<p>This may not be breaking news, but a degree is no longer a guarantee of financial security. The Economist has an interesting article on the changing employment picture for college grads:
<p>At the same time, the article highlights data showing that degreed individuals earn far more than those without college education.</p>
<p>So, should you skip college and become a plumber?</p>
<p>My take is not that earning a degree is a waste of time, but career selection and perhaps college major choice are increasingly important. What do you think?</p>
<p>Yes. As the job market gets tighter here, with manufacturing & other jobs going overseas, but there are more college graduates (the latter is a good thing, right?), it would behoove kids to have a plan. Not everyone should be a liberal arts major. And even if you think that is your best option, you should have some sort of idea what to do with it.</p>
<p>That is not entirely true (yet) because, unlike capital which is free to flow across the borders, there are still restrictions to international labor mobility, especially immigration laws. To a lesser extent, there are also culture/language barriers that affect the competitiveness of foreign workers.</p>
<p>@Mommusic: if I recall it correctly, according to latest OECD reports, the percentage of the ** young adult ** population in the US with an initial college degree is around 37 % . That may not seem too much, but is actually higher than in all other major industrial economies, except Japan. </p>
<p>There are actually 13 or so OECD countries with higher college graduation rates than the US, but they are mostly small-population countries like Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, etc. Among the bigger countries, the UK for example was slightly behind the US at 35 % and a major industrial powerhouse like Germany was way behind at 25 % or so only. In the German case, the low percentage of college graduates reflects an educational system that, from an early age (sometimes as early as 6th grade) intentionally steers low-income and/or under-achieving kids to vocational/technical tracks in school as opposed to the academic track that would lead ultimately to a university education </p>
<p>In the US, the focus is instead on the comprehensive High School model that is increasingly oriented towards college preparation classes. That is not necessarily bad and, in fact, may even be the right thing to do in a post-industrial, information society. The downside of the US model is however that many school kids are left with the impression that college is a natural follow-up of a High School education and that everybody has to go to college, which is not the case.</p>
<p>While a college degree is NOT a guarantee of financial security, I wouldn’t use that as your primary reason to not attend college and get a degree. The article is somewhat misleading in its title. I was expecting to see some analysis or statistics about those with college degrees who are unemployed, but it mostly contains the author’s assumptions about the future.</p>
<p>It shouldn’t be; almost everyone goes to college now. Of course there’s no financial security in a college degree. Why would they want college grads with a B.A in something random when they can get increasing numbers of people who complete grad school as well?
There is still security in that, by the way.</p>
In this context I always like to point out that the terms “university education” and “vocational training” have different meanings in Germany and the US. Nurses, accountants, kindergarten teachers, most bankers and many programmers go through the vocational track in Germany, not the academic track. </p>
<p>What I personally find interesting in the German example is that college seems the least popular in those German states with the strongest economy. Bavaria has an unemployment rate of 3.7% and the second-highest GDP per capita, yet the lowest percentage of students with the academic-track high school credential that’s required to enroll at a public university - only 22%. (I have been trying to find the rate of actual college graduates broken down by state, to no avail.)</p>
<p>But I guess it’s not surprising that the academic track is so unpopular when it’s not necessary to have a career. Students in the vocational track start earning money as an apprentice at age 16; students who go through college don’t have a full-time job until they are 25 or so.</p>
<p>Roger_Dooley “My take is not that earning a degree is a waste of time, but career selection and perhaps college major choice are increasingly important. What do you think?”</p>
<p>I agree entirely with this statement. All college degrees are not the same. We all know far too many students that major in areas where former graduates have had difficulty launching careers even in good times. Bad times simply exacerbate this problem. Who is more likely to be employed upon graduation - an engineer or someone with a fine arts degree?</p>
<p>Of course, that doesn’t mean much if anything unless the goal is simply to become employed, earn money, launch a career, etc. If the person truly is only interested in the arts, an engineering career would alienate them every day of their life. So, if the issue is simply one of employment and compensation there clearly is a difference in the specific degree. If the person’s objectives are focused primarily if not exclusively on what they hope to do, they should go for the degree that might help them get there. These are different goals. I think graduating students become disgruntled when the degree they selected for other purposes doesn’t lead directly to the path of riches. Everyone’s expectations should be realistic.</p>
<p>My biggest concern is that many teenagers don’t make a purposeful decision to go to college; they go without a goal or a plan, because it’s taken for granted that middle class students will go to college these days. I am all for a broad liberal arts education when a student makes a deliberate decision to get one, aware of the benefits and willing to work with the disadvantages (e.g. employability). It’s problematic when liberal arts majors become the default for students who haven’t given much thought to their interests or career choice, as it’s happening right now. Students who have made a career choice might apply to the business or engineering or nursing school. Everyone else applies “undecided” to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p>The surplus of college graduates seems to be concentrated in a number of majors in the liberal arts such as Political Science, Communications, History, Psychology and Economics and Life Sciences such as Biology and Biochemistry. My older son is a junior at a state university majoring in Geology and my younger son is a freshman Physics major at the same school and I am fairly optomistic that they will have fairly good employment prospects when they graduate.</p>
<p>My older son has a considerably better than average aptitude for Mathematics but is by no means a gifted Math student. Nevertheless, to maximize his chances for a good position in the field of Geology he has completed three semesters of Calculus for Math, Physical Science and Engineering majors and is currently taking Differential Equations. He has completed one semester of Calculus based Physics, is taking a second semester now and plans to take a third. He has to work hard at these courses but has taken on the challenge of difficult Math and Math based courses because he knows that companies who employ geologists want people with strong quantitative backgrounds.</p>
