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Guest Post: The US Education Bubble
Submitted by Doug Hornig and Alex Daley of Casey Research
The US Education Bubble
In the world of finance, there is always talk of bubbles – mortgage bubbles, tech stock bubbles, junk bond bubbles. But bubbles don’t develop only in financial markets. In recent years, there's been another one quietly inflating, not capturing the attention of most observers.
It's an education bubble – just not the one of student debt that has graced the pages of the New York Times and so many other publications in recent months.
The problem is not that we are overeducating ourselves as many would have you believe. Rather, it’s that we are spending a fortune to undereducate ourselves.
The United States has always been a very educated country. But it is becoming less and less so, especially in the areas that matter to our individual and collective economic futures. Our undereducation begins with a stubbornly high dropout rate among secondary education students. About a quarter of those who begin high school don't finish.
In an educational system where graduation from high school at a minimum level often means no grasp of mathematics beyond basic arithmetic, no training in basic personal finance, and no marketable professional skills, this is an obvious problem We can and should do more to prepare high school graduates for the world they now live in.
The big problems aren't rooted in high school education, however, but with the decisions we as a nation are making in the education we get beyond the compulsory level.
Of those students who do make it through high school, 30% will not go on to any further education. That means 70% enroll immediately in a two- or four-year degree program, a major increase from the about 49% three decades ago. Despite rising college entry rates, we are not graduating any additional college students. That's largely because among those who immediately enroll in college post high school, some 40% are not expected to get their degrees within six years.
The result: our overall college-educated cohort has flatlined over the past 30 years. The number of American citizens aged 25-34 who have attained a college education – including either a two- or four-year degree program – is exactly the same as the percentage among 55-64-year-olds, at 41%. (The US is also the only developed nation where a higher percentage of 55- to 64-year-olds than 25- to 34-year-olds has graduated from high school.)
Thirty years ago that 41% figure led the world in college grads; now we're 16th and trending lower.
Many have suggested that it's because we have a less than stellar college education system. But nothing could be further from the truth. While it has some problems for sure, the US remains a leader in post-secondary educational quality. One need look no further than the increasing number of foreign students pursuing advanced degrees in the US. For the 2009-10 school year, about 690,000 non-US citizens were enrolled at colleges in the US – the highest level in the world and up 26% from a decade ago.
Not only are foreigners attending our schools in record numbers, they are far more apt to pursue high-level degrees than US students. Foreign students constitute 2.5% of bachelor's degree students, 10% of graduate students, and 33% of doctoral candidates.
Despite a top-notch educational system in the US, we're failing to take full advantage of the opportunities it provides. But the bad news doesn't end there.
In the 21st century, intellectual capital is what truly differentiates in the job market and what helps a country grow its economy. Investments in biosciences, computers and electronics, engineering, and other growing high-tech industries have been the major differentiator in recent decades. In order to be competitive in those fields, however, a nation must invest in so-called "STEM" studies (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).
During the latter half of the 20th century, as more and more US high-schoolers opted to at least start college and were able to afford to go, their choice of academic pursuits have tended away from STEM subjects and toward the less-rigorous liberal arts.
When fewer students attended college and even fewer jobs required technical skills, private employers, and especially government, could soak up the overflow, putting people to work provided they had a degree, any degree... for a while. English literature, sociology, psychology, communications, fine arts, gender studies, and the like were majors that led, inadvertently, to nontechnical jobs – the blue-collar work of an information economy, marketing, and business, and of course to teaching the increasing numbers of new college students.
However, more careers than ever now require technical skills. Economic growth has slowed and unemployment rates have spiked, making employers much pickier about qualifications to hire. Plus, boomers have chosen or been forced to work longer in those professorships and other jobs.
There is now a glut of liberal arts majors. A classic bubble, born of unrealistic expectations that the investment of a hundred grand (or more) must result in a cascade of job offers. Or at least one.
It's not happening. A study from Georgetown University listed the five college majors with the highest unemployment rates (crossed against popularity): clinical psychology, 19.5%; miscellaneous fine arts, 16.2%; United States history, 15.1%; library science, 15.0%; and military technologies and educational psychology are tied at 10.9%.
Unemployment rates for STEM subjects? Astrophysics/astronomy, just about 0%; geological and geophysics engineering, 0% as well; physical science, 2.5%; geosciences, 3.2%; and math/computer science, 3.5%.
STEM jobs also pay more. The list of the 20 highest mid-career median salaries, by college degree, features no careers from the liberal arts. Instead, according to a survey from PayScale.com, at the top we find: petroleum engineering, $155,000/yr.; chemical engineering, $109,000; electrical engineering, $103,000; material science & engineering, $103,000; aerospace engineering, $102,000; physics, $101,000; applied mathematics, $98,600; computer engineering, $101,000; and nuclear engineering, $97,800.
Liberal arts degrees provide few prospects for graduates. Yet the bubble continues to inflate.
In 2009, 1,601,368 bachelor's degrees were conferred in the US, a 30% increase from 2000, which should be a good thing. But of these, a large plurality, 590,678, or 36.9%, was awarded in one or another of the liberal arts. That's higher than 2000's 36.1%.
Moreover, the next most popular major was business, with 347,985 degrees, or 21.7% of the total (up from 20.7% in 2000). And it was followed by health professions at 120,488 (7.5% vs. 6.5% in 2000); and education at 101,708 (6.4% vs. 8.8% in 2000). The business bulge would be okay if students were trained in how to start their own businesses. But it's more likely that they dream of a lavish Wall Street job, one few will ever attain. In fact, that PayScale survey listed business as only the 59th best-paying college degree.
At the other end, these are the bachelor's degrees earned in STEM subjects, as a percentage of 2009's total, compared with 2000: engineering, 6.4% (down from 8.8%); biological and biomedical sciences , 5.0% (down from 5.1%); computer and information sciences, 2.4% (down from 3.1%); physical sciences and science technologies, 1.4% (down from 1.5%); and at bottom, math and statistics, 1.0% (up from 0.9%).
Americans don't get it. Foreigners studying here do. True, the highest concentration of foreigners is the 21% in business and management. After that, though, comes engineering at 18%, nearly triple the level of US students; physical and life sciences (9%), and math and computer science (9%).
More than one in three foreign students at US colleges are entering these fields. Compare that to to fewer than one in six US collegians. Fine and applied arts, English, and humanities collectively account for only 12% of the foreigners' total.
There are any number of reasons for the emergence of the US's liberal-arts bubble. One is easy money. Students have been encouraged to attend college by the availability of loans, both governmental and private sector, and the disproportionate wealth of their baby boomer parents' generation.
In addition, many companies began requiring a degree – any degree – for entry-level jobs that could adequately be filled by a bright high-schooler.
Institutions of higher learning bear some measure of blame as well. Liberal arts programs are much more profitable than hard sciences – professor salaries are lower as their non-academic options are lower, less equipment is required, and of course, recruiting is easier.
Other factors might include the stigmatization of "nerds" who take on more challenging studies; the lack of quality math and science education in secondary schools (where are they going to get great teachers when there's so much money to be made with the relevant degrees elsewhere?); and the widespread misperception that any college degree will punch one's ticket to an easier life.
As more philosophy B.A.s wait tables, it'd be nice if we could wave a magic wand that populated high school science and math classes with teachers who inspire students and students who want to be inspired. But, alas, this a generational bubble.
Lacking that, high school counselors should begin warning students of the perils of spending four years pursuing an interest for which there is no market and advising their charges where the real opportunities lie.
Would-be liberal arts majors must face the reality that one of their few hopes for a future job is to teach the same subject to the next generation, and that competition for the few such specialized positions is going to be intense.
Furthermore, there remains a wide gap between males and females with regard to math and science. Since three females are now attending college for every two males, this is a vast untapped resource. If females currently are discouraged from becoming interested in STEM subjects from an early age, as much research indicates, that's reversible. If they can actively be guided toward those fields, that's doable, too.
The US has led the planet in scientific research and technological innovation for a long time. But that is changing. Other nations, especially in the developing world, are minting new scientists and engineers faster than we are. Without major changes to our cultural attitude towards math and science, and some pretty serious changes to the educational system to support it, we risk becoming second-class citizens in a techno-society that we largely invented.
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Yes we suck at advertising our positions; we can win bids, build multi million dollar systems from nearly nothing and send rockets to the moon.
At HR advertising, when under 100 employees, we stink.
Almost any internet job ad at all gets 300 applicants in the first hour and you can put them for free on Craigslist or your own web site which gets scanned by other ones and aggregated. What's so fucking hard about advertising a job? All these graduates who can't get a job at McDonalds won't appy unless you have a cool photo and font?
Small businesses often have the mentality that they should be entitled to hire people at less than the big boys. And there is very little evidence that they are really screaming for people by showing the money.
