intelligence, and skill, Which implies there's a market opportunity for smart companies to pick up, on the cheap, non-graduates that they can determine, through some other filter, are smart, persevering and skillful (the Moneyball approach, if you will). I personally think it's silly to limit a person's career growth 10-15 years into their career just because they didn't go to college when they were 20. Any "rounded-ness" a person picked up then has long worn off for most.
upofadown 10y ago
Well it does serve as a nice class filter. Lower class people tend to not be able to afford college...
jknoepfler 10y ago
No it doesn't. It needs to up standards for a secondary degree and double down on its investment in post secondary education. We need more literate, culturally aware, mathematically and analytically capable, scientifically knowledgeable humans, not less. The fact that Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on the planet is not proof that we need better alternatives to college. We need better alternatives to intellectual disengagement.
- bittercynic 10y ago
  >...Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on the planet... What evidence do you have to support this? (Not implying that I have any to refute it)
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  The high achievers are going to be well read anyways; if you stuffed everyone accepted into Stanford into a room for four years instead of teaching them, you'd wind up with a bunch of intellectually engaged and well-read individuals. It's the marginally-engaged folks that barely get into college that post-secondary education makes a difference for. And, uhh, they kind of treat it like a four-year party with less parental involvement. IMO, the fact that Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on the planet is a cultural problem that is basically fixed by the time children have gone through primary education.
ianai 10y ago
I think America needs to get over its reverence for the "free market". Healthcare and education are critical needs. Without education we wouldn't have modern medicine, food supply, clothing, housing, etc - you name it. Without any and all healthcare we'd all be dying somewhere between 20-40, if we're lucky. Yet, both "industries" experience ever increasing costs. Consumers in both offset actualized needs with financial tools. Insurance only works if a large majority of people do not use it. That's if you can obtain and afford insurance. Education only pays off if your tuition expenses match up with your employment options. That's assuming you manage to find work out of college. If you can't afford insurance then you're stuck paying out of pocket. By the "one price" rule, doctors have to charge an individual the same they charge insurance. An individual cannot strike a deal as easily with a provider as an insurance company can - so they wind up paying 10-100x what an insurance company would. Notice, that's not saying anything about what an insured person would pay. There's no corollary to that for education. People finance their education (largely) with loans and up front. They're striking a deal based on what they expect their future income to be. That future income, by the way, probably won't be realized for the majority. For those it is, it may not be realized until 5 or even 10 years down the road. By that point, the loan payments have already started and may have already been scheduled to be paid back completely. America needs a new economic model. It needs an economic model that allocates nails and food differently than it allocates healthcare and education. Right now, it allocates immediate needs the same way it allocates 'possible demands'. Financial companies estimate 'possible demands' on imperfect data across imperfect realities. Because those two things are not the same, they need to be handled differently.
btkramer9 10y ago
I only got about a third away through this but the beginning doesn't make me want to believe/empathize with the author at all. "my nephew was set to graduate from Maryland’s Towson University with a degree in political science. After six long years," Six years for a degree in political science. You have to actively try to take that long to graduate. Maybe he changed majors. "Holding up their son’s transcript, his adviser pointed out that he had taken the same economics course twice—one year apart. My nephew hadn’t noticed." Really? I've met plenty of people in college who would do things like this. They all had no motivation or interest to graduate. They were there just because their parents made them and could afford it. I think this defends the authors point. However, using two people who clearly have no idea how to pave their own path to a successful life should be used as an example to argue against universities and trade schools. Maybe the author is trying to say its the high schools fault for not teaching them. I disagree. Everytime I've seen behavior like this it's because the student just doesn't care or their parents have plenty of money and know they'll be fine no matter how bad they do.
- deong 10y ago
  He's not arguing against trade schools. It's a fairly explicit endorsement of trade schools -- just accompanied by lamenting that that's not the actual world we live in. The article isn't presenting the two nephews as the same argument at all. The idea is that the one who went to college did what society demands, and it clearly wasn't the right move. The second made the "correct" decision, only to have society fail to reward him. I'm not sure how you took away something different there, unless I'm just misunderstanding your argument.
  - btkramer9 10y ago
    It's probably because I didn't read the entire article. I got to this point "Unfortunately for Jeffrey, however, it’s very hard to make a decent living as a cook, even in the best restaurants of New York. So after three years of hard work and great experience but very little money' and assumed it was all downhill for him too. I was mostly infuriated by the first nephew being used against universities.
arca_vorago 10y ago
The problem boils down to a twofold issue to me: 1) Schooling is getting in the way of education and 2) Schooling is misinterpreted by lazy employers as education. In this day and age, what we need is some sort of more granular description of education and experience. I don't have a finance degree, but I've gone through the Yale econ lectures online.... how do I reflect that knowledge gained when all an employer wants is where did you graduate? I see granular descriptions like this all the time on certain forums, down to people listing their audacity courses, tech certs, etc. We need to find ways to revive intellectual curiosity and a yearning for knowledge in the masses, not stifle it by arbitrarily tying it down with businesses wants, especially in an information age where much of it is freely available online.
Mc_Big_G 10y ago
