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President Obama wants a lot more of us to go to college. Education has been very good to his family; he believes in it. He believes having more educated people in this country will be a great stimulus for the economy.
He does have history on his side – the greatest economic growth on a national and family basis took place through the GI Bill after WWII. “…about a million veterans applied for the money within the first year after the war, and ultimately 2.2 million veterans used the money to obtain higher education, many of them becoming the first members of their families to receive a college diploma. Before the war, about 10 percent of Americans attended college. After the war, that figure rose to about 50 percent…The cost to taxpayers for the GI Bill was about $5.5 billion, but the result was 450,000 engineers, 240,000 accountants, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 22,000 dentists, 17,000 writers and editors, and thousands of other professionals.”
The major difference right now is that while there are some jobs, they are not necessarily jobs for the millions of young people graduating from colleges right now and they are not necessarily in places where the young people are..or want to be.
“Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can’t grab onto the first rung of the career ladder. Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, to newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds has climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago.”
At the same time, because of the economy, colleges are actually in a poorer position than ever to produce the people with the skills needed to jump-start the economy: They are laying off instructors at the same time they are taking on more and more students who are trying to ‘sit out’ the depression. This is producing a situation (which actually began at least 10 years ago) where students, because they cannot get access to the courses they need in the sequence that they need them, in order to graduate in 4 years. A study done in 1999-2000 found that the average amount of time it took for students in the United States to complete a bachelor’s degree program was 4.5 years. It has only gotten worse since then.
Students Take Longer to Finish
“Early this semester at San Francisco State University, Redoglia unsuccessfully crashed 26 different classes, hoping to find space that would move him closer to a hospitality management degree. Outside some classrooms, wait-listed students took turns standing closest to the door so they could hear the lecture and not fall too far behind should they get in. Redoglia, a fourth-year student, is now enrolled in just two courses. He could lose financial aid, and his plan to finish his degree in 4 1/2 years is up in smoke.
“This semester has put me back another full year,” said Redoglia, adding that the delay is “killing me financially.”
So we have a ‘perfect storm’ coming together: Employers who will not hire, coupled with students who cannot complete college in an efficient amount of time, spiced with employers who have gotten in the habit of taking their skilled jobs overseas because they ‘can get the same or better skills for a cheaper price’, served on a buffet where student indebtedness has already reached crushing levels.
No jobs. Trying to compete with people overseas whose educations cost pennies on the dollar for ours. Ending up with so much debt that young people cannot possibly afford to live independently, get married, form families, buy a home or a car.
Under that scenario, why should anyone go to college?
Going to college used to mean that upon graduation, students were competing with other college graduates for jobs with a future, jobs that might be ‘entry level’ for sure but jobs where their education was respected, valued, and carried extra in the pay envelope. When employers insist on taking the best, highest paying, valuable jobs to what are referred to as ‘The BRIC Countries” (Brazil, Russia, India and China), where educations cost much less and people therefore are willing to work for much less (because they do not have the debt load that requires a salary large enough to make the payments), they are doing many things to this country and its workforce, but they are also doing something to America’s Higher Education Infrastructure.
They are devaluing college degrees.
America’s employers are saying (and have for some time), “Your product is too expensive; either produce a product for a price that we are willing to pay..or we will go buy this product elsewhere.” And that is just what they have done; from Microsoft to IBM, they have gone to the BRIC countries and ‘bought the product’ (the workforce) cheaper. They have now set the value of a college education at a much lower level – because that is why people go to college – to get good challenging jobs.
Think about it. At my state’s public universities, the yearly cost, today is approximately $19,000. A four year degree, with a 3% rise (and that is small) would end up costing the student $100,873 (and that is with a 5th year because I’m figuring that this situation will only get worse). If a student had to borrow half that money (and borrowing $10,000 a year is pretty standard), student loan calculator figures that this student would have to get, right out of the bachelor’s program a salary of approximately $59,000 (and that is using the lowest interest rate, 3.25%). When companies put their jobs into places such as India so that they can pay $25,000 a year (or even less) for a computer programmer, the chances of a fresh US college grad getting a job making the amount of money they need to pay off that loan are…pretty…damn…small.
Why should anyone go to college?
The United States needs educated people. It needs educated people with all sorts of skills. And unfortunately, the government is not going to say to people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, “Listen, you built your fortunes on the backs of American workers, and then on the backs of overseas workers who you could pay cheaper. Hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs have disappeared – people have lost homes and families. You owe something back” – the government is not going to say that to them (even though they deserve it).
So, what is America going to do to rebuild? How to get people to go to college when there are no jobs? No good paying jobs? How do we get people to get involved in technical fields? How do we get people through programs in an efficient amount of time? At an efficient cost that won’t impoverish young people and their families?
The system connecting America’s educational system and its commerce is completely dysfunctional and until we fix that from the ground up, we are never going to be able to get back on our feet.
But first, we need jobs.
(photo courtesy of Athena)
13 Comments
Great post – thanks Toby
Since we’ve anointed college education as THE entryway to career viability, why not call them what they are: trade schools.
Anyway, did we seriously believe we could matriculate our way to the top of the globalization heap.
One of the problems is that college and university presidents do not see their institutions as trade schools and seem to refuse to understand the role that they play in terms of workforce development. Community college and voc tech schools are much more in tune with the connection between the classroom and the workplace. The other barrier is what is frankly the 19th Century model of ‘the educated man’ (sorry, but that is what it was called at the time), which emphasized a broad liberal arts education – even in engineering programs and computer program departments, students are generally required to take ‘general ed’ requirements – which a) takes up a lot of course time and b) many times frustrates the students who feel that taking courses in English Lit and Psych 101 to be a complete waste of time. Higher Ed needs a revolution from top to bottom.
