The Declining Value of Your College Degree

cawacko said:
You are claiming in a global economy its less important now to be educated?
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I don't think that's his point at all. The fact is that in many developing nations there are college graduates who are as skilled and motivated as we are who will work for far less then we would due to a combination of lack of opportunity and a lower cost of living in their countries. Why hire an American IT profesional for $80,000/yr when you can get one just as good in Mumbay for $6,000/yr? That's who globalization is impacting wages among the college educated. It's not just unskilled, high school educated people whom are affected.

If anything, in the age of globalization, education is even more critical. Not only is a college degree vital but the quality of that degree is critical too.
 
Thorn said:
The article said, and I agree, that education alone simply isn't enough. That it just opens the door. I've said for years that a bachelor's degree today is the new version of a high school diploma from years past.
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I agree. A Bachelors degree is about a good liberal arts education. A graduate degree is about specialization.
 
Mottleydude said:
I don't think that's his point at all. The fact is that in many developing nations there are college graduates who are as skilled and motivated as we are who will work for far less then we would due to a combination of lack of opportunity and a lower cost of living in their countries. Why hire an American IT profesional for $80,000/yr when you can get one just as good in Mumbay for $6,000/yr? That's who globalization is impacting wages among the college educated. It's not just unskilled, high school educated people whom are affected.

If anything, in the age of globalization, education is even more critical. Not only is a college degree vital but the quality of that degree is critical too.
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yeah about 35% of the college kids in taiwan get an engineering degree.
Not sure about India, but they are rapidly taking over the onshore US IT field.
 
Socrtease said:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121623686919059307.html?mod=yhoofront

By GREG IP

A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.

Just ask Bea Dewing. After she earned a bachelor's degree -- her second -- in computer science from Maryland's Frostburg State University in 1986, she enjoyed almost unbroken advances in wages, eventually earning $89,000 a year as a data modeler for Sprint Corp. in Lawrence, Kan. Then, in 2002, Sprint laid her off.

"I thought I might be looking a few weeks or months at the most," says Ms. Dewing, now 56 years old. Instead she spent the next six years in a career wilderness, starting an Internet café that didn't succeed, working temporary jobs and low-end positions in data processing, and fruitlessly responding to hundreds of job postings.

The low point came around 2004 when a recruiter for Sprint -- now known as Sprint Nextel Corp. -- called seeking to fill a job similar to the one she lost two years earlier, but paying barely a third of her old salary.

In April, Ms. Dewing finally landed a job similar to her old one in the information technology department of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., where she relocated. She earns about 20% less than she did in 2002, adjusted for inflation, but considers herself fortunate, and wiser.

A degree, she says, "isn't any big guarantee of employment, it's a basic requirement, a step you have to take to even be considered for many professional jobs."

For decades, the typical college graduate's wage rose well above inflation. But no longer. In the economic expansion that began in 2001 and now appears to be ending, the inflation-adjusted wages of the majority of U.S. workers didn't grow, even among those who went to college. The government's statistical snapshots show the typical weekly salary of a worker with a bachelor's degree, adjusted for inflation, didn't rise last year from 2006 and was 1.7% below the 2001 level.

College-educated workers are more plentiful, more commoditized and more subject to the downsizings that used to be the purview of blue-collar workers only. What employers want from workers nowadays is more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college.

To be sure, the average American with a college diploma still earns about 75% more than a worker with a high-school diploma and is less likely to be unemployed. Yet while that so-called college premium is up from 40% in 1979, it is little changed from 2001, according to data compiled by Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington think tank.

The rest is at the website.
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In my career in CIS, I have never found my degree was worth very much. It might get you an entry level job. You have to actually have proven skills to succeed in CIS.
 
uscitizen said:
I read this after I made the other reply. As usual wrongo again on me Tippster.
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Isn't he an accountant, a mindnumbingly boring field where you don't actually have to know anything. Cue senile toppy to ask me for the hundredth time about my own educational background.
 
RStringfield said:
Isn't he an accountant, a mindnumbingly boring field where you don't actually have to know anything. Cue senile toppy to ask me for the hundredth time about my own educational background.
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That's one of your most retarded post ever, no need to trash your education you did a good job of it yourself.


1. Fact, more CEO's of companies are accountants than any other degree

Compare average MBA salaries with your degree if you like, I need a laugh
 
Topspin said:
That's one of your most retarded post ever, no need to trash your education you did a good job of it yourself.


1. Fact, more CEO's of companies are accountants than any other degree

Compare average MBA salaries with your degree if you like, I need a laugh
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Fact is more Fortune 500 CEOs come from the marketing field than any other field.
 
First is MBA by far, second is engineering

Back in the stone ages when I was in school it was accounting
 
Topspin said:
First is MBA by far, second is engineering

Back in the stone ages when I was in school it was accounting
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I remembered that it was marketers because it used to be accountants (and engineers)as you noted. I thought it was an indication of an interesting change in how businesses were run. It, to me, signaled a switch from minding the store and delivering good product to 'perception.' Your stuff does not have to BE good, consumers just have to BELIEVE that it is.
 
I did a google and that's what I came up with. Accountants is ancient history mid 80's.
I think the site said the study was from 2006
 
The article makes it seem as though college degrees aren't worth as much. But if you compare the earnings of those with a degree versus those without, its still far better. Also, if you research how much the non-degreed people's salaries have changed, they have lost more ground.
 
it's the unfortunate thing about lib talking points. They find an article they think applies and without doing indepth research or thought they post and stick a foot in mouth.
 
Topspin said:
it's the unfortunate thing about lib talking points. They find an article they think applies and without doing indepth research or thought they post and stick a foot in mouth.
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Well I know I"m not the only one here to jump the gun and suffer from patefacio os inserti!
 
Mottleydude said:
Well I know I"m not the only one here to jump the gun and suffer from patefacio os inserti!
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LOL! and of course a liberal arts education is helpful in deciphering that. :) Is that genuine Latin or does it fall into the same category as "non illegitimi carborundum"?
 
Thorn said:
LOL! and of course a liberal arts education is helpful in deciphering that. :) Is that genuine Latin or does it fall into the same category as "non illegitimi carborundum"?
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No it's the real deal though I never really took any latin courses. I just picked up a bunch of it in my anatomy studies.
 
Thorn said:
LOL! and of course a liberal arts education is helpful in deciphering that. :) Is that genuine Latin or does it fall into the same category as "non illegitimi carborundum"?
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You know I really didn't appreciate the liberal arts when I was in college. I thought that was what the Frisbee chuckers on the quad were studying while I was sweating bullets in the library trying to get through Organic Chemistry.

Now that I'm older and wiser I'm glad I suffered through those liberal arts classes. Though, to be honest, I don't think I could read "The Mayor of Casterbridge" again even at gun point.
 
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