Overeducated and underemployed(economy.money.cnn.com)
economy.money.cnn.com
Overeducated and underemployed
http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/01/28/overeducated-and-underemployed/?iid=Lead
13 comments
You're taking that word way out of context. "Overeducated" here means getting an academic credential where it isn't necessary. There's nothing wrong with learning a lot, but that doesn't mean you need to pay $200K for a college degree.
Average student debt is $25K, hasn't been increasing that much, except in for-profit schools like Univ of Phoenix:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/student-...
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/student-...
Student debt for bachelors, maybe.
Even then this doesn't tell you the cost of education (IE how much you + your parents are spending), only how much money you still owed at the end.
If it takes eating your parents 401k to pay for college, that's still very harmful, even if you only have 36k debt at the end.
Lastly, all the numbers are normalized to 2009 dollars, which makes them hugely misleading. If you look at the original data source, in original dollars, the debt load has gone up by ~50% in <10 years
(They are also estimates, with 2009 being based on 17,000 out of 1.6 million degree earners. i'm too lazy to look up the methodology in the referred report to see if it's sane)
Even then this doesn't tell you the cost of education (IE how much you + your parents are spending), only how much money you still owed at the end.
If it takes eating your parents 401k to pay for college, that's still very harmful, even if you only have 36k debt at the end.
Lastly, all the numbers are normalized to 2009 dollars, which makes them hugely misleading. If you look at the original data source, in original dollars, the debt load has gone up by ~50% in <10 years
(They are also estimates, with 2009 being based on 17,000 out of 1.6 million degree earners. i'm too lazy to look up the methodology in the referred report to see if it's sane)
A student in a four year program will lose about $150,000 at time of graduation by simply not working during that time, never mind any costs that are incurred by the schooling itself.
correcting rampant old wives tales is pretty much a thankless job, so thank you.
'"Overeducated" here means getting an academic credential where it isn't necessary.'
I would say it was said to set a worthiness factor on a profession; to imply that taxi drivers are not valuable to our society.
The software industry most certainly does not require a degree either, and we have countless success stories of people in the industry without degrees or relevant degrees, but we wouldn't say someone with a degree is overeducated to do the job because we regard programmers in high standing. Imagine if this article was about all the overeducated CS grads working as programmers. We'd be all up in arms about it, even though there is no theoretical difference. You still need complex skills and education to be a good taxi driver. It is not something just anyone can hop into the car and do.
I would say it was said to set a worthiness factor on a profession; to imply that taxi drivers are not valuable to our society.
The software industry most certainly does not require a degree either, and we have countless success stories of people in the industry without degrees or relevant degrees, but we wouldn't say someone with a degree is overeducated to do the job because we regard programmers in high standing. Imagine if this article was about all the overeducated CS grads working as programmers. We'd be all up in arms about it, even though there is no theoretical difference. You still need complex skills and education to be a good taxi driver. It is not something just anyone can hop into the car and do.
Not true. Many, if not most, programming jobs require a college degree to even apply, at least in the US.
If what you say is true, I expect primary industry plays a significant role. Vocal software companies certainly do not enforce such requirements. Not even the big ones like Google and Facebook.
If you are writing software for a company that makes, say, shoes, maybe things are different. You might even need to have a degree to get a job as a driver in the shoe company, as a result of their overall business culture.
I'd love to look over the numbers if you still have them handy.
If you are writing software for a company that makes, say, shoes, maybe things are different. You might even need to have a degree to get a job as a driver in the shoe company, as a result of their overall business culture.
I'd love to look over the numbers if you still have them handy.
That sounds like an argument for reforming how college is paid for. Like, say, having colleges that people can go to at no cost, without burdensome debts. There are countries on this planet that have managed to do such things...
... like socialist countries? In this case it's definitely not "no cost"; people pay for these with high tax rates.
That as "at not cost to the student." Yes, society as a whole has to pay for education, but the long-term benefits more than offset that cost. Better-educated people are less likely to fall for scams, they are more likely to make good decisions about their health, etc. Democratic systems require educated populations: poorly educated voters will make really bad decisions about who or what to vote for, or will base their votes on things that are utterly irrelevant to society's problems.
This is not terribly different from the government paying for scientific research (disclosure: I am a grad student who is paid out of a grant from DARPA). Government-funded is a key component in scientific progress; while industry-funded research can make strides, there are certain lines of work that do not have a clear enough market potential for any business to justify funding, but which have expanded human knowledge and in some cases opened new markets (and thus paved the way for further research by the private sector). The public as a whole benefits from government-funded research in the long-term, even if it means higher taxes.
