Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Who Needs a College Degree?
After crying out for years that a college degree for most jobs is a waste of time, the corporations are getting the message. I don’t think we were the ones who convinced them; I think the shortage of personnel to fill openings has
spurred a reaction by the business world:
The tech industry has been plagued by chronic talent shortages for years. Some estimates show that there are now more than 450,000 open cybersecurity jobs alone. That has been further exacerbated as the gap between available positions and those seeking new jobs has grown even wider. There were 11.27 million job openings in February, compared to the 6.27 million counted as unemployed, leaving a record 5 million more openings than available workers, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
The best part of the news is that many companies are dropping their requirements for a bachelor’s degree. Even the federal government is reconsidering the requirement for degrees. It should be obvious that certain highly skilled professions, such as medical doctors and surgeons, will still need degrees.
Instead of expecting job entrants to have degrees, the companies are providing a myriad of alternatives: internal training programs; collaborating with non-profit organizations and the community colleges for associate degrees and certificate programs; internships; and trade school degrees and programs. People may have more substantial earnings if they complete a degree program; that assumes that they complete the degree and overcome the mountain of debt they accumulate. For a listing of high-paying tech, non-degree programs, you can visit this site.
But the benefits of skipping the degree for middle- and-high level jobs are substantial.
For starters, students will not have to take on enormous debt that could plague them for years. Instead of a degree, for example, vocational programs offer certificate programs ranging from $1,000 to $33,000 for a degree—much less money than college degrees. Students can decrease the time between finishing high school and beginning a real career by months, if not years. They will have the benefits of having the satisfaction of working right away, earning their own living and being self-sufficient, without relying on loans or family. My hope would be that the tech schools and even some of the companies may teach less woke propaganda than the colleges, and at least the courses will be job-related. Workers likely won’t have to take the time to take electives that don’t interest them or aren’t related to their future. One of the few limiting factors of this approach being successful will be high school graduates and their parents still believing that a college degree is important, even when all the information on the ground says that it’s not. Creative marketing programs to promote this new approach will be critical
Finally, it must be better for society not to have safe-space oriented, frightened people joining society and instead welcome more productive and practical job performers into the world.
I wonder what the colleges will do in response to this major transformation of the work force?
[photo courtesy of unsplash.com]
Published in Education
I still want my children to have the degree. I don’t care if they end up using it. As long as we go local schools the costs are not that bad and once they graduate they have it no matter what.
That is where I am coming from as a a college educated parent myself. Just get it and bank it. I know that is horrible. Not sorry.
I suspect you won’t be alone, Bryan. As I mentioned, people will stick with the degree–just because. I’d like to think if I had kids I’d be open to other options. Especially if I didn’t want the kids to be brainwashed.
Because secondary education in th liberal arts is failing to meet the standards we had in earlier years .
This may well be the best thing for your children, but I suspect it’s because you know their strengths, weaknesses, interests, etc. to know that investing the time and money in bachelor’s degrees is worth it. But I don’t think this is uniformly wise.
For example, I taught in a relatively affluent public high school back in the mid to late 90s. The district had a huge percentage of college educated parents and their expectations for their children were almost uniformly for them to head to 4 year college after high school. Yet, having gotten to know a number of my students from an academic standpoint, I could have predicted with a fair degree of accuracy which ones would be wasting their time (and probably their parents’ money) going to college. I remember one pretty bright young man who loved working on cars and hated being in class. All he ever wanted to do was be in the garage getting his hands messy fixing stuff. Yet he came from a fairly affluent, well-educated family who thought he needed to go to college. I no longer remember what he did after high school, but I truly believe he’d have been foolish not to go to auto mechanics training for a short while and get a job.
