Less that 50% of recent college grads have jobs that require a college degree?

[Carmen813]

Just another idea I had from reading some of these posts. There seems to be a general tendency to value technically oriented degrees a great deal more than degrees that focus on humanities.

I started out as an electrical engineering student. I spent 3 years in engineering before switching to psychology, so I have a good amount of experience with the education involved in both fields. As an engineering student I used to laugh at liberal arts/psychology type students because I thought their education was pointless. I also felt that they didn't actually need to do work. Once I switched majors, I saw that this is not the case. While the work that engineers do is hard, the work that psychology students do is not easy. It's simply different, it requires a different set of skills and abilities.

Since graduating I've applied to some IT oriented positions. What is most striking is that these positions do not always want someone with a highly technical degree, such as engineering or programming. The reason is simply, engineers speak a different language. If any of you have ever worked on a car, or hell, with a difficult and confusing software application, you can see where the engineers lack a certain appreciation for human limitations. Psychology in particular can be a very useful field for translating geek speak into something us humans can understand

I disagree that a college degree in a non-technical field is pointless. Simply completing a college degree demonstrates to a company your ability to complete a long and arduous project. Every degree requires you to learn important communication, teamwork, time management, and critical thinking skills. These skills are all valuable in the job market. There are also many lessons learned in college outside of the classroom that improve your marketability to an employer, such as demonstrating an ability to work with a diverse group of individuals who come from vastly different backgrounds. Just because you do not end up in a field where you degree is "for" does not make it an economic waste. Such a view strikes me as an overly callous and cynical view of education.

My one question to you whipper would be, did you attend college yourself? I don't mean this as an elitist remark, but I think it may be relevant to the discussion.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot

Originally posted by: Phokus

Interestingly, Asian men (58.3%) did much, much better than Asian women (29.6%) (which I did find rather weird although I have no thoughts as to why). As a group Asians had the most successful male graduates and the least successful female graduates in this area. Would anyone care to speculate about that?

Maybe asian females have to deal with both racism and sexism?

Or they are majoring in interior design or some bullshit like that.

I highly doubt that... in engineering at least, the only females i see are asian. Lots of asian women go into 'useful' fields like engineering, science, management, etc.

White women on the other hand, i see so many of them go into sociology/psychology/english type degrees, so this finding is surprising.

This is all anecdotal of course, but i've heard people voice similar findings in ATOT.

I know a bunch of asian women, and none of them are in engineering. They go for degrees like english, marketing, and what not.

 

[vi edit]

Carmen813,

The article emphasises vocational placement upon graduation. My responses are slanted to address that. I'm not saying that "soft" sciences are worthless, simply that their value is much blurier when it comes to landing a safe job upon graduation.

An engineer goes to school to be an engineer.
A teacher gets and education degree to teach.
A computer science guy goes to do *something* tech related.
An accountant to do accounting.
A nurse does a nursing program to be a nurse.

But 4 year degrees in sociology, physchology, criminal justice, poly sci, history, philosphophy. ect are a little weak on their own when it comes to vocational placement. But they pair up with other degrees wonderfully or are meant to be stepping stones to higher education.

That's why I say it's about expectations. If you go for a 4 year degree in psyschology, what do you realistically expect to do with it when you are out? It's not a degree that virtually guarantees you some sort of concrete job placement.

 

[Cutterhead]

Originally posted by: vi edit
Carmen813,

The article emphasises vocational placement upon graduation. My responses are slanted to address that. I'm not saying that "soft" sciences are worthless, simply that their value is much blurier when it comes to landing a safe job upon graduation.

An engineer goes to school to be an engineer.
A teacher gets and education degree to teach.
A computer science guy goes to do *something* tech related.
An accountant to do accounting.
A nurse does a nursing program to be a nurse.

But 4 year degrees in sociology, physchology, criminal justice, poly sci, history, philosphophy. ect are a little weak on their own when it comes to vocational placement. But they pair up with other degrees wonderfully or are meant to be stepping stones to higher education.