So while I will admit that you are correct in a technical sense -- education does cost someone, somewhere -- the bigger issue here is not whether education will be paid for, but who will benefit from it once it is paid for. Our current system of student loans has the effect of ensuring that people from a certain minimum economic background are more likely to benefit from education than others, and the wealthier a person's family is the more able they are to benefit from a good education. The effects are not hard to see: poor people are more likely to make bad decisions about their health, more likely to fall victim to scams (including but not limited to the lottery), more likely to commit crimes, and are less able to improve their lives or organize themselves for change. It would help to improve high school education, but that can only go so far.
The real issue here is the attitude Americans (and to be fair, plenty of other country's citizens) have about education. People tend to assume that college is high-end vocational training, where people go in order to get a "good job," which is typically defined as a job that pays a lot of money. The result of the popularity of that view is what we see today: a system of student debt, which has undermined the quality of college education and somewhat ironically undermined the confidence employers have in job candidates who present a college degree. With students who only care about the amount of money they will make after they graduate, who often try to rush through school so they can accumulate less debt and can begin paying it back faster, colleges have relaxed their requirements, slashed the budgets of departments that lack a clear vocational mission, and pressured professors to not make courses too rigorous. You see this sort of thing in computer science, where many departments only offer one or two theoretical courses per year, and where students can graduate having little to no understanding of fundamental CS questions (like the P vs. NP question) or who cannot state the answer to the Entscheidungsproblem or explain its significance.
Were we to adopt a different view -- the view that a well-educated populace is necessary for a healthy democracy and that society needs a critical mass of people who are capable of thinking for themselves as a protection against the formation of an aristocracy -- we would never have wound up in this situation. There would be no question that education should be paid for as a public good, certainly not in a country whose constitution forbids titles of nobility and guarantees that all citizens have certain rights regardless of their place in society. In theory, that is why we have a public education system at all; in practice, our public education system has been systematically undermined, and the voting public has long forgotten why we have public schools at all. At the rate we are going, there will be no public education at all when my hypothetical grandchildren are born, there will only be vocational academies and private schools, and poor people will only receive the minimum training needed to work in service and maintenance jobs.
This is not terribly different from the government paying for scientific research (disclosure: I am a grad student who is paid out of a grant from DARPA). Government-funded is a key component in scientific progress; while industry-funded research can make strides, there are certain lines of work that do not have a clear enough market potential for any business to justify funding, but which have expanded human knowledge and in some cases opened new markets (and thus paved the way for further research by the private sector). The public as a whole benefits from government-funded research in the long-term, even if it means higher taxes.
So while I will admit that you are correct in a technical sense -- education does cost someone, somewhere -- the bigger issue here is not whether education will be paid for, but who will benefit from it once it is paid for. Our current system of student loans has the effect of ensuring that people from a certain minimum economic background are more likely to benefit from education than others, and the wealthier a person's family is the more able they are to benefit from a good education. The effects are not hard to see: poor people are more likely to make bad decisions about their health, more likely to fall victim to scams (including but not limited to the lottery), more likely to commit crimes, and are less able to improve their lives or organize themselves for change. It would help to improve high school education, but that can only go so far.
The real issue here is the attitude Americans (and to be fair, plenty of other country's citizens) have about education. People tend to assume that college is high-end vocational training, where people go in order to get a "good job," which is typically defined as a job that pays a lot of money. The result of the popularity of that view is what we see today: a system of student debt, which has undermined the quality of college education and somewhat ironically undermined the confidence employers have in job candidates who present a college degree. With students who only care about the amount of money they will make after they graduate, who often try to rush through school so they can accumulate less debt and can begin paying it back faster, colleges have relaxed their requirements, slashed the budgets of departments that lack a clear vocational mission, and pressured professors to not make courses too rigorous. You see this sort of thing in computer science, where many departments only offer one or two theoretical courses per year, and where students can graduate having little to no understanding of fundamental CS questions (like the P vs. NP question) or who cannot state the answer to the Entscheidungsproblem or explain its significance.
Were we to adopt a different view -- the view that a well-educated populace is necessary for a healthy democracy and that society needs a critical mass of people who are capable of thinking for themselves as a protection against the formation of an aristocracy -- we would never have wound up in this situation. There would be no question that education should be paid for as a public good, certainly not in a country whose constitution forbids titles of nobility and guarantees that all citizens have certain rights regardless of their place in society. In theory, that is why we have a public education system at all; in practice, our public education system has been systematically undermined, and the voting public has long forgotten why we have public schools at all. At the rate we are going, there will be no public education at all when my hypothetical grandchildren are born, there will only be vocational academies and private schools, and poor people will only receive the minimum training needed to work in service and maintenance jobs.
I would add to that: being a cab driver out of college doesn't mean you are making a career out of it. It's called an "entry-level" job for a reason.
Could also be an immigrant with a degree from another country that is learning the language or getting situated as well.
That said the story doesn't point to the trend from 1970 till now. The data is available I'm assuming. But did this happen evenly over time or in the last 5 or 10 years or?