Bullshit. We need to make it mandatory and free for everyone just like a high school diploma. Alternative option would be mandatory trade skill training. The USA is currently fucked for the foreseeable future due to not caring about education. Let's make it a priority instead of a gigantic military.
MBlume 10y ago
I think there's a case to be made that the decision in Griggs vs Duke Power Co. (employers may not administer IQ tests) is the reason we're in this mess. IQ is really important and correlates with lots of outcomes. Employers therefore want to know it. They're not allowed to ask, but admission to/success at an exclusive college correlates well with IQ, so they ask about that instead. Means everyone spends hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of their life to advertise something that could be measured in an hour.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
I think it is telling that the second nephew was a cook. When I think of learning a trade I imagine fitters and turners. And here in Australia we do need more of those skills -- but the chances are that service sector jobs will be more abundant. And some -- like cooking can take the most successful ones a long way. That said, I would like to see aprentices rather than interns at my big software company.
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
The answer is simple. Make it generally illegal to ask or provide information about your college education as part of interviewing for a job. If there's bona-fide occupational requirement for specialized training, allow certification by exam - the Fundamentals of Engineering exam or what actuaries go through are good examples of this.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
The Bachelors degree of yesterday is almost the equivalent to the Masters of today in a lot of fields. It's sadly used as a gatekeeper, erroneously in so many cases. Alas eventually, I predict, a new type of degree will emerge and it will be a combination of the Bachelors and Masters, because the two will be sufficiently diluted.
mti27 10y ago
TL;DR version of this article: 1. Author complains her lazy nephew's approach to school (and resulting Political Science degree) did not result in a good paying job. 2. Author complains her other nephew's lack of a degree and previous chef jobs did not result in a good paying job. 3. Author advocates for community colleges, blames higher-ed for being "too rigid" for her nephews, and says how much better Germany and other European countries are at training.
- ironman1478 10y ago
  This is a very unfair interpretation of the article at least for point 1. It never described the nephew as lazy, it could've been that they were depressed or had something going on. It also says that he might have been better doing something physical, not necessarily political science.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  I don't think you're quite in the spirit of the article there. How about: 1. Author has a nephew who was forced into a degree program he didn't want because he mostly hates school, but blue collar jobs don't pay enough anymore. Neither do white collar jobs for people who don't enjoy classroom learning. 2. Author has another nephew who also didn't like classroom learning, got a degree in chef's school and made alot of progress in the field. However, chef's don't get paid well either. 3. Author thinks maybe the problem is there isn't a path for people who don't like classroom learning and maybe Germany is better at this IDK? Not to sound like some kind of socialist, but maybe the problem is many jobs don't pay very well anymore?
aanm1988 10y ago
> has been a collection of dismal white-collar jobs—in a call center chasing down delinquent customers for Baltimore Gas and Electric That's not a white collar job.
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  Why not? It's administrative work in an office environment. That seems white collar to me. What do you think it is instead? It's not service work (pink collar). It's not manual labour (blue collar).
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svnsets 10y ago
Things I learned in college: - How to borrow tens of thousands of dollars without any concrete evidence that I would be able to pay it back - How to google (arguably a good skill, but not worth a five-figure price tag) - How to write small - How to misuse big words - How to misuse buzzwords - How to use Dreamweaver (I later learned that the correct way to use Dreamweaver is to uninstall it from your computer) - How websites were made in 2004 (this was in 2011-2013) Things I was forced to learn after college to be even remotely relevant: - Every single aspect of my job as a lead software engineer
arrty88 10y ago
I don't mean to sound insensitive but why is it the institution's fault that it took someone without passion or drive 6 years to graduate and why wouldn't the same problems which persisted during college not continue to persist after graduating? I know plenty of folks that went to Towson and the only thing that they could do after freshman year was funnel a beer. I know a few that went on to pursue respected middle class careers in tech, legal, education, and health care. When will our youth finally start taking responsibility for their own actions or lack there of?
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  >When will our youth finally start taking responsibility for their own actions or lack there of? Ha, people have been complaining about the youth for 2,000 years.
wink 10y ago
And here I was, thinking Germans and Austrians were kind of in love with their academic degrees, but this sounds even worse. But maybe the vocational training is better institutionalized here, so people can actually earn enough as a craftsman or in the service industry.
randyrand 10y ago
Whats that phrase? "Someone has to be a grave digger?
paulus_magnus2 10y ago
There should be a room for disruption. Start working right after school, continue education at own paste at MOOC. Get company to allocate 10% time to studying. Technology (streaming) enables everyone to have MIT grade education for free (theory part). Exams could be paid. The only labour intensive part of education is the practical part. This could be paid or community based co-study.
WhiteSource1 10y ago
Trump's victory showed the power of the uneducated. The Bachelors degree is not only a technical degree but especially in America, with a general education requirement, is also important to teach us citizenship, critical thinking, and educate us beyond our own narrow field. Knowledge of basic history (at least on a survey level) of our country and key places around the world, a basic understanding of our political system, and general knowledge is important to be better people and better citizens. Of course extremely smart people might be able to get this on their own but most of us aren't Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.