That's cause they have learned never to leave money on the table unless it's for a purpose. Margins are thinner and if they want to survive they can't afford to behave in that manner. Use them to "boot strap" your way up.... you might learn a thing or two along the way.
If margins are thinner, then they're chasing the wrong line of business and aren't allocating capital efficiently. A small businessman who can't afford to pay the employees more than a large business that buys labour in bulk, probably should have just taken his initial investment capital and invested it into equity of the large business instead.
Yup, top grads can send out dozens, even hundreds of resumes and get no responses from firms. Firms that often claim a need, in the media, for more foreigners. Its all about trying to save a buck, rather than getting America to work, and letting our best and brightest produce to the best of their capabilities.
I've seen no evidence of this. Most firms that I've applied to don't even bother with an email response to my resume, and don't do it for my colleagues either. Even though we graduated in the top quartile of our classes, have the degrees and papers backing our degrees, and are certainly willing to work for fair compensation.
Most of us won't, however, let ourselves be exploited.
"Most of us won't, however, let ourselves be exploited." Your comment speaks VOLUME of your work ethic!
ANY job that pays, in your field, is better than NO job...... it's like this, when a employer looks at your resume they want to see that not only are you intelligent but that you know how to get SHIT DONE!! The fact that you don't know how to get a job shows that you haven't learned how to get SHIT DONE..... my boy (or girl) being exploited is called PAYING YOUR DUES.....
Your post made me wonder if I was this arrogant when I first graduated (long before you were born), and after some thought.... well maybe... but I never sat on my ass and refused to work because I felt I wasn't being paid enough. I liked the work I did to much not to do it... building and designing processes is just sooo much fun and they pay you for it! Then of course the next step was figuring out how to get the project financing to build the stuff to make more money, and that was even more excititng.
I beg your pardon? Why would someone work for cheap, and ultimately destroy the demand for their future services by offering their services inexpensively (ie: dramatically below the cost of acquisition/production) in the present? That makes no sense whatsoever. Lots of people can't find jobs because the jobs simply don't exist, especially in IT and engineering. It is usually not a matter of skill, but rather, a matter of luck getting your name drawn in the pile of 1000 resumes a typical job will receive (if they don't hand it to a foreigner first).
Dues are paid when a person goes to college (or the pre-requisite training program for a profession), completes all the assignments/projects to the satisfaction of the examiners, and graduates on-time -- those are the dues for entering a profession that requires a college background (and proof that one knows how to "get shit done"). Some people have additional dues to pay if they took out student debt -- to their lenders, or if they did things in college that might call into question their ability to get things done. The sort of hazing ritual you describe has no place in the modern workplace, is disrespectful/unprofessional, and it is rather disgusting that you have chosen to perpetuate it.
So do you agree to work for less now if they give you more of this exciting work to do?
I find a lot of engineers have an attitude similar to his. And where has it gotten them? Usually stuck in some dead-end job, with no management path, and a meagre salary.
Engineers should have, 30-50 years ago, when they were actually an economic force and respected, established the sort of lobbying organizations that the finance guys did. Maybe the abortion of the past few decades of out of control monetary policy, and bankster glorification could have been avoided.
I don't like finance guys, but there is one thing I give them a lot of credit for, and that is, they don't work for free, and they are always concerned that their share of compensation for doing a 'deal' is appropriate for the risk they're taking to their reputations, and even to their personal finances. I wish STEM people would grow some balls and take some lessons in this area from the finance guys, now that it seems likely that they will be the ones in a position to fill in the leadership vacuum once financialism and crony capitalism finally collapses onto itself.
I'm one of the 30 percenters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4SKL7f9n58
I hope sallie Mae goes down in flames. Also I was reading that colleges are making it harder and harder to finish in 4 years.
You bet!
More years = more revenue. Milk 'em dry!
"I hope sallie Mae goes down in flames."
With Obama in office who do you think is going to pick up the tab for that blow up?
Careful what you wish for because you're gona' get it.
When I went to college ..I was out in 4 years...now it takes 6-8...its just postponing adulthood IMHO...as long as daddy keeps Paying for the Liberal arts degree....they will stay in school and learn nothing...
I think we should go the German route...have trade schools and college prep schools...
Could not agree more.
Females suck at higher Math compared to men - there is a genetic difference in our wiring which makes it so (I know there are some exceptions). Also we have way too many college grads so many will be screwed just as they have been the last few years.
Your comment displays your profound ignorance of women.
I made grade nine. Went to college in my twenties after I got a GED.
When you have a wife and two children to support, you do what you have to. This was about 40 years ago.
I agree education is necessary, but I also think it doesn't take a current 12 years to obtain what used to be a solid grade eight. As adults we wouldn't consider taking 16 odd years to prepare ourselves for something at no pay, yet expect our young to do it.
Something wrong with this picture. I am not suggesting students get paid, but I do believe the education system could be a whole lot more efficient and practical for those who wish to pursue something less than a degree or doctorate.
One thing I would like to point out here - graduate students from foreign countries come here for another reason. It's called academic feedom. I have spent my professional lifetime with PhD and MS foreign students trained quite well in the basics. But independent problem solving has never been a forte of any Eastern education system (mainly China and Japan) and it shows. If I use the Chinese as an example there was a recent push to get student to "think like Steve Jobs". Ain't gonna happent in Shanghai.
Eduacation, drive and degree flexibility - you will have a much easier time of things.
The chinese spend a great deal of effort attempting to punish, control, or destroy the iconoclastic obnoxious free thinkers like steve jobs. They consider those types to be a threat.
To succeed one must blindly conform and be good at following orders in china. Even the way they try to get into harvard is rigid, blind obedience to a formula.
Lunacy; Paying 50k a year for college degree to get a 30k per year teaching job
And when you take into consideration that the average career of a K12 teacher is less than 5 years, its clear than edu is not a viable profession.
There are a lot of problems with our education system but I'm going to bring up one that is seldom talked about.
Affirmative action and the use of race in admissions. Less qualified minorities are given preferential placement in admissions based on the color of their skin under the guise to improve diversity. We should be more focussed on the quality of the individual and the diverse ideas they bring to the education system rather then making sure the quota for blacks have been met. It shouldn't be a surprise that if we accept people into college with a lower level of mental acuity that the result is going to be more dumbed down.
Using that mentality there should be affirmative action in the NBA. Sorry Lebron James, we're gona' have to cut you because we need more Asian people on the team. Do Asians have a shot getting into the NBA? Hardly (I can only think of 1 Asian basketball player, Yao Ming) Why aren't liberals worried about the disenfranchised Asian community in the sports world?
Because Asians already dominate baseball?
You mean ping pong.
Since we can assume that you are not referring to Russians or Arabs or Turks or Indians here, you should say "Orientals", not "Asians".
The continent of Asia consists of more than just the Orient, you know ... or maybe you don't (that poor education thing again).
Affirmative action barely affects admissions. Talk about something you know.
Then apparently you didnt see what happened to minority enrollment in california universities after affirmative action was stopped. Enrollments were cut in half.
Enrollments in UC schools have been cut in half? You must be joking.
Non asian minority enrollment at the competitive UC schools was cut in half. Why such a vigorous defense of governments granting favors based on race? What is your issue? All AA does is delegitimize minority degree holders and promotions as not having earned it. It puts all of them under suspicion even those comoetent enough to compete on their own merits.
I am not in favor of Aff action and I didn't know what you meant. I think that the whole debate is worthless. It doesn't do any good, it doesn't make any difference, so why have it. My thoughts....
Under the suspicion of whom? As a minority that's a problem people like you have that you try to make ours. Its pathetic really.
Barely? Should it be happening AT ALL? Would it be ok if two black students were denied admission because of race?
Two white students denied admission to UT in 2008 filed suit for discrimination based on the University’s consideration of race for students who are not automatically admitted under the top 10 percent rule.
http://uwire.com/2011/02/04/texas-students-challenge-race-factor-in-admissions/
It's more prevelant then you might think.
Do you understand what it takes to use Aff. Action? All requirements of the applicants must be even. ALL. That rarely happens.
Most of the time the faculty bitches that there should be more minority enrolled anyway, if that gives you some idea.
All? You are kidding.
prior to ending AA The average test score of a non asian minority admitted to a competitive UC school was much lower than the average test score of all admitted freshmen.
However that problem is now solved in california. When a dark skinned minority graduates from berkeley now, everyone knows they earned it.
The non asian minorities are no longer delegitimized in the eyes of other students and potential employers in california now. Nowdays If you gained admission you truly earned it on your merits and not your skin color.
That is the requirement; when all requirements are equal, then the minority gets the nod. And when you say "dark skinned minority", I think you are being redundant.
