17,000,000 Americans Have College Degrees For No Reason.

[Ponce]

I'd rather to have only a 10th grade education and be rich than to have a PhD and be poor.
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17,000,000 Americans Have College Degrees For No Reason.
by Ken Layne

by Ken Layne
3:43 pm October 27, 2010 264 Comments 4681 Views

Here is a Paradox, if you like such things: America is a Nation of Semi-Literate Buffoons, but America is also a Nation of Over-Educated (but still dumb) service workers. What? “In all, about 17 million people in this country have completed college only to end up working jobs that require a skill level below that of a bachelors degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” That includes 5,057 janitors with Ph.Ds. What is so wrong with being a “maintenance engineer,” we ask? At least it’s a job, right? There’s nothing wrong with it at all, it’s just that you don’t really need eight years of college and a hundred grand in student loan debt to mop up shit and blood in the emergency room, at night.
AlterNet reports:

Richard Vedder of the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that this is one sign the U.S. has over-invested in higher education. He points to a new National Bureau of Economic Research report written by three acclaimed economists, which concludes, “In general, marginal and average returns to college are not the same.” In layman’s terms, that means that even if our investment in higher education is yielding a decent return on average, efforts to build on that investment might yield a less-good return. Or, even more simply put, there is a point of diminishing returns in higher education. And, according to these indicators at least, we appear to have reached it.

Yes and no. America remains pathetically short on graduates with useful advanced degrees, the kind of people who have marketable knowledge and skill sets, such as computer engineers and scientists — the kind of people Google and Apple and Microsoft have to import from India and China.

But the vague, pointless liberal arts degree and its more expensive but equally worthless cousin — the doctorate degree in such mushy “disciplines” as education, physical education or social work — we’ve obviously got way too many people holding those pricey pieces of paper. Anyone who needs seven years of university to master P.E. is a moron.

Still, going to college is better for America than having its bored, unemployed youth join crime gangs or religious cults. That’s why, presumably, the Obama Administration is pushing more than 40 federal programs to expand the number of college graduates in all sorts of useless fields.

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Read more at Wonkette: 17,000,000 Americans Have College Degrees For No Reason

[chad]

i hate these types of stories. what's the alternative, become a textile plant worker? join the UAW? invent MS-DOS?

[RJB]

Yes and no. America remains pathetically short on graduates with useful advanced degrees, the kind of people who have marketable knowledge and skill sets, such as computer engineers and scientists — the kind of people Google and Apple and Microsoft have to import from India and China.
Even if an American has those degrees, the Chinese and the Indians will work for half the pay because they don't have the $50,000 to 100,000 dollar debts.

[Twisted Titan]

Richard Vedder of the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that this is one sign the U.S. has over-invested in higher education.

But still under-invested in the Pension of the minions who work for the Educational industrial complex.

[1970 silver art]

Racking up $100,000+ in student loan debt to get a college degree and end up finding a job that pays only $20,000/year is an excellent return on investment. :sarc: :sarc: :sarc: :sarc: :sarc:

How do you like that college degree with underemployment?

[willie pete]

^^^not every college degree will cost you $100k, not even close, paying in-state tuition and living off campus; you could probably get through most public colleges for less than half a $100k very easy...

[Liquid]

The problem is the high cost to get the degrees. More prove they want us all in debt and slaves. I don't use my degree, but I paid for it pumping gas and delivering pizzas. I don't regret it one bit.

[1970 silver art]

^^^not every college degree will cost you $100k, not even close, paying in-state tuition and living off campus; you could probably get through most public colleges for less than half a $100k very easy...


That is a good point Willie. I was using that $100K as an exaggerated example of how a college degree is not a good return on investment. My college degree did not cost nowhere near $100,000. Mine was fairly cheap with the help of scholarships and going to an in-state university but unfortunately, before I knew any better, I had to take out some student loan debt to finish up getting that college degree but am not worried about it because I am getting closer to paying that off and hope to pay it off in less than 3 years from now.

If I could go back knowing what I know now, then I would have not gone to college to begin with. College was a waste of time for me but it is my fault because I allowed myself to get brain-washed into believing that a college degree was the ONLY way to get a good job.

[willie pete]

yea, a college degree is no guarantee, the most important thing IMO is; What the degree is in....unskilled good paying jobs are difficult to obtain, whereas a degree in a field in demand, or will be in a higher demand in the future, I think is a much better way to go..that's my opinion, for what it's worth, and that's not much... :D

[Still Barbaro]

Getting a Uni degree benefited me tremendously - mentally - I learned a lot.

Job wise, I cannot say, as I took a different path.