220 points by elberto34 10y ago

bonesmoses 10y ago

Is it really a "reverence" though? When practically everyone and their dog has one, it's the new minimum.

RubenSandwich 10y ago
I wouldn't say 'practically everyone' has one. Only ~30% of the US population holds one: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-bachelors-degrees-at-record-level.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-bac.... Just most of us on HN run in social circles were that number is 85%+, that we feel like everyone has one.
- bonesmoses 10y ago
  Isn't 30% is more than enough? If 3-4 people apply for a single position and 1-2 of them have a degree, then it's a fairly reasonable decision to ignore the other two. And the ratios I've seen are far more than 3-4 applications per position.
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    3-4 applicants per position does not imply 3-4x as many people than jobs. (It's not a pigeonhole problem.) If you were laid off or moved cities, how many jobs would you apply for? How many of them would you be able to hold simultaneously?
  - taxicabjesus 10y ago
    > If 3-4 people apply for a single position and 1-2 of them have a degree, then it's a fairly reasonable decision to ignore the other two. Years ago I found a copy of "The Screwing of the Average Man" at a thrift shop. According to Mr. Hapgood, getting preferential consideration for jobs was always the reason wealthy families sent their children to college. After WWII the proletariat class got congress to subsidize college so they too could access jobs that had traditionally been reserved for the upper class. Thus began the college price spiral.
- throwawaylalala 10y ago
  What percentage of those actually participating in the workforce have one?
- freehunter 10y ago
  I would argue that "everyone has one" is inherently "everyone in my career has one", which the number that matters. If a heavy equipment operator doesn't have a bachelor's degree, well that doesn't really matter to me because I'm not competing for his job and he's not competing for mine. What matters if, what's the percentage of people competing for my job that holds a BS? Because that is the only determining factor of whether or not I should get one.
bryanlarsen 10y ago
The problem is that everyone and their dog has their grade 12. Or at least that a Grade 12 education no longer guarantees that a Grade 12 no longer guarantees basic skills in reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and reasoning.
- war1025 10y ago
  Both of my grandfathers went to school through 8th grade. Both were quite successful and able to raise large families and retire well. At some point, we need to stop believing that more schooling is the only way for people to find their way in the world.
  - politician 10y ago
    Then again, your grandfathers (and mine too!) weren't competing in a global economy where labor is fungible, but were able to rely on generational stability in smaller local economies.
- rosie666 10y ago
  Even Ricky.
Raphmedia 10y ago
Even if you ignore careers such as plumbers, dental hygienists, electrical technician, the entire construction industry, etc., ... a lot of web developers don't have one.
maxerickson 10y ago
If it is used as an arbitrary checkbox, then yes, it's reverence whether everyone has one or not.
deleted 10y ago
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brightball 10y ago

I always wonder if this is a symptom of a bigger problem that we created. As soon as having a bachelors degree became almost an expectation, not having one became a problem to be avoided. We have people borrowing money to go to school because they think they have to...not because they necessarily even need to. Many of the best programmers I know never even went to college...they are just interested in the subject and taught themselves. At the same time, we have a public school system that after 18 years with a child...has not actually prepared them to get a job. That's borderline criminal IMHO. I always wonder what the effect would be of transitioning public high schools to a structure closer to Cornell's one-course-at-a-time approach (http://www.cornellcollege.edu/one-course-at-a-time/ http://www.cornellcollege.edu/one-course-at-a-time/). It seems like giving kids the opportunity to deep dive into one thing (actually, learn it instead of memorize stuff) would be more effective. At the same time, scheduling of classes that taught real skills would a lot simpler. Just imagine a gardening and cooking class where you could teach: 1. Plant biology and genetics of seeds 2. Chemistry and Soil Biology, Composting, Decomposition. 3. Use geometry to design raised bed frames 4. Learn some vocational carpentry to build raised bed frames 5. Plant in different environments, track growth, production, measures in a scientific experiment 6. Learn to cook some different recipes with what you've grown as well as how different temperatures affect what you're cooking (caramelization of onions, etc) In a single intensive class you can bring together so many subjects and life skills that seem otherwise unrelated on their own. Heaven forbid you take it to the next level and get into programming a farm bot.

irrational 10y ago
>Just imagine a gardening and cooking class where you could teach: 1. Plant biology and genetics of seeds 2. Chemistry and Soil Biology, Composting, Decomposition. 3. Use geometry to design raised bed frames 4. Learn some vocational carpentry to build raised bed frames 5. Plant in different environments, track growth, production, measures in a scientific experiment 6. Learn to cook some different recipes with what you've grown as well as how different temperatures affect what you're cooking (caramelization of onions, etc) One of my kids attends just such a class in high school half of each day. What you have described is pretty much exactly what they do. They have a carpentry shop, a huge garden, a kitchen, a science lab, etc. It sounds great, but the teachers suck. All the students hate it and are encouraging other students not to sign up for it next year.

