Gifted article from the WSJ about under/unemployment of college grads in the developing world. I think it provides insights into how pursuing/giving out “credentials” rather than pursuing knowledge has cheapened college degrees even in the US.
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This is a bit scary. I do wonder to what extent something similar could happen in the USA.
A university degree is a large investment in time and effort and in many cases money. You hope that the quality of the education will be high and that this will lead to a career, or at least help in that direction.
This brings up a rather wide range of thoughts.
If there are quite a few universities of dubious quality in other parts of the world that might help to explain why some immigrants are so focused on highly ranked schools. I am an immigrant to the US, but come from a nearby country (Canada) where quite a few universities are very good, and the general quality remains high as you get past a handful of famous schools. I guess this might not be as true everywhere.
I also wonder which types of degrees and which careers are safe. Some (medicine) seem safe on the basis that people, and their animals, will continue to exist and will continue to get sick. Some others (software engineering, AI, math) might be safe, but are we sure? Something like mathematics benefits from being part of the basis for a lot of other stuff, and being hard enough to keep everyone from doing it. Anything in biotech assumes that someone will be able to afford to pay for the research. I suppose that engineering benefits from the fact that if a hurricane or time knocks it down, someone is going to want to build it back up again.
Sometimes we might assume that because this (education) has worked for us, and for many, many people that we know, that it will also work for the next generation.
Perhaps we just do our best, and hope that it works out. “You take the little that you know, and you do the best you can. And you see the rest with the quiet faith of man.”
I might add that this article seems to support my general view that taking on debt for an education can be a risk, and can limit opportunities. I suppose that the counter point is that if you are going to spend the time and effort to get a degree, then you want to get a high quality degree even if this costs a bit more.
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The expansion of dubious quality schools is mentioned in the linked page. In the US, that phenomenon already happened with the explosion of dubious for-profit schools, but stricter limits on financial aid funding based on gainful employment and similar measures led to that sector’s contraction.
However, the mismatch between fields and study and in-demand employment sectors is always an issue. Shifts in the labor market can happen a lot faster than it takes for someone to study toward a bachelor’s degree in a subject that appeared to be in-demand when they started. Mistaken assumptions about what is in-demand also contribute (e.g. it is common to believe that “STEM majors have good job prospects” among those who do not know how biology graduates are doing).
The speed of labor market shifts relative to the time needed for education and training also makes future prospects worse for those in jobs that are being obsoleted (as opposed to going through temporary downturns). To the extent that jobs being created may actually require a higher level of education and training, or that employers raise the credential minimums for existing jobs, this trend can increase the mismatch between the labor pool and the available jobs.
Much has been talked here about becoming educated enough to be able to adapt to new and different kinds of jobs in the future, but if employers do not give enough credibility to job applicants being adaptable, that adaptability may not be of much help in getting hired (although such adaptability appears to be more helpful within the same employer compared to when one is seeking a new job).
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This is part of the reason I don’t fixate on what my kids are majoring in - who knows what jobs will be out there in the future. I just want them to learn and gain skills. S22 is psychology major and doesn’t want to be a therapist - who knows what he’ll do. He does have outstanding communications skills (great writer and super articulate with really good people skills) and a creative bent - something will work itself out. S24 is doing math/econ and I assume he’ll figure something out as well. They are both at quality institutions (UNC & UVA respectively) if that means anything. I’ll add that my kids don’t have any debt/loans - we are lucky to be in a position to pay for their schooling. If that wasn’t the case I’d probably be more concerned.
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I agree. Unless you’re set on becoming a nurse or an engineer, I don’t think there’s much reason to sweat undergrad majors. My D23 is likely going to be just a Studio Art major, but she’s really learning to write well in college as well and she’s a hard worker.
I’m struggling with explaining this to my overachiever son who wants to major in Finance but would probably be happier in a History or Geology or Chemistry major. Hoping he chooses a school where he can move around easily.
