Many youths are not capable of the technical degrees that have higher standards than a simple BA, so they should think of the many trade schools that provide good jobs. We see all the commercials on TV about trade schools and how they place their students into well-paying jobs.
“But we have all these BA graduates walking around jobless.”
This assumes that the unemployment among college graduates is higher than the non-graduates. Is that true?
"Self-faith helps inferior men to accomplish results by eliminating fear, doubt, and uncertainty, the great enemies of most men’s achievement. The mind cannot act with vigor in the presence of doubt. Wavering in the mind makes wavering execution. There must be certainty, or there is no efficiency. The ignorant man who believes in himself, who has the faith that he can do the thing he undertakes, often puts to shame the college-bred man whose overculture and wider outlook have brought with increased sensitiveness a lessening of self-confidence, and whose decision is weakened by constant weighing of conflicting theories, whose prejudices are always open to conviction.
The ignorant man with great self-confidence, strong, vigorous self-assertion, lacks the finer sentiments, but is spared the finer suffering of a more sensitive, cultured mind. His brain powers have not been weakened by theories or by the knowledge of how much he does not know. He simply plunges ahead where a cultured man would hesitate.
The weakening of self-confidence, the development of timidity, is often an unfortunate result of a liberal education. I have known boys to enter college with unbounded confidence in what they could accomplish, with strong powers of self-assertion, who have been graduated with those qualities almost eliminated. They have been replaced by the gradual development of timidity, and a shrinking from positive statement of fact which seriously crippled the men’s executive faculties.
Great scholars are proverbially retiring, shrinking, timid natures, often lacking almost entirely the executive faculty. Their self-assertion has disappeared, giving place to self-effacement. Unassuming humbleness, patience, and tolerance are very desirable qualities in their right places, but very unfortunate when they are not subordinated to vigorous self-faith and an aggressive self-assertion. These lovable qualities make the scholar more companionable, but less practical and less successful. The aggressive, executive faculties should be preserved intact at all hazards, or the career will be cramped and limited."
(Every Man a King, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1906), pp. 155-156.
Yes. More science and engineering degrees.
At some point employers were no longer permitted to give IQ or intelligence tests to new recruits. The degrees became a cheap proxy for intelligence, as at least a demonstration of some basic skills, since a high school diploma did not guarantee this any more. A multi-trillion dollar scam because intelligence tests are “racist.”
Went to college but did not finish my degree.
I have saved in my 401k since I was 23. I am now 54.
$408,000,000 accumulated.
I know its not enough to retire but heck for a HS diploma I should do OK save the govt I do not trust......
The degree has value if you can support yourself with it.
In contrast my niece is in Medical school, my nephew, 27 has a PHD in Environmental Engineering and is one of 5 worldwide expert on a certain code...very proud of them but they had scholarships too.
I don't have kids but encourage many friends with kids to consider trade school.....
We need to stop letting kids go to college for free. Yes, using student loans to pay all your expenses is free, because most kids going to college that way don’t even think about paying back the loans while they are in school.
If you have to pay for it, you will take it more seriously and get something out of it, and you’ll graduate with actual skills and abilities that are useful.
If you go for free, you’ll have a good time and party and go to just enough classes to stay on the gravy train and you’ll graduate with a big debt but very little else.
Every student should need to have a job, work and earn money in order to qualify for a student loan, and they should be required to pay for part of their college expenses (say half), in order to get loans for the other half. Then they will take it seriously and actually work. And the ones who have no business in college won’t go.
I would advise your hypothetical student to go to college and study science and to finance their education by a job that involves a trade skill.
Get your BA in whatever, get a broad education.
Then plan to go to work at the ground level, sweeping up the shop. In a decade, if you are smart and you work hard and they learn to count on you, you’ll be running the place.
And then at some point maybe you buck up and open your own shop.
The point of a broad liberal education is being educated. It doesn’t guarantee you a check in the mail; the biggest problem we have is that kids don’t understand that. Get educated. Then go to work. If you don’t know where to start, go see the Navy recruiter. He’ll know what to do with you.
Right now, the college population could be cut by 75% and the result for the 25% who remained would improve.
For me, the best education is 4 years in the service and a set of Harvard Classics. Three hundred bucks on ebay.
I tell the young guys to learn a trade. Whether or not they listened, who knows.
I would suggest that students seek degrees in Gender studies, Black studies, and Women’s studies. That is if I hated those students and wanted them to waste tens of thousands of dollars for NOTHING! Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, brick masons, carpet layers, can all make great money. Some BAs are useful, like history, and literature, but they don’t usually lead to a well paying job. The value of a college education is way overblown. There are many BAs, MAs, PhDs out there that are working in grocery stores, and other low wage jobs. Nothing wrong with any kind of work, but why rack up a huge student loan debt when there is no great paying job in the end? Some degrees were created by fools, and only fools major in them.
The term “starving artists” exists for a reason.
When everybody has a BA, then nobody has a BA.
They should just add grades 13 and 14 to high school and kids would get basically the same education as an AA. Then, go to college for only two years to earn a BA in the sciences, mathematics, engineering, etc.
The current racket is good for colleges and universities, more so than the students.
Parents’ basements everywhere are filled with kids sporting worthless BAs.
This depends on the individual student. I know you hear all these horror stories about college, but on average college graduates make more money and have less unemployment than non college graduates. The trick is to figure out what you want to do and then get the skills to do it. If you hate plumbing your not likely to do well at it. If you hate writing don’t shoot for a PhD in Psychology.
My daughter and son in law each have degrees many freepers would disown their kids for. He BA political science she BS Psycology, BS Biology. They both have advanced degrees as well. Making just under 6 figures EACH, early 30s, love their jobs, no debt. They work very hard and are very entrepreneurial.
It really depends on the circumstances, what are they good at, what will they get enthused about? No matter what they choose they need a great work ethic.