That's why I say it's about expectations. If you go for a 4 year degree in psyschology, what do you realistically expect to do with it when you are out? It's not a degree that virtually guarantees you some sort of concrete job placement.

I think Carmen makes a lot of good points and I agree that there is value to completing virtually any college degree, at least in terms of the social interaction/discipline that high school education alone can be lacking. I do agree though that many degrees, on their own, are not very suitable to immediate employment.

I have a BA in Psychology, but admittedly always viewed this as somewhat secondary to my BS degree in Information Sciences & Technology. Ironically, on a daily basis at my job now, I probably use more skills from the Psych degree than the IST degree, and I am a systems engineer. This is mostly a factor of how rapidly technologies can change, and the many different directions your career may take can have you working with technologies that you may not have trained in during school (if they even existed).

While the immediate return on many of these "sceondary" type degrees may be less at the outset, many of the skills and the education you get from such programs is somewhat more timeless, and may have a return-on-investment throughout your career, even if you change careers entirely. I think in the future it won't be at all unusual to see more students combining degrees in new ways that we haven't even considered here, as the nature of the job landscape and skills demand changes.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: Phokus
I highly doubt that... in engineering at least, the only females i see are asian. Lots of asian women go into 'useful' fields like engineering, science, management, etc.

White women on the other hand, i see so many of them go into sociology/psychology/english type degrees, so this finding is surprising.

This is all anecdotal of course, but i've heard people voice similar findings in ATOT.

I'm not asian, have no real link to any asian community so somebody can answer....

How common is it for an asian woman to go to college, get married, and then stay at home with the kids? Technically she went to college and is now "underemployed" although it's by choice.

Anecdotal evidence, we've had Chinese developer of about 5 years who decided to leave the company to spend more time with her kids and change career to teaching. But then of course, it's just one example, I don't know if this is a trend or not.

 

[Carmen813]

Originally posted by: vi edit
Carmen813,

The article emphasises vocational placement upon graduation. My responses are slanted to address that. I'm not saying that "soft" sciences are worthless, simply that their value is much blurier when it comes to landing a safe job upon graduation.

An engineer goes to school to be an engineer.
A teacher gets and education degree to teach.
A computer science guy goes to do *something* tech related.
An accountant to do accounting.
A nurse does a nursing program to be a nurse.

But 4 year degrees in sociology, physchology, criminal justice, poly sci, history, philosphophy. ect are a little weak on their own when it comes to vocational placement. But they pair up with other degrees wonderfully or are meant to be stepping stones to higher education.

That's why I say it's about expectations. If you go for a 4 year degree in psyschology, what do you realistically expect to do with it when you are out? It's not a degree that virtually guarantees you some sort of concrete job placement.

It all depends on what you do with your time in college and your experiences. Degrees in humanities will not earn you a job in an engineering firm...as an engineer. However, these degrees can be useful in human resources positions, managment, sales, support, ect.

Take myself for example. I have a 3 years of engineering education but my degree is in Psychology. I could probably position myself as a recruiter for an engineering firm if I so wanted. It's all about what you do with it. Think of it this way, with an engineering degree, you are pretty much pigeon holed into working as an engineer, and possibly later management. With a humanities degree you are a bit more flexible. It's a jack of all trades, master of none. You earn less on average, but you may have more security because you can move around jobs more quickly.

I had two internships as an engineer. One was research for an optics firm, the other was as a systems engineer working for a Boeing contractor on the 787 Dreamliner. Given what I know about Systems Engineering, I probably would have been *more* effective at the job with my Psychology degree. It required a great deal more people skills, much more so than traditional engineering careers.

There are also lots of positions in social service organizations and non-profits that recruit from the humanities, and these are the fastest growing fields in the country. Even during the recession these areas are still hiring.

It also depends on what is important to you. If you feel money is the most important objective in your career, than you should probably do vocational school. With my master's degree I will probably earn around $35,000 a year, maybe $50,000 after some experience. With my BA ~$30,000 is the max. However, I'm doing something that I enjoy, which to me is far more valuable than having more greenbacks at the end of the day.

