http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edlife/edl-24masters-t.html
The Master�s as the New Bachelor�s
By LAURA PAPPANO
New York Times
July 22, 2011

William Klein�a story may sound familiar to his fellow graduates. After earning his bachelor�s in history from the College at Brockport, he found himself living in his parents� Buffalo home, working the same $7.25-an-hour waiter job he had in high school.

It wasn�t that there weren�t other jobs out there. It�s that they all seemed to want more education. Even tutoring at a for-profit learning center or leading tours at a historic site required a master�s. �It�s pretty apparent that with the degree I have right now, there are not too many jobs I would want to commit to,� Mr. Klein says.

So this fall, he will sharpen his marketability at Rutgers� new master�s program in Jewish studies (think teaching, museums and fund-raising in the Jewish community). Jewish studies may not be the first thing that comes to mind as being the road to career advancement, and Mr. Klein is not sure exactly where the degree will lead him (he�d like to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East). But he is sure of this: he needs a master�s. Browse professional job listings and it�s �bachelor�s required, master�s preferred.�

Call it credentials inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master�s is now the fastest-growing degree. The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years, says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master�s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor�s or higher in 1960.

...

So what�s going on here? Have jobs, as Dr. Stewart puts it, �skilled up�? Or have we lost the ability to figure things out without a syllabus? Or perhaps all this amped-up degree-getting just represents job market �signaling� � the economist A. Michael Spence�s Nobel-worthy notion that degrees are less valuable for what you learn than for broadcasting your go-get-�em qualities.

�There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,� says Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution, and that gives the master�s extra signaling power. �We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,� making a bachelor�s no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers.

Colleges are turning out more graduates than the market can bear, and a master�s is essential for job seekers to stand out � that, or a diploma from an elite undergraduate college, says Richard K. Vedder, professor of economics at Ohio University and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

Not only are we developing �the overeducated American,� he says, but the cost is borne by the students getting those degrees. �The beneficiaries are the colleges and the employers,� he says. Employers get employees with more training (that they don�t pay for), and universities fill seats. In his own department, he says, a master�s in financial economics can be a �cash cow� because it draws on existing faculty (�we give them a little extra money to do an overload�) and they charge higher tuition than for undergraduate work. �We have incentives to want to do this,� he says. He calls the proliferation of master�s degrees evidence of �credentialing gone amok.� He says, �In 20 years, you�ll need a Ph.D. to be a janitor.�

<end of excerpt>

This is a frightening trend. The U.S. educational system is already too slow and expensive.

You do have several trends and phenomena converging here. There's the fact that folks in their 20s usually don't make much money, education or no education, because employers value experience. A combination of education and experience helps boost increasingly in your 30s, 40s, and 50s.

There's the recession.

And then there are the trends in education that the article discusses. Much more information in this Pew Report:

http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2011/05/Is-College-Worth-It.pdf

I think everyone in college knows this and thinks it sucks. Everyone wants to go to college now and the professors are getting a lot of kids who can't even read or write well at all.

My dad (an accountant) talks about how a degree doesn't seem to mean anything anymore when it comes to figuring out if a new hire is going to be any good or not. Apparently, they get all the way through college and still aren't good at reading, writing, or picking up on new things.

LOL.

A history degree?

What if he had earned a degree in Engineering or an Accounting Degree or Computer Science or got a full Cisco Certification?

And he is going back for a Masters in History?

He is an idiot!!!

He could then make a good living and read history on the side.


He is not educated at all. He is a functional illiterate in a highly technical society where 95% of the jobs he cannot do. He cannot run a lathe, weld, do construction, diagnose or treat disease, work in a lab, or work with computers. He is functionally illiterate.


Its far worse than that. Check out this graph for higher education. Its a huge bubble waiting to burst.

http://blog.american.com/2011/07/chart-of-the-day-the-higher-education-bubble/

I think your comments are a bit strong. I have known history graduates who made a successful transition to the business world.

I will encourage my children to pursue STEM majors for career reasons, but the decision has to be theirs. (And if everyone graduated with a STEM degree, the wages for such graduates would fall.) I respect the subjects of history and international relations, and they can be "relevant". For example, currently a big issue for financial markets is whether countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugual, Spain, and (in the long run) even Italy can keep the Euro as a currency. It is as much a political and cultural question as an economic one. NYT columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote a column "Can Greeks Become Germans?". To analyze the prospects of the Euro currency and European government debt, a deep knowledge of European history would be helpful.