Also, although my wife and I both have college degrees, our one son was simply not inclined to academic life, despite being perfectly capable of surviving college (being both literate and numerate). So he took an entry level job in maintenance at a college and took a few community college courses. During that time, he learned of an entry level machinist job that would pay for his schooling while being employed. Thus began an apprenticeship where he worked full-time at a good (and regularly increasing) wage and took classes in the evenings paid for by his employer. Six years later, he has completed the apprenticeship, obtained several associates degrees, and is now enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program to help prepare him for management at the company. Because he was working full time and not having to pay for school, he was also able to purchase his own house and a few years later purchase a second home as a rental. None of that would have been possible had we insisted that he enroll in college at age 18–he would have been miserable, been out thousands of dollars, and probably taken on debt.
Anyway, just my two cents.
So would you be interested in the A.A. degree, which can often provide those basics?
And what a valuable two cents! It sounds like he was a focused and ambitious young man! Thanks for sharing your real-life experience, JOL. What a great example. I wonder if at some point his company might steer others to a different program (rather than a B.A.) if it meets company needs, is less expensive and provides the specific course work needed. Thanks!
You’re welcome. Re: his company steering employees, I get the sense that they’re still small enough to be flexible about paying for employees to get educated/trained where needed. Obviously because it’s a machine shop, they mostly need people that can run the machines, which includes programming them to machine the parts according to specifications. So I suspect that most employees who go to school will not be in bachelor’s programs; rather they’ll enroll in community college/trade school classes learning the fundamentals of programming and CNC lathe work.
“My hope would be that the tech schools and even some of the companies may teach less woke propaganda than the colleges, and at least the courses will be job-related. Workers likely won’t have to take the time to take electives that don’t interest them or aren’t related to their future.”
Although I see it creeping in our state’s tech schools – at least in the Minneapolis area – it’s still leaps and bounds better than the University, you’re right, Susan. What I have a big problem with is conservatives and the non-progressives continuing to send their kids to these “elite” schools starting at grade level through college knowing full well the garbage being fed to their kids, and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. It’s the golden ticket pipeline. And for us in the working class who have practically no chance of
buying our kids pathgetting our kids admitted to them, they’re locked out of prestigious positions later in life. The CEO’s and high ranking bureacrats all follow this path, attended the same woke schools, and travel in the same social circles. They’re seeped in it and it trickles down to the policies they enact. All the while conservatives and R politicians rail against the woke universities, yet I’d bet nine times out of 10 they’d hire someone from an Ivy over a tiny no name school. As long as we keep pushing kids to these places, prioritize hiring them from there, they will never change what or how they teach. I know this is off your topic, but we’re basically encouraging these schools to perpetuate teaching garbage because a degree is no longer a certificate of actual knowledge (at least in the humanities, but that’s changing too), but a certification of elitism and exclusivity – an admission ticket if you will. Sorry to highjack your excellent post by my ramblings, but this always sticks in my craw.Tech schools and their students won’t be taking humanities and social sciences courses to “round them out as individuals.” More students entering such programs will mean fewer students signing up for four years of indoctrination. The consequences of that indoctrination will start being felt in the bursar’s office. The tendrils of Evil Capitalism™ making itself evident even in the hallowed halls of Academia!
Say it along with me, everyone!
Get woke
Go broke
(Aggrieved Group Studies professors hardest it.)
You’re not off topic at all, Jenna! You’ve just made another excellent point for leaving the colleges behind us! You’ve also given another reason for not sending our kids to colleges because they are likely not to learn anything. And at great cost. How we change the perceptions of our elite will be a huge challenge. Thanks for expanding this important discussion.
My husband and I are having our kitchen redone, and my husband got the first bill (there are many more to come) from the electrician: $400 an hour. Yep. My husband said, “Okay, so the lawyer rules apply here. No chitchat. :) The electrician usually works on multi-million-dollar homes, and he has an outstanding reputation throughout the area. And there’s not much that’s more important today than the wiring. His time is worth every cent of that.
I live on what is essentially an island: Cape Cod. I’ve seen this kind of success over and over. The fact is that the rules for success never change. Talent and skill will sell the person’s reputation in the end. Being the best at what you do and being nice to people in your workday are better determiners in finding success than where you went to school. It’s true in medicine too and law, by the way, as long as people stay away from the corporate practices.