As you mentioned, these degrees definitely serve as stepping stones. With a B.A. in Psychology I could have pursued a degree in Law, Social Work, Counseling, Clinical Psychology, Human Resources, Business, ect. It's just a matter of making the most of your experience. If you go to school and spend all your time partying and drinking, yah, you're fucked, but then again, so would an engineer in that situation.

 

[Genx87]

So they are getting slammed by the bad economy. And I imagine it is possible there is a decent % of people who get a degree for which there isnt much of a career path. How many liberal arts and art history majors are shit out of our university system each year?

I think there is a definate problem with that situation. People going to school and not getting a degree worth mentioning on a job application. They are saddled with tens of thousands in debt for a degree that gets them a 9 dollar an hour job at Starbucks.

That said the census data doesnt lie. On avg if you have a degree you will make more money.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Carmen813I disagree that a college degree in a non-technical field is pointless. Simply completing a college degree demonstrates to a company your ability to complete a long and arduous project. Every degree requires you to learn important communication, teamwork, time management, and critical thinking skills. These skills are all valuable in the job market. There are also many lessons learned in college outside of the classroom that improve your marketability to an employer, such as demonstrating an ability to work with a diverse group of individuals who come from vastly different backgrounds.

In other words, a college degree serves as a proxy measurement for IQ and work ethic. That's fine, but is it really necessary for people to spend tens of thousands of dollars in order to demonstrate that they are better than the competition (an Education Arms Race)? Presumably, decades ago people obtained these same types of jobs with mere high school diplomas and obtained on-the-job training and worked their way up.

Just because you do not end up in a field where you degree is "for" does not make it an economic waste. Such a view strikes me as an overly callous and cynical view of education.

Then what was the purpose and value of the education and training? Was it for a person to merely distinguish themselves from the competition? Was any knowledge obtained that could not have been obtained through on the job training?

My purpose in these discussion is not to belittle people who seek to better themselves through college education, but rather to ask whether or not it makes sense for us as a society to invest such a huge amount of time, money, and resources in this. College education certainly has non-economic benefits, but I do question whether or not those benefits are worth the cost. (People who want to learn more about the world in order to enrich themselves could just read books and study the subjects they are interested in, such as art history, on their own.)

My one question to you whipper would be, did you attend college yourself? I don't mean this as an elitist remark, but I think it may be relevant to the discussion.

I have Bachelors and Masters degrees in one of the physical sciences and a Jurisdoctorate (law degree).

 

[Carmen813]

Well, one thing you are ignoring about decades ago is that people tended to work for only one company. It is much more common in modern times to hold more than ten different jobs during your working years. On the job training may have been effective then, but what would happen today? You would be stuck in a constant cycle of retraining and lack the ability to climb the corporate ladder.

A college degree is standardized across the nation to have a certain value, so in that sense, yes, it shows a baseline ability. It does distinguish you from your peers. That doesn't strike me as any different from other forms of education or certification, such as vocational training or a high school diploma.

I also think there is a great deal of knowledge gained that would not necessarily be obtained on the job, however that knowledge may not specifically *apply* to your job. That is the entire point of a liberal arts degree. It is "liberal" because it entails learning about a large variety of subjects. As a psychology student I completed courses in math, science, history, politics, art, English, philosophy.

Personally, I would place the non-economic benefits of education as worth far more than the monetary cost of education. There is certainly an additional degree of freedom and happiness that comes from pursuing something you are truly passionate about.

I see Art History being brought up as a constant example of a degree that is not worth pursuing. No one is forced to go to school to be an Art History major, but that is besides the point. Try to imagine a society that only consisted of engineers. I took a class in art history, and while it wasn't for me, I saw the value in studying human history and learning about how various societies have developed. We live in a very scientific and rational time, but there is value in art.