But I do believe that many of the current Uni grads will take and have jobs that will not require a Uni degree.

Personal growth? Yes, if the individual chooses to use and engage it.

If not? These people should not have continued their "education."

[ximmy]

Getting a Uni degree benefited me tremendously - mentally - I learned a lot.

Job wise, I cannot say, as I took a different path.

But I do believe that many of the current Uni grads will take and have jobs that will not require a Uni degree.

Personal growth? Yes, if the individual chooses to use and engage it.

If not? These people should not have continued their "education."


I have undergrad and grad degrees... don't use them for work... but I agree, they have helped me in research, writing, analyzing, debate, dealing with difficult persons, all kinds of other non-work related things... I paid for mine as I went... If I couldn't afford a class, I worked longer hours, then took it.

[Ash_Williams]

But I do believe that many of the current Uni grads will take and have jobs that will not require a Uni degree.

Some of the jobs we hire for here don't require a uni degree, just like the article says. But, the part they forget is that the piece of paper still counts. If we have 250 people applying as soon as the ad goes up, we can be choosy and we're naturally going to choose someone with a degree over someone without.

So you don't need a degree to do the job.. you just need one to have a chance in hell of getting hired to do the job.

A real degree (math, physics) counts here a lot more than a crap degree (communications, contemporary studies.)

[willie pete]

There are no guarantees, but I think IF you're so inclined toward school, and not everyone is, the sciences are going to be the closest to a sure thing....my niece graduated with a degree in civil engineering, last year she finished up with her masters, she's still with the same firm she got on and interned with in college (Jacobs)..very smart girl and way ahead of the game even though she's in her late 20's .....a friends son is going to be graduating Pharmacy school this year, yet another one that will come out of school making $80-$90k plus

[iOWNme]

There is a reason.....And it isnt debt.

The inculcation and indocturnation received by students will guarantee subservient godless masses, that will submit to the will of the STATE.


THAT is the reason.

[willie pete]

There is a reason.....And it isnt debt.

The inculcation and indocturnation received by students will guarantee subservient godless masses, that will submit to the will of the STATE.


THAT is the reason.


Not all of them... :D

[1970 silver art]

If someone really wanted to go to college to earn a bachelors (or masters), then I would recommend that they DO NOT go into student loan debt to obtain that degree.

I think that the best thing to do is to first have some idea of what you want to do in life. If you have no clue of what you want to do in life as a career, then you should NOT go to college.

Going to college without a clue of what career to go in = FAIL!!!!!

[Fullpower]

The woman that just delivered my FedEx packages has a 4 year degree in sociology.

[PatColo]

been posted b4, worthwhile if you haven't seen,

Stossel - 20/20 : college is a rip off

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_24uSPedM

[Book]

I'd rather to have only a 10th grade education and be rich than to have a PhD and be poor.



You previously wrote that you have been cashing your USA Social Security check for the past eight years.

:oo-->

[millwright]

Hey Ponce, when the shit hits the fan this blue blooded millwright will be ready.

Need to cut,weld ,rig ,drill tap ,or wrench on something ? Im ready.

The college boys will be running for their lives.

This country is full of panzi ass college boys who can't even change a tire . I spit on them.

When the entire thing resets, what will society need? Folks like me who took years and years of real schooling and training to learn real world skills or a bunch of panti waste economic advisors and snakeoil salesman?

[chad]

Hey Ponce, when the sh*t hits the fan this blue blooded millwright will be ready.

Need to cut,weld ,rig ,drill tap ,or wrench on something ? Im ready.

The college boys will be running for their lives.

This country is full of panzi ass college boys who can't even change a tire . I spit on them.

When the entire thing resets, what will society need? Folks like me who took years and years of real schooling and training to learn real world skills or a bunch of panti waste economic advisors and snakeoil salesman?


won't be running for my life, trust me. :oo-->

[Ponce]

Millwright............in the "old days" a college degree assure you a good job EVEN IF IT WAS NOT IN YOUR FIELD OF STUDY, but now days even doing what your college degree says that you can do you no longer can do it, no jobs.

With me being the only one working, when I had a wife, I was able to buy a house, trailer, two cars, an education for my wife, took vacations and had a very good life.........30 years after we got a divorce my X found me once again and came for a visit and told me "Ponce? did you know that you were a very good provider?", I didn't see it that way.........I simply was the man of the house who did the work.

Hey guys? I'll give you shelter, power and water.......but you have to bring food, weapons and your own freaking tp........no one messes around with my tp >:(

[Dogman]

Millwright............in the "old days" a college degree assure you a good job EVEN IF IT WAS NOT IN YOUR FIELD OF STUDY, but now days even doing what your college degree says that you can do you no longer can do it, no jobs.