Excellent post. Thank you.
As this dynamic has been going on for 10 years already, a critical mass will be reached, probably already has, and short of massive government programs such as NASA to employ and utilize the talents of our youth, we are totally fucking screwed.
To use the words of the masters of the universe, we have been wage arbatriged out of exsistence. The class war is over, the rich won and we are going to be existing as a third world country. Hope they like gated communities and kidnappings because we are not far behind. Dont forget we have all these returning (many injured) GI’s that will be looking for work soon also. Quite a stew you have created Mr. Bush and Mr. Reagan. When the last 30 years are looked back on it will make the robber barons look like pikers.
Until the intelligensia gets off their lazy butts and starts speaking out loudly and often about the problem, it’s only going to get worse.
The reality is, an under-educated and misinformed population is the easiest to manipulate and control . . . and, makes for a more willing slave-wage labor force. Just look at Mexico, as an example — or our own Bible Belt. Fixing the education system in the US is adverse to the corporate aristocracy’s interest, you see.
Progressives and liberals have slowly but surely been put to sleep by smooth-talking reichwing fascists who’ve been preaching the gospel of Biblical capitalism to the masses, and telling everyone there’s really nothing to worry about . . . just like the Nazis did in the 1930s.
By the time the round-ups for the internment camps begin, it will be too late to do anything about the problem. The intelligensia will be among the first groups to go — after the Progressives, liberals, “non-believers,” and anyone who’s dark-skinned or ferrin’ lookin’. This time, the Jews will be the last to go . . . after the reichwing has no further use for them (Bill Kristol, David Frum, Frank Luntz, Joe Lieberman, et al, ad nauseum).
Yes, great post.
Once, a “liberal arts eduction” was the way to get any job you wanted. Now, people ask, “What are you going to do with a degree in English literature?” Times have changed…
Hey, wait! People were asking that back in the 1960s. And what they asked people with degrees in Greek and Latin was no better.
Jason – one of the great myths of life (alongside “This won’t hurt a bit” and “the check is in the mail”) is “We want people who can think.” This is a piece of blab that American industry used to hand out. If you look not at what they say, but what they actually DO (and if Ian Welch were here, he’d be talking about ‘rent seeking behaviors’ etc.), then what American industry values is not ‘thinking’ or ‘questioning’ or ‘the long view’, but technicians and technicians who come cheap. This is not to say that the economy has not gotten it’s head in the wrong place because of this mode of thinking, but trust me, AIG, et al. were NOT being run by former philosophy majors. Microsoft is not moving jobs to India because of some new found interest on Bill Gates’ part in Buddhist philosophy or vegetarianism. They are looking for specific skill sets that they can use, use up and move on..like industrial locusts, when they want something else. Our problem here, largely, is that we have no clue of having an industrial policy or an educational policy. I am fairly sure that if you asked people in government in India or China, they’d be able to tell you right down to the single digit what their goals are on a yearly basis in terms of producing engineers, computer programmers, and scientists. Because our system is this loosey-goosey system of the higher ed world someplace out there (while feeding off the federal government trough in terms of research) and American Industry over HERE, with American employers whining constantly about the quality of the students and the costs etc. etc. and no one at the federal level actually sitting down with the two groups in the same room for serious discussions about what the NATION’s needs are, what industry’s needs are, what society’s needs are, etc. etc., and asking the important question of what’s happening now – where do we need to be at a certain point – and how are we going to get there. it’s all well and good to complain that we need more engineers and computer folks, but if no one has actually asked those people WHY they chose to go into the fields there is no way for us to get more people to take it up (i did a small unscientific survey and found out there are TWO reasons: 1) the person had someone else in their family who was already in the field and they figured that they could do it too and 2) they thought it was good money). However, in the end, the only way to get people to invest is if they see that the employment situation in this country has turned around and that American employers are being loyal to American workers again. Until that happens, why should anyone go through the pain? Better to go to a voc tech school and get a certification to be a welder.
Thanks Tody, great post!
The first four years of college should be at government expense. Even if it’s by loan program, if the student doesn’t “hit it big” within 10 years, the note should be written off.
It’s a scandal how we finance college and higher techinical school educations.
Toby rather . . .
Recently I had a debate with a tenured college professor who felt she desreved her secure position where she said,”I worked my ass off getting here …”
As if the lowly paid waitress, the cashier, or the daycare worker, do *not* work their asses off????
She just did not get it. It is as if these academics “deserve” what they get because well, they are academics and “work harder.” They are the ones being heard because they can proclaim ridiculous “facts” about poverty when they have never so much as stood in a food bank line and don’t have a clue. ‘Cause they are academics ~ to hell with the person who actually lives this crap. They know SO much about the mother working McJobs forced by policy into permanent povery, juggling kids, and has homeless issues ’cause well, they have academics who “know.” Academics are SO in tune with the roots of racism and then refuse to acknowledge that the new classism is a guise for racism which just coincidently includes people of color because, ‘hell it includes ALL the poor, now…’ ” They know all this because they are academics …
It goes on but the truth is I am kind of sick of people with all this knowledge who cock hold everyone else because, see, they are academics.
Don’t get me wrong, knowledge is power, but I worked with physicists who could not find their way out of a paper bag. I saw doctorals in business who did not have the first clue as to how to manage a department. I have seen engineers who know a whole lot about a machine, but not a clue about the person running it.
And worse the person with some wisdom as well as the education? Well send them to that dark corner desk where nobody will see them IF they even have any job after the age of 50 …
AARRGGHH!
Cat In Seattle