Regarding history as a career, tenure track history professor jobs are much scarcer than the supply of history PhDs, but many gifted people love knowledge for its own sake. Weighing intellectual interests vs. financial prospects is hard and depends on one's values (which evolve over time).

Oh I COMPLETELY agree. It seems to me that there are two disastrous trends converging. On the one hand, we have anti-intellectualism which ridicules and treats with disdain anything that can not be packaged or sold. On the other hand we have a sense of privilege, which has led students and families to pressure high schools to provide high grades for inadequate (and sometimes plagarized) work. The end result is that we are sending to college, students who are probably plenty intelligent, but who are ill-prepared to actually study and work hard. I would imagine that it may be less a matter of grade inflation in colleges than it is a lowering of expectations--in response to large populations of students who treat colleges and universities as a purchased product (which should therefore adjust to meet the needs of the student/family consumers) rather than an institutions of learning.

Understood and I have liberal arts grads and music majors working for me and they do quite well. But, it takes 1-2 years to train them on the technical stuff that technical graduates already have internalized.



Except Ireland, the elites in those nations are already German as they have bought into the German statist ideology.

Ireland has little in common with Greece, Italy, or Spain in the structure of its debt or its culture or its economy. Its debt crisis is similar to the USA's in most respects as its real estate rather than public service debt.


Its better to make history than study it!!

... and the history major walks out of the room shaking her head...

One of my most successful classmates was a history and philosophy major who taught himself computer programming as a kid and honed his skills doing graphics programming for defense contractors. I think it is a mistake to major in something academic and expect to pick up job skills doing the tasks on the syllabus. Truth is, most employers are not the least bit interested in your major or what classes you took. They want to know what you can do!

Is it? Some of the people who have made history have made our world worse, not better. In general, I would say having an electorate that has focused its attention only making money/preparing for a specific career is not to our benefit--especially in times such as these in which politicians, talking heads and radio hosts regularly misrepresent our history and distort scientific evidence in order to manipulate public opinion.

Marketable skills are certainly important, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the value of a quality liberal arts education--or for that matter the similarly unprofitable fine arts degrees. One thing is certain: my kids would be a lot happier in school if they were able to immerse themselves in topics of interest to them instead of spending so much time "acquiring skills for the future".

And all of them have been frustrated artists with no technical skills and thus no place in society and with no real idea or experience on what it takes to put food on the table, build homes, cure disease, or engage in commerce. They then engage in and create fantasies that then lead to catastrophe.


Having a hard, objective education and extensive experience in industry does allow for one to carefully consider claims by any side and test them using verifiable means or other sources of information.

Who is more prepared to make judgments on what should be done in the future - a construction manager who puts up houses for a living or an artist who paints landscapes? The construction manager deals with subcontractors, the city planners, the banks, the weather, neighbors, and the new owners. The job requires good judgment, tact, ability to read people, and the ability to blend all these together. Who is a more informed voter? Its no contest.

DW's sister is in retail. She opens and manages stores for large clothing lines and juggles all kinds of stuff like the construction manager. She is also a gifted artist. But she got a degree in accounting while minoring in fine art. Her artistic skills allow her to set up the stores and manage the daily flow very well. It was her accounting skills that got her the first job and allowed her to focus on the other sides of the business.


At the end of the day those "skills for the future" are what puts food on the table and keeps the lights on. The emphasis on "liberal arts" rather than "skills for the future" has led us to a huge crisis not only in education ( the huge bubble which will burst) but economically where people are totally unemployable because they cannot work with their hands and minds on real things. Large segments of the population who are not polymathic have had their futures permanently damaged by not getting marketable skills.

This affects us all, too, because resources were used to teach them that are now wasted and these people cannot do something useful without retraining, if at all.

I would love nothing more than to spend my whole day learning stuff - history, sociology, biology, but NONE of that will put food on my table.

Are you suggesting that people with money and power only contribute in positive ways? That they are never the ones who act in ways that are destructive to society? Really?

Learning biology won't put food on the table? Really? I thought "curing disease" was one of those marketable skills you were talking about. How do you propose to do that without learning biology? Ever take a look at the MCAT?

Lol Am sitting here reading this as I take a break from studying my philosophy major.