That said the story doesn't point to the trend from 1970 till now. The data is available I'm assuming. But did this happen evenly over time or in the last 5 or 10 years or?
Or a stop-gap job being taken on during a period of massive job destruction (something like 7M jobs were lost from 2007-2010)
Entry level job is a job teaches your skills and gives you the experience to get a better job in the same field. Taxi cab driver isn't an entry level job, being an intern or assistant is an entry level job.
Taking a data entry gig at a large firm is entry-level. You can grow into bigger things there. Driving taxis is a dead-end job. There's nowhere to go once you achieve mastery.
If you really paid attention and grokked the problems with the taxi business on a fundamental level, you might be in a position to launch a competitor for Uber.
But yeah, unlikely.
But yeah, unlikely.
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This has the usual journalist bias of putting all graduates in the same bucket. I would like to see the same statistic, but with Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, EE, Mechanical Eng., etc all in their own buckets.
There seems to be some kind of outrage that you can go to a good school and get a 4 year degree and end up working with people who just graduated high-school. New grads were probably led up the garden path and not given realistic expectations. On the other hand everybody knows there are no jobs for English, Communications, Journalism, or any of the various 'Unemployment Studies' programs. Everyone knows this, it's past common knowledge and well on it's way to becoming a cliche.
Basically, I guess you can boil down what I'm saying as, "If you partied in college, and didn't take classes that were hard: you didn't learn anything, and that is why nobody will pay you for access to your training."
It used to be that certain kinds of jobs were reserved for a 'college man', but that was because that was synonymous with white and upper middle to upper class. The great liar, statistics, said that a college degree was highly correlated with lots of great outcomes, higher income, better employment, etc. The government started laying lots of money into getting everyone to go to college, without realizing that people weren't paying for the college part of college grads, they were paying for the stuff that college was correlated with. Like if the British started sending more people to Eton because they wanted to increase the size of the royal family.
These days who you know matters as much as ever. However, and this is kind of new, since the 20th century (or post Edison anyway), you can have a very comfortable and low risk life regardless of where you started, if you can learn enough technical stuff. Rich people and companies will pay to rent your brain all day. They will only pay, though, if your brain can do things that most brains can't, it's like anything else, value comes from scarcity.
So, if you are going to Harvard and your dad went to Harvard and your parents friends are as rich as they are, study whatever, you'll be fine. If your parents had to show up to work and had a boss, or worse if you are on scholarship, for the love of god study something with some cash value.
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.” - John Adams
There seems to be some kind of outrage that you can go to a good school and get a 4 year degree and end up working with people who just graduated high-school. New grads were probably led up the garden path and not given realistic expectations. On the other hand everybody knows there are no jobs for English, Communications, Journalism, or any of the various 'Unemployment Studies' programs. Everyone knows this, it's past common knowledge and well on it's way to becoming a cliche.
Basically, I guess you can boil down what I'm saying as, "If you partied in college, and didn't take classes that were hard: you didn't learn anything, and that is why nobody will pay you for access to your training."
It used to be that certain kinds of jobs were reserved for a 'college man', but that was because that was synonymous with white and upper middle to upper class. The great liar, statistics, said that a college degree was highly correlated with lots of great outcomes, higher income, better employment, etc. The government started laying lots of money into getting everyone to go to college, without realizing that people weren't paying for the college part of college grads, they were paying for the stuff that college was correlated with. Like if the British started sending more people to Eton because they wanted to increase the size of the royal family.
These days who you know matters as much as ever. However, and this is kind of new, since the 20th century (or post Edison anyway), you can have a very comfortable and low risk life regardless of where you started, if you can learn enough technical stuff. Rich people and companies will pay to rent your brain all day. They will only pay, though, if your brain can do things that most brains can't, it's like anything else, value comes from scarcity.
So, if you are going to Harvard and your dad went to Harvard and your parents friends are as rich as they are, study whatever, you'll be fine. If your parents had to show up to work and had a boss, or worse if you are on scholarship, for the love of god study something with some cash value.
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.” - John Adams
I don't like what you said. You made it sound like that English and Journalism are easy majors. Even though it is harder to find jobs with those majors right now, they are not necessarily easy majors. In fact, depending on your talents,these majors can be very hard. Taking me as an example, I can never imagine myself majoring in English or Journalism because I dislike writing and I have never done too well in my English courses. To me these two majors would be harder than Math and Chemistry. On the other hand, my friend who is a history major is naturally good at writing but has very difficult times understanding Math related materials. I always admire her for her writing skills and always ask her for help when it comes to writing application and essays. She always wishes that she could be good at Math.
Also what majors make good money also depends on the time we are living in. I don't know about American history but I know in Chinese history during the 1910s,people with arts majors would make more money. At that times, China was going through an intellectual revolution in which Western ideas were being introduced. At that times, many scholars would abandon their engineering, economic and medicine degrees and become writers or journalists.