BS. I used to work at a place that hired by test scores. Blacks had to get 60% of the score of whites to be hired.
I have a kid that's half Spanish. He got offered full scholarships to a bunch of colleges he didn't even apply at. The other one has about the same grades/scores and got no such offers.
The college degree is really only for the purpose of getting your initial employment. Once you have a few years experience, that becomes far more relevant to your future job search than whatever degree it is that you've received.
Agreed...case & point; consultants. They usually have an Ivey leage degree, no experience, are complete idiots and add no value.
Sorry, I could not resist:
http://despair.com/consulting.html
Priceless
In the end, we can try to figure out what is wrong with the system, but it really all starts in the family. Studies have shown that children of educated couples, or children from cultures that value education, end up performing better in school (i.e., they actually learn something). I have been one of those nerds who spent years learning technical subjects for real. That education has proven valuable, but it has to come from internal motivation and from the values pursued in the family.
However, the other disturbing fact is that nowadays education is rejected and isolated in the workplace, where some form of "socialism" of the mediocre reigns. Real knowledge is routinely disparaged as the realm of the 'nerds' and not of the real business people. Granted, social skills are important for business, but at some point someone has to know something about what they sell. The problem is especially acute in services industries like finance, where incompetence and ingornace are the norm. Hundreds of billions of dollars are managed by people who do not even know the difference between the 'mean' and the 'median', and yet they regurgitate terms like 'expeted returns' and 'volatility'.
On the flipside, I have to say that having a (real) education keeps me competitive at an older age given that the younger generations spend more and more money in college to get a watered down training.
I find it ironic that we call this the "Information Age".
Blow their minds and ask them if they are discussing arithmetic mean expected returns or geometric mean expected returns.
Once I understood how to calculate them it was an epiphany. The only truly accurate way is geometric mean returns, but that has too much reality to it and shows the returns in a harsher light.
NOW I MEAN THAT HITS HOME...
I've been living in a third world country and did'nt realize it until now!
Here comes the PAIN!...5, 10 YEARS AT THE MAX.
Great artical!!... MY MAIN MAN
I know of my fair share of undergrads.
They are keeping their families fed with those fat student loans.
Where else can anyone with no job and no assets qualify for $20,000+/year for 4 years - never mind all the other tuition fun and games?
Grad school is even better. The non-terminating masters is a lifeboat of self respect and financial subsistence.
This entire Liepzig Connection cum medieval faux-cloister production line is dead.
I'll take a 17 year old GED Eagle Scout with Khan Academy on an ipad over any frappuchino sipping 6th year senior from Anywhere USA.
You didn't start at Institut Le Rosey and you didn't finish at Caltech.
And yes, I would like fries.
Warning folks (kids) student loans are not dismissible and most colleges for profit are nothing but paper mills. Yahoo is litered with a million online school ads and pop-ups, that should tell you something. This is huge guaranteed money for the Banksters. My Budget 360 does a good job on this subject and is worth checking out
The time is coming when many brick and mortar schools won't be able to compete with schools offering top-notch education online, for a fraction of the cost. Some 'Ivies' already give many courses away for free.
You mean time is fast approaching where top schools will be offering 4.0s to their cash-paying cusotmers...errr...students. Anyone can get a straight A online.
It's actually already more sophisticated than that. If they want to make sure it's you, and that you're putting in the hours, they can do so (Fingertip login, webcam, random surprise questions, etc.) As far as 4.0's for their customers, google 'Grade inflation, Harvard.' In 1996, 46% of all grades given at Harvard were A's. Grade inflation at the Ivies is old-hat.
Agree. But what I'm saying is that as fewer can afford top schools, post-college incomes stop growing and decline in real terms and as the whole education bubble bursts anyway, they'll have to inflate grades even more because who will want to risk getting into unpayable debt and have C's even B's? That will be an inflection point where cost/benefit shifts away from the traditional vew that Harvard is worth it at any cost
Good points. The Ivies will certainly survive, one way or the other. However, I think lower tier Universities will struggle, while Trade Schools are headed for a boom.
Consider training as a butler, housekeeper, personal trainer or secretary. Wave of the future. The rich are getting richer and more powerful every minute you spend blogging. And they're going to need plenty of domestics to run their many households, yachts, planes and compete with other chateau-dwellers with lavish parties. Imagine living on a large estate. Imagine the pride you would feel when the owner's visitors come over and ooooh and aaaah over the impressive shine on the marble and the sliver and the stiffness of your collar as you open the doors and announce them....Job security, pride and the opportunity to witness history in the making.
OT:
http://www.infowars.com/5-year-old-cuffed-charged-with-battery-on-cop/
http://www.infowars.com/13-year-old-handcuffed-and-arrested-for-burping-in-class/
A brutal police state like education system for a brutal police state nation.
Gotta weed out the undesireables at an early age. Give 'em a bad reputation so their bad behavior spirals, and then they spend a life time justifying the police state as wards of the prison system.
All according to plan. Anyone having children in the U.S. today is guilty of child abuse. This country has lost its fucking mind.
The government has driven up the cost of a college education by making easy money available to colleges and students. It did so with money from the GI Bill, ROTC, defense contracts, government-funded research, a wide variety of student scholarships, and subsidized and guaranteed student loan programs. It is interesting that the taxpayer received double billing for this -- once from the revenue authorities and again in his child’s tuition bill. But the child’s tuition bill was reduced by subsidies. (Thank you Uncle Sam. I love you Uncle Sam.) The larger, systemic problem is that colleges and universities have now built a huge infrastructure and imbedded costs predicated upon the assumption that the flow of taxpayer money will continue. I have not looked into how dependent our public and private educational institutions are upon government support but you can imagine what would happen if it were significantly reduced. Few schools have the luxury of refusing Uncle’s support.
As an aside, this is not good from a First Amendment perspective. Although one might make the argument that the universities are bastions of academic freedom, who knows what silent compromises would be made when the survival of an institution is threatened. At a minimum, no sane University president would argue against the kind of government subsidies his school depends upon.
The growth in university infrastructure and imbedded costs was also fueled substantially by tuition growth. And tuition growth seemingly had no serious economic limitations because there was an unlimited supply of money from student loans. Like everything else from mortgages to credit cards to leveraged buy-outs, university tuitions have been increasingly paid for by borrowing money.
This will not end well for higher education. Think real estate.
One sacrifice is you must allow military recruiters on your campus if you want federal dollars. Preferably an ROTC program as well. I think Elena Kagan was involved in some ROTC issues at Harvard (most likely keeping them off campus).
Then there's the affirmative action quotas. Not to mention the application for federal aid (FAFSA) requires men to be registered for the draft.
Pathways to Prosperity:
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/2011/02/report-calls-for-national...
Easiest way to fix the problem right now would be to deport the H-1B visa holders and Green Card holders (those that derived their GC's from fraudulent LCA's, which is likely 95% of the cohort), and let wage inflation in the tech sector take care of the rest as firms scramble to replace the deported H-1B holders with domestic talent.
Domestic STEM grads, after beating all the odds, often don't even get the 'time of day' from employers, who prefer cheap, malleable H-1B visa holders instead. Top grads in Electrical/Computer Enginering can send out hundreds of resumes and get only a response or two from the employers. Salaries in STEM are typically 1/3rd of what they were 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation (while FIRE salaries have skyrocketed). Students studied STEM in droves in the late 1990s looking to get into the hot, well paid technology sector, but were mostly greeted with employers who were laying off hundreds of thousands of people in the aftermath of the tech bust. When hiring started to come back, only foreign nationals were typically considered, with entry-level jobs being advertised 'requiring' 5+ years of experience.
In short, those $100k salaries you quote for EE and CS professionals, don't mean squat if, after graduation from a good quality program, one cannot find a job. Just look at the UC Berkeley and Cornell employment statistics; typically less than 40% confirmed employment for STEM grads including in EE and CS. Also, the STEM people tend to be skewed to high salary/high cost of living places, so the $100k average quoted isn't all that attractive in a place where houses cost $700k+ for anything decent (ie: Silicon Valley...where police officers are often at $180k+).
The only reason why kids will study STEM is if they see good money and prestige in it, by rewarding existing STEM professionals (those who have already made the up-front investment in training). Right now, that is not the case, and hasn't been the case for many years.
Good point pitz.
I'd like to chime in here on this fascinating -- and painful -- topic, as it's very close to my heart.
I'm 28. I have had what may be considered the textbook collegiate career of a Millennial. My parents were the well-off boomers the article and commenters describe who believed a wee bit too much in the value of a college education. My dad was the worst offender, and I truly believe he bought into the euphoria that "college is the best four years of your life." I never fully bought into that and had my suspicions confirmed during my first week in college: it was basically just like summer camp except with booze and free rubbers hanging on the RA's door. Deep down, I knew it was a sham.