typetypetype 10y ago

Somewhere in the solution should be encouraging gap year(s) after high school.

irrational 10y ago
I took two years off between high school and college (I ended up with 2 Bachelors and a Masters), but I don't think that has helped me in the least in terms of employability.
- freehunter 10y ago
  I'm not convinced a gap year is meant to increase your employability, rather to help reset your mind after high school. It helps you find out who you are, what you like and dislike, and helps determine if you really want to get that communications degree or if maybe a finance degree is more what you're looking for.
  - irrational 10y ago
    That's funny. Even after two years off, 2 bachelors, and a masters I still didn't know what I wanted to do! I have a bachelors in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, a second bachelors in Linguistics, and a masters in Educational Psychology. But I work as a web developer for the sales team of a large company. I was actually about four years out of college before I started getting a feel for what I might want to do with my life (i.e., about 12 years post high school). I'm very happy with what I do now so it all worked out.

taeric 10y ago

You could read this as "America needs to get over the infatuation of entering the workforce or college immediately." Which, I should add, I'm not against.

m23khan 10y ago

I think the answer lies somewhere in having 2-3 years of mandatory civil service for high-school grads which rotates them in various industries: Construction, IT, Mechanical works, Tool & Die, Hospital volunteering, Office clerks, building maintenance, etc. In addition, high school should have 'guest' speaker from different lines of work come in (engineer, scientist, mechanic, doctor, HVAC, florist, baker, etc.) and tell grade 12 students about their job responsibilities, how much money they make and advise students frankly about the job. Only then the kids can decide with full knowledge what they would like to pursue and their expectations would be realistic.

20years 10y ago
This would be amazing. I feel a lot of high school kids are forced to decide what field they want to go in without really knowing what it entails or having experience in much of anything else.
tomjen3 10y ago
Lets harm all the kids who actually know what they want to do, have construction, IT and hospital work done by uninterested stoners (because what else are young people going to do when they have no options)?
- imgabe 10y ago
  Would it really be a much higher percentage than the work done by uninterested stoners now? Lots of people already have jobs they aren't particularly excited about and just fell into. At least this way they'd get a chance to try out a few different things first.

GrinningFool 10y ago

> After three years in a college-based apprenticeship > program and three years of solid work experience, he > was still the equivalent of a brand-new high-school > graduate in the eyes of higher education. So much this. I've considered getting a degree countless times over the years, but have been prevented by the fact that my 2 decades+ professional experience in the field counts for nothing in terms of meeting educational requirements. And the more experience I get, the more painful that fact gets...

dragonwriter 10y ago
> I've considered getting a degree countless times over the years, but have been prevented by the fact that my 2 decades+ professional experience in the field counts for nothing in terms of meeting educational requirements. That's generally not all that true. While many degree programs have no formal credit for experience and have minimum "residency" (time in program) requirements, the latter tend to be substantially shorter than the normal time to complete all coursework, and many programs have, instead of the former, means to satisfy some portion of credit requirements without actually taking classes if you can demonstrate equivalent knowledge gained elsewhere (e.g., credit-by-examination.)
- sysk 10y ago
  > many programs have, instead of the former, means to satisfy some portion of credit requirements without actually taking classes if you can demonstrate equivalent knowledge gained elsewhere (e.g., credit-by-examination.) Can you name some of those programs? I keep hearing about those but can't find them.
  - NSAID 10y ago
    Wisconsin's university system, for one. https://flex.wisconsin.edu/ https://flex.wisconsin.edu/
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Here's a few: http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/stu_info/credit_byexam http://registrar.calpoly.edu/content/stu_info/credit_byexam http://admissions.utah.edu/apply/special-credit/challenge-a-course-for-credit.php http://admissions.utah.edu/apply/special-credit/challenge-a-... https://registrar.ucdavis.edu/records/grades/credit-exam.cfm https://registrar.ucdavis.edu/records/grades/credit-exam.cfm Generally, you should check with the university you'd like to get a degree from to find out if they have such an option.

blizkreeg 10y ago

I think much of the "useful" college experience can be shrunk to two years for most majors. May be not more specialized fields like aerospace, physics, or the like but even those can do just fine with a 3 yr undergraduate degree. But CS, finance, any arts/commerce majors, liberal arts should totally not need four long years.

bonesmoses 10y ago
Which is, almost ironically, going back to vocational training instead of standard Liberal Arts degrees. I triple-majored in Math, Physics, and Computer Science because I had to be there for the whole degree, so why not. But all I really needed, and all I use to this day, is the Computer Science portion. We could probably eventually overhaul the system to that end, but I don't envy those trapped in the transition period.

segmondy 10y ago

Yeah, America already has. The new reverence is for a Master's degree.