Edit: I don't live in China....
Edit: I don't live in China....
The idea that we should be rewarded for doing something hard, regardless of its value, is a consequence of a nation weaned on video games. Navigating a maze may be hard, and you might have a natural talent about it, but the real question is whether that's a skill other people consider worth paying enough for to cover your overhead. The market is voting against History, Journalism, etc. Learn a skill (or build a product) valuable to other people and you'll do fine.
Downvoters: I like video games, I just don't expect to payed for my RTS skills.
Downvoters: I like video games, I just don't expect to payed for my RTS skills.
I have no idea what the difficulty of various majors are in China.
Now, let me put this caveat in the front: At a good University, there are people who are serious and will amaze you in the following majors. Those people will be successful, and go on to graduate school and eventually become academics. But that doesn't change the fact that...
In America, the following majors are a joke. If you are bright and can read wikipedia, you will find that two hours of reading will leave you ahead of 90% of the people majoring in these things in knowledge of their major: Criminal Justice History Journalism English Kinesiology Communications Anthropology Religious Studies, Comparative Religions
And of course there are things that are more about passion and talent: Anything Art (Film, painting, photography, music)
Now, let me put this caveat in the front: At a good University, there are people who are serious and will amaze you in the following majors. Those people will be successful, and go on to graduate school and eventually become academics. But that doesn't change the fact that...
In America, the following majors are a joke. If you are bright and can read wikipedia, you will find that two hours of reading will leave you ahead of 90% of the people majoring in these things in knowledge of their major: Criminal Justice History Journalism English Kinesiology Communications Anthropology Religious Studies, Comparative Religions
And of course there are things that are more about passion and talent: Anything Art (Film, painting, photography, music)
English and Journalism are considered easy majors for Americans at American universities. They typically require less time to prep for class, and have assignments that don't require as much time to complete.
Entry level jobs typically don't pay very well, and you're competing with everyone in the world who can write English, unlike, say, lawyers, who are competing with people who live and are licensed in their particular subsection of America.
Entry level jobs typically don't pay very well, and you're competing with everyone in the world who can write English, unlike, say, lawyers, who are competing with people who live and are licensed in their particular subsection of America.
No. He was commenting primarily on the low market value of English/Communications/etc, and less on whether they are easy things to do. They may be quite hard, but it's easier for an engineer to get paid to be an engineer than it is for humanities majors to do likewise and be paid the same amount. Yes it depends on what time we are living in, but currently we are living in the present.
I don't think OP said they are easy majors. Rather that graduating with a degree in those fields doesn't leave you very employable.
You did sort of step into it there with the wide brush. But there is an interesting point that you allude too but don't state. STEM [1] degrees require a facility with executing procedural tasks, creating and testing against a hypothesis, and evaluating the result. Those skills are widely applicable. Not having those skills will limit your options (independently of going to College or not).
I made a suggestion to my Alma Mater that they consider making these "general ed" classes for all majors, basically making every major require 1 semester of calculus, 2 semesters of science, one semester of engineering, and one semester of computer science/technology. The theory being that these have become basic skills in our society as much as English composition, history, and the arts are.
[1] STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Math
I made a suggestion to my Alma Mater that they consider making these "general ed" classes for all majors, basically making every major require 1 semester of calculus, 2 semesters of science, one semester of engineering, and one semester of computer science/technology. The theory being that these have become basic skills in our society as much as English composition, history, and the arts are.
[1] STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Math
This comment (and article) are silly without comparing college graduates with "unemployable" degrees to people who only have a high school diploma.
If you look at minimum wage data (which would presumably filter out "high earning degrees"), you find that 7.3% of minimum wage employees have bachelor degrees or higher. This is certainly not zero, but it's evidence that unemployable degrees have some value. Unfortunately, there's not very good data on compensation by major.
65% of minimum wage employees have high school diplomas but not a bachelor's degree, and 27.7% don't have a high school diploma (this presumably includes high school students). Interestingly, there are about 1000 people in the country with a doctoral degree who work at a minimum wage job.
Source (page 8): http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.pdf
If you look at minimum wage data (which would presumably filter out "high earning degrees"), you find that 7.3% of minimum wage employees have bachelor degrees or higher. This is certainly not zero, but it's evidence that unemployable degrees have some value. Unfortunately, there's not very good data on compensation by major.
65% of minimum wage employees have high school diplomas but not a bachelor's degree, and 27.7% don't have a high school diploma (this presumably includes high school students). Interestingly, there are about 1000 people in the country with a doctoral degree who work at a minimum wage job.
Source (page 8): http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.pdf
"it's evidence that unemployable degrees have some value."
I see a different picture. Of those old enough to have obtained a degree, approximately 14% earn a minimum wage income, which is only a few points off the adult population at large. That indicates to me that minimum wage earners are fairly evenly distributed through the population, regardless of educational attainment.