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I am assuming this is because your Son is aspiring to a high pay career in finance. As @Catcherinthetoast and other poster who are (or were in the financial sector) will likely agree, unless the finance degree is from Wharton, Stern, Ross, maybe a few others, it really doesn’t put the student at an advantage vs going to a feeder school (Ivy+, certain LACs) who get good grades and have some quant classes (you can still be a Comparative Lit major if you have also taken some Math, CS, Econ, other data driven courses).
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The best hire I made while working in finance was a geology major. It took him a nanosecond to learn how to do a discounted cash flow analysis and while his colleagues were sweating part 2 of the CFA exam (usually considered the hardest) he was seemingly able to absorb the material very easily.
Just one data point which your kid probably won’t care about- but throwing it out there!
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Yes, I was a finance/business major at a “connected” LAC which is where I think it’s coming from. Which is of course ridiculous because I have been mostly a stay at home mom and my husband, the fine arts major, has been the primary breadwinner…so 
I’m not sure he actually wants a high paying finance career so much as he’s just not sure what he wants. Hoping that he will take some time to explore his options in school.
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I am happy to DM if I can help convince your son as a career I banker with a humanities undergraduate degree. Being happy and intellectually curious is important and being distinctive and true to yourself will set you apart.
This advice however comes with the caveat that you likely need to be applying from a limited universe of schools.
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Sure but the real problem is the lack of jobs. It’s really about supply and demand. Even if every one of these graduates had the knowledge needed for the career they wish to pursue, there just are not enough jobs for all of them. Someone once told me that about 25% of the students in india are pursuing tech, most notably engineering (not saying that he was accurate but this was his view). He didn’t seem to understand the very basic concept that if all of these people suddenly graduated with an engineering degree and there are not enough jobs, the wages for the jobs that are there will be depressed and that many engineering degree holder would face unemployment. He seemed to be of the view that there is no limit to the demand of engineering, merely a limit on the supply so it’s interesting to see the article mention the jobless rate in India for those with a degree being nine times worse than those without a primary degree and focuses on an engineering degree holder who can’t find a job. Similar story in America where in the 90’s many young people were sold the idea that a college degree is the key to success and then discovered during the financial crisis that many of the degree holders were only able to find jobs like being a baristas or Uber driver. There are more jobs here compared to 2010 and there wasn’t perhaps the same kind of expansion of higher ed all at once that seemed to happen in many of these places, but unemployment/underemployment is certainly a possibility for college grad here too, especially as more automation is likely to replace many white collar jobs.
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I wonder about engineering too- SO many kids going in to engineering these days- I know it’s a tough major, so maybe a lot of them will switch to something else but I really wonder just how many engineers we will need- seems similar to how so many people were pre-law in the 90s, and then there was a glut of lawyers. Always hard to predict this stuff I guess.
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Yes and same with CS. Hard to predict but with both CS and at least some areas of engineering such as electrical, petrolueum, aerospace and others, there also seem to be cycles of booms and busts.
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In the US…
CS last had a bust in 2001-2003 following an unsustainable boom.
Aerospace historically had booms and busts related to military spending, even though not all aerospace engineering is military-related.
Petroleum engineering can boom or bust depending on oil prices.
Civil engineering and architecture had a boom followed by a bust in the run-up of easy real estate and construction financing in the mid-2000s followed by the financial crash in 2008.
On the other hand, some majors tend to produce surpluses of graduates relative to major-related job demand at all times. For many such majors, students and graduates know that they need to be willing to seek jobs that are not that major-related, but those students and graduates who do not realize that may be more likely to be disappointed.
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There was also a boom in computer science in the 1980’s which was followed by a bust in the late 80’s mostly related to hardware but also software.
Some chemical engineers are also impacted by oil prices depending on their specialty.