vocatus_gate 10y ago
Masters is the new Bachelors.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  So, in 10 years, the PhD is gonna be all the rage?
  - lumberjack 10y ago
    Lots of people just get a Ph.D to have a higher starting salary and avoid a possible glass ceiling later on. I'm planning on doing exactly that. It depends on the job market in your location though.
  - vocatus_gate 10y ago
    That's the (hope|fear)

mywittyname 10y ago

I don't understand American's new-found fascination with vocational training. Why is it they expect education to now provide people with narrowly focused job training over the more traditional broad education? Yes, college is expensive and I absolutely think something should be done to resolve that. And certainly not everyone needs a BS to be productive citizens. But societies "reverence" for the Bachelors degree was earned. Historically, these programs equip people with the background and education necessary to advance their careers. Like many people here, I have a BSCS, and if computing became obsolete tomorrow, I feel entirely confident in my ability to transition into many other technical careers. My feeling is that a BS should be designed to open up entire classes of career options for people. But I also feel that people who opt for technical training in lieu of general education shouldn't be upset when they find out they can't transition as easily into other fields that require skills they may have never learned. I honestly think this article serves as a cautionary tail to reinforce Bachelors "reverence" more than it does to dispel it. A person who spent years learning the depths of Italian cooking shouldn't be surprised when people don't want him managing their businesses. Knowing how to field for truffles and prepare them in a traditional way is nice, but it's not analogous to knowing how to run the logistics of a business.

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
I think the problem isn't that a Bachelor's degree is good, but that it is becoming a basic job requirement for any decent job right now, which is rough. Not everyone is capable or has the desire to be a high-level manager or executive. Many just want to do their job and collect that paycheck. Why should a degree be required for a job like that?
- mywittyname 10y ago
  Companies are completely entitled to ask for proof that a person can perform the job requirements and they feel like having an education is important to performing at the level they need. I wouldn't walk onto a construction site and expect the foreman to give me a job as a carpenter without some proof that I can do the job.

pascalxus 10y ago

Also, there's this strange belief that getting more people through degree programs will increase the number of people with higher paying jobs. The number of high paying doesn't change simply because we're increasing the number of degrees per capita - it merely devalues the degree - just as printing money devaules currency leading to inflation. Companies don't just decide to hire more candidates just because there's more of job candidates available. Utlimately, they hire to create value based on market demand for their products.

gozur88 10y ago
So much this. Training a bunch of people for jobs that aren't there is expensive and cruel.
marcosdumay 10y ago
> The number of high paying doesn't change simply because we're increasing the number of degrees per capita It should. Not necessarily in proportion to the number of degrees, but having more degrees out there should increase the number of high paying jobs. Superior education should make people both more intellectually malleable and capable of creating value in unforeseen ways. If it doesn't, it would be evidence there's something very wrong with the degrees.
- pascalxus 10y ago
  What your saying may have been true hundreds of years ago when the number intellectual jobs was much smaller and far less diverse. But, today, professions are far more specialized than people realize. How much of what you learned in your degree do you still remember? 1%? of that 1%, how much do you actually use on a daily basis? and of that subset, how much of that knowledge is things you couldn't have easily learned on the job.

hectorr 10y ago

The stock photo for this article is an interesting choice. The graduate paid zero dollars for his quarter-million dollar education, and was guaranteed a job at graduation. In return, he owes them a full commitment for five years of work, and partial commitment for another three. The organization that promised to hire him ran the admissions process, set the curriculum, and after training screened him into a particular path for at least the first stage of his new career. He was surrounded for four years by people who will be his professional peers for the entirety of his career. He knows that the likelihood of him reaching the pinnacle of his profession is increased substantially through this network. Obviously the military is well set up to do this. I am surprised though that other industries haven't attempted to build schools to train their respective employee bases.

greglindahl 10y ago
Here's a school run by McDonalds which teaches you how to manage a fast food restaurant: http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/corporate_careers/training_and_development/hamburger_university.html http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/corporate_careers/trainin...
ghaff 10y ago
In part, it's probably because other industries have a limited ability to toss you in the brig if you decide to give your notice after a year. There are trucking schools, mechanics school, cooking schools (as in the article). But the trades in general tend to be more of an apprentice system. Finally, some specialized companies do have extended in-house training. But this sort of thing is definitely less common, in part because people skip around jobs a lot more so there's going to be a lot of free-riding on a company offering expensive training.
- stevenwoo 10y ago
  You don't get automatically sent to the brig for not fulfilling your commitment, IIRC, you have to pay the retail cost of your military academy education, and if you don't do that, then you are in trouble

lordnacho 10y ago

I think the problem is the idea that you spend the beginning of your life learning things, and the rest of it doing things. The current system does not leave much in the way of learning things (or at least getting credit) later on. This is a problem, because your average 18-22 year old knows nothing about what work they'll find satisfying, or what work will be in demand. You also don't know what you'll actually be learning. For instance I did management classes at a well know university. Did I expect to learn something about how to manage? Yes. Did I learn anything about how to manage? No, that's not what management class is about. I suspect many people had similar experiences with their classes. To be fair engineering classes are not about how to be an engineer either, so I don't think it's a science/humanities thing. What you do find out in uni is that pretty much anything academic can be learned if you dedicate some time to it. Read a few books about economics, and you'll know the major ideas of that field, presented in a somewhat coherent fashion. So what we need is a way for someone who's found an interest to be able to pursue that. You work a bit as a coder, and you realise you should get a CS degree. So you find a course, read, practice, do an exam. What's important is people who've discovered this need tend to be in a different life situation from ordinary college attendees. They might have work already, family, and so on. So incentives need to align to allow people to learn things without tearing up their whole life.