I see a different picture. Of those old enough to have obtained a degree, approximately 14% earn a minimum wage income, which is only a few points off the adult population at large. That indicates to me that minimum wage earners are fairly evenly distributed through the population, regardless of educational attainment.
You're reading the data wrong. 7.3% of minimum wage workers have a bachelor's degree or higher.
I assume you were looking at the number 13.5%, which is the percentage of minimum wage hours worked by those with bachelor degrees alone.
Another way of looking at this: 30.9% of Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree. There are 122 million Americans 25 or older. That means about 38 million of them have a bachelor's degree or higher. There are 279,000 Americans with bachelor degrees or higher that make minimum wage. That means a maximum of .73% of Americans with bachelor degrees make minimum wage. Adding younger people with degrees dilutes the number further.
56.7% of Americans over 25 are somewhere between a high school degree and a bachelor's. If we do the same math above, we get that there are 69 million Americans with a high school diploma but not a bachelor's. And 2.5 million of them make minimum wage. That's 3.6%, which is a difference of about a factor of 5.
Dealing with people between 18-25 probably skews the data towards a lower percentage of minimum wage workers more in favor of those without a bachelor's, but I think the point still stands. Unfortunately the BLS doesn't subdivide the data by both age and educational attainment.
Population by age: http://www.census.gov/population/age/ Educational attainment: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/
I assume you were looking at the number 13.5%, which is the percentage of minimum wage hours worked by those with bachelor degrees alone.
Another way of looking at this: 30.9% of Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree. There are 122 million Americans 25 or older. That means about 38 million of them have a bachelor's degree or higher. There are 279,000 Americans with bachelor degrees or higher that make minimum wage. That means a maximum of .73% of Americans with bachelor degrees make minimum wage. Adding younger people with degrees dilutes the number further.
56.7% of Americans over 25 are somewhere between a high school degree and a bachelor's. If we do the same math above, we get that there are 69 million Americans with a high school diploma but not a bachelor's. And 2.5 million of them make minimum wage. That's 3.6%, which is a difference of about a factor of 5.
Dealing with people between 18-25 probably skews the data towards a lower percentage of minimum wage workers more in favor of those without a bachelor's, but I think the point still stands. Unfortunately the BLS doesn't subdivide the data by both age and educational attainment.
Population by age: http://www.census.gov/population/age/ Educational attainment: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/
"You're reading the data wrong."
I think you may have read my post wrong. According to the link, 1,933,000 people old enough to have a degree work a minimum wage job. Of them, 279,000 have a degree. That is 14.4%.
I think you may have read my post wrong. According to the link, 1,933,000 people old enough to have a degree work a minimum wage job. Of them, 279,000 have a degree. That is 14.4%.
There are 1,933,000 people over the age of 25 who work at a minimum wage job. There are 279,000 people of all ages who have a bachelor's degree or higher. Any data linking the two has to be speculative (like the numbers I provided in my previous post).
I feel like this attitude that English is an easy major smacks of the guy who goes to a meditation retreat for his competitiveness, never gets the point of what he's there for, sits there bored and learns nothing, then walks away saying, "That was easy, and I was the best meditator there."
It's easier to bullshit, but that's largely because of lenient grading. You can actually fail a math course if you don't understand any of it. If you fail an English course, you typically get a C.
Also, while I think STEM majors are more valuable, I would argue that it's a sign of cultural decline that English and history majors often can't get quality jobs. Sure, if you're not from money, you should study something practical. That is true. But it sucks that so many people can't study humanities and have decent careers.
It's easier to bullshit, but that's largely because of lenient grading. You can actually fail a math course if you don't understand any of it. If you fail an English course, you typically get a C.
Also, while I think STEM majors are more valuable, I would argue that it's a sign of cultural decline that English and history majors often can't get quality jobs. Sure, if you're not from money, you should study something practical. That is true. But it sucks that so many people can't study humanities and have decent careers.
I have noticed a large number of people who have a mental block that they "can't do Math" or "can't learn foreign languages." In contrast, I have not noticed people with a mental block towards History/English/etc. I think the notion of STEM majors as "hard" is bad marketing on our part.
From my experience, these mental blocks can be overcome. One trick that worked for me was to tell my students that I would take full responsibility for their learning during a tutoring session. That helped them relax and learn much more effectively. Alas, I was never able to get past the deeper beliefs-I suspect a therapist would have better luck with that.
From my experience, these mental blocks can be overcome. One trick that worked for me was to tell my students that I would take full responsibility for their learning during a tutoring session. That helped them relax and learn much more effectively. Alas, I was never able to get past the deeper beliefs-I suspect a therapist would have better luck with that.
I'm not sure if this disagrees or agrees with your point, but English is an easy major because stupid people can complete it without a lot of stress, and come out with a degree even though they still have absolutely no special ability in, nor deep understanding of English.
