Hundreds of Colleges Provide No Income Boost

Parents Forum
181

I have admiration for any person that makes a contribution, whether liberal arts, science, engineering, or God forbid, accounting.

“It ain’t nursing and accounting grads interviewing the mayor.” Agree, and the people interviewing the mayor and getting to the bottom of things are important. But also it "ain’t " the liberal arts grads (although they may have focused on that as an undergrad) saving your kids’s life as a nurse or doctor or radiology technician . The engineers and scientists are dealing with the current flooding and erosion and crazy stuff going on now that many of us are dealing with. All the “vocational stuff” and expertise that we all depend on.

I certainly don’t know any super rich people that go back generations. Some families have done better with their wealth and legacy than others. Patrick Kennedy has just done a memoir that talks about the secrets in his family, like alcoholism and mental health issues. I think it is tough to maintain any kind of multigenerational legacy and I think there is pressure and stress with that which I don’t envy.

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@Zinhead #177: I realize it’s a great novel and all, but are you really offering a piece of historical fiction about a single family from over a century ago as evidence for what wealthy families generally are like?

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Look, Zinhead, you just can’t relegate all lib arts grads to minor positions and successes. Nor can you sweepingly state those majors from directionals or underfunded schools are all doomed. All that ignores the role of the individual, the drives and savvy.

Not all kids are created equal, regardless of major. We should put our energies into ensuring our kids are savvy, in as many respects as possible. Success is about far more than major or even income. Think about it.

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@dfbdfb - Yes, I am. Greats works are applicable throughout time. My kids don’t believe me, but Thucydides is a wonderful study of human nature quite applicable today when explaining the actions of people outside the western world. However, since you request something more modern but less timeless, here is a recent Washington Post article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/09/05/why-sally-cant-get-a-good-job-with-her-college-degree/

An excerpt:

"Wharton School professor Peter Capelli tried to figure out whether the problem in the labor market is because the jobs don’t require the skills that candidates are offering or because workers don’t have the proper skills that employers are seeking.

Here’s what he found. The main problem with the U.S. job market isn’t a gap in basic skills or a shortage of employees with particular skills, but a mismatch between the supply and the demand for certain skills. There’s a greater supply of college graduates than a demand for college graduates in the labor market.

This mismatch, according to Capelli, exists because most jobs in today’s economy don’t require a college degree.

“Indeed, a reasonable conclusion is that over-education remains the persistent and even growing situation of the U.S. labor force with respect to skills,” Capelli said in his study. This analysis leads to a final reason why Sally can’t get a good job with her college degree.

She has the wrong degree.

Students with traditional liberal arts degrees frequently find themselves underemployed, while students with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) have little trouble finding good jobs in their profession. Nine out of the top 10 least underemployed majors are in STEM (law is the exception).

Women, however, aren’t studying STEM. Biology is the only STEM degree among the top 10 most popular bachelor’s degrees for women, and it comes in slightly above English language and literature as a preferred degree. Moreover, women aren’t making up for this gap by studying science and technology in graduate school — not a single STEM subject makes it among the top 10 master’s degrees for women.

Putting these three explanations together — too much education, not the right level of education, the wrong degree — paints a worrisome picture for the job prospects of college-educated women.

On the one hand, a college degree provides a needed credential to get a job, even if that job doesn’t require a college degree. But, on the other hand, if a woman wishes to move up on the pay scale, she may have to consider dropping her liberal arts degree in favor of a more technically-oriented degree, like engineering or physics. Barring these changes, women may find that they are very well-educated, but not necessarily very well compensated."

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@lookingforward - I am not relegating liberal arts majors to a life of secretarial servitude, employers that are readily doing that.

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SMFH.

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My brother took a job at a clothing retail chain after college graduation (LAC, art major). He started doing the displays and windows because he has an eye for that and his education improved it. An exec at a well known designer liked the windows and gave him his card one day, less than a year in. My brother met with them and rose to VP within a few years, now owns his own company. Yes, an anecdote and I have many more. I personally studied sociology and never worked in the field. The field I do work in literally didn’t exist when I was in college. The sweeping generalizations about baristas do get tiring.

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“The sweeping generalizations about baristas do get tiring,” As do most generalizations, whether it be about liberals arts majors or STEM type majors,

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Women actually make up the clear majority of biology majors these days. However, the biology job market is not good from the job seekers’ side, so encouraging more women (or anyone else) to major in biology for job prospects is not a good idea (and when people say “STEM”, that includes biology, which is the most popular “STEM” major).

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@Zinhead, have you ever looked at any salary data 10 years out from graduation (not 10 years from starting college, and not from self-report sites like PayScale)? Just checking, because it looks like you might be generalizing without any, you know, real data.

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@alh Allow me to finish my thought before the conversation takes another turn.