I think a lot of students who enter these fields actually don’t know this. Speak to many entering biology and most will be pre-med so for many there is a direct path to a job in their minds even if that doesn’t hold up in reality. As for humanities majors, many were of the belief that a college degree is a ticket to success so they went to job fairs and realized the jobs were for engineering, computer science, business etc and were shocked to not garner the kind of interest they were expecting, especially after the financial crisis. I think this has had an impact on the huge decline of interest in these fields.
There was a line in the article that said that one individual, “has sent out dozens of job applications, which got him interviews but no suitable jobs,” (emphasis added). This really struck me, not because being an Amway rep or perfume salesperson or housecleaner seem to be a definite mismatch with the skill set expected of a college graduate, but because it seems to be so much more of an issue in the U.S.
In addition to the boom/bust professions like CS, petroleum engineering, architecture, etc, there seems to be a big disconnect between students’ aspirations and reality. There are students who go on to earn very specific majors/minors/certificates with a niche career path in mind. Then when they cannot find a position in that very particular career path, they think that something has gone wrong with the process.
In a sense, I suppose something did go wrong with the process if nobody told them that they were pigeonholing themselves or that the odds of getting into that niche field at an “appropriate” level straight from undergrad were pretty terrible.
But at the same time, it seems as though if a graduate earned a high GPA in college, particularly from a well-ranked school, they think that they’ve checked off all the checkboxes to get their desired goal. Additionally, particularly at the colleges where high schoolers are very desirous of attending, there seems to be a higher expectation of what a “suitable” job is for a college grad. So whereas people with more down-to-earth expectations might be satisfied with getting a job in insurance (a common job opening for new college grads, at least back in the stone ages) or as a bank manager or an HR generalist or a high school teacher (all professions where a college degree is generally an expectation), it doesn’t seem “good” enough for people who have been striving for the brass ring for most of their lives.
My concern for many of the strivers is that they seem to equate success with either 1) a very lucrative profession and/or 2) a prestigious employer. They seem to be aiming for a 1% type of career and seem to have a hard time coming to terms that they may be starting off on a top 10 or 20% type of career (which is still “better” than 80-90% of other jobs).
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Is a bank manager a realistic opportunity for a new grad? I would think that’s unlikely as I’d expect a manager needs to have some experience in the field and also some proof of being able to lead others in a professional setting but I’m not familiar with banking.
I also don’t think most graduates should even expect a top 10% or 20% type of career from the outset. The salaries of new college grads do not indicate that is the level of where they are getting placed. Maybe in comparison to an entry level position across the board but not across all jobs. Based on a google search, I see that the median starting salary for a college grad is listed as 54k while the median salary for all workers is 59k. I do think there is a mismatch but I think that while there are some graduates who believe that college will be the key to getting a 1% wage earner job from the start, the majority don’t but they still believe that just earning a degree will be enough to put them on a path to buy a house immediately and pursue the middle class life their parents had access to right from their first job. They get this view because their parents took this path and so naturally think their kids can and should follow in their footsteps. There are two issues with this view - wages are lower now than they were when the parents walked this path while houses cost more but also their parents got degrees at a time when less people had them and there was a booming job market so workers were needed. Just having a degree might have been enough to put someone in a position that today one would have to work years to get.
Yup. Many students at “top” schools want to be a consultant, hedge fund manager or work at a tech start up. When none of those pan out, there can be a feeling of disappointment. These are kids who are used to thinking of themselves as special - winners, if you will, and it can be pretty jarring when reality doesn’t live up to the picture they have in their minds.
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Probably many of those strivers grew up in families with top 5% money, so ending up in the top 10-20% will feel like downward mobility, and may be seen as “not enough money” to pay for the life they had growing up. In addition, parents like to see upward mobility for their kids, so there can be implicit pressure for the kids to find their way to some place above where the parents ended up.
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But it is so unrealistic to expect the same standard of living as your parents when you are just starting out. What happened to working your way up and living modestly as you get established (like many of us did).
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Even among those who accept that, they may be disappointed if they get into a career path is expected to peak at top 10-20% if their parents were in the top 5% or so.
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