We have legions of young people who have no clue as to what they want to do, so they go to college and get a degree, any degree.
This is a problem. There is also the problem of companies that require college defrees for even menial labor positions.
We are also having an issue with:
1) Workers who do not want to take jobs that are “beneath them.”
2) Employers who look down on applicants who did take jobs that were “beneath them.”
I read an article by a career councelor that said that most HR departments will trash a resume of someone who did take a lower-level job or a job outside the feild. That is standard practice. HR will only consider applicants that want a parallel move. Forget about training.
THAT RIGHT THERE is fueling some of the unemployment out there. When workers know this, they would rather stay unemployed than take a lower job.
We expect every student to pursue college after high school. And it just shouldn't be this way. For many young people, it's a waste of time and money.
When I was in high school back in the 80s we had a community vocational school or "votech"as it was called that taught careers in everything from plumbing, carpentry, welding, auto-mechanics and so on. Counselors and teachers could identify students that probably wouldn't be college-bound after high school and point them in this direction. They'd spend the morning at the regular high school and then they'd go spend the rest of the day at votech. At the end of their senior year, they'd graduate with an actual skill. Many of these students went on to make serious money.
Gradually, the district did away with this program. For whatever reason, they decided that all students should be prepped for college --whether they had any intentions of going or not.