ianai 10y ago
It's one thing to read a book and be able to follow along the central themes and ideas. It's a whole other can of worms to be able to write that book.

mercurialshark 10y ago

I think the title "Reverence for the Bachelor's Degree," is inadvertently misleading. There certainly isn't profound respect or reverence for a bachelor's degree itself, from employers or anyone else. However, there is an expectation of social and to some degree, field specific exposure. Perhaps the point of the article is there are far more useful ways to gauge someone's career/field specific potential than a bachelor's degree. And if there are more practical assessment tools than not having a bachelor's degree shouldn't be a barrier to entry.

gozur88 10y ago

Employers don't really have that much else to go on. In-house tests are a legal minefield, and there are places you can graduate from high school without learning how to read.

ryandrake 10y ago
On-the job training?
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  Why pay for that in-house when there are programs out there that convince 18 year olds to take on loans to pay for it instead?
_rpd 10y ago
I think this goes to the heart of the matter. > In-house tests are a legal minefield Does it need to be though? What about 3rd parties providing tests and knowledge verification? There's been some developments on that front.
- gozur88 10y ago
  It doesn't really matter who administers the tests. The problem is you're opening yourself up to disparate impact lawsuits. It's easier and safer for employers to use college rankings as a proxy for intelligence.

kingmanaz 10y ago

America needs to get over its collective disdain for manual trades. And yes, that includes the soft, narcissistic, effete, coffee-shop-frequenting, STEM-grad, man-child "gamers" who prognosticate on YC.

surrey-fringe 10y ago
Why are you being mean?
deleted 10y ago
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astrange 10y ago
> And yes, that includes the soft, narcissistic, effete, coffee-shop-frequenting, STEM-grad, man-child "gamers" who prognosticate on YC. I like this comment, it's kind of like the "brogrammer" thing where you accuse mildly successful men of every negative male stereotype at the same time in case them feeling bad makes them give you stuff.
svnsets 10y ago
Who is expressing their disdain for manual trades? What's wrong with coffee shops and STEM majors?

rc_bhg 10y ago

Nah. It's a good system. I fear any alternatives.

Afforess 10y ago

The government needs to change education to a protected status, like gender, religion, etc. Make it illegal for employers to ask for candidates educational background and degrees. The core issue here is that companies use degrees and education status as a filter and proxy for perseverance, intelligence, and skill, which forces everyone who wants to be employed to obtain a degree. As more job seekers obtain degrees, companies shift minimum educational requirements higher. Higher requirements cause job seekers to obtain yet more education, and neither companies nor job seekers can break this cycle. This is a market breakdown and vicious cycle which needs intervention by the government. (I fully expect libertarians to complain that the government created this mess as a result of too much easy credit in the form of student loans, and they may be right, but undoing that now is a lost cause and moot point) If the government protects educational status, then degrees can't be used to signal educational virtue, and they will cease to be obtained by everyone. University education will revert back to those who desire education for its merits and not its status.

_rpd 10y ago
> Make it illegal for employers to ask for candidates educational background and degrees. Would you really want hospitals hiring doctors without medical degrees?
cat199 10y ago
> needs intervention by the government It already has intervention by the government.. this is called 'student loans' which prop up US treasury bonds.. That the situation of requiring expensive degrees further implies increased dependency on higher paying corporate jobs, in turn further centralizes economic power, increases social pressure to purchase luxury consumer goods, and also strengthens washington lobbying dollars doesn't hurt either..
jogjayr 10y ago
> The government needs to change education to a protected status, like gender, religion, etc Protected classes are usually characteristics that people cannot change (eg. race, ethnicity, disability) or that it would be unconstitutional to force them to change (eg. religion). Educational attainment doesn't fit either category so that would be a hard sell, politically. (I don't actually know how protected classes are decided; this is just based on my observation and could be completely wrong) > The core issue here is that companies use degrees and education status as a filter and proxy for perseverance, intelligence, and skill, Which implies there's a market opportunity for smart companies to pick up, on the cheap, non-graduates that they can determine, through some other filter, are smart, persevering and skillful (the Moneyball approach, if you will). I personally think it's silly to limit a person's career growth 10-15 years into their career just because they didn't go to college when they were 20. Any "rounded-ness" a person picked up then has long worn off for most.