 

[vi edit]

My purpose in these discussion is not to belittle people who seek to better themselves through college education, but rather to ask whether or not it makes sense for us as a society to invest such a huge amount of time, money, and resources in this. College education certainly has non-economic benefits, but I do question whether or not those benefits are worth the cost. (People who want to learn more about the world in order to enrich themselves could just read books and study the subjects they are interested in, such as art history, on their own.)

I just wish there was some way to have a complete "do over" in the mindset of hiring businesses and people in general that encourages the acceptance of vocational schools as reasonable alternatives to college. And the same for community colleges for that matter.

Right now, many of these schools are looked down on as 2nd run institutions and a last resort for people that didn't get into a "real" school.

As has been said by the OP and others, not everyone needs a 4 year program to do a job. But they may need *some* kind of education to do it well. A 1-2 year vocational school upon graduation could go a long ways to helping fill that niche. Basically get out and working when you are 20 with no real sizable debt in a decent paying skilled position.

These exist in some form, but a lot of employers and individuals just wrinkle their nose at the name. Someone needs to figure out a way to improve that image.

 

[MemoryInAGarden]

Originally posted by: Genx87
So they are getting slammed by the bad economy. And I imagine it is possible there is a decent % of people who get a degree for which there isnt much of a career path. How many liberal arts and art history majors are shit out of our university system each year?

I think there is a definate problem with that situation. People going to school and not getting a degree worth mentioning on a job application. They are saddled with tens of thousands in debt for a degree that gets them a 9 dollar an hour job at Starbucks.

Mostly correct, but one can't generalize your statements into a rule. I'm 23 with all of my work completed for a political science major and sociology minor, and didn't realize how bleak my employment prospects after graduation were until the last year or so.

The most pertinent question a liberal arts major can ask himself or herself is what am I training to BE with this degree. As stated earlier in the thread, nursing majors end up filling the ranks of employed nurses, same with teachers, and most of the professions. What exactly ARE you if you hold a four-year degree in philosophy? Unfortunately, political science and philosophy are basically a springboard into law school or further liberal arts graduate education. The biggest problem is that these types of degrees have little worth on their own merits, and virtually necessitate more study and specialization. As one gets older, a person will typically have less of an inclination to live the student lifestyle. Marriage, kids, finances, and life in general can defer or eliminate dreams of going to or finishing graduate school. Continuing on as a perpetual student is a risky bet, one that many majors in these fields don't realize they're getting into if they want to have any decent prospects at all with their, at best, foundational undergraduate programs.

One of the guys that I had a graduate class of "sociology of religion" with in the spring of last year is 28, holds two graduate degrees now, is continuing on to get his PhD but doesn't have any meaningful job experience. His wife is currently paying the day-to-day expenses and it's anyone's guess how much student loan debt he is in. He won't graduate until he is 30 with his PhD (at least) and will have deferred around ten years of wages, savings, and investments. The odds of him catching up to the average BS holder in net worth are probably not very good.

Academic departments in the liberal arts often push their programs to 18-20 year olds who are simply following their desire to study what they want and hopefully make a buck doing it. Ironically, those peddling the often low-ceiling, low-paying four-year degree programs have no private sector experience themselves and aren't the most financially successful around. Students need to be provided with more objective data about employment placement rates within six, twelve, and eighteen months of graduation, compensation, firms hiring, etc. That information is not provided to students from the universities in any consolidated fashion. It's no wonder because academics have a vested interest in protecting their own.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Cutterhead

Originally posted by: vi edit
Carmen813,

The article emphasises vocational placement upon graduation. My responses are slanted to address that. I'm not saying that "soft" sciences are worthless, simply that their value is much blurier when it comes to landing a safe job upon graduation.

An engineer goes to school to be an engineer.
A teacher gets and education degree to teach.
A computer science guy goes to do *something* tech related.
An accountant to do accounting.
A nurse does a nursing program to be a nurse.

But 4 year degrees in sociology, physchology, criminal justice, poly sci, history, philosphophy. ect are a little weak on their own when it comes to vocational placement. But they pair up with other degrees wonderfully or are meant to be stepping stones to higher education.

