Monday, April 24, 2017

How many people really need to go to college?

Maybe only 15%.

This is really interesting.  I've written at length that you don't even need to graduate from High School to get a job in tech (yeah, yeah - it's better if you do).  Instead of expensive college, (free) self-study towards a Cisco CCNA certification will open the doors to a $40k + entry level networking job.  Add in a CCIE certification and ASA Firewall/IPS specialization and you're looking at six figures.

All without a degree.

But most other jobs don't really require a sheepskin, either.  The implication, then, is that the higher education lobby/interest group will continue to push "free college" and laws that mandate degrees (I hadn't known until I read the link above that Washington DC just passed a law saying you can't be a child care worker if you haven't graduated from college; this simply boggles the mind, and is right up there with the 100 hours of training and licensing to braid hair).

But as more people realize that a college degree has been devalued over the last 30 years, we can expect to see more of these laws as campus bureaucrats try increasingly desperately to use the law to extract money from lower income people.

The discussion of the hypocrisy of people who proudly claim to be lefties using the law to screw over the poor is best summed up here.

7 comments:

SiGraybeard said...

I worry about the generation of kids being taught we need more STEM graduates - when graduates aren't all being hired. We're importing H1B visa holders instead.

In this case and the need for college grads in general, it couldn't be that they're attempting to increase supply to lower costs, could it? Nah... businesses would never do that.


matism said...

We may soon be importing somewhat less H1Bs, SiG, thanks to the Trumpening...

R.K. Brumbelow said...

I would be interested to know what the real number of needed stem graduates actually is. I also find it interesting that most science students now skip masters degrees and go from undergrad to phd immediately. In fact there are a bunch of strange changes that seem to have occurred over the past few decades. Other oddities are things like MD/DO degrees easily cost a 1/2 million bucks, and I know of no other degree system other than the medical and judicial ones where practical (as opposed to academic aka phd) degrees are not supported by stipends.

LindaG said...

Hubby used to have that discussion with a couple of his co-workers before he retired. And he had it more than once.
There are too many jobs that do not require a 4+ year degree, but still pay very well.

Look at Mike Rowe and his MikeRoweWorks Foundation.

It is just crazy.

Will said...

A BiL first hung out his shingle as a DO about '88. With a $250k school loan to pay off.

Roy said...

Okay. I'll bite. WTF is a "DO"?

Rick C said...

http://www.piedmont.org/living-better/your-doctor-the-difference-between-an-md-and-do