Posted on 04/11/2014 8:46:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This month, high school seniors across America are receiving college decision letters of acceptance and rejection. Many of these students, and their parents, will think that where they go to college will significantly affect their employment future.
They think wrong. Today, whether you go to college retains some importance in your employment options. But where you go to college is of almost no importance. Whether your degree, for example, is from UCLA or from less prestigious Sonoma State matters far less than your academic performance and the skills you can show employers.
Research on the impact of college selection has focused on comparing the earnings of graduates of different colleges. In 1999, economists Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale published a widely-read study that compared the earnings of graduates of elite colleges with those of “moderately selective” schools. The latter group was composed of persons who had been admitted to an elite college but chose to attend another school.
The economists found that the earnings of the two groups 20 years after graduation differed little or not at all. In a larger follow up study, released in 2011 and covering 19,000 college graduates, the economists reached a similar conclusion: Whether you went to University of Penn or Penn State, Williams College or Miami University of Ohio, job outcomes were unaffected in terms of earnings.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Personal opinion, what effects your earning potential, and the security that can bring, is not education or lack of education, but rather do you have a marketable skill? In many cases, a marketable skill goes hand in hand with a college degree, e.g, physician, dentist, engineer, teacher, etc. But not always. I have a very good friend who runs a vehicle repair shop. He works on one type of vehicle, Dodge diesel pickup trucks. His education started as diesel mechanic working on tanks in the Army. Learned his skill, keep up on new technology and innovation, delivers a good service at a fair price to his customers and has more work than he can handle. Don’t just get an education, get a skill.
Do you know what they call the guy who grads last in his class from The American Medical School of the Caribbean?
Doctor.
‘It Doesn’t Matter Where You Go to College: It just matters that you go.”
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates might disagree. Neither stayed in college to earn a degree.
In my local business community there are many “millionaires next door” who went to work upon graduation from high school. One started working as a welder apprentice ultimately going out on his own and through hard work building from scratch a large welding company that does major projects requiring steel construction across the region. As the business grew he invested in other businesses and now in his early 50’s is a millionaire many times over. He is an honorable man with a wonderful family and children who are hardworking and motivated.
Another is a member of a minority who started working for McDonalds in high school and today owns multiple fast food franchises. Again, hard work and reinvesting earnings to build the business resulted in success.
Other successful non-college grads I know own HVAC companies, auto dealerships, construction companies, cabinet shops, automobile repair and tire shops.
For all of these individuals the secrets to success were simple:
1) Highly moral and ethical people. Their word is their bond. They only engage in business deals where both sides win and they always deliver on their promises.
2) They believe in personal accountability. The “product” they produce is high quality and consistent. Customers can rely on them. When something goes wrong they take care of the problem, often when the customer is in the wrong.
3) In the beginning they worked brutal schedules for little money.
4) They’ve always lived below their means. When they achieve wealth they live modestly and continue to work hard.
5) They hire good people, expect a lot out of them, and treat them well. This means treating them with respect as well as paying them well.
6) Families are important. They stay married to the same spouse. Their children are well behaved and work hard on the family business in menial jobs. They set extremely high expectations for their children.
7) They educate themselves. They are naturally inquisitive and take advantage of opportunities to learn from people they meet, their employees, competitors, and their suppliers. They read voraciously.
8) They are optimistic. When beaten down they pick up the pieces and drive forward.
None of the character traits listed above are taught in college today.
Get thee to a nunnery.
Just a technical correction....its called Columbia University College of Physcians & Surgeons. ;-)
That pretty much is the case for government jobs now. Degree is a degree is a degree, no matter from where.
It does explain the caliber of most government employees.
There are a lot of traditionally black colleges and universities in the southeast. They have available financing (via taxpayers) for anyone that can breathe. If they can breathe for 4 years, they get out with a degree.
When it comes to government jobs, the values their degree is equal to those with real degrees. This certainly applies to teaching jobs too.
I have nightmares thinking what’s going to happen to our healthcare system. When it comes to single-payer, the government won’t care if the doctor graduated from Duke or Alabama A&M or Johns Hopkins University or Alcorn State. We also know the government likes quotas.
These folks will be our doctors and the government will decide which ones you get to see. I guess I need to try to have a better outlook.
Plus the government will bring in the doctors(preferably female) from Bangladesh. He/she will have studied anatomy on a dog in a tent. “Their guiding philosophy being what is the sound one hand makes when it claps?” God help us.
Pretty much, 2 years at community college opened every door I ever needed.
The thought is very scary but we know how the system works.
I do not have a college degree, but I was trained in electronics by the Navy. The lack of a degree led to many closed doors, but I suspect those were mostly doors I would have regretted entering.
I tried to go back and earn an Engineering degree at age 39. While I really enjoyed the higher math classes, the rest was filler nonsense that colleges require solely to pad tuition income. I lasted 2 1/2 semesters before the BS wore me out at the same time someone offered me a good-paying job, right out of the blue.
What I really learned in college was that most college kids are ignorant, lazy, irresponsible morons. And college faculty are mostly cocooned from reality. And it’s not an environment that is easy for adults to suffer.
Can you say Port Au Prince School of Medicine, Medical School of Tijuana-Guadalajara Consolidated, Medical College of Habana, and so on.
I have nightmares thinking what’s going to happen to our healthcare system.
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Can you say Port Au Prince School of Medicine, Medical School of Tijuana-Guadalajara Consolidated, Medical College of Habana, and so on.
The thought of Alabama State University School of Medicine or Tuskegee University School of Medicine scare me enough.
I am confident both of these traditionally black colleges can get government funding to start their own medical schools.
And let me add, I’ve got nothing against black doctors that went to Duke, UAB, John Hopkins, etc. It’s the newer ones that our quota-driven politically correct inefficient government will create with single-payer.
I vaguely remember a "60 Minutes" hit piece on that institution back when they weren't so openly and rabidly obvious about their hatred of anything traditional or conservative. As I remember, they even had Ed Bradley do this piece. I think it was about obvious incompetence in educating prospective doctors at the school.
As a former college professor I can concur that it really does not matter what college you attend unless you plan on some really specialized vocation like brain surgeon or physicist or something. Any state university will give you a good education.
For the “Most kids have no reason to attend college crowd” let me assure you that a HS diploma and 99 cents will buy you a cup of coffee. Most corporations are looking to hire college grads. If you are not one you will never get into middle or upper management.
That being said vocational schools with 2 year programs are also a good way to go and by the time you finish they will help you move into a good paying job.
Yeah, tell that to our longtime auto mechanic. He never went to college. He owns a small but extremely busy shop. He's worth more than a million dollars, and he has his own mini-fleet of Corvettes.
But oh, no, we can't have young men going into those awful trades where they have to actually get dirty...perish the thought.
Based on your remark about Harvard I’m guessing you didn’t get an acceptance letter.
For good reason....I didn’t even try. :-)
Bill Gates did not drop out of Harvard. He was *asked* to leave.
There are a lot of people here on this forum who went to Harvard and some have children attending the school.
The one’s I’ve known tend to arrogance.
But - thanks for mentioning this. Should have kept my mouth shut. Arrogant people come from many places.
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