My favorite story on this subject is one I used to tell my kids and their friends. About thirty-five years ago, when I first moved to Cape Cod, I was looking for a hair stylist to cut my hair. I didn’t know anyone, so I just popped into the salon at the local mall. The receptionist assigned me to the young man at the far end of the salon. I just wanted a cut and a blow dry, but I had tried a couple of other places and I wasn’t happy with the cuts. What the heck, I said. I’ll just keep trying.
Kerry was fantastic. He asked me a couple of questions, and studied the shape of my face, and came up with a way to cut my hair that looked wonderful. From then on, for several years he always cut my hair. As time went on, however, it became more and more difficult to get an appointment. I had to wait as long as month sometimes. He was always booked. One day I called, and the receptionist gave me icy “He’s no longer here” speech. She wouldn’t say where he went. Sigh.
A couple of years later, I stopped into a new hairdressers’ salon in my town, and there he was. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The salon was gorgeous, and he owned it! Wow. When I went to make an appointment, the receptionist opened the book to the page we wanted, and I laughed. All of his other stylists’ columns were empty. His column completely full.
If you are good at what do, if you enjoy it, and if you like people, people will find you. :)
But Bryan is right too. My mother’s father used to say, “A college degree is neither a guarantee of success nor a ticket to heaven. But it will open doors for you that will otherwise be forever closed.” So, there’s that too.
I would point out, though, that the degree does open certain doors that might otherwise be closed, but a person doesn’t have to get a job where only other elites are wanted. There are almost always other doors, and we don’t have to feed the beast. But that’s me. Great stories, Marci!
If my kids said they did not want to go that is on the table. My son said he would try it. He is having an OK time first Semester. We shall see.
If I had a kid who just wanted to work on cars, I would be delighted. I’d be delighted if either child showed a huge passion to pursue anything in their lives. They don’t have that yet.
Of course, I was sure I was going to be an Engineer. Switched to Psychology. College for me was getting a degree but more importantly, meeting Linda.
The best reward of all! Thanks for the additional input.
I see a lot of bad coding these days. I think it is because coders are not educated on how computers work.
Seriously?? Now that has to be really tricky . . .
Since my daughter’s birth ten years ago, I’ve been working on convincing myself that I don’t need to expect her to go to college. I’m now okay with the prospect. My wife and I aren’t ruling it out, but hope that if she does go, it will be to a college that doesn’t teach her to hate us in four years.
I’ve been thinking that the education bubble will burst at some point. The Covid lockdowns and students staying at home and taking class online seemed like a good time for that to happen. Also, the loan mess should be helping.
I wonder how much of our expecting our kids to go to college has as much to do with hopes for their future as the status symbol of having a kid in, and then graduated from, college. Neither of my folks had gone to college, and I suspect my going was in part important for that reason.
All of Grandma’s kids but one went to college. Tom had both hands in the engine compartment – every engine compartment – since he was big enough to reach. He was always going to be a mechanic. He knew it. We knew it. Everyone was good with it.
I love hearing stories of people who just know. And that they go for it, and are encouraged by everyone to do so. Great!
I remember a friend got a programming job right out of college. The job required a degree and he had one even though he was a theater major with no interest in programming or any class experience beyond required math that would seem to translate to his new job (which he took because it paid decently, hated it, and went to law school.) He was a theater major.
The degree wasn’t a qualification. It was a signifier. Here was someone who was willing to do what the hiring company thought he should think he should do. It showed that he was willing to fit into a corporate culture or at least the requirement eliminated a lot of applicants, fairly or unfairly, who were less likely to rock the boat. It was a sign that says “I’m open to instruction.” I wonder if that assumption is changing.
Now an English major is as likely to pick up an attitude of entitlement and a penchant for reducing run of the mill interactions with others into gauntlets thrown at the feet of woke avengers. Can you imagine the resources spent dealing with endless microaggressions and expected lifestyle accommodations of the woke educated? You’d save yourself a lot of time, money, and headaches hiring people who have not been trained to be rigid. I know most students don’t go full Alinsky but the ones that do are loud. The perception of graduates as in lockstep with an ideology has to diminish the value of the degree holder qualification.