I tried not to post because I feel these kinds of arguments are kind of futile on the basis that they are so subjective... But I couldn't let it go. I have been there and done the white collar senior management thing and hated every minute of it. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have a chance to be studying something I am passionate about and I do plan to couple it with a more vocational and marketable Masters. But I guess I feel there is great value in liberal arts disciplines (and in the arts in general). I am curious Austin, about what you think could be dispensed with as not useful? I personally can live without fine arts and theatre, though I know many who couldn't. I couldn't live without music, quality film and television, books. Perhaps we could do without someone like my dad, who is a historian, in part taking oral histories of indigenous and ageing communities? Are their stories not worth recording for posterity? Would the world really be a better place if we were all ignorant of the mistakes already made? Of the things that had brought great benefit? An atheist, I would argue that the world would in many ways be better without theologians, but many would obviously disagree. Teachers, social workers, aid workers, legal aid? Poorly paid, but what would we do without them?

I can appreciate that it must be very rewarding to be successful in a role that you value and feel is important and useful. And my husband, extraordinarily smart, happily turns up to work motivated almost solely by money. But for me it was extraordinarily depressing to be successful in something I cared not a jot for. No doubt food needs to be put on the table, but for many gifted kids, I think multipotentiality and an awareness of the world make choosing a study path much more complicated than just choosing what is going to pay most.

I have noticed this change in the 35 years since I entered college. In 1978, one needed money, stamina, and a good educational background to enter college. We were tracked in school and only the students who took English IV, Chemistry, and Algebra II attended college. Often the major did not matter and college grads were accepted into other fields.

Now, the tracking is gone and I see students in dual credit that should not be there. Students are taking College Algebra that don't even have multiplication skills - and they pass.

At our community college, I often see writing that was not even accepted as a high school freshman in 1974.

So, what do we do? We go to grad school where we need money, stamina, and a good educational background.

It's not a bubble. It's more of a pyramid scheme.

Sadly, it's also one of the few areas in the economy that is still "functioning" well because of massive federal credit origination.

I understand that debt ceiling increase legislation has sliced federal subsidized loans.

Law school is the worst for this. It's a major cash cow for the universities. I had $120,000 in debt (with basically a full year tuitionn scholarship). Graduated in 2000 so all I had to do was show I had a law degree and got a nice job handed to me.

The economy is quite different now.

I don't think anything should be dispensed with.

Rather, people need to have a fundamental understanding of the economics of their situation and clearly understand the tradeoffs and then make wise choices based upon clear priorities. You need a plan and need to monitor the plan.

A lot of people have no priorities. They think that any want they have is just as valid as any other and that somehow everyone of them will get fulfilled. Reality is not a concept to them.

A historian is not going to be able to focus on taking oral histories if they have to service 40K in debt. But if they have no debt, then they can work odd jobs part of the year and then work on their real job otherwise. Do you even need a degree to do history?



There is a tension between taking it all in and getting something done, true. I struggle with this like many others.

Perhaps another way to look at it is from a freedom standpoint. Studying one thing gives you a lot more options down the road than studying something else.

I think of history as being a science of the humanities, primarily because you have to provide evidence for what you're claiming. People who do PhDs in history are just like graduate students in biology or chemistry: they seek data for analysis. Lots of data!!

I'm not sure I understand the criticism of the field (or of the humanities in general) that's going on in this thread. I'm a scientist and understand that it's essential to have a society that's technologically literate. But I also have a degree in history and took a lot of undergraduate classes in philosophy and English literature.

The humanities force us to think about ideas and what they mean in a way that science and technology don't. Science and technology (especially these days) are all about moving forward --- fast. When we move too quickly without thinking about the potential ramifications of our actions, we risk getting ourselves into trouble. As only a single example out of probably hundreds or thousands I could come up with, history teaches us about what can happen as a consequence of actions. When the historical record is good, we can analyze exactly what happened, how things went right or wrong, and how to prevent or repeat events of the past.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but we need to ground ourselves in philosophy and history and many other areas in order to understand how we (as individual societies and as a species) tend to react to events and how we deal with change and other important things.

I suppose I'm arguing in favor of what I've called thoughtfulness in another thread. Philosophy, great works of literature and art, history, and other areas of the humanities play a huge role in that respect.

Val, thanks-- nicely said.


Actually, all fields of the humanities are like this-- art history, literary criticism, any of these fields requires evidence for one's interpretations. Sometimes evidence comes from within the text one's analyzing ("see this passage? I understand it to mean...") and sometimes from outside the text (historical/contextual). But there should always be evidence.