With me being the only one working, when I had a wife, I was able to buy a house, trailer, two cars, an education for my wife, took vacations and had a very good life.........30 years after we got a divorce my X found me once again and came for a visit and told me "Ponce? did you know that you were a very good provider?", I didn't see it that way.........I simply was the man of the house who did the work.

Hey guys? I'll give you shelter, power and water.......but you have to bring food, weapons and your own freaking tp........no one messes around with my tp >:(
;D


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbHS4YJOMc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbHS4YJOMc)

[ShortJohnSilver]

I have a niece, took 4 year English degree ... she doesn't know sh*t about English, has lousy grammar and is a lousy writer, has little to no familiarity with culture or any of the classics of Western Civilization. She is 24 and on track to be a loser...

[willie pete]

Millwright............in the "old days" a college degree assure you a good job EVEN IF IT WAS NOT IN YOUR FIELD OF STUDY, but now days even doing what your college degree says that you can do you no longer can do it, no jobs.

With me being the only one working, when I had a wife, I was able to buy a house, trailer, two cars, an education for my wife, took vacations and had a very good life.........30 years after we got a divorce my X found me once again and came for a visit and told me "Ponce? did you know that you were a very good provider?", I didn't see it that way.........I simply was the man of the house who did the work.

Hey guys? I'll give you shelter, power and water.......but you have to bring food, weapons and your own freaking tp........no one messes around with my tp >:(
;D


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbHS4YJOMc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbHS4YJOMc)


Ponce...just think if your cat used the toilet and used up all your TP.... :D

[FreeEnergy]

english , communications, history, sociology - all garbage, unless one goes for masters or phd. Business administration is bad too, but has its perks.


Ken Layne : America remains pathetically short on graduates with useful advanced degrees, the kind of people who have marketable knowledge and skill sets, such as computer engineers and scientists — the kind of people Google and Apple and Microsoft have to import from India and China.

Author has no clue. America has tons of computer engineers. They just ask for too much money, sometimes 10 times in comparison to India or China. Even if you bring indians here, they sometimes get paid half to a third. Apple and Microsoft just can count moneys well. Has nothing to do with the alleged shortage of engineers.

I agree, however, that US schools are getting pathetic, money is destroying them. US schools will now drag all kinds of pathetic losers through communications and english majors that don't deserve to get through college, and instead of sending them to blue collar works leave them forever in debt.

[po14015]

By the time a person graduates high school they have had 14,000 hours of brain washing. Not only is it the subjects, but the patterns at school.

Get up at 8 am, lunch at noon, and get out of school at 3 pm.

And if you don't graduate, you can't get a ???

Then you have two options: get a ??? or go to college so you can get an even better ???

So you go to college. And after forking over enough money (and losing the earning potential during the time in school) to buy several sources of cash flow (ex. rental properties), you graduate with a degree. Now you go out and get a ???.

And you start work at 8 am, lunch at noon, and get out of work at 5 pm.

So the whole idea of whether to go to college or not boils down to asking which ??? you want.

The secret is that we don't even need a ???

We just have to undo 14,000 hours of programming. And we wonder why so many people are so hard to wake up.

[Ponce]

Book? yes, I have been cashing my SS for the past eight years........and what's wrong with that?, after all, is mine.........no?

I don't count my silver and gold till I cash them..........if ever........If I don't that would mean that I never ran out of cash and that WTSHTF never did happen, why don't I cash it now and live it up?......wel, I have all that I need or want and live in the perfect place.....besides a young woman to keep me company what else would a man want?...........don't you think so?.

And I did have a cat long ago that use to take a pee in the toilet........where the hell she learned how to do that and why? hell if I know........but she knew bett than to use my tp hahahahahahahahah.

po? is like I keep on saying........they only teach you what they know and not what you should know....besides, you are tought only by one teacher about one subjet therefore only learning what she knows.

[Silver Shield]

Total student debt is reaching $1 TRILLION dollars in the US.

That is just the debt not including those that paid for their school with cash and scholarships.

I went to a top ten school and had the very fortunate situation of my dad paying for it.

I can tell you from the top there are only two reasons to go to college.

1. If you are going to school to get a formalized degree for a job that requires it. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher... But think long and hard at the amount of people out there with degrees AND job experience that you will be going against in the market.

2. Contacts. College forces people from all different walks of life in an common experience. These contacts can by themselves lead to a better life by just being in the right circle. This is a low probability play since most of the people you will be hanging around are just like you.