I chose journalism as my major and it wasn't a thoughtless choice. I had already enjoyed some early success in the field when my online film criticism caught the eye of the editor of an upcoming anthology on foreign cinema and he tapped me to write a chapter. The book was published in my freshman year of college and is now a collector's item and is prized among film buffs. So journalism really seemed to be a natural path at the time.
Yes, I had a sinking feeling as college went along that all wasn't so rosy in the real world. I always kept the foreboding wisdom that journalism was a dying field in the back of my mind, but I just kept going with my studies. I truly couldn't fathom what else I wanted to do. I think this is what is so cruel about college: the stakes are so high. You're basically forced to figure out what you want to do NOW while your personality (and your brain itself!) is still developing. College should be the place where you can experiment with different majors and career trajectories. But you can't try before you buy anymore; the price tag on that mortar-board is just too high. If you've chosen a dead-end major or one you're absolutely miserable with after a year or two in the field, you can be largely stuck if you are under a huge amount of student loan debt.
And YES I understand that people should read the fine print about loans and not take out more than they can afford. But just on an anecdotal level, I'd like to say that my friend went to the same school I did to get the in-state rate (and it was a public university which also made it cheaper) and he worked every semester and every summer (sometimes two jobs) and he still owed about $50K in student loans because his dad decided to spend his college fund on a home theater. So I'd just like to remind the "THE DEBTS MUST BE REPAID" crowd that shit does indeed happen sometimes, and it's not always 100% the student's fault.
Speaking of my friend, he was also a journalism major because he didn't know what to do. He came from a blue-collar household where both parents didn't graduate college. He actually started out in sociology only to find out from a counselor that it was essentially a joke major. He was that naive. In a despairing freefall, he decided to follow my lead and try journalism.
Once he graduated, he realized there was no future for him in journalism. He just couldn't hack it. It was one of the worst moments of his life -- utter horror, terror and despair. To his credit, however, he took a major risk and enrolled in an accelerated second-bachelor's nursing program and completed it. Talk about stress. Lawyers who have gone through similar programs said law school was a breeze compared to an accelerated nursing program.
Anyway, he wanted to go to nursing school so he would be guaranteed a job. The media, faculty, and counselors all told him nursing would be a sure thing. Then when he graduated it took him 18 months to find per-diem work in a prison after he conducted a six-month-long job search to no avail while working two jobs to pay off his now six-figure student loan debt. And then after working that job for a few months he landed a job at a nursing home (not much of a step up -- ask any nurse) only out of sheer luck. By luck I mean he got the job because nearly all the staff was fired due to a bizarre scandal where CNAs and other nurses were implicated for sharing cellphone photos of a patient's prosthetic penis on facebook (!). If it weren't for all those firings, he would never have had the job. He'd just be another denied applicant.
Apparently my friend is not alone. New nursing grads across the country are having tremendous difficulty finding jobs since cash-strapped post-recession hospitals are cutting new grad nursing programs which have always been the foot-in-the door for new nurses. This is a similar situation to how paralegal jobs and entry-level STEM jobs have become increasingly inaccessible to STEM and Law students due to outsourcing or H1B visas.
I too fell for the nursing hype. I got into an accelerated nursing program after working my tail off getting straight A’s in the prerequisites (Anatomy and Physiology, Microbio, Stats,). However, half-way through the program I knew nursing wasn't for me. I realized once I started my clinicals that nursing required -- no, demanded -- a very specific personality, and I wasn't that personality. I simply couldn't take the emotional intensity and insane stress -- I often took Xanax just to make it through clinicals. My blood pressure went through the roof and my resting heart rate is still 100+ bpm nearly two years later.
Does that mean I'm "allergic" to work? That I'm "entitled"? Hardly. I'm currently bagging groceries to pay off my $20K nursing school folly.
Now I truly believe I HAVE found what I want to do -- library science. "You must be crazy!" I'm sure everyone will say. "That field's more dead than journalism!" Well, to that I say this:
1) Somehow my journalism classmates have made a living at journalism, even though it’s considered dead.
2) Considering all the volatility and insanity and just plain uncertainty concerning the job market (not to mention all the conflicting advice), I realized there is no air-tight career, and there is NO job security. So I figured I might as well go after what I want and try to minimize my risk in getting it. My risk minimization plan is four-pronged: A) Gain real experience of at least a few years in the field before I plunk down for my master's. And I'm already doing that by both volunteering at a local university library (sometimes it is paid work) in which my efforts have already benefitted the staff librarians in a professional way (I don't mean shelving books) B) Go to a school where I can get my degree as cheaply as possible C) Graduate with as little debt as possible. Currently, I will graduate with about $8k of interest-capped debt and D) Be open to applying nationwide to maximize my chances for employment.
3) I truly think it's ridiculous for people to assume every student should go into a STEM job; I think it's a sign of the times in many ways. And I truly believe we can't build a vibrant economy based on such a narrow tech focus. It is tragic that we are losing the humanities because they are just as vital as technology. In fact, in this age of heedless, galloping leaps forward in technology, we need the humanities more than ever to ground us in our human skin. Yes, technology can enhance our lives and its promises can be intoxicating, but the humanities have just as much to teach and to offer and they are unique in their ability to help us live our lives AS THEY ARE, no matter the limitations of our minds/bodies. In fact, too much technology causes us to think our "standard issue" bodies and minds aren't enough when I truly believe we haven't scratched the surface of what is possible with humans as they are. The humanities are a much-needed grounding influence to technology's excesses. I firmly believe that if people were more aware of the basic ideas of philosophy and history, perhaps we wouldn't have made such a mess of the economy as we have. Even Allan Greenspan admitted he didn't think humans would hang themselves if they had the opportunity. Someone with an exposure to philosophy or history would have been at least less likely to have made that mistake.
4) Take heed of Pitz's words. The STEM jobs aren't necessarily the royal road like manufacturing jobs were for post-WWII Americans. Nothing is anymore. I think it's treacherous to think there is some holy grail out there when we as a society haven't even begun to come to terms with what is so fucking wrong with this country in the first place. Only once things have been sorted out (and that could take at least a decade) will we be able to get a firm grasp on what a solid career is. Even then, it could be hard to tell if this future-shock pace of technology keeps up. We may be at such a historical crossroads that even the concepts of "career planning" and "hot careers" may have to change, as well as college entirely.
Thanks for the reply. You know, for all the comments about College being all about drinking and smoking pot -- there are a significant group of people who take it very seriously, do extremely well, yet unfortunately, get tarred with this brush of "Americans are dumb", or "College doesn't teach you anything".
Yes, there are people who waste their time in college, the frat boys. They typically get the Wall Street jobs and the $500k salary packages. While the guy who studied STEM, he's lucky if he can avoid the unemployment line, or worse, gets stuck doing a Masters and PhD and graduates to a Postdoc at $30k/year.
This is the cycle that needs to be broken if the economy is to be put back on track. Power, both politically and economically, needs to be restored to the STEM segment of society, rather than the bankers. The 'bankers', the finance types, have done an awful job of allocating capital within the economy -- so poor, in fact, that we have un-repayable debt, and an energy deficit of millions of barrels of oil per day. We can no longer manufacture most of our most basic consumer goods domestically as the factories have been demolished, replaced with a convoy of container ships from China. What we have is an unmitigated disaster, and the sooner that the bankers are overthrown, the more quickly we can start addressing the issues.
The STEM boys (I'm one of them) have done a number on the low end of the economy. We have replaced American workers - not with Chinese - but with machines.
All predicted by Kurt Vonnegut in "Cat's Cradle".
Sorry 'bout that.
WOW!!!
What an in-depth, thoughtful post! I truly have to commend you for taking the time, and thought, for making it.
And I agree with you about the humanities, as well, even if such graduates are almost doomed in today's market --- I bemoan the fact that a college education is increasingly, if not almost exclusively, viewed as merely some sort of next-level vocational school. Yes, it can and maybe should be that for many --- but not for ALL. Without the humanities, we would not be .... human. And this is coming from a university graduate in chemistry! (Who has long ago decided to NOT pursue a career in that field).
Maybe just give up on education and try to think of something else. For a while, I had a part time business that I was making more than my computer job at. It was something very simple requiring almost no education. Technology changes wiped it out after 5 years. One of my friends is a high school dropout that can barely read and can't do math. Still, he has prospered with one business after another somehow...
Read about half of it. I have no syampthy for you. Your story is extremely common and a result of a soft, entitled upbringing. You think you can flit from this career to that on a whim with no consequences. You have unrealistic expecations of life.
"Somehow my friends from journalism school have made it..."
Why didn't you?
"I discovered nursing wasn't for me..."
Why not?
