What would a bachelor’s degree be worth? My contention is that it would just be the new “high school diploma” and would be a ticket to being a burger flipper, store clerk, or not much better. There would be no economic improvement as a result of universal college education. Jobs that now require a bachelors would simply all start requiring a masters, the PhD would become the equivalent of a masters, and some new qualification would be invented.
In a world where everyone was college educated We would only be guaranteeing college-educated burger flippers.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, since there are other potential benefits from college-level education than mere money, but those who think that universal college education will solve all personal economic woes are themselves woefully ignorant of reality.
A high school graduate is already over-educated for burger-flipping.
If everybody had an MBA, a lot of MBA’s would be flipping burgers. Supply and demand in the job market almost guarantees that someone’s going to have a shitty job no matter how educated or hard working they are.
Very true. In Ottawa, where I am, everyone has a university or college-level degree. This is a government town (capital of the country), so the biggest employer is the government, followed by the recently declining high-tech sector. I am not too far removed from university, and many people I know with bachelor degrees are having a hard time finding a job that requires just the degree, because competition is fierce here. Everyone is educated, so many of the people working in non-degree requiring jobs (most of the service industry) have degrees and are looking for something else while they work to pay the bills. Supply and demand will usually dictate the job market, and there just aren’t enough degree-requiring jobs for everyone, so the over-educated fall back on flipping burgers.
I already think too many people go to college. Or maybe, too many people go for the wrong reasons.
There seems to be a status/expectation thing that students from a certain socioeconomic class must go to college and must go into a career that requires a college degree. Doesn’t matter that the kid might make an excellent plumber (who, I might add, make more than many people in degreed jobs) or mechanic or construction worker or postal carrier or whatever. They simply must go get that B.A. and work someplace where they have to wear a tie or pantyhose every day.
Meanwhile, there are some poor kids that probably have the potential to find a cure for cancer, but due to finances, low expectations, or tracking, they never get a chance to take a single college course.
I hate nitpicking but this hypothetical really shouldn’t be possible, getting a bachelors degree is still difficult which should exclude most people. And according to the tree-huggers in our student union, tution will cost more than a house soon…
The scary thought is that if everyone went through 4 (or 7) years of school, the national debt load would be HUGE. I have friends in Ottawa like scule was saying, and they’re stuck working very low level government jobs. The problem is that making $10 an hour isn’t enough to cover the monthly loan payments. Which means that at the end of the month, the minimum wage buger flipper drop out is earning more than the $15/hour office worker with a poli sci degree. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if you finish your degree with $40,000 worth of student loans, you don’t have the luxury of flipping burgers.
If there is a silver lining to this, imagine as you said, if everyone had a degree. As an engineer I wouldn’t go a day flipping burgers before I replaced myself with a robot. Think back to your first few jobs and imagine how you’d tackle them differently now that you’ve gained more education.
One difference is that in North America lots of kids go to college, but they take more personal development type degrees, like degrees in english, literature, drama, etc.
Kids from other, poorer countries who go to college are studying medicine, engineering, and the sciences.
The first category of degree is very, very expensive, but doesn’t result in people who are all that much more productive. So it’s probably a net drag on society - a luxury. The second category leads to people who become much more productive and valuable to society - a net gain.
I know lots of people who loaded themselves down with huge student loan debt to get a B.A. Then they got out of University and discovered they were in a world of trouble. My response: “duh”.
Too many people do that, because there isn’t enough hard-headed realism around education anymore. People will bankrupt themselves and their families to pursue knowledge for its own sake, and this is seen as a reasonable thing to do. It shouldn’t be. If you’re rich, go for it. If you have a good plan to make use of that education, go for it. Otherwise, what are you thinking?
Little anecdotal story here. I teach at the collegiate level. My school offers a 5 year master’s in several areas and we encourage our students to go that route to become slightly better at whatever their discipline is.
When I graduated with my masters I was veritably unhirable because someone with a bachelor’s degree could be hired to do the same job and work for less because they didn’t have a master’s. And the rationale was because I had a masters I would want more money. Common misconception as I would have taken any job. So I bartended. A bartender with a master’s is not really that abnormal especially in Phoenix.
So I bartended my way right through my PhD. Then got an offer to teach from my Alma Mater. So I went back to the east coast.
I think the efficacy of a Bachelor’s is being looked at by the OP as something not very important or worth getting. But it gives you the option to continue your education to a hgher level. I’ll tell you what even with a PhD finding a job can be quite difficult, maybe not as hard as with a bachelor’s but certainly not easy.
There is an argument that a liberal arts degree might be a “luxury” good in that it is most practical for students with wealthy parents. If I can remember how Breneman stated it, he noted that they have the familial safety net of knowing they won’t be on the streets if they don’t get a high-paying job right out of the starting gate, and they won’t have oppressive loan payments. Numbers bear this out–lower-income students are more likely to enroll in programs that are professional, pre-professional, or vocational.
However, I don’t know how can you defend the assertion that students with liberal arts degrees are “less productive” or that their degrees are only for “personal development” and pursue “knowledge for its own sake.”
Liberal arts degree holders are certainly productive. Hundreds of employers come to campuses each year to seek these graduates out. Studies have shown, in fact, that over the long term, liberal arts grads hold a disproportionate number of higher management positions in business.