As I said in my last post, the little rationalist in me reasoned that if decades of empirical evidence are pointing at general cognitive ability and conscientiousness, and that I can only do something about conscientiousness, the solution should be obvious. Hone my “creativity”? Sure I should, but I must work on analytical thinking as well. (The idea here is not to compete with theoretical physicists, but to get ahead of other fellow wordsmiths). When supply is greater than the demand, I must do all I can to get as far up the pecking order as possible.

Are students doing that?”Doesn’t look like it.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much

Perhaps that is why they are still drifting:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/02/new-book-blames-colleges-many-college-graduates-difficult-adjustment-adulthood

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Your argument is that colleges are failing to educate students? I only skimmed the links, but it seems resources were available and students just didn’t access them. Maybe you are trying to figure out how to create conscientious students?

I’m afraid we have basic philosophical differences. I don’t see education as a competition to get as far up the pecking order as possible, but rather to create good neighbors, citizens, and individuals who have the potential to put some good out into the universe. And it just makes life more interesting and worth living. Getting into college or getting a job is a side effect, not the goal.

I also don’t think it is possible to force people to be conscientious about their studies. It is possible to create an educational environment for children that provides opportunities and facilitates growth, but encourages children to be as self-directed as possible. It is much more difficult to create an environment where children learn music because they want to acquire mastery for their own self-satisfaction than to insist on a certain number of hours practice a day. I believe children educated the first way have a greater potential to be conscientious students.

In my world, by the time a student gets to high school or college that student can identify educational goals and figure out how to accomplish those goals. They may need to consult adults but they are pretty much taking responsibility. If they want to work for a consulting firm, go to law school, med school, grad school, act or paint or write, they seek out the opportunities needed to reach that goal. And they are pretty successful in achieving goals.

Of course, this is a pretty privileged view of education, the view of the “dreamers” Coates describes in Between the World and Me. I am not sure it is relevant for the students profiled in Paying for the Party or the women in Unfinished Business by Anne Marie Slaughter, dealing with “sticky floors,” and I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. However, when you talk about best practices at top consulting firms, I don’t think you are really considering those individuals either, though perhaps I am completely wrong about that.

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Or perhaps not, Canuckguy You’re citing a book. Actually, a book review. Not any sort of consensus. Academic writing, by intention, is supposed to offer some new angle. That doesn’t make it automatically definitive. New studies and new books enter the academic dialogue, that’s all. The next new detail, the latest perspective, isn’t exempt from some critical evaluation. What makes them hold weight or shift the thinking of others is far more than an early review. And certainly not some sidewise glance.

That’s the issue with many studies cited on CC. The detail is only as good as the folks diving into it with such willingness to accept it wholeheartedly. Ooops, am I criticizing their critical thinking?

When they note “a student who entered college in the 50th percentile of students in his or her cohort,” I’d say we already know what issues lie behind this.

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@Canuckguy - Those are both excellent books. Some excerpts:

"One in four of the students surveyed and interviewed for the book reported that they were living at home two years after graduation, a proportion that is nearly double than in the 1960s. More than half said their lives lacked direction. Seven percent reported being unemployed, 12 percent said they had part-time jobs, and 30 percent were working full-time but earning less than $30,000 a year. Half of those graduates were earning less than $20,000.

College selectivity did not significantly affect the graduates’ chances of employment, the authors write, and neither did gender, race or parental education.

Field of study had little effect on the probability of whether a graduate was working an unskilled or skilled occupation two years after graduation – except for students who studied engineering and computer science. While the probability of graduates who studied social sciences, humanities, science, math, and communication working an unskilled job hovered between 14 and 17 percent, the probability for graduates who studied engineering and computer science was just 4 percent.

Field of study did affect the probability of unemployment, with graduates who studied business and STEM-related fields having lower unemployment rates than those who studied social sciences, liberal arts, and the humanities. Business majors had a 2 percent unemployment rate among the graduates surveyed for the book, while social work, education, and health majors were at 8 percent unemployment. Communications majors had an unemployment rate of 9 percent. "

It is very clear that the higher education system is failing a large part of today’s students and parents. There are too many post high school educational institutions in this country, and too many kids are attending schools that they have little chance of graduating from. Too large a percentage of those who graduate study fields that they cannot find meaningful employment, and end up taking jobs they could have gotten without a college degree.

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^^ This. A thousand times this.

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Two observations I would like to make.

  1. College degree participation has greatly expanded just over the last 25 years ( I suspect even more if we went back 50 years) but here is the data going back to 1990 http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp

Certainly if we look at the # of manufacturing jobs in the USA 50 years ago we would probably see the proportion of service jobs to manufacturing jobs parallel the growth in college degrees – namely as we have become more of services economy we have needed less skilled blue collar jobs and therefore more kids have gone on to college to work in the services sector.