Don't go showing your biases or anything, but I remember quite a few not-very-bright Engineers getting their degree too.
Is this limited to English? I've interviewed some appallingly bad programmers with PhDs from top-5 CS departments. I'm sure they had high IQs, but they were awful programmers and, thus, in the context I cared about, were stupid.
I'm not sure what's so surprising about this. Cab drivers aren't exactly the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Cab companies don't rent out expensive cabs to just anyone, and driving involves capital costs (either buying your own taxi, or paying the rental, which can run $150+ per day).
Right after the financial crisis, I had a cab driver who managed mortgage representatives at Countrywide before it went under. At the time there were zero jobs for people in the mortgage industry, and he was doing it to bring in some cash while working on starting a business.
Employers don't treat foreign degrees equally with American degrees, so it's very common for engineers or even doctors with foreign credentials to work service jobs like driving cabs while they "launder" their foreign degree with U.S. schooling. My uncle was a doctor in Bangladesh and then emigrated to Australia. He worked as a bell hop, among other things, while he went through Australian medical school. He owns a private practice now in some resort town.
Right after the financial crisis, I had a cab driver who managed mortgage representatives at Countrywide before it went under. At the time there were zero jobs for people in the mortgage industry, and he was doing it to bring in some cash while working on starting a business.
Employers don't treat foreign degrees equally with American degrees, so it's very common for engineers or even doctors with foreign credentials to work service jobs like driving cabs while they "launder" their foreign degree with U.S. schooling. My uncle was a doctor in Bangladesh and then emigrated to Australia. He worked as a bell hop, among other things, while he went through Australian medical school. He owns a private practice now in some resort town.
The whole concept of overeducation seems foreign to me. Surely people should strive to be as educated as they can or want to be.
The background assumption is that education isn't really about education, and is instead merely about training people for jobs. If people were being trained for work which didn't exist then that would certainly be a problem, but as I understand it that's not really what universities are for.
The background assumption is that education isn't really about education, and is instead merely about training people for jobs. If people were being trained for work which didn't exist then that would certainly be a problem, but as I understand it that's not really what universities are for.
"Surely people should strive to be as educated as they can or want to be."
No one will argue that, all else being equal, more education is better. Education's nice. So are lots of other things that people want from life, e.g. leisure, money, exercise, real-world job experience, entertainment, participation in the arts, family time, spirituality, world travel, what-have-you.
But we make trade-offs in life, and getting a big fat expensive degree and making very little use of it is quite possibly too much "education" at the cost of "money" and other valuable things. It's perfectly meaningful to consider that "overeducation".
No one will argue that, all else being equal, more education is better. Education's nice. So are lots of other things that people want from life, e.g. leisure, money, exercise, real-world job experience, entertainment, participation in the arts, family time, spirituality, world travel, what-have-you.
But we make trade-offs in life, and getting a big fat expensive degree and making very little use of it is quite possibly too much "education" at the cost of "money" and other valuable things. It's perfectly meaningful to consider that "overeducation".
This reminds me of an EconTalk podcast from about 6 months ago where the assertion was made that college has become an extension of adolescence, as opposed to a direct path to a middle class career. Given that the ability to write and reason well are foundational to success in many careers, I am all for the benefits of a classical liberal arts course of study, but how many psychology and visual arts BA's can the economy reasonably reward with good paying jobs? http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/12/tabarrok_on_inn.htm...
Education is not just about jobs. The better educated people are, the harder it is to take advantage of them regardless of what sort of job they have. Communities benefit from having educated people living in them -- people who can solve problems, mediate disputes, and organize to improve the community's situation. A democracy requires an educated populace in order to ensure that rights are not violated, that bad laws are repealed, and that an aristocracy cannot hijack the system at everyone's expense (bonus points if you can name a major world power that has that problem).
At the end of the day, that is what this is really about: not having a society ruled by an aristocracy. Public education is meant to ensure that poor people can receive a decent education, to ensure that society does not fall into a pattern where only rich people are educated enough to run the show.
At the end of the day, that is what this is really about: not having a society ruled by an aristocracy. Public education is meant to ensure that poor people can receive a decent education, to ensure that society does not fall into a pattern where only rich people are educated enough to run the show.
This is a good defense of a true purpose of education - no doubt. However, I'd say that if we measured and ranked schools' impacts the number one would be in worker productivity: i.e. better jobs / wages + more positioned filled.
The protection from aristocracy is part of it, but I'd bet it's not the biggest part.
The protection from aristocracy is part of it, but I'd bet it's not the biggest part.
I think in Western Europe the ratio might even be higher. I recall a conversation with a German several years ago and was told it was not uncommon for people doing blue collar jobs to have achieved some higher education.
In any event, more education the better, even if not individually returning the time/money investment.
In any event, more education the better, even if not individually returning the time/money investment.
