[Guest]

What Happens When College Is Oversold

As I wrote here last week, newly compiled data shows that a great many college graduates have been settling into jobs that do not require higher education. The data, prepared and released by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP), show that a majority of the increased number of college grads since 1992---some 60 percent-- are "underemployed" or "overqualified" for the jobs they hold. Thus we have one-third of a million waiters and waitresses with college degrees. Some 17 percent of the nation's bellhops and porters are college graduates. ...

Is the College Debt Bubble Ready to Explode?

by Laura Rowley, Friday, December 3, 2010
Kelli Space, 23, graduated from Northeastern University in 2009 with a bachelor's in sociology - and a whopping $200,000 in student loan debt. Space, who lives with her parents and works full-time, put up a Web site called TwoHundredThou.com soliciting donations to help meet her debt obligation, which is $891 a month. That number jumps to $1,600 next November. ...
...
In some respects, the student loan crisis looks remarkably like the subprime mortgage crisis. First, outstanding student loan debt has ballooned: It grew roughly four-fold in the last decade to $833 billion as of June - surpassing outstanding credit-card debt for the first time. ...

A Public University Joins the Expanding 50K Club of College Prices

The ranks of the most expensive colleges have grown again: 100 institutions are charging $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board in 2010-11, according to a Chronicle analysis of data released last week by the College Board. That's well above the 58 universities and colleges that charged that much in 2009-10, and a major jump from the year before, when only five colleges were priced over $50,000.

 

[Steve M1911A1]

It is my confirmed belief that most high-school graduates should not go to college.
If they are not ready to enter the workforce, then they should try out for a good trade school, on the path to become a trade apprentice, then a journeyman, and eventually a master.
We should re-institute "reading for the law," the way Abe Lincoln became an attorney: Serve an apprenticeship clerking for a law firm and reading cases, on the way to the bar exam. Or maybe law would be taught in a legal-trade school, without recourse to college but followed by an apprenticeship.
Pharmacology and medicine could probably take the same pathway, unless the student wanted to go into research and "creative science," which would call for university experience.

We took a bad turn, when we went along with the idea that "everybody deserves a college education."

 

[Snake45]

We took a bad turn, when we went along with the idea that "everybody deserves a college education."

Or that everyone needs one.

Some of the smartest people I've ever worked with didn't have college degrees, and some of the stupidest, most useless jackwagons did.

 

[Skeptic49]

Ah, you seem to have forgotten, the Federal Government, that fount of all jobs and employment and borrowed money, REQUIRES, 4-year degrees for almost every position in the USAJOBS website.

And they may pay for your education as well...

With an exception for the US Army which may be over staffed with officers compared to the 250 divisions of WWII.

Geoff
Who notes how well this is working out for the taxpayer.

 

[planeflyer21]

It is my confirmed belief that most high-school graduates should not go to college.
If they are not ready to enter the workforce, then they should try out for a good trade school, on the path to become a trade apprentice, then a journeyman, and eventually a master.
We should re-institute "reading for the law," the way Abe Lincoln became an attorney: Serve an apprenticeship clerking for a law firm and reading cases, on the way to the bar exam. Or maybe law would be taught in a legal-trade school, without recourse to college but followed by an apprenticeship.
Pharmacology and medicine could probably take the same pathway, unless the student wanted to go into research and "creative science," which would call for university experience.

We took a bad turn, when we went along with the idea that "everybody deserves a college education."

Aahhhh, yes. Trade schools.

Remember the "Good ol' days" when trades were taught in HIGH SCHOOLS? Woodshop, autoshop, metalshop, weldingshop? And for all those unenlightened young women, home economics.

Kids weren't master craftsmen when they graduated, they were prepared to enter the workplace as an apprentice and really start learning their chosen trade.

Enter the federal Dept of Education on the left pincer, and the gutting of domestic industry on the right pincer, and we have "trade schools", technical institutes, and probably billions and billions of loans that are going to be defaulted.