This is a result of a lack of adversity in your life. You've never been challenged, never gone without, growing up comfortable in a middle class bubble. You can't imagine being unable to buy the latest iPhone or Macbook, can you? CAN YOU?! I know I have your typed pegged to a tee, so don't even pretend like you aren't a pretentious little shit with a bunch of iCrap hanging off of you at all hours of the day and night. But you've got that feeling of invincibility, there's always a safety net there to catch you if you fall.
I picked the highest paying major with the best job prospects that I thought I could handle. It wasn't about what I was passionate about. It wasn't about living my dreams. It was about surviving. See I grew up poor (back when there weren't 50 million people on food stamps) and nobody was there to co-sign my loans while I flitted from major to major or spent a year studying non-sense in Europe, and nobody was going to be there to pick me up if I failed. I'm about your age and I laugh at your $20K student loan from nursing school. I'd have that paid off in 6 months, tops (based on salary alone, obviously I have more than that in available liquidity).
See that's the entitlement you had, and still have, that I never did - the ability to choose to fail. Are you happy with your choice? I chose to succeed because the only other option was misery and death. But at least Obama is giving you health care at my expense, so you can rejoice.
and when something happens to you do you think people are going to cough up an ounce of sympathy either?
MarketWatch --
I totally understand where you're coming from, I do. I understand the anger. Really, I do. I also sense some jealousy ("See that's the entitlement you had, and still have, that I never did - the ability to choose to fail.")
But what I hope you can do is step outside yourself for a minute and realize that things aren't so great being "entitled" either and you really shouldn't be jealous. Yeah, that's right, I'm somewhat pulling the "poor little rich boy" card here, but it just happens to be true in this case.
Let me explain: in the past year I have painfully come to the conclusion that yes, you are correct that I have "unrealistic expectations of life." I have admitted to myself that my parents did place me squarely in a bubble of (relative) affluence and that they gave me too many "outs" when things got rough and I haven't developed the coping skills I need. I stress that I have come to these conclusions with no shortage of pain. And it is a searing pain, one that shakes me deeply to my core. For people who think that the mind/body connection is a sham, dig this: these realizations have directly contributed to my physical symptoms such as my near total loss of ALL appetites (motivation/ambition, emotional response, sexual appetite, food appetite, etc). And this is a unique pain that you probably haven't experienced. Seen this way, your early adversity was, in effect, ultimately to your great advantage. I truly wish I had that early advantage. I really do. In fact, it's more NATURAL for you to have had that early struggle. It's how an organism is toughened. It's highly unnatural and sick for a society to artificially manufacture wealth and affluence and expect kids to grow up without any bruises or knicks other than grass stains on their pants or cupcake breath. In times such as these, nature inevitably intervenes and trims the fat. BUT, some humans are uniquely able to see this process and turn their lives around. That's what I'm trying to do.
It is far harder to gain such "real life" skills such as sucking it up, learning how to write a REAL resume, learning how to get real on-the-job training, how to market yourself to a prospective employer, etc etc at a later point in life, and to teach it to yourself through trial and error, which is what I'm doing.
My parents did not teach me most of this. Truly, they didn't. They did subscribe to the belief that I would just go to college and somehow it would all work out (I believe this was largely on a subconscious level). Now, in fairness, that IS what largely happened to them once they landed their teaching jobs in the '70s.
But I don't blame them. Truly, I don't. I love them -- they are incredible people in their own right and were -- and continue to be -- great parents in other respects. BUT (and this is a big but), they do factor into the equation of who I am today and my work ethic. How could they not? That's true of any child. No child grows up in a vacuum. I'm not re-distributing the blame: I'm just telling it how it is. That's what annoys me about people who are furious at people my age for being entitled: they always forget to factor in the parents. And I'd bet money that some of the people yelling the loudest at lazy entitled kids are actually parents of such kids. But their kids aren't lazy or entitled because they're THEIR kids, and they're special.
Honestly, I think ultimately it is up to the child to wake up to the reality that they need to get their shit together and somehow scrape together all the job skills and job hunting skills their parents never taught them. This is an extraordinarily difficult task if you are clear-minded, feel too deeply for your own good, and are devastatingly honest with yourself (as I am) because not only did I not develop these skills but I can't really ask my parents for too much job-hunting advice as the whole process of job hunting has changed so dramatically since they were looking for jobs. So I've been learning these skills from experienced co-workers and reading as much as I can.
That is also why I'm bagging groceries to pay for my loans. In all honesty, I could have my parents pay off the loans but I know I wouldn't be learning the lessons I need to learn once and for all. And I also realize this is probably my last chance, even though my parents say otherwise ("Oh come on, you're still young. You've got plenty of time" etc etc). I'm also teaching myself about saving, whether it be learning to cook or just dumping any money spent on stupid stuff into my loans. It feels good and it is empowering. It's a kind of empowerment that has been stolen from my generation through years of easy wealth, "feel good" politics, self-esteem workshops for kids, etc etc. My parents, myself, and countless others have been swindled. But we ARE waking up. I'm not entirely throwing in the towel yet for my generation -- or myself.
For all these reasons, I don't consider myself entitled -- anymore. I'm seeing to it myself that I'm not "entitled" by not accepting all the help my parents have to give. Is it hard to break this habit? You bet. Is it possible? Yes.
I'm an admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche, and he predicted a lot of this "softening" almost 150 years ago. I could always intellectually understand what he was saying but only in the past year could I completely FEEL what he was saying after my re-awakening. It is an entirely different experience to FEEL it. It's almost like I've come out of a parallel universe (or Plato's cave, if you will), and I'm just blinded by the intensity of the "real" world. It's horrifying and seemingly infinitely challenging at times, but it's also REAL and that feels good. Some days I feel like I can't stand it and I want to give up, but there is value in doing it anyway, no matter how I feel.
Right now I'm just trying to let life as it is be my teacher. I'm actually thankful for your post because it allowed me to solidify what I've been feeling for the past year and put it into perspective. Going back to Nietzsche one last time, one of my favorite things he theorized is that we think certain things are bad because they make us feel bad. Nietzsche aruged this is absolutely not true and that line of thinking is sick and gets us into a lot of trouble. Often the "bad" things can actually teach us a lot about ourselves if we just honor them and ask ourselves why we feel bad about these things. Yes, at first read your post made me feel bad (for lack of a better term lol!), but then I realized your message could be a great learning opportunity and it had a lot to say, even if it was steeped in hot theatrics.
I just hope for your sake that you don't carry around so much bile for people like me because I have come to realize that people in this country really DO have more in common than we think. It's just become such a remarkably cynical country (it really makes me think of the Vietnam era) and everyone is suddenly at everyone's throats and scapegoating runs wild because people are (rightfully) furious. But it would be tragic to give in to the voluptuousness of scapegoating because we wouldn't be looking at the deep multi-level issues that are rotting this country and how we are all to varying degrees culpable for this mess we're in. To entirely blame people my age is very similar to protesters spitting on soldiers returning from Vietnam: yes, the soldiers were the most obvious face of the problem (the war) but they were innocent pawns in a con that went all the way up to the government.
And try an experiment: pay attention to why people like me are such a "hot button" issue for you. Try to observe what it is about me that so infuriates you. I'd be willing to bet it's less about me and more about you. Carrying around that kind of anger is very toxic and really doesn't get you anything. BELIEVE ME, I've been there, because I'm human too!
Thanks again.
I think the American education bubble commenced May 17, 1954, the day the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brown vs. Board of Education.
Before Chief Justice, Fred Vinson died on September 8, 1953, the Court was 6 - 3 against Brown vs. Board of Education.
After new Chief Justice, Earl Warren, took over, the Court ruled unanimously for Brown vs. Board of Education.
Did I mention that 63 year old Justice Vinson was in the peak of health before dying suddenly in his hotel room?
Strange still was that after months of listening to arguments on this case, nowhere in Chief Justice Vinson's court records could be found one reference to Brown vs Board of Education.
Not a single note.
and your stupid ass thinks that was a bad thing right?
In ZH terms this is a lifetime but come on...National Inflation Nation hit this a few months ago...I figured it out.
The gov is trying to buy everything so when we have a debt holiday it really just gets charged back to us but at least we will be:
Housed (thank you FHA)
Feed (TY food stamps)
Educated (thank you school loans)
corrected (thanks NBC)
and still have no hope or change...
Thank you fuckers who cant see the Ron Paul rEVOLution.
That was the whole point of NAFTA, for the USA to all become college educated and Mexico to do the easy work. Unfortunately the opposite happened. We have the highest amount of people incarecated per capita in the world and 46 million people on food stamps.
NAFTA is nothing compared to the millions of people who have had their STEM careers ruined by the flood of cheap Indian labour imports, predicated on fraudulent H-1B and Green Card applications.