upofadown 10y ago

Well it does serve as a nice class filter. Lower class people tend to not be able to afford college...

jknoepfler 10y ago

No it doesn't. It needs to up standards for a secondary degree and double down on its investment in post secondary education. We need more literate, culturally aware, mathematically and analytically capable, scientifically knowledgeable humans, not less. The fact that Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on the planet is not proof that we need better alternatives to college. We need better alternatives to intellectual disengagement.

bittercynic 10y ago
>...Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on the planet... What evidence do you have to support this? (Not implying that I have any to refute it)
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
The high achievers are going to be well read anyways; if you stuffed everyone accepted into Stanford into a room for four years instead of teaching them, you'd wind up with a bunch of intellectually engaged and well-read individuals. It's the marginally-engaged folks that barely get into college that post-secondary education makes a difference for. And, uhh, they kind of treat it like a four-year party with less parental involvement. IMO, the fact that Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on the planet is a cultural problem that is basically fixed by the time children have gone through primary education.

ianai 10y ago

I think America needs to get over its reverence for the "free market". Healthcare and education are critical needs. Without education we wouldn't have modern medicine, food supply, clothing, housing, etc - you name it. Without any and all healthcare we'd all be dying somewhere between 20-40, if we're lucky. Yet, both "industries" experience ever increasing costs. Consumers in both offset actualized needs with financial tools. Insurance only works if a large majority of people do not use it. That's if you can obtain and afford insurance. Education only pays off if your tuition expenses match up with your employment options. That's assuming you manage to find work out of college. If you can't afford insurance then you're stuck paying out of pocket. By the "one price" rule, doctors have to charge an individual the same they charge insurance. An individual cannot strike a deal as easily with a provider as an insurance company can - so they wind up paying 10-100x what an insurance company would. Notice, that's not saying anything about what an insured person would pay. There's no corollary to that for education. People finance their education (largely) with loans and up front. They're striking a deal based on what they expect their future income to be. That future income, by the way, probably won't be realized for the majority. For those it is, it may not be realized until 5 or even 10 years down the road. By that point, the loan payments have already started and may have already been scheduled to be paid back completely. America needs a new economic model. It needs an economic model that allocates nails and food differently than it allocates healthcare and education. Right now, it allocates immediate needs the same way it allocates 'possible demands'. Financial companies estimate 'possible demands' on imperfect data across imperfect realities. Because those two things are not the same, they need to be handled differently.

btkramer9 10y ago

I only got about a third away through this but the beginning doesn't make me want to believe/empathize with the author at all. "my nephew was set to graduate from Maryland’s Towson University with a degree in political science. After six long years," Six years for a degree in political science. You have to actively try to take that long to graduate. Maybe he changed majors. "Holding up their son’s transcript, his adviser pointed out that he had taken the same economics course twice—one year apart. My nephew hadn’t noticed." Really? I've met plenty of people in college who would do things like this. They all had no motivation or interest to graduate. They were there just because their parents made them and could afford it. I think this defends the authors point. However, using two people who clearly have no idea how to pave their own path to a successful life should be used as an example to argue against universities and trade schools. Maybe the author is trying to say its the high schools fault for not teaching them. I disagree. Everytime I've seen behavior like this it's because the student just doesn't care or their parents have plenty of money and know they'll be fine no matter how bad they do.

deong 10y ago
He's not arguing against trade schools. It's a fairly explicit endorsement of trade schools -- just accompanied by lamenting that that's not the actual world we live in. The article isn't presenting the two nephews as the same argument at all. The idea is that the one who went to college did what society demands, and it clearly wasn't the right move. The second made the "correct" decision, only to have society fail to reward him. I'm not sure how you took away something different there, unless I'm just misunderstanding your argument.
- btkramer9 10y ago
  It's probably because I didn't read the entire article. I got to this point "Unfortunately for Jeffrey, however, it’s very hard to make a decent living as a cook, even in the best restaurants of New York. So after three years of hard work and great experience but very little money' and assumed it was all downhill for him too. I was mostly infuriated by the first nephew being used against universities.

arca_vorago 10y ago

The problem boils down to a twofold issue to me: 1) Schooling is getting in the way of education and 2) Schooling is misinterpreted by lazy employers as education. In this day and age, what we need is some sort of more granular description of education and experience. I don't have a finance degree, but I've gone through the Yale econ lectures online.... how do I reflect that knowledge gained when all an employer wants is where did you graduate? I see granular descriptions like this all the time on certain forums, down to people listing their audacity courses, tech certs, etc. We need to find ways to revive intellectual curiosity and a yearning for knowledge in the masses, not stifle it by arbitrarily tying it down with businesses wants, especially in an information age where much of it is freely available online.

Mc_Big_G 10y ago

Bullshit. We need to make it mandatory and free for everyone just like a high school diploma. Alternative option would be mandatory trade skill training. The USA is currently fucked for the foreseeable future due to not caring about education. Let's make it a priority instead of a gigantic military.