Learning how to write, how to think critically, how to absorb information from various fields, and how to approach problems are all aims of a liberal arts education. I am sure graduates do find those skills personally enriching, but they are also highly-desirable job skills.
Now, I will grant you that unlike an accounting or engineering major, an English or Art History or Politics major may not immediately nab a high-paying job in a profession immediately related to his or her major. But there are many jobs out there, and many careers where someone with those so-called “impractical” degrees will go far. They are hardly a net drag on society.
–Cranky, former Econ major, who currently works with colleagues holding degrees in Art History, English, and Mathematics, among other fields.
There would never be a time when degrees are as common as water. Schools couldn’t keep up with teaching so many students and they would simply raise the prices of tution and make getting student loans more difficult. Soon it would just those with excellent acedemics back in high school that get the loans and scholarships and get admitted into colleges.
The world is complex and has ways of automatically correcting things like this.
I don’t disagree wih this, but they are secondary job skills. Someone with no job experience and no other skills is not going to gain a lot of valuable job-enhancing value with a degree in Mesopotamian architecture. Such knowledge is nice to have, and I’d love to go back to university one day when I can afford it and study all kinds of things. But if my daughter plans to go to university, I’ll recommend she find something to study that she loves, and which will also give her a shot at a rewarding career.
When I started university in the early 1980’s - there were only two University’s in Brisbane. One was your classic “Oxford” kinda Uni with oodles of political movement and arty overtones - (as well as a very prestigious medical and legal school) - and the other Uni was a full on engineering school - totally devoted to pumping out engineers who could really get shit done.
My first lecture, and the lecturer said the following words…
“Folks, if you wanna change the world, and fix all the woes in this world we live in - then you’re in the wrong University. You should have joined the Uinversity of Queensland over at St. Lucia. Our job here is to teach you what it takes to be worth a shitload the day you walk out the door. You’ll build bridges, and dams, and design cities. And most importantly, you’ll never once be unemployed”.
Couldn’t disagree more. In terms of education, I firmly believe in intellectual self-improvement first ( and if nets you a career, more power to you ), practicality second. A well-rounded, educated person can get some kind of job, usually. But far too many purely practical, go for the career type of students end up with an excessively narrow education IMHO. Not all of them by any means, but a few too many. I’d rather better-rounded citizens.
Pursuit of knowledge for it’s own sake should ideally be the main ( not the only ) motivator for everyone in college.
By the way, this is not necessarily the case. It can also be pretty cheap ( in a relative sense ). Plenty of good-quality state universities out there churning out decent undergrads ( though it varies, the starker educational distance between elite and non-elite colleges is usually to be found in grad schools ).
Then why do employers come to my campus to hire those people?
There are plenty of firms which accept that they may have to teach some job skills to new hires. I’ll warrant that some of them prefer it that way, so that they can teach them their way of doing business.
If someone with a degree in Mesopotamian architecture applied for a job in my office, I’d be interested. That person is not just a walking book of trivia about a long-gone civilization. I’d assume the person knows something about how to make inferences and draw conclusions from evidence (you don’t learn about Mesopotamian architecture from a well-written explanatory text left behind by the good folks from that era). I’d assume they know how to process things spatially and imagine things given minimal description. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. Those aren’t “job skills” per se but they are aptitudes that would make that person incredibly useful and versatile in my workplace.
I have a hard time imagining the university becoming an vocational institution that offers a different major for every job out there. My first job was in Admissions. There’s no major in that. Should there be? It would be impossible to devise a major for every job that grads might be hired into. Many jobs aren’t very closely related to any of the professional or vocational fields.
It’s also important to remember that even a liberal arts major can get meaningful job-related experience. Most students out of sheer necessity become adept at word-processing software, for example, and many seek internships or do volunteer work that places them in off-campus work environments.
Believe me, I know how valuable engineering and ubran planning and nursing and business programs are. But not every student wants a career in those professions. I don’t think our society would be better off if everyone moved over to programs like that.
P.S. I can also assure you that writing is no “secondary” job skill where I work! And no, we’re not in the media. I do research, but I’m the go-to girl in the office when it comes to writing stuff like reports and responses to legislative inquiries.
Couldn’t agree more. Where I live, there are tons of people with vocational-type training in the high-tech and engineering sector, yet there are no positions left for them. Just because a degree program grants more hands-on teaching or immediately applicable experience doesn’t mean it is better than others. What kind of society would we be without artists, writers and thinkers?
I have come to learn, from my working experience, that quite often it is not the degree someone holds but the experience they got from getting that degree that determines their abilities. I hold a postion only marginally related to my degree field, yet I do well at it because going to university taught me how to conduct research effectively, read research effectively, think critically and write properly (a skill that is sadly declining judging from some of the stuff I see here). Even if I had all the knowledge related to my field that was available, I would not be useful here if I didn’t have those skills.
A smart employer will recognize that the body of knowledge one brings to a job may be useful, but the ability to think critically and deal with problems rationally is of equal or even greater importance, and getting an arts degree can teach that as well as any other.
For the record, I have a science degree, so I’m not coming at this from a personal perspective.
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