  1. All the statistics on income or educational achievement we look at are normally done for the median or average student at the relevant institution. This I suspect is a major problem as I think the skew to the tails is much greater than commonly appreciated. Going to college 30 years ago was reserved for kids with money and those who got good grades in high school;. Today you dont need money (thanks to student loans) and you dont need grades really either. So the bottom half of the distribution of kids who go to college are problematic and they skew the data and statistics to indicate among others this negative conclusion we are debating 'providng income boost or not' -- it is precisely this bottom half of college aspirants who probably should not be going to college but due to societal pressures feels they have to, they are the ones unemployed, living in parents basements and what not.

I think if we look at the top school college graduates we continue to see very successful kids becoming high income earning or high self satisfaction members of our nation and communities. The benefits of a college education are still very much paramount in terms of determinants of future success… but its increasingly a function of attending the best schools with the highest caliber students and resources. Ultimately this is why 90% of us are on this forum, n’est pas?

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The relevant links that have been posted in this thread suggests the lack of income post and other negative career prospects primarily relates to field of work, rather than attending the best schools and being the highest caliber of students. For example, the book review quote a few posts back states:

“College selectivity did not significantly affect the graduates’ chances of employment”

The McKinsey report on the previous page compares survey results for top 100 USNWR 4-year colleges and lower ranked colleges. They found that among survey respondents who attended top colleges, 41% said they were unable to find work in their desired field of employment compared to 48% who attended lower ranked 4-year colleges. 32% of graduates from top colleges reported working at a job that did not require a 4-year degree compared to 43% of graduates from lower ranked colleges. Respondents who attended top colleges were actually more likely to say they regretted their major choice than students attending lower ranked colleges. Yes, those are statistically significant differences in employment, but they do not imply working or career difficulties are primarily an issue related to attending the best colleges or being the highest caliber of student.

The employer survey reported college reputation (best schools) and college GPA (best students) as being the least influential factors in evaluating resumes of new grads for hiring.

The CollegeScorecard numbers suggest a similar trend. HYPS rank somewhere between 2500th and 3000th best in terms of lowest unemployment, which is only slightly better than average. Plenty of directional state type colleges have lower unemployment rates Nearly all HYPS grads are excellent students with great resources, yet the bottom 10% of currently working persons were still earning well below typical high school grads 10 years out, and the bottom 25% were earning less than typical US college grads 10 years out. Much of the lower earnings is by choice, but again it does not imply that the career and income issues discussed in this thread are limited to lower ranked colleges.

Looking at career center data for HYPS… type colleges provides an explanation. For example, Cornell reports that students who chose to work at a non-profit had a median salary of $33k. Education was not much better at $38k. In contrast grads in technology were over $70k. Grads in lower paying fields probably could have earned a higher salary had they not attended a 4-year college and focused on a vocational career instead. However, that doesn’t mean the college failed them or attending college was a bad decision. I think working in non-profits and education is admirable, and such students are likely happy with their career choices. If the college helped them achieve their goals and they are happy with their choices, I’d consider it a success, even if salary is not high. The same idea applies to many students who attended lower ranked colleges as well.

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It was probably more like 70 years ago that higher education was mostly for those from wealthy families and maybe a few other who were top end academic achievers. Then the GI Bill came, followed by the great expansion of the state universities. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was plenty of space in low cost state universities for lots of students. But costs have been rising, and increasing population has made admission more competitive at many state universities.

These days, a recent high school graduate does need money, or at least parents willing to continue to support him/her at home, in addition to student loans, to afford college (in the absence of scholarships and financial aid grants).

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I get your point, but it also doesn’t show that the one of the primary reasons why a HYPS type in this 33k-38k positions may not being carrying any debt at all–which is a profound difference. I know that many of my eldest Ds friends, who went to these schools, more than a few did a stint at TFA. One, because many of them wanted to, and were compelled by its mission, but also, they viewed it as a great first job of out of college. However, a little past 10 years out of getting their BA, most are doctors, lawyers and academics.

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@alh I come back to cognitive ability and conscientiousness. If colleges fail to educate students, that is because they admit students lacking in ability and or conscientiousness. If students fail to learn, it is for exactly the same reasons.

I do not see a dichotomy between getting an education and getting employable skills at the same time. With proper planning, I believe this can be achieved with a 4 year degree. In fact, I don’t understand why it is not possible to get a good solid education by the end of high school; 12 years is a long time.

Glad that you mentioned “Paying for the Party”. I find it disturbing that SES can have that great an impact on one’s life outcome. A cautionary tale for the working class for sure:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/01/colleges-party-emphasis-maintain-economic-social-inequality-new-research-suggests

@lookingforward One of the big problems with social science research is the lack of replication studies. Whenever I see unusual or eye-catching results, I would immediately look for statistical sleight of hand, and or comb through the researchers’ research history for bias, political or otherwise.

To check the validity of “Academically Adrift”, I reasoned that if students are this poor, similar results should be expected for younger cohorts and older adults alike. Here is what I found:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/us/us-adults-fare-poorly-in-a-study-of-skills.html?_r=1

Disturbing, to say the least.