There's a difference between "blue collar" and a crappy service sector job. The blue collar person in many settings makes a decent wage and has alot of autonomy. A substantial number of NCOs in the Army have Masters degrees. HVAC guys often have BAs with substantial industry certifications.
The person with a $250k MFA folding sweaters at the Gap for $8.50 an hour or the person with a law degree working as a bank teller are basically a rung up from casual labor with no career path.
The person with a $250k MFA folding sweaters at the Gap for $8.50 an hour or the person with a law degree working as a bank teller are basically a rung up from casual labor with no career path.
It can be an immigrant's first job in the US. I remember years ago a cabbie from west Africa who had a Ph.D. in urban planning or some such field. He had left his country because he was on the outs with the regime there.
As for bartenders, I'm surprised it's that few. Washington may be an outlier.
As for bartenders, I'm surprised it's that few. Washington may be an outlier.
On the one hand, there's a lot of unique things you could learn as an urban planner by spending all of your working days driving a cab. On the other, that's not really a field you want to get behind in (unless you want to teach, I guess).
Being a taxi driver has some advantages (especially if you are an O/O), with the big one being you get to set your own schedule. On top of that, it can generate quite a decent amount of money. I had a friend in college who drove a cab in Chicago on the weekends and he would make at least a grand during his 12 hour shift. I didn't pry too much, so I don't know if that was usual or that semester was out of the ordinary. But I would imagine that it pays better than many of the other "low skill" jobs and can offer much more variety.
At least a grand? In 12 hours?
Quick reality check: LAX has more expensive cabs than Chicago, but let's assume they're equal. A ~30 minute ride to the airport costs me, including tip, ~$40.
A quick verify shows that Chicago is actually $41 for a 31 minute ride, no tip. (http://www.taxifarefinder.com/main.php?city=Chicago&from...)
Given that people need to get in/out of the cab, etc, I think we can stay with $40/30 minutes. That's $80 per hour. $960 if the 12 hours are completely booked solid and people tip well.
And unless he's an independent operator with his own license (which would run him $300K - http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/bacp/pub...), he doesn't get to keep all that.
I'd think your buddy was maybe telling a slightly tall tale based on that one night where he ended up with almost a grand in cash at the end of the shift. :)
Quick reality check: LAX has more expensive cabs than Chicago, but let's assume they're equal. A ~30 minute ride to the airport costs me, including tip, ~$40.
A quick verify shows that Chicago is actually $41 for a 31 minute ride, no tip. (http://www.taxifarefinder.com/main.php?city=Chicago&from...)
Given that people need to get in/out of the cab, etc, I think we can stay with $40/30 minutes. That's $80 per hour. $960 if the 12 hours are completely booked solid and people tip well.
And unless he's an independent operator with his own license (which would run him $300K - http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/bacp/pub...), he doesn't get to keep all that.
I'd think your buddy was maybe telling a slightly tall tale based on that one night where he ended up with almost a grand in cash at the end of the shift. :)
"I'd think your buddy was maybe telling a slightly tall tale based on that one night where he ended up with almost a grand in cash at the end of the shift. :)"
Could be. I could be remembering it wrong too, it was 6 or so years ago :)
Could be. I could be remembering it wrong too, it was 6 or so years ago :)
"Overeducated" is probably not the correct term here. Maybe something like "mis-educated" would be more suitable. There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn and study interesting subjects. Gone are the times when a college degree alone will land you a job. You need employable skills if you want to be paid these days, and things like History, English, and most of the Liberal Arts degrees don't equate to that.
How about “overschooled”.
I think it's a bit more important to look at which degree was obtained, not just that a degree was obtained.
I don't seem to be having any issues here with a CS degree.
I don't seem to be having any issues here with a CS degree.
And from where.
This has got to be another one of the biggest fallacies. Yes, I would love to see from where as well, and I guarantee it's a minor factor in income. After equalizing for grades, experience, connections, charisma, IQ, motivation, and career goals, I doubt the institution matters much. As a hiring manager, I place little value on the school. It's usually just a function of income, race, personal preference, and legacy status.
Too bad those jobs are going to be replaced by machines.
I sure hope my bartender doesn't get replaced by a machine.
While making that might have been a fun project, that's not where I see myself spending my next night out. :)
On a more serious note, the reason I go to a specific bar instead of another is often the fact that the bartender is a nice guy and I enjoy chatting with them. That's why I don't see some of these job replaced by machines anytime soo.
Another example would be telemarketing: robocalling existed more or less since the phone itself, but people still find pushy telemarketers to be more effective than a machine. For starters it's far easier to hang up on a machine than on a person.
And that's also why retail clerks are more effective than pop-up ads even if they serve more or less the same purpose: "I see you're looking at x would you be interested in y as well?".
On a more serious note, the reason I go to a specific bar instead of another is often the fact that the bartender is a nice guy and I enjoy chatting with them. That's why I don't see some of these job replaced by machines anytime soo.
