A few years ago, I did some research from multiple different sources and what I found was that only about 40% of college grads were finding good "college jobs" within about 6 years of graduating. This was for 2015-2016, so it may have improved since that time. I also looked at older data, and as a comparative baseline, normally just a little over 60% of grads were getting good jobs within 6 years of college, such as during the early-90s. Now part of this may be due to the rise of "worthless degrees", but I also have to speculate the market for degrees became a little oversaturated, and then of course this was coming just after the recession and business hiring was greatly slowed down. So there were probably factors from both the supply and demand side. When there's only a 40% chance of finding a good job, is it still worth going to college? I thought long and hard about this, and the answer is still yes—for some students at least. True, you might be wasting all that time, energy, money and effort, but a 40% chance is still better than no chance, and the odds for those without a degree do not look good these days, unless you have definite other career plans. And, while you may only have a 40% chance of finding a "good job", that college degree is still going to help you compete against many other applicants in lower level jobs. These days, if you're applying for a job in a coffee shop or a bartender, a college degree can make the difference whether you get the job or not. Several studies have shown that those with college degrees statistically suffer much shorter periods of unemployment and are rehired to other jobs faster than those without a degree, even when the job doesn't necessarily require a degree. And these type of studies only looked at 6 years out. The odds of eventually finding a "college job" do rise a bit with more years, although if they didn't find a college job within 6 years time, it's unlikely the college job they do eventually find will be very high level. And one should be mindful of trying not to take on too much debt going through college, because there are no assurances one is going to get a high income college-level job to repay it. This is on the level of personal decision-making though. The question could be asked, does it really make sense for society to be pushing more college, when the majority of grads aren't finding good "college jobs"? What we've seen is rather an expansion of the type of jobs that require college, there's been an expansion of the number of jobs requiring a college degree, types of jobs that simply didn't require a college degree before now doing so, because there's so many applicants who have degrees competing for lower level jobs. And on top of that, should we be pushing college in general as a job panacea when there are so many degrees of questionable value out there? I'm not saying these degrees all have no value, but if we're talking about getting those degrees just to get a job, it becomes very questionable.
This is more evidence of the crisis of capitalism. Average capacity utilization stands at 78%, which means 22% of productive capacity is going unused. Why? -because they can't sell all they can produce. Yet capitalism continues to require growth and increasing profits. So to maintain "profitability" they are buying back their own stock to boost stock prices and artificially inflate the stock market, merging to cut costs of redundancy, automating with advanced robotics, and cutting the need to high-salary workers, which means college graduates.... -in addition to other measures like political and legislative favors. This is causing stagnation of consumption or even reduction of consumption, which causes declining sales and profits. Hence, crisis.
"A few years ago, I did some research from multiple different sources and what I found was that only about 40% of college grads were finding good "college jobs" within about 6 years of graduating. This was for 2015-2016, so it may have improved since that time." College is a stepping stone. There is no guarantee that a graduate won't slip, fall into the rapids, and struggle to just get out of the water poor.
My BA- Fine Art degree got me a job in the sewer. Boss said I got hired over the other guy cuz i had a 4 year degree. So pthbpthbpthbpthb!
So less and less college graduates are worth hiring in the field they studied, this does not surprise me in todays society. Employers are pretty good at separating the chaff from the wheat, American colleges are producing more chaff in their graduates, why do you think we import skilled labor?
Saturation of certain fields of employment account for a number of 'lost' sectors of employment. Specialized fields of education have to make sure that the positions don't require someone to die before a vacancy is available. While a college degree is fine for some, there are many things to be said for the trades, which are having a time of it trying to find help. A generalized degree would probably serve many better, ad a wider range of employment opportunities.
Baloney. Rosy stats like that are made up by the colleges and the bankers whose loans turn a good profit for them. It is undisputed that student loan debts are at an all time high and that over $1.5 TRILLION is owed for unpaid student loans. The truth which no one wants to acknowledge is that college is largely a waste of time and money for a great many people. In fact, for law school graduates it will likely turn out to be a dead end: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/09/the-law-school-scam/375069/ quote: The odds of a graduate getting a job that justifies incurring the schools’ typical debt are essentially 100 to 1. Thus, a total waste.
Excellent points. Conservatives don't understand that when we redistribute a bigger and bigger share of the nation's income and wealth from the middle class to the rich, it stunts consumption because the richest tend to same more of their income rather than invest it. Consumption is 70% of the economy, so as more and more income and wealth is redistributed to the riches, the potential pie gets smaller and smaller, which ironically, and ultimately, limits the income that goes to the richest. Ford had the right idea. Pay your workers more, and they'll buy more of your products. That creates more demand, more jobs, and more profits. It's a win win. In today's environment, it's all about how much I can grab now because I need that bigger mega yacht.
you have some good observations... but what is a "good job", how are you defining good...pay? location? personal fulfillment? what's a "worthless degree"? define that...two of my kids have what many call "worthless" art degrees, but both are working, home owners making $70ish K per year, 3 yrs after graduation and of their graduating classmates only three that I know of are unemployed. more jobs require degrees because the work skills required are often much more demanding, computer literacy is almost a must in any job today...it used to be a person could work on an assembly line with high school or less, but today with automated assembly line robots being able to operate the robots requires more technical knowledge... and as an employer I always found my best/smartest workers were uni students...of those engineering were my favorite hires...unfortunately I only had them until they completed their degrees and then they gone into the engineering world...
That is not a fair or accurate representation of your source.. The quote in your article about 100 to 1 refers specifically to graduates of "InfiLaw" schools -(about which it is highly critical) - not law school graduates generally. And it also appears that "Infilaw" is not up there with the best schools: "The InfiLaw schools achieved this massive growth by taking large numbers of students that almost no other ABA-accredited law school would consider admitting." ... Yet this means accepting many students who, given their low LSAT scores, are unlikely to ever have successful legal careers. In 2010, for example, two of the three InfiLaw schools admitted entering classes with a median LSAT score of 149, while the third had an entering class with a median score of 150. Only 10 of the other 196 schools fully accredited by the ABA had an entering class with a median LSAT score below 150." One wouldn't expect that a school like this would produce graduates with the abilities to get employment representative of law school graduates as a whole.
I had good grades in law school and an outstanding work record of 15 years in tax law but did not get a law job after getting my degree. Thus my investment in a law degree was utterly worthless and I have come across a number of people with the same experience.
Personal anecdotes do not equate to statistical evidence. Learned that in B-school, not law school. Nor do they rehabilitate your misleading quote.
but you could've taken that law degree and applied it to other employment... politics, civil service, police, corporate...a law degree doesn't restrict the person to being a lawyer... my niece has a psychology degree and a law degree, she specialized in family law found out she hated it and quit, she took her law degree and went into the corporate world and is now a VP of a international mining corporation...
$1.5 TRILLION in student debt does not constitute fiction. Please do your homework and see for yourself if it is or isn't true.
I applied to every job imaginable and only got a floor sweeping job. One of my classmates got a job as a cab driver. Many of the others sorta fell off the earth.
Meh, going into debt for exercise science seems to be a bad choice to me. Personal responsibility? Not for progressives.
Yeah, I took the floor sweeping job or any job I could take and now work for a global company in a job I created.
Retirement SS and minimum 401k required disbursement will net me 50% of salary. I can take more. 80% of pay will last till I am 90.
Sure, that's it. Has nothing to do with the fact that a Gender Studies degree qualifies you for ... not much. Meantime, in the real world, there are more jobs in Medicine than there are grads to fill them. AND they're well paid.