Those aren't Mexicans and Canadians that have taken over the offices of engineering and IT firms across the nation (while the citizens who formerly occupied them try to survive on food stamps). That's for sure....
I face the same problem myself. Some of the work people used to do in my office was "outsourced" to Indian because you can get like 10 of them for the price of one American. We spent the last 2 years answering their questions when we could have done the work quicker ourselves. I imagine a hard working competent American with a high school education could completely outperform at least 20 indians with engineering degrees.
Managers tend to get paid more if they manage more employees. Outsourcing firms love to dump tons of incompetents on projects because it increases their billable hour count.
i remember when my first child started school, grade K
i chatted him up for about a week about how easy it was if a kid just did one thing well and we got to talking about that one thing: paying attention to the teacher
so much for education...
The only way it improves is to make education optional at all levels. Let the market decide who gets educated and under what circumstances. But wait, that means the government would have to get completely out of the education "business". Ain't gonna happen because "re-education" is the perfect means to indoctrinate and subdue the polity to will of the PTB.
Education is over rated,ask little weasel Timmy Giethner,can he do basic math....???
Case closed.
If it costs $350 to get a kidney transplant in India, how much do you think it costs to buy a Computer Science PhD? $200? $250 at most? Think about that. Some of the most clueless sleazeballs I've had to work with in Silicon Valley had "advanced degrees" from Indian universities, and these schmucks have been displacing Americans in Silicon Valley for well over a decade. Its no wonder Americans are getting out of the engineering fields. If you're not low-balled on salary due to imported H1-B's, you end up with an Indian "manager" with phoney (higher education) credentials who wants to stuff his department full of other Indians. And, yeah, they're racists in their hiring, too. There. I said it. Now move along, nothing to see here...
+1. The Silicon Valley tech firms, with few exceptions, don't even look at the applications of the top domestic graduates in CS and EE. Some overtly ignore the millions of resumes received from US STEM professionals, and immediately call up their favourite outsourcer/H-1B body shops (to hire guys from India). Others are simply so overwhelmed with resumes (ie: Google, Facebook, etc.), that their staff simply has no ability to legitimately, and in good faith, consider the resumes of all applicants and rank them on merit.
The situation is so bad that some of us joke that Linus Torvalds himself (probably the world's most pre-eminent kernel developer/engineer/creator) could apply to a Kernel Engineer position at Google and not even receive the 'time of day'.
We are looking to hire a bright young Linux programmer right out of college, and would be thrilled to find an American citizen for the job. But at least here in Atlanta, just about impossible. Lots of pretenders who could not code Hello World, but for someone with moderate skills and willing to learn, we have opportunities. Thought we had one young man hired, but then Microsoft offered him a $25K signing bonus, and away to Seattle he went. If top domestic graduates in CS and EE are not getting hired in Silicon Valley, I would love to hear from them. We are not in a position to offer a six figure salary and $25k signing bonus, but compared to Silicon Valley, Atlanta is a lot lower cost for housing and taxes, no earthquake risk, and a pretty nice town all around. And we manufacture wireless networking hardware here in Georgia. Definitely demand for bright young CS and EE students in Atlanta.
Please post the website of your company and I'll see what I can do (I've been doing a lot of tinkering with the ath9k kernel code lately...!). Atlanta is cheaper to live in, but not that much cheaper... But we should all give guys like you the benefit of the doubt because there are some instances where smaller firms with exciting projects have difficulty getting noticed. Presumably the lower salary would be compensated for by a grant of equity, right?
BTW, the signing bonus is actually a pretty big deal for college graduates these days because of the sheer debt loads they're under when they graduate, especially in a place that isn't so public-transportation-friendly such as Atlanta. Kind of unfortunate the student debt situation has come to this point where a measly $25k would be a deal-breaker, especially if your company is exciting, but there's a lot of grads out there who just wouldn't feel comfortable, given the dismal job situation for grads in the profession, taking on a lot of (credit card) debt to move to city "off the beaten path" (for IT) to take a job that might not even work out all that well.
Hate to reality check you on this one but $25K is a metric fuck ton of money to about 90% of the American population and about 98% of the American population under the age of 40.
Atlanta is a high crime shit hole built on affirmative action federal handouts where you'll get stomped out for being white in public. Seattle is the second whitest large city in America and the most liberal. And Microsoft is Microsoft. There isn't a company in all or Georgia that could sway this kid to move there.
Contact me (leave a comment on any of my posts). Maybe I can help:
http://www.ecnmag.com/tags/Blogs/M-Simon/
It's not about the education. It's about the degree. People pay big bucks for the degree basically.
The cost is high because the government will finance it. If the government wouldn't finance it, the cost would drop 50%.
Thanks. I have two kids at a liberal arts college both studying liberal arts.
$52,000 a year each. Will they be on my couch when they graduate?
no they can be lobbyists and make millions doing bribes
College education is engineered to get people onto the credit hamster wheel once for all.
Here's the fucknut irony to all of this. It even makes it more sumptuous that it is buried somewhere deep in the ass-end of some archane comment thread somewhere....
If you were an undergrad in the late '60s, the data for vocational opportunity which was being read to you was a reccomendation for the psycho-social fields. We had this great wealth of technological advantage, produced everything we needed with much left over for other parts of the world.
But we had become acutely aware that we didn't know dick about people and peoples, and how they fit together and would need to interact.
Most of all, we needed an active citizenry and workforce who knew how to think for themselves and why that is important to a nation and a Society.
Not what to think, just how to think.
Well, that went the way of the Dept of Energy, whose singular mission was to free us from strategic dependence on foreign oil.
It went very well.
Today 80% of the DOE budget goes to maintaining our Nuclear arsenal, advancing our Nuclear capability at places like LLE and Livermore with the two most powerful Lasers in the world firing on hydrogen fuel liquids to achieve fusion capability, .. with its biggest recent increases of share of budget going to its own worldwide Intelligence Agency to make sure nobody else advances to nuclear capability. For National security sake, of course.
(Sidebar to other moonbat fuckin' hippies: There is virtually no Agency in the Executive branch which doesn't have duties related to the Pentagon/military, so that the cost could be extricated from the print Military Budget. To cut the military budget, you are going to have to find it first.)
(Sidebar to Ron Paul admirers (and I'm one): The minute he cuts or ends the DOE is the same minute your Nuclear Arsenal goes unmaintained. Your nuclear weapons program advancement ends. And if there is a problem with any nuclear powered Naval vessels like Submarines, Task Force Aircraft Carriers etc the military is going to have to call AAA for a tow. Because it is actually the DOE who is in-charge of development, maintenance, and repair.)
The only reason that I bring up the DOE, is to demonstrate how fucked up thinking can get, when you don't have a citizenry who can actually do it.
My second submission of evidence is my 34 yr old Electronic Engineer neighbor who thinks that FoxNews is actually news. And his 60 yr old Engineer father, who takes great pride in that he never wasted his time in that sissy social/history/philosphy/English/foreign language stuff. Yet couldn't understand the historical implications of Viet Nam for the invasion of Iraq. Particularly that the Constitution (and amending legislature) clearly forbids a President from running his own war ad infinitum, for the pleasure of himself and some buddies. No matter what Congress says, unless they amend the Constitution.
My final evidence is America as a Plutocracy. It's already here, and 80% of the population doesn't get it, 19% of the population defends it, and the 1% just watches from their private balconies.
The foil to this would have been the silly principle which was taught in "Civics" class 40 years ago.
A democratic Republic is the cure for monarchies, autocratic socialisms, Fascism, and dictatorships. It's Number One distiinguishing characteristic, against the above mentioned, is that.....
...it creates a robust and vibrant Middle Class. The Middle Class is the "common wealth" of a nation. It is what distinguishes America from all other nations of the world, in degree or in absolute.
And what is its sword and shield against its enemies?...
Its diversity.
This Middle Class relation to democracy is not an opinion. It is what was taught virtually nationwide in 1963.
And the answer to all that is... will be your choice of which part of STEM you want to work in for the rest of your life?
And anything which doesn't directly relate to that, is a waste of time and effort?
We are already specialized and narrow.
So , how's that working out for ya?
Yeah the DoE is essentially a branch of the US Military that allows scientists to enter without going through military training. Conceptually, that's not problematic, but its a misnomer to think that they're really doing much, if any 'energy' research that has non-military applications.
So , how's that working out for ya?
Pretty damn good. I'm a non-degreed aerospace engineer. Nuclear Navy qualified (in my youth). And I write:
http://www.ecnmag.com/tags/Blogs/M-Simon/
Easier to build and maintain a police state to keep the rabble in line while the country continues its aggressive imperial warfare against any global "rabble" that gets out of line. Plenty of 6 figure jobs at the DOE. Just get the right major and pass their security clearance and you're in for life with a cushy pension at the end of all of it.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. You know what this country is...either embrace it or leave it. Me? I'm leaving it.