Jon

 

[Maggot]

For what it's worth, I'm a professor at a small private liberal arts university and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that many/most kids should not go to college.

For those of you that went to college in years past, it isn't what it used to be. Things have been dumbed-down since I was in school, and that wasn't all that long ago. I have had students that I would have considered functionally illiterate, and we have much higher standards than public universities.

 

[Snake45]

I earned a BS in the '70s, and I consider my formal education not quite as good as my Dad's '40s-era high school diploma.

My stepson has a Master's, and is working on a Doctorate, and I don't consider his education anywhere near as good as mine. My daughter now has a Bachelor's in Sociology. My son is a USAF aero-med, which isn't far from being an RN (and in some areas actually exceeds it), and he has more marketable and in-demand skills than his sister and stepbrother combined. (And you could prolly throw ME in the mix, too!)

 

[William R. Moore]

Back when they referred to the folks at the front of the classroom as "teachers", what happened in the classrooms were generally tied to real world concerns and issues. When I had kids/stepkids in high school I went through a few textbooks and the "educators" had removed most, if not all, demonstration of any contact with the real world from the material. I can recall borrowing an honor grad of the local high school as a flag man for a quick surveying project (establishing a fence line) and he was flabergasted to discover that trig has real world applications. Not to mention a depressing degradation of standards of performance and behavior.

The same effect has taken place in higher education, I've run into mechanical engineers with rather shocking lack of knowledge about fairlly common principles. Let's not get started on the "fuzzier sciences".

 

[Steve M1911A1]

A Geezer Speaks:
Back when I was a tad, grade school was supposed to prepare you for either high school or a low-end job, high school was supposed to prepare you for either college or a high-end job, and college was supposed to prepare you for teaching, experimental science, or theology/philosophy.
A grade-school graduate should've been able to read, write, and do arithmetic and some low-order mathematics.
A high-school graduate should've added to that creative writing, research and report writing, a foundation in history and civics, a foundation in science, and some higher mathematics. There might also have been some amount of trade-school preparation, and, in some cities, quite a lot of trade preparation on a specific trade-school track.
All of that is now gone, it seems. Part of the problem is that parents either no longer care about their children's education and socialization, or they are just too busy earning enough money to pay the family's expenses to afford the time. Another part is a kind of cachet that has become attributable to merely attending a college of some sort, regardless of what could be learned from the experience.
The mirage of upward mobility may be the root cause, but I don't know for certain.

 

[guntotin_fool]

I have a masters in Ed. Utterly worthless degree my state deemed a plus for a teacher. After a few years of teaching I discovered some of the dumbest people I had ever met were my fellow teachers.

I went to a "enlightened" high school with all sorts of new age ideas, but included in the education was a mandatory four years of shop "arts". I see young students today who are told that shop classes are for the dropouts to be. I routinely use ALL of the information I learned in shop even though I was in regular college prep classes. Mechanical drawing, welding, basic auto, etc. One of the skills no students seem to learn is "troubleshooting" and yet it is a skill that translates into everyday life on a daily basis.

Why doesn't "x" work? Well, start out with what is the primary needs for it to work. In a car its air, fuel, spark, compression. In a computer issue the components are different but the process is the same. Likewise, in a committee, what is needed and what is missing. All the same process.

If you understand basic machine processes in manufacturing, you can intelligently discuss buying services, or understand what a plant needs to run, etc. You may not be able to understand or do the process, but you can relate it to processes you know.

In the basic banking class, we were taught budgets, ledgers, interests and margins. We were not MBAs but you could see the process. Neither of my kids have had anything like that and when the oldest was looking at a car, getting her to understand how risk influenced the interest rates being offered was a real chore. This from a girl who was a junior at a very competitive University.

I see kids with horrible writing skills applying for jobs that require writing as a major component of the job. Kids who have no ability to accurately describe what is needed in their work because no one ever made sit down and write a proper paragraph.