MBlume 10y ago

I think there's a case to be made that the decision in Griggs vs Duke Power Co. (employers may not administer IQ tests) is the reason we're in this mess. IQ is really important and correlates with lots of outcomes. Employers therefore want to know it. They're not allowed to ask, but admission to/success at an exclusive college correlates well with IQ, so they ask about that instead. Means everyone spends hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of their life to advertise something that could be measured in an hour.

adrianratnapala 10y ago

I think it is telling that the second nephew was a cook. When I think of learning a trade I imagine fitters and turners. And here in Australia we do need more of those skills -- but the chances are that service sector jobs will be more abundant. And some -- like cooking can take the most successful ones a long way. That said, I would like to see aprentices rather than interns at my big software company.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

The answer is simple. Make it generally illegal to ask or provide information about your college education as part of interviewing for a job. If there's bona-fide occupational requirement for specialized training, allow certification by exam - the Fundamentals of Engineering exam or what actuaries go through are good examples of this.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

The Bachelors degree of yesterday is almost the equivalent to the Masters of today in a lot of fields. It's sadly used as a gatekeeper, erroneously in so many cases. Alas eventually, I predict, a new type of degree will emerge and it will be a combination of the Bachelors and Masters, because the two will be sufficiently diluted.

mti27 10y ago

TL;DR version of this article: 1. Author complains her lazy nephew's approach to school (and resulting Political Science degree) did not result in a good paying job. 2. Author complains her other nephew's lack of a degree and previous chef jobs did not result in a good paying job. 3. Author advocates for community colleges, blames higher-ed for being "too rigid" for her nephews, and says how much better Germany and other European countries are at training.

ironman1478 10y ago
This is a very unfair interpretation of the article at least for point 1. It never described the nephew as lazy, it could've been that they were depressed or had something going on. It also says that he might have been better doing something physical, not necessarily political science.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
I don't think you're quite in the spirit of the article there. How about: 1. Author has a nephew who was forced into a degree program he didn't want because he mostly hates school, but blue collar jobs don't pay enough anymore. Neither do white collar jobs for people who don't enjoy classroom learning. 2. Author has another nephew who also didn't like classroom learning, got a degree in chef's school and made alot of progress in the field. However, chef's don't get paid well either. 3. Author thinks maybe the problem is there isn't a path for people who don't like classroom learning and maybe Germany is better at this IDK? Not to sound like some kind of socialist, but maybe the problem is many jobs don't pay very well anymore?

aanm1988 10y ago

> has been a collection of dismal white-collar jobs—in a call center chasing down delinquent customers for Baltimore Gas and Electric That's not a white collar job.

chrisseaton 10y ago
Why not? It's administrative work in an office environment. That seems white collar to me. What do you think it is instead? It's not service work (pink collar). It's not manual labour (blue collar).

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svnsets 10y ago

Things I learned in college: - How to borrow tens of thousands of dollars without any concrete evidence that I would be able to pay it back - How to google (arguably a good skill, but not worth a five-figure price tag) - How to write small - How to misuse big words - How to misuse buzzwords - How to use Dreamweaver (I later learned that the correct way to use Dreamweaver is to uninstall it from your computer) - How websites were made in 2004 (this was in 2011-2013) Things I was forced to learn after college to be even remotely relevant: - Every single aspect of my job as a lead software engineer

arrty88 10y ago

I don't mean to sound insensitive but why is it the institution's fault that it took someone without passion or drive 6 years to graduate and why wouldn't the same problems which persisted during college not continue to persist after graduating? I know plenty of folks that went to Towson and the only thing that they could do after freshman year was funnel a beer. I know a few that went on to pursue respected middle class careers in tech, legal, education, and health care. When will our youth finally start taking responsibility for their own actions or lack there of?

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
>When will our youth finally start taking responsibility for their own actions or lack there of? Ha, people have been complaining about the youth for 2,000 years.

wink 10y ago

And here I was, thinking Germans and Austrians were kind of in love with their academic degrees, but this sounds even worse. But maybe the vocational training is better institutionalized here, so people can actually earn enough as a craftsman or in the service industry.

randyrand 10y ago

Whats that phrase? "Someone has to be a grave digger?

paulus_magnus2 10y ago

There should be a room for disruption. Start working right after school, continue education at own paste at MOOC. Get company to allocate 10% time to studying. Technology (streaming) enables everyone to have MIT grade education for free (theory part). Exams could be paid. The only labour intensive part of education is the practical part. This could be paid or community based co-study.

WhiteSource1 10y ago

Trump's victory showed the power of the uneducated. The Bachelors degree is not only a technical degree but especially in America, with a general education requirement, is also important to teach us citizenship, critical thinking, and educate us beyond our own narrow field. Knowledge of basic history (at least on a survey level) of our country and key places around the world, a basic understanding of our political system, and general knowledge is important to be better people and better citizens. Of course extremely smart people might be able to get this on their own but most of us aren't Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.