You can learn math by writing code.
Ummmm, not really. If you don't understand the math, good luck writing coherent, useful code.
Give them an R tutorial and wikipedia and they can win a fucking nobel. .
The situation in Portugal is the same. They spent billions to make higher education as widely available as possible, but they neglected to invest any time or thought or money into actually creating any jobs to be filled. They believed the same old education=employment=growth, forever and ever without end, amen.
"Big Bob Whitney, you know he's got a bleedin' degree?"
"I never knew that"
"Yeah, socioloy. Still into thievin', but now he knows why he's doing it."
A daughter of a friend is majoring in "Environmental management" in a major state University. The list of courses she's required to take looks like a romp in a park. For one class she is coloring maps. In another class she is required to watch her favorite movies and talk about them. She's bored out of her mind and completely unchallenged. I asked her why she was subjecting herself to this. She admitted that she needed a college degree to even be a waitress and that what she really wanted was to marry a nice boy and have babies. I told her that college was a good place to meet guys. She replied that there weren't any guys in her classes. Yikes. I wonder about her parents laying out $35K a year for this.
The 'system' heavily disincentivizes people taking difficult courses, and learning a lot. High grades are glorified over taking a tough courseload where you're going to be challenged. People who take the most difficult STEM subjects often are greeted in the workplace not with glorification of their knowledge/skills/abilities, but rather of a cynical attitudes towards science, and an even more cynical attitude towards appropriate compensation for the value brought to a business through their efforts. IT and R&D are considered 'cost centres' by accountants, not strategic drivers of future corporate profits.
In this environment, is it any wonder that students often deliberately make the choice not to exercise their minds to their fullest, and make the greatest use out of their time in University as possible?
Also, in the context of STEM and engineering -- typically, these subjects are studied only by the top decile of students out of the high schools. Invariably, when you take the top decile, and put that top decile of students against each other, only half of the students will be above the median. Which has absolutely profound impact on 'curved' marks of a student if they ever wish to apply to a non-engineering program (ie: law, MBA, Medicine, etc.) in their future academic careers.
Why spend all day and all night studying something challenging when you can smoke pot and play video games or chase college girl booty? If I had a son my dream for him would to see him be a "student athlete" and rail all the hottest coeds. Not some pasty skinned loser engineering or computer science major.
She'll be 30 and in the baby frenzy before she knows it, having wasted her best child bearing years where she had the greatest chance of delivering healthy babies without complications. Sad, I see it often. Even the most radical feminist in her early 20's has no dream other than being mother to a couple of babies by the time she's 30.
Those that do not either have defective gentials or are hideously ugly like Janet Reno, Kagan, etc.
There is a reason why more 55-64 yr olds have their HS diplomas than their 25-34 yr old counterparts: staying out of the Vietnam War. If there was something that got young men in that era to get off their ass and finish high school, go to college, finish college, get married, have children and other similar hoops it was the war. If you fell out of any of those things you were as good as on the next plane to Saigon.
Hah. I beat the rush and joined the US Navy before the war even started. Unless you count the murder of Pres. Kennedy 10 days after I started boot camp the start of the war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE
TRUTH!
I've been criticized for not going to college and it doesn't bother me. College education has pyramid scheme written all over it and I'm not a sucker. Pay 100k and make 1 million extra over a lifetime? I don't think so; see Walras' law. I went straight to work and started investing in PMs and I've seen a higher ROI than the average person than invested in a degree will ever see. My only regret is I didn't drop out of high school and started working at around 17 instead of 14.
My regret is quite similar. I wish someone had told/encouraged/forced me to start a business in college, when there was virtually no risk involved (wife, child, mortgage). I regret working my ass off at a company that discourages creativity, promotes a sheepish culture and looks away from those who have a view of long term growth. I am moving toward my own business, but I can only imagine what my greatest resource (mind) would have produced to this point had I started while in college.
College is worthwhile if you choose the right major. High school is a waste of time for everyone except those that are really into the whole sports/school spirit social aspect of it all. The dumbest kids are going to drop out anyway and don't care about school. The smartest kids are bored to tears and some of them end up dropping out too.
Engineering is a hard degree to get...I know, I have a PE in Mechanical
Hardest thing I ever did so far in my life Well worth it...changed how I see the world.
My advice to young people is the same regarless of where they are...do the hardest thing you can muster while you are young. Strive No one else is, and that means scarcity. Oh, and those 'billions' of Asian engineers? They are not equal. the Asian engineers tend to be more of the technical level, and not true problem solvers. This point of view is backed by the fact that they are not accredited by the ABET.
LOL!
Countries with ABET accredited institutions:
Europe
Germany
Spain
MENA
United Arab Emirates
Bahrain
Jordan
Kuwait
Qatar
Oman
Saudi Arabia
Lebanon
Turkey
Egypt
Morocco
Latin America
Mexico
Chile
Colombia
Peru
Puerto Rico
Asia
Indonesia
India
Kazakhstan
Philippines
Africa
South Africa
I find it interesting that Italy, France, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (among others) are not "problem solvers", while graduates from Middle Eastern and Latin American ABET institutions are!?!
The French hold engineers in very high esteem. They have some of the best engineering schools on the planet. It is probably their cultural arrogance that prevents them from joining some American certification program rather than lack of ability. In the Francophiles world view the U.S. is the country that should be trying to join their glorious institutions (but we're not good enough).
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles
I guess the big money at least till it's stopped is in devloping MBS's CDO's CDS's writing crap that even Greenspan said he couldn't understand. LOL
It'll become like New Zealand where the Universities are nothing more than a tool to put people into enormous debt. The degree's are so dumbed down that they are not worth the paper they are written on. And it will be our fault for not stopping these money hungry fascists when we had the chance.
I feel sorry for the next generation - we failed them so badly.
Read:
http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Wealth-Mr-Andrew-Costello/dp/1463523017/ref
Too late. Sounds like NZ is following the US model, not the other way around.
Added a math minor to my history BA and moved my teaching to mathematics specifically to avoid the issues with hiring a liberal arts topic. Not enough people are willing to do it though. No job for them!
A lot of foreign students come to the US because they are considered too dim to be worth educating in their own country. It's not because the college is better.
Many are here simply to take advantage of what is de facto non-recourse debt that the GSE's shove at them in various forms. If I lived in the 3rd world, I, too, would have gone to the United States, loaded up on as much debt as possible, and if things don't work out job-wise, merely hopped the plane back to India. Even being some American professor's bitch for a few years is likely a better existence than sitting in India waiting for their government to smarten up.
SP500 monthly chart remains bearish and USDX weekly remains bullish so it’s only a matter of time until the market makes its move.
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
you don't need education to be unemployed.
what the US of A needs for the future, if they continu on this path, is a few highly educated people, a lot of soldiers who only need specific education, but not too much. Educated soldiers become politically aware which we don't want. They rest of the population can work for mcdonalds or some other civilization-degrading-company, or just be enemployed.
It's the Brazil solution. But the troops seem to actually be coming home. Obama signed an executive order to increase hiring of veterans by the government. The last thing he wants is an armed insurgency made up of military veterans. Better to get them on the side of Big Brother so when the civil unrest comes there is nobody competent on the side of the rebellion. I guess you mean "soldiers" in the sense of worker bees, or "schlubs" as I like to call them.
The "few highly educated" people are the Ivy League grads you see running the show in government. The "soldiers" are the ones with degrees from tier 2 and 3 schools that do all the grunt work and middle management.
The real problem for the elite is the internet. You don't need to be "educated" enough to ask questions when there are sites like Zero Hedge asking them for you...
My son just graduated from school in EE. It took him 7 years. He will be employed come January. I'm an EE myself (aerospace - self taught) and I grill him from time to time about his studies. He is well educated.
Thank God, I only owe $50,000 for my BA in Gender studies!
Just as the Pentagon helps make shows like NCIS, education finance providers probably subsidise Big Bang Theory.
I had to drop out of college (computer engineering) because my father came to me one day after a Boston school slashed my aid (which I needed to go; my family ain't big ballin') and said, "I can't afford this."
But the rich foreigners, who enjoy a great exchange rate, can.
Whatever. I picked up a few books and learned some shit like Java, Flash, and coding myself. You can still be a smart person who can add value to a company without having the big boys club degree. BUT as this trend continues, and entrepueners find it hard to get loans to start small businesses, intellectual serfdom will only continue to rise.
What you describe has been a common result of the war against males in the schools. Young men are simply leaving and finding their own way, often to high paying jobs despite their lack of a degree. Meanwhile the women with their liberal arts degrees and 6 figures of student loan debt whine and cry that they are underpaid because there aren't enough 6 figure do-nothing government jobs for all of them.