I think it is changing. Corporations can’t afford to set up arbitrary qualifications as some kind of test. They need to know that they’re hiring people who will simply do the job and do it well; I think the linked articles in the OP indicate some of those changes. Thanks for weighing in, Ben.
My cousin’s husband, Sam, was the son of a successful surgeon. Sam went to one of the “best” private schools in the city and then headed off to college. He hated it. He dropped out of school, came home, and went to work at a swimming pool maintenance company.
When he was 28, he started his own pool services company which became very successful. When he was 33, he expanded to pool construction as well. Today he builds pools that range from the simple to the elaborate, including complex hard scape pools with boulders and waterfalls.
With my cousin, he has raised 3 responsible adult sons, supported his family and community, and just been an all-around great guy that is a joy to know. They have a beautiful home and a ski condo in Colorado. They travel to do anything that takes their fancy – Rose Bowl game, Kentucky Derby, Mardi Gras, whatever.
His surgeon father had no problems with Sam’s choices. To her dying day, his mother would say, “Just think of what he could have accomplished with a college degree.” To which my cousin always replied, “Not a damn thing better.”
Good for him.
I still want my children to have the degree. No matter what, they will have it forever. If they can hack it, they have it.
I know there is a big, big movement among middle and upper middle class conservatives for other peoples’ kids not to go to college. I hear it from my peers. Guess what they want for their kids?
It can also be the opposite: Both my parents went to college (PhD in Physics for my father) and it was pretty much assumed the three sons would go. I started towards a degree in Physics, but decided that studying things too small to see or too far away wasn’t for me and I switched to Engineering.
When I switched, I also got a full time job doing low level Engineering work. That was the best thing I could have done. The company paid for the courses and I got experience which validated my chosen field. I was in the computer field when it was first starting and it was surprising how out of date the academic world was compared to what I did all day.
I went on to get a Masters degree in Engineering but ever since, my education was never questioned in a job interview – just what I had done in previous jobs.
If at all possible, I would recommend that a kid get some experience working on what they think they want to do before they finish school (if they start) and make sure that is what they enjoy.
Do you have data on that? I’d wager that some are part of the elite. Others don’t yet know that the culture is changing.
College Degrees are fancy pieces of paper that originally represented something. That something is what is missing in many colleges today. This is why we now end up with highly-credentialed fools. A serious student can eke an education out of the system against all odds, if they know what to avoid. Sadly, you must still slog through the general credit requirements mostly taught by ideologues trying to brainwash you. Like many things in life, the effort you put into it determines what you get out of it.
As for Big Tech companies, they need to collectively remove their heads from their nether regions. You had better know that algorithm you learned in first year programming and be able to type it in perfectly within the 30 minute window allotted to you. Forgot one line? Too bad. Move along. We’ve got people to see. Don’t have 25 years of experience with a proprietary system, which only current employees can access and which has only been around for 5 years? Oh well, better luck on your next high-stress interview.
This is a very positive trend. My concern is that people who have skipped college, learned a skill, and have been doing a good job, will still often find their progress blocked at some point: because even if the skilled-trade job doesn’t require a college degree, the job of manager for the work may well require it.
Here’s Peter Drucker, on the dangers of educational credentialism:
The most serious impact of the long years of schooling is, however, the “diploma curtain” between those with degrees and those without. It threatens to cut society in two for the first time in American history…By denying opportunity to those without higher education, we are denying access to contribution and performance to a large number of people of superior ability, intelligence, and capacity to achieve…I expect, within ten years or so, to see a proposal before one of our state legislatures or up for referendum to ban, on applications for employment, all questions related to educational status…I, for one, shall vote for this proposal if I can.
This is from 1969!
Unless the cultural tide turns in the next decade, the woke agenda will be part of the curricula of apprenticeship programs and trade schools.
See my post about The Five-Pound Butterfly.