I had to take two years of performance arts and two years of visual arts. I use those skills daily as well. Such things as scale, spatial relationships etc. If you wish to see how bad kids today are at this, ask one to draw a map or a lot plan of their yard. Performance arts made me stand up in front of a crowd and not piss my pants, amazing how many new hires can not stand up a lead a meeting or present a project to a client without looking like a damn fool.

 

[Skeptic49]

You don't understand! The purpose of modern education is to employ members of the Teachers Unions to support the Communists and the Democrat Front Party. Just look at the books for sale at the Teacher's Union Conventions..for which whole school systems are shut down.

As for working to turn little boys into little girls...I won't discuss the implications in the light of the recently repealed military policy...

The purpose of advanced education is to pay large amounts of money to Professors who don't teach and line the pockets of administrators. There is a DIRECT link between Federal Loan levels and the cost of college.

Geoff
Who sought higher education but was discouraged by professional educators who didn't want a veteran in their holy sacred grounds. :shocked:

 

[Javlin]

I went to a "enlightened" high school with all sorts of new age ideas, but included in the education was a mandatory four years of shop "arts". I see young students today who are told that shop classes are for the dropouts to be. I routinely use ALL of the information I learned in shop even though I was in regular college prep classes. Mechanical drawing, welding, basic auto, etc. One of the skills no students seem to learn is "troubleshooting" and yet it is a skill that translates into everyday life on a daily basis.

Why doesn't "x" work? Well, start out with what is the primary needs for it to work. In a car its air, fuel, spark, compression. In a computer issue the components are different but the process is the same. Likewise, in a committee, what is needed and what is missing. All the same process.

Aahh Yes!I got this education between 85-90 working in an automotive machine shop.The owner was a great teacher of how and why things wear as they do.I once built a set of Ford heads (racks @ other parts houses) and it lost a valve and took out a cyl. of course.My boss made good on it but came to me and ask figure it out.I did.The simple thing he taught me was to ask WHY?and this applies upon many fronts that life will present to one self.The thing about writing is really sad I tried with my son when he was young to become more proficient but they just do not see it because schools don't push it as much;computers!My best teacher was a guy who flew planes during WWII and was still teaching in 95 at MSU in Strengths of Materials.

 

[BobMac]

Ah yes, it's a horrible situation. I am a vet who took advantage of the GI bill. When I got out I went back to my high school and finished my senior my year with no problems. THEN I started college I did have a great teacher who was able to make me understand radicals, etc. Philosophy was a drag but I got through it. To this day I can't extract a square root but I can do it with a slide rule. My dad said, and made me do it, learn to use tools even if you have to dig ditches. Well, I didn't dig 'em but I do konw how to use tools. Used to tune my cars all the time. Today my step son-in-law does it for me. He and my step daughter own an Automotive repair shop. She does the book keeping, he does the repairs. Wendy also keeps the books for a used parts dealer (junk yard). A CPA told her he'd hire her in a minute but she doesn't have a degree. She doesn't need one.

My career was with Sperry computers for 34 years. I'm a self-taught electronics specialist. Blame it on the navy but they taught me well. Two of my grand kids, boys, have good jobs without a degree. One works for Direktor Ship yard in CT, the other is now a trade school graduate. He just got a job somewhere in New york state, not the city. Don't know just what he does yet but I'll find out.

Yeah, today a degree doesn't seem to cut it.

BobMac

 

[phantom4570]

Will college bubble burst from public subsidies?

Take the California State University system, the second tier in that state's public higher education. Between 1975 and 2008 the number of faculty rose by 3 percent, to 12,019 positions. During those same years the number of administrators rose 221 percent, to 12,183. That's right: There are more administrators than teachers at Cal State now.

 

[WaltGraham]

One of the kidlets has a masters in spec. ed. and teaches locally.

She's pretty good at it.

After attending a week long seminar at the local diploma mill, she came over and shared video of some of the activity.

One of the projects dealt with the cultural sensitivity of...

an orange...

And no, I'm not kidding.