DeeDee

I love that post, Val.

I do not think young people do have a clear understanding of the economics of the situation. I don't think most kids go to college with a clear grasp on finances or what their lives will actually be like once the loans stop and they have to get jobs and pay them back.

"They think that any want they have is just as valid as any other and that somehow everyone of them will get fulfilled. Reality is not a concept to them."

^^^I actually think this is a huge problem in our society. These same people have a hard time taking responsibility for their own actions. Maybe some adults grow out of it when they have kids or whatever and find out that no, they can't have everything they want...

But a lot of adults don't grow out of it and they end up fat / bankrupt / leaving kids with babysitter to party every weekend / etc., and then they are in denial that, in large part, their lack of prioritizing has caused whatever problems they now have.

Also...
I am a believer in the value of a Classical education, but I think this push to send everyone to university doesn't make any sense. A lot of people would be better suited to learning a trade or getting a certificate at a local community college.

I do agree with this, but guess I don't see this as limited to humanities students. This is, as Islandofapples mentioned, a broader issue. I used to manage an area that had a lot of gen Y staff (and I don�t mean this to be generation bashing, just an observation). Quite a large number of them had either just finished studying or were studying part time (in a range of fields). None of them had any real sense of what they were going to do with the qualifications they had obtained and I think (which I guess ties back in to the original intention of this thread), many felt that it didn't really matter what they studied. Studying anything simply helped them get 'a job', but to actually work in the area they had completed their undergraduate qualifications in was going to require postgraduate studies.

I read a study somewhere (sorry I can't cite it properly) talking about how Gen Y (in Australia at least) were the first generation where the majority aspired to individualistic, high earning careers rather than careers in service to others. Of course the reality is that there are only so many well paying jobs, there are only so many people who are actually temperamentally suited to succeeding in those kinds of jobs etc. When I think of my parents' and their siblings, all of them studied humanities disciplines and have jobs they are valuable and successful related to their initial qualifications. But they set priorities early on in fields that were - at the time - as good as any other. Thinking about your comments, I wonder if perhaps we have swung too far in one direction and what's happening is that kids are feeling like they have to follow a particular path to success and either don�t feel capable of reaching that point and so flail about looking for an alternative or, because it actually doesn't suit them, they�re unable to prioritise because their goal is actually not something that is intrinsically motivating to them. I have no idea if this is the case of course, just thinking out loud really.



I know a few of historians, all of whom do require degrees for precisely the reasons Val gave. My dad's work (which is not just oral histories) is used as evidence in legal proceedings and is required to meet very stringent requirements in order to be considered proof of a group�s historical connection with a particular area. His work can have huge implications for governments, landowners and the resource sector. Another is a history teacher and chief examiner of history for a state education board. A third is a senior advisor to Australia's Prime Minister, providing advice based in part on his extensive knowledge of the history of Australian politics. All jobs which I suspect many would consider useful and possibly even successful. However, they all had very specific aims when they undertook their studies.



This, I definitely agree with.

I was just thinking about the thread title and how now pre-k and even 3yr old pre-k are becoming so popular. � �I thought modern public grade school started up when everybody moved off the farms as a way to keep kids off the factory labor force and out of trouble. �That was just my vague impression. �More people are going to college now and staying longer. �Well, more kids went to grade school full-time back in the years machinery replaced so many hands on the farm. �Now the new electronics are replacing machinery. �Now we are into micro-biology and micro-physics and globalization and global warming:.,' eight hrs. a day of study for 30 yrs. a piece?! Nice.

Val, that was beautiful.

Oh yes, meant to say so too - beautifully put Val

I don't agree with your classification of careers. At least in the private sector, a high earning career is generally one that provides more service than a low-earning one, in return for which the worker is paid more. By training for high-paying careers, students are not only helping themselves but helping society. If petroleum engineers earn the most money http://blogs.payscale.com/salary_report_kris_cowan/2011/05/list-of-college-majors.html , that's because oil is vital to our economy. The "invisible hand" encouraging productive use of resources works in the labor market as well as other markets.

Interesting graph.

The run-up in education began at precisely the time that the US U.S. News & World Report began ranking US Colleges and Universities. We've paid dearly for the "jockeying for position" by these schools.

I think this is right. I've been thinking of my 24 year old sister for this entire thread, as she has been in college for 7 years and is only now finally getting a degree. She finally ended up with an English degree, because she decided to