Another example would be telemarketing: robocalling existed more or less since the phone itself, but people still find pushy telemarketers to be more effective than a machine. For starters it's far easier to hang up on a machine than on a person.
And that's also why retail clerks are more effective than pop-up ads even if they serve more or less the same purpose: "I see you're looking at x would you be interested in y as well?".
Out of curiosity, why? Do you believe that a machine can't do as good a job mixing drinks, do you want the social element, or is there something else?
Definitely the social element. I almost never drink cocktails, it's usually a beer or wine, and I hope he's not mixing those. :)
The Left wants everyone to go to college because if you educate the proles, they get pissed off about their situation and the waste of their life at the hands of an entrenched elite, and you get a violent revolution (in theory).
The Center wants everyone to go to college because it's an easy way to throw money at deep social problems under the pretenses of improving equality (in theory).
The Corporate Right likes this whole mess because it's a sorting mechanism paid-for by the people being sorted.
I won't even pretend to know what the Radical Right wants. Religious indoctrination, perhaps? They aren't much of a player in the higher-ed debates.
The Corporate Right is the only party that is actually getting what it wants.
The Center wants everyone to go to college because it's an easy way to throw money at deep social problems under the pretenses of improving equality (in theory).
The Corporate Right likes this whole mess because it's a sorting mechanism paid-for by the people being sorted.
I won't even pretend to know what the Radical Right wants. Religious indoctrination, perhaps? They aren't much of a player in the higher-ed debates.
The Corporate Right is the only party that is actually getting what it wants.
1 in 5 of the general population have a bachelor's degree, so 1 in 7 seems expected, if not on the low side.
Not if the reason people get those degrees is to get better jobs. If the proportion of degree holders is the same across all jobs, why should someone pay tens of thousands in tuition, plus the opportunity cost in lost wages, for that degree?
I don't really think that is a realistic reason to pursue higher education. Without even getting into some of the deeper conversations, there are only so many "better" jobs to go around. 80% of the jobs out there pay less than $50K per year, and just $45K per year for 75% of the jobs. Meanwhile, if you are aged 25-29, 30% of your peers have a degree. Therefore, 33% of college graduates in that age group are basically guaranteed to make less than $50K per year and many of them will fail to even make the $45K threshold. Not to mention that in reality, percentage is even larger than that as a significant number of non-college graduates live in the top 25% of earners.
Furthermore, 18% of university graduates fail to even earn $20K per year and just 24% of the top 1% have a non-graduate degree as their highest level of education attainment. I see no compelling reason to even begin to think you would go to college to get a better job, unless that job is in a specific field where the law requires (doctor, lawyer, etc.) Someone still has to drive the taxis. Having a degree doesn't put you above such work and the more people obtain their degrees, the greater chance someone with a degree will take on such work.
With that said, college still has merit and should not be discounted. Finding a job at the end should be one of the last reasons you consider attending.
Furthermore, 18% of university graduates fail to even earn $20K per year and just 24% of the top 1% have a non-graduate degree as their highest level of education attainment. I see no compelling reason to even begin to think you would go to college to get a better job, unless that job is in a specific field where the law requires (doctor, lawyer, etc.) Someone still has to drive the taxis. Having a degree doesn't put you above such work and the more people obtain their degrees, the greater chance someone with a degree will take on such work.
With that said, college still has merit and should not be discounted. Finding a job at the end should be one of the last reasons you consider attending.
> Finding a job at the end should be one of the last reasons you consider attending.
I agree with this if you're rich, or else qualify for a free education like a scholarship or the GI Bill. But for most people, college is a significant investment and should be treated like one. Why should someone take out mortgage sized amounts of debt for no other reason than to learn something interesting? Is that a responsible use of borrowed money?
I agree with this if you're rich, or else qualify for a free education like a scholarship or the GI Bill. But for most people, college is a significant investment and should be treated like one. Why should someone take out mortgage sized amounts of debt for no other reason than to learn something interesting? Is that a responsible use of borrowed money?
With such overwhelming evidence that a degree does not make for a good investment in most cases, and enrolment rates only increasing, there must be something else attracting people. My hunch is that people want to look important. Similarly, taking out a massive loan to drive a brand new BMW doesn't make financial sense either, but lots of people still do it because it shapes their image.
Put another way -- how many upper-middle class professionals (doctors/lawyers/engineers) would you say have graduated from college? Many, many more than 1 in 5. You can't deduce data about specific occupations from a broad statistical measure like overall percentage of bachelor's degrees in a population.
Of course, when going to college means taking on mountains of inescapable debt, not getting a high-paying job afterwards is problematic. That's why we need to change the way we pay for college education, so that we can have a society of well-educated independent thinkers, rather than one where people start out in life just a millimeter away from indentured servitude.