There is plenty of blame to spread all around, but the least guilty party here is the kids themselves. I know there are some extremely rare and extremely bright young people that are thinking clearly when they are 13 or 14 years old and heading into high school, but they are the exception, not the norm. Most kids when they are entering high school have no clue what they want to do for a career and the question is hardly even on their radar. But the school system, at least in every non-poverty stricken school district, pushes the kids towards college as the ONLY viable path. I remember that in my high school class there were only a few kids that would admit to having plans other than college, and all of them were joining the military. College is pushed by the schools, the parents, and the media as the ONLY acceptable choice and there is a great deal of social and peer pressure on kids to pursue a college education.
Worse still, the schools (and usually parents, generally mothers) encourage kids to "pursue what they are passionate about." So they major in psychology or philosophy, both highly fascinating subjects with near 0 job prospects. The overall degredation of the U.S. education system is too broad a subject for the commentary at hand so I will state that too many people are attending college and leave it at that. The author of this article sees it as a bad thing that the U.S. doesn't have more college grads but I disagree. Not that long ago in America a college graduate that was considered "educated" was probably fluent in 2 or 3 languages, had read most of the classics, and so on. These days you're lucky if a college graduate can read and write. The "Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress" scores prove that out. Only graduates from top schools score at a decent level. I'm terrified of letting a nurse perform any medical treatment for me after seeing their average schools on the MAPP. Bring me the doctor who I know will at least be able to read and write at a college level.
The stigma against intelligent white men (in anything other than business/finance anyway) is indeed a problem in our society. You can thank pop culture for that. The guys at NASA that put a man on the moon with slide rules would be derided as nothing but a bunch of "nerds" these days. They did it on public servant salaries back when that didn't denote twice the salary of the average American. They did it in the spirit of one part patriotism and one part genuine desire to advance human achievement, technology, and understanding of the universe. But now we live in the culture of "revenge of the nerds" where anyone studying math or science is stereotyped as socially awkward and undesireable to women. This little gem sums it up: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2425/3733062017_f2688543b8_z.jpg . Nasa has been essentially disbanded because of "lack of diversity." Seems they just couldn't find enough minorities that majored in science and math willing to work for subpar wages at NASA. They sure found plenty of Sci-Fi reading Star Trek watching white guys to work there though. But that doesn't jive with modern American society, so they had to be shut down you see. And the black man appointed head of NASA by Obama stated publically that NASA's new goal was, "to reach out to the Muslim world." So if you're a smart young man growing up in America do you choose to go into a career field beholden to affirmative action minority bureaucrats, only to be derided as a "nerd", or do you choose to go into finance and make a million bucks and drive a Ferrari by the time you're 30? Not a hard choice.
As for women as "untapped STEM potential", don't make me laugh. The genders are not interchangeable no matter how much post-feminist liberal society wishes it otherwise. Women aren't discouraged from entering into the math and science fields. In fact, they are given advantages over men via affirmative action, grants and scholarships not available to men, etc. Every math/science department in America is falling all over themselves to compete for female students. But the number of women that last even 1 year in those programs is near 0. Why? Because math doesn't care about your feelings. Compter science doesn't give a fuck about your opinions. There are no subjectively handed out A+'s for modestly well written 5 paragraph essays. No, there is only one write answer and you have to use tools other than your feelings to find them. That is where women fail and transfer to an easier major with "less math."
"Math is hard, let's go shopping!"
The fact that 75% of college students are female is more evidence of the war against males in American society than anything else. The schools are feminized and incompatible with males. Young boys are literally being arrested in today's elementary schools for...being young boys. In my day we were being drugged into mindless zombies. Too much energy, you see, "behavioral problems" and all that. Boys aren't meant to sit placidly at desks all day, and for that matter neither are men. But those of us that made it through the 12 year behavioral modification program are able to do so via a combination of broken wills and medication (self or otherwise).
You want your post-feminist society that demonizes males from the day they are born, oh you'll get it. But don't be surprised at the result. Any society that becomes feminized invariably drifts towards socialism and tyranny. After that comes defeat by a chauvinistic culture. Europe's emasculated societies are being overrun and man handled by Muslims. America is being over run by the macho Hispanics that treat their women like garbage.
That's your future, "feminist" societies - beaten into submission by your Muslim and Hispanic masters.
This is what happened to me (Oracle Data Analyst) in Aug 08, before the September crash (in a sense, the company I worked for must of had good capital mangers working for them to anticipate the crash).
You are right about the Indians, to an extent. Some work hard, others don't, but most are all smart. I found the big problem was the language gap, especially with some of the engineers I worked with who were "off the boat".
Not only did my job get outsourced by an Indian guy, it was also moved to Northern Ireland. But anything for corporate profits, right? Job creators FTW!
Funny I read this article today when we get a new hire today. The HR person sends out an email with a bio on the new employee, who "has a B.A. in English and minor in Economics".
10 minutes later, a new email is sent out: "Employee actually has a B.A. in History, not English".
Another co-worker: "Like it fuckin' matters. This person is a child of a division president; they were gonna get the job, anyways!"
Nepotism is also stiffiling the hiring process in MANY countries, not just here:
http://aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.96.5.1559
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/11/22/2011112200372.html
http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/571689/Officials--Nepotism-can-be-stopped.html?nav=5006
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/09/a-strange-study-on-italian-nepotism/
Education is indeed in a bubble, the financial side of it is but one indication. Someone was mentioning the amount of women in higher ed. This is analogous to student loans and the idealistic and naive notion that everyone is entitled to a college education. First, by way of proportion it seems as though not everyone is entitled to an education as males are being disproportionately represented in enrollment. Mind you that there has been a geometric rise in the number of new majors to include 'hip hop studies'...guess where you can study that - Harvard, I'm serious. Commiserate with the rise in females is the aggregate dumbing down of the rest of us and the tendencies away from STEM. I digress; the main point is the interference of outside forces in what should be a self-sustaining system, much like a lassie faire economy. To have more women over men suggests that in just less than 15 years women have evolved to be smarter than men or were always smarter (superior) but were kept down by oppression. None of that makes sense. First, universities will tell you evolution takes thousands of years. Second, the same universities preach a non-tolerance religion of egalitarianism all the while making some people more equal than others? 3. If women are vastly superior to men why were they oppressed in the first place, shouldn’t it have been the other way around? The root of all this is outside interference in this case militant feminist and 1/2 the population voting-in ever draconian measures to keep men down ever more...wait isn't that oppression? What it's certainly not is the idea that somehow women have all of a sudden become the overwhelmingly dominant sex. It’s a symptom of many bad things one of which is that education is sick...yes sick morally as in Penn U. (and legions of others) but the system is simply sick. Moreover, academia's support of OWS is sick. Look no further than the roots of our cast society and crony capitalism than academia. School is a scam...and I can prove it easily, there is a viable substitute good available right now for a mere fraction of the cost. Knowledge and even professional instruction is right here on the web. Not only can you download this information into your mind you can do it more efficiently tailoring an exact curriculum to your personal settings. Of course this needs refinement, but the materials are in place and the free market should be forcing systemic change...but why not? Because of the relationship between academia, namely the ivy league, and corporate america, the banking system and government...crony as crony gets! Enter the Yale professor screeching solidarity...all the while fleecing her/his students while living a very comfortable life in tenure. Honestly, if we are going to occupy anything…occupy academia!
I'm astounded at how US secondary education is rated so highly in terms of quality. In my personal experience, good grades was more about obedience and willingness to bullshit than display critical thought or skill mastery. Within my senior level biochemistry laboratories, I would claim that about 40% of the students couldn't properly utilize skills supposedly learned in their freshman general chemistry courses. Worse yet, was that our professor would spend the first 15 minutes of the lab telling us exactly how, step-by-step, to complete the lab, forumlae and all. It was mimickry at its finest, nothing more or less.
Dunno why I read this thread, but based on all the comments, it should be TOTALLY FUCKING OBVIOUS that what we really need to do is completely separate the "education" infrastructure from the "job training" infrastructure.
People who don't want an education won't get one no matter what you do. And people who want an education should be able to get one. But an education isn't just pre-professional study you use to convince someone to hire you. You're supposed to know something about the world when you're educated.
I've met plenty of degree-holders from both technical and non-technical programs who don't know shit about shit. And I've met high-school dropouts with a better education than my own.
Degrees in STEM subjects are definitely the way to go if you’re looking to come out on top despite recession, shortage of jobs and anything else this decade may throw at you. But I personally encourage students to pursue a degree that will satisfy their interests and passion and simultaneously offer them job security for the future. There are so many healthcare, business, graphic art and computer degrees that are interesting, engaging, and are offered by accredited institutions with good reputations and financial planning services. Why would you not opt for them?