<p>My younger son, who struggles with Asperger’s syndrome, is truly gifted with an extraordinary aptitude for Mathematics that should serve him well in Physics. He is socially awkward but I think that is true of many physicists and they usually have no difficulties finding employment in industry, government, acadamia and even the financial world as their quantitative skills are usually in high demand.</p>
<p>Most of the Liberal Arts and many of the Biology majors chose those fields because they wanted to avoid taking rigorous courses in Math and Physical Sciences. It appears that a very large number of Americans fear Math, are convinced they can not do Math or are not willing to make the effort that learning something like Multi-variable Calculus requires. They flock to majors that have no or minimal Math requirements. They want a college degree that, above all else, does not require them to study Math and then are distressed when employers, who often prize quantitative skills in prospective employees, are not interested in hiring them. As long as the majority of American college graduates are able to get their diploma without taking a substantial course in Math, these college graduates are going to have difficulty finding stable and financially secure positions.</p>
<p>^Thank you for an extremely well informative and true post that I very much agree with. The cultural fear of math in the US is a pretty good inhibitor of one’s potential. However, I kind of disagree that people go to life science majors to “take the easy math less road.” Most colleges, including my own, require a full year of calculus for preparation for most life science majors as well as a full year of calculus based physics, chemistry, and organic chemistry. I don’t see how this is an easy road for the weary of heart students. Most of these students attempt it because they aspire to apply to med school only to realize that the demands of these courses are too much and they come back down to planet reality and opt out of the pre med path. As a neuroscience major myself, I don’t think my major is devoid of math and quantitative science in the least bit. I still have to take multi-variable calculus and calculus based physics 2 just for preparation for upper division classes. But yes, I do completely agree with your post. The American “fear of mathematics” has anything but helped college bound youth. If anything, there needs to be a paradigm shift soon so that people are aware that sometimes they have to NOT DO WHAT THEY LOVE and do WHAT THEY HATE (math) to get ahead in life.</p>
<p>I agree with most of your post as well. One part did make me laugh just a bit. I am considerably older than your younger son (and probably you). I wanted to major in physics. When I discussed this with both my high school counselor and college career counselor, they both told me that the only job possibilities would likely be teaching physics! Best of luck to both of your sons that have opted to take study paths that clearly lead to something.</p>
<p>Would liberal arts departments at some universities be forced to shut down due to increasing students going into STEM (if this happens in a hypothetical situation)?</p>
<p>^ I can’t see “shutdown” as probable in the foreseeable future. However, downsizing of some degree programs may be just over the horizon. Is college the next bubble?</p>
<p>I think we are a very long way from such an outcome. My younger son is one of about 15 freshmen majoring in Physics at California State University Sacramento this fall compared to over 700 new Psychology majors. Counting graduate students my older son is one of about 80 Geology majors out of a student body of 27,000 at CSUS. These numbers have remained fairly stable over the years despite the fact that Liberal Arts graduates have encountered increasing difficulty finding employment in their fields in recent years. I think that as long as students can get a BA without taking any more Math than a basic Statistics class, large numbers of students are going to continue to major in Psychology and Political Science. Currently, the fastest growing major appears to be Communications which consists of numerous Liberal Arts classes but apparently no Math or Physical Science courses.</p>
<p>Frankly, I am more worried about the future viability of the Geology and Physics Departments at CSUS which attract few new majors but require expensive laboratories and equipment than i am about the Liberal Arts Departments which produce far more revenue due to their much higher student enrollments and relatively low costs to operate.</p>
<p>@LeMaitre: “Fear of mathematics” is not a uniquely American phenomenon; it is found in many other countries as well. Having said that, I am under the impression that, in part because of higher college entrance requirements/selectivity, High School math education in the US has never been as advanced as it is today. Just look for example at the record number of HS juniors/seniors who take AP Calculus. </p>
<p>In fact, single-variable Calculus is fast becoming a required core curriculum subject even for humanities majors who did not take it in High School, and multivariable Calculus is of course a normally required course for all science/engineering and often even economics majors.</p>
<p>Of course not, where would the STEM students who are flunking out go? (That’s a JOKE, folks!) Seriously, the demand for liberal arts degrees will remain strong. I just don’t see massive shifts to STEM, as good as that would be for the country and the jobs picture.</p>
<p>As Lemaitre1 notes, liberal arts degrees are good business for colleges - high demand, low cost to deliver.</p>
<p>One thing that may help mitigate the angst: degree holders are still in a lot better shape than those without degrees. On CNN today, I saw a stat that said the unemployment rate for those with college degrees was just 4.5%, half the national average.</p>
<p>Anyone who still thinks engineering majors are way better off than liberal arts majors and have no problems finding work should get into the 21st century. North America is in a post-engineering era where most manufacturing is being relocated to China and other low cost countries. There are many engineers, both new and experienced, who are out of work and will never have an engineering position again. There is a lot more competition and job growth is either flat or negative in most engineering fields. I would not recommend any engineering major to a high school student based on what I have seen and experienced. More students would be better off with a skilled trade these days.</p>
<p>The German model is now gone. They have started educating the masses. That is why their test scores have dropped. When they were testing only those in Hohschule, their scroes were among the highest in the world. I had 3 foreign exchange students - the first under the German model, and he laughedhis way through his junior year here, and received no credit for it in Germany. The 2 students under our model had to have tutoring in Math. They are both in University there now, and have many chances to retake their course exams (your grade is based on the 1 test) in order to pass. Both have had to repeat courses and retake exams numerous time. The first student is a lawyer, who passed all his exams as they came up.</p>