If you do not fit into those two categories you are better off literally burning your money and attaching a ball and chain to your leg, at least you won't look like a fool for going into debt.

[Twisted Titan]

For most people the best school would be a Trade School.

If for no other reason anything that you learn by default has relevancy or else it would not be taught.


I ask my shop teachers ( how is this releated to the field)? They always have a answer.


Try asking a college professor teaching "humanities" how dose this relate to the working world. You wont get a answer and will probally get a F to boot.


T

[Ponce]

To rebuild America that's what we will need..........trade schools.......do away with computers and anything that got us into this trouble to start with........like congress?

[hoarder]

There is a reason.....And it isnt debt.

The inculcation and indocturnation received by students will guarantee subservient godless masses, that will submit to the will of the STATE.


THAT is the reason.
You nailed it. Schools are indoctrination camps, as we're expected to PAY to be brainwashed.

I have a 10th grade education myself. I retired at age 44 without the help of family, Masons, connections etc. Of course it did entail a lot of hard work.


I find that college educated people in general use better grammer, spelling and have a better vocabulary, but with a lack of hands on real work and problem solving with accountability to the side effects of their "solutions" they never seem to develop their character.
The indoctrination neutralizes their keen sense of the obvious.

[Ponce]

Hhahahahahahahaah Hoarder, I'll trade my bad English for money anytime of the week, as long as you understand when I curse you out..........everything else does not matter.

[mick silver]

i have done way better then most of the people i know who went to college ... learn a trade and start a business . what every trade you learn be the best at what you do and you will never be hungry

[kregener]

The University system has become a communist training network.

[PatColo]

The University system has become a communist training network.


I recall beginning public college in '86, and getting through those required/core lower division courses, including "US History". I recall how the prof spent like 2 days on "McCarthyism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)" (<< kosherpedia), vilifying Senator McCarthy, the congressional commie witch hunter... a really off-the-rails conspiracy nut-job who recklessly sought to destroy people's careers with false/baseless "communist" accusations..., oh what a blemish the "McCarthy Era" was in America's proud history, etc, then of course we had to regurgitate how bad McCarthyism was on the test. They really beat it into our heads.

Funny, given what I know now, IE the NWO is basically a global commie/fascist conspiracy, that even by the mid-80s they were indoctrinating us on how bad it was to question that there may be a commie conspiracy... as we were being systematically indoctrinated as part of a commie conspiracy... chutzpah!

One of Hollywood's early contributions to this "social engineering" campaign to label the notion of fingering a commie conspiracy "bad behavior", was The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manchurian_Candidate_%281962_film%29).

Think of how the MSM over the decades has sought to marginalize/discredit the John Birch Society (http://jbs.org), as kooky paranoid deluded "right-wing-extremist" McCarthyesque commie witch hunters...

"Mind blowing speech by [JBS founder] Robert Welch in 1958 predicting Insiders plans to destroy America"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZU0c8DAIU4

[hoarder]

Robert Welch doesn't mention his tribe's involvement in inventing, financing, promoting and implementing communism.

[illumin19]

For most people the best school would be a Trade School.

If for no other reason anything that you learn by default has relevancy or else it would not be taught.


I ask my shop teachers ( how is this releated to the field)? They always have a answer.

T


Trade school, that's what I did..........I didn't want to pursue a degree unless it was to be a doctor/scientist but...that never happened :D Though I am set on learning languages at the moment......Arabic (for $50 ;D), after will be French (insha'Allah) and I doubt i will get a degree learning those either. 8)

[Twisted Titan]

Robert Welch doesn't mention his tribe's involvement in inventing, financing, promoting and implementing communism.


DING!!! DING!!!! DING!!!! DING!!!! DING!!!! DING!!!


http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:skdOy0ZsVOAJ:www.bibliotecapleyades .net/sociopolitica/sociopol_rockefeller01.htm+robert+welch+sold+his+c andy+business+for+top+dollar+to&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us



The Rockefellers were also active on the "right-wing" front through their sponsorship of the John Birch Society. To enable Robert Welch, a 32nd degree Mason, to devote all of his time to the John Birch Society, Nelson Rockefeller purchased his family firm, the Welch Candy Company, from him at a handsome prices; Welch chose the principal officers of the John Birch Society from his acquaintances at the Council On Foreign Relations.



For years afterwards, American patriots were puzzled by the consistent inability of the John Birch Society to move forward on any of its well-advertised "anti-Communist" goals. The fact that the society had been setup at the behest of the backers of the world Communist revolution may have played some role in this development.