That's why I say it's about expectations. If you go for a 4 year degree in psyschology, what do you realistically expect to do with it when you are out? It's not a degree that virtually guarantees you some sort of concrete job placement.

I think Carmen makes a lot of good points and I agree that there is value to completing virtually any college degree, at least in terms of the social interaction/discipline that high school education alone can be lacking. I do agree though that many degrees, on their own, are not very suitable to immediate employment.

I have a BA in Psychology, but admittedly always viewed this as somewhat secondary to my BS degree in Information Sciences & Technology. Ironically, on a daily basis at my job now, I probably use more skills from the Psych degree than the IST degree, and I am a systems engineer. This is mostly a factor of how rapidly technologies can change, and the many different directions your career may take can have you working with technologies that you may not have trained in during school (if they even existed).

While the immediate return on many of these "sceondary" type degrees may be less at the outset, many of the skills and the education you get from such programs is somewhat more timeless, and may have a return-on-investment throughout your career, even if you change careers entirely. I think in the future it won't be at all unusual to see more students combining degrees in new ways that we haven't even considered here, as the nature of the job landscape and skills demand changes.

Thank you, well said.

When I went to school, I majored in the brand new (i.e., very first year offered) Computer Engineering program, a cross between Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. My entire career has been in some form of IT, with the last 20+ years spent at various levels of management. I've hired well over 100 people in my career, probably more than 200. For a long time, I held the same view as many in this thread, that "soft" degrees like Liberal Arts were mostly fluff, and technical degrees were unquestionably far more valuable.

Over the years, however, I've come to a somewhat surprising realization. While technical degrees are often better for landing that first job right out of school, they are not terribly predictive of a successful career. The issue is that technicians are a dime a dozen, and technical education, at least in fields like IT, rapidly falls out of date. Further, specific technical skills are relatively easy to train as long as the trainee is intelligent, adaptable, and good at learning. Therefore, the special value of a technical degree fades quickly.

What really matters over the long haul are those traits I just mentioned -- intelligent, adaptable, and good at learning -- ambition and work ethic, and the "fluff" skills like effective communications, analyzing data, setting priorities, presenting well, and generally working with others. The people who have the most successful careers are those who can pull all these skill together, and more often than not, the Liberal Arts folks outshine their technically-schooled peers. The LA people are often simply more rounded and versatile than someone who focused on technical skills. As a hiring manager, that means I end up looking far more at what each candidate has accomplished and how he presents himself rather than focusing on what he studied five or ten (or twenty) years ago.


Edit: I'd also point out that corporate America is full of jobs that request a four-year degree -- any four-year degree -- rather than a specific field of study. Unfortunately, due to the economy there are far fewer openings today than normal, but those positions are still quite common and they will open up again as things improve.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: vi edit
I just wish there was some way to have a complete "do over" in the mindset of hiring businesses and people in general that encourages the acceptance of vocational schools as reasonable alternatives to college. And the same for community colleges for that matter.

Right now, many of these schools are looked down on as 2nd run institutions and a last resort for people that didn't get into a "real" school.

As has been said by the OP and others, not everyone needs a 4 year program to do a job. But they may need *some* kind of education to do it well. A 1-2 year vocational school upon graduation could go a long ways to helping fill that niche. Basically get out and working when you are 20 with no real sizable debt in a decent paying skilled position.

These exist in some form, but a lot of employers and individuals just wrinkle their nose at the name. Someone needs to figure out a way to improve that image.

I think it's a bit of Catch-22. Trade schools have that image, at least in part, because ambitious, high-performing students largely head towards four-year schools. Therefore, businesses looking for ambitious, high-performing employees follow their lead and look first at four-year graduates. (... Therefore, ambitious, high-performing students looking to the future tend to pick four-year schools, and round and round it goes ...) There's also the issue I mention above, that employees with well-rounded educations tend to have more successful careers than those with a more narrow educational focus. Obviously, that's only a general observation since individual performance varies widely.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

This thread reminds me of that FedEx commercial from a few years back.

