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Saturday, October 23, 2010
This is what you COULD BE doing with your college degree---don't look if you really don't want to know...
""Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants. All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.
That's from this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, via Jon Bischke on Twitter. More:
Putting issues of student abilities aside, the growing disconnect between labor market realities and the propaganda of higher-education apologists is causing more and more people to graduate and take menial jobs or no job at all. This is even true at the doctoral and professional level—there are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with Ph.D.’s, other doctorates, or professional degrees.
For hundreds of thousands of Americans, spending four years and untold amounts of money (and debt?) gets you a job as a waiter, parking lot attendant, or janitor. Yet everyone from Barack Obama to Bill Gates keep pushing a college education as the way to secure one's economic future. That is a view that should be heavily qualified.""
I shouldn't have looked. Although I continue to want to complete at least a Master's in college, this is heart-breaking. I hope other blog-viewers, especially those who have been teetering on the see saw of To go or Not to go to college, haven't been generally more discouraged towards the no.
...Maybe this will eventually change the stereotype of waiters, etc being "dumb" and unskilled..." =/ Never thought I'd see the day.
@The Arthurian: lol! I thought of both (indicating my agreement in the two ;) but decided on a subtle approach towards education anyway.
I'm torn between saying "Don't discourage your students like that!" and "Policymakers have no idea how to solve our economic problem."
ReplyDeletei shouldn't have looked.
Art--LOL! My wife said the SAME thing, minus the "policymakers have no idea" part. She not enlightened to that part...yet. :)
ReplyDeleteOh wow... You can get your wife to read your blog???
ReplyDeleteI shouldn't have looked. Although I continue to want to complete at least a Master's in college, this is heart-breaking. I hope other blog-viewers, especially those who have been teetering on the see saw of To go or Not to go to college, haven't been generally more discouraged towards the no.
ReplyDelete...Maybe this will eventually change the stereotype of waiters, etc being "dumb" and unskilled..." =/ Never thought I'd see the day.
@The Arthurian: lol! I thought of both (indicating my agreement in the two ;) but decided on a subtle approach towards education anyway.