Manager: "We use FedEx.com for all of our shipping needs. It is really easy and simple."
New Employee: "Oh, but you don't understand, I have an MBA."
Manager: "...I guess I'd better show you how to use it then."

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
This thread reminds me of that FedEx commercial from a few years back.

Manager: "We use FedEx.com for all of our shipping needs. It is really easy and simple."
New Employee: "Oh, but you don't understand, I have an MBA."
Manager: "...I guess I'd better show you how to use it then."

Now there's a fluff degree: MBA. It's not that there's no potential value in the program. It just seems to be a magnet for inept self-promoters who are incapable of working constructively with others. (Or maybe I've just met a lot of bad apples.)

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
This thread reminds me of that FedEx commercial from a few years back.

Manager: "We use FedEx.com for all of our shipping needs. It is really easy and simple."
New Employee: "Oh, but you don't understand, I have an MBA."
Manager: "...I guess I'd better show you how to use it then."

Now there's a fluff degree: MBA. It's not that there's no potential value in the program. It just seems to be a magnet for inept self-promoters who are incapable of working constructively with others. (Or maybe I've just met a lot of bad apples.)

Agree

 

[stateofbeasley]

Law degrees are just an extension of virtually worthless Liberal Arts fluff.

$150,000 of debt from a trash diploma mill law school will get you at best 40k a year at some dump of a firm run by people who show up to work reeking of alcohol. A lot of law school grads end up driving taxis, working construction, or waiting tables -- jobs they could have done without a law degree, or college degree for that matter.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

not only that but even those with college degree required jobs entry level wages are lagging 20 years behind inflation.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
not only that but even those with college degree required jobs entry level wages are lagging 20 years behind inflation.

Twenty years? That's a lot. What is your source for this?

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Originally posted by: Special K

Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
not only that but even those with college degree required jobs entry level wages are lagging 20 years behind inflation.

Twenty years? That's a lot. What is your source for this?

inflation @4% average pay increase 2-3%

 

[LumbergTech]

Reality Check: The value of college isn't only in earning potential. If you only cared about that, why didn't you get out there and do something yourself instead of waiting for others to "educate" you? My professors told us right away that in the computer science field you had better damn well care about what you are doing and get our there and learn some stuff yourself. If you don't have that motivation to do the extra, you aren't going to cut it in the field

 

[stateofbeasley]

Originally posted by: LumbergTech
Reality Check: The value of college isn't only in earning potential. If you only cared about that, why didn't you get out there and do something yourself instead of waiting for others to "educate" you? My professors told us right away that in the computer science field you had better damn well care about what you are doing and get our there and learn some stuff yourself. If you don't have that motivation to do the extra, you aren't going to cut it in the field

I think that's wrong, because students aren't computers that take inputs from professors. Most of the learning is done outside the classroom, but the courses provide a framework of study.

The reality is that people wouldn't go to college if there was no gain in earnings potential. It's primary value is the premise that a college education will lead to potentially better earnings. Why pay $20,000 a year if there is no gain? And it's not like you have to go to college to make friends, drink beer, and hit on easy women.

 

[ahurtt]

If I were working in the field in which I obtained my college degree I'd probably be making less than half of what I make for a salary today.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
If I were working in the field in which I obtained my college degree I'd probably be making less than half of what I make for a salary today.

To what extent did your degree help you get to where you are today?

 

[coloumb]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
This thread reminds me of that FedEx commercial from a few years back.

Manager: "We use FedEx.com for all of our shipping needs. It is really easy and simple."
New Employee: "Oh, but you don't understand, I have an MBA."
Manager: "...I guess I'd better show you how to use it then."

:thumbsup:

Seriously - has anyone benefited from an MBA?

My wife managed to get her MBA and it hasn't benefited her at all in the workplace [or maybe both of the employers she's worked for are still stuck in the 60's style of executive management where only Men are allowed high powered positions within the company].

I personally see no benefit from having anything more than a Bachelor's degree - stay long enough with a company and you can easily work your way up the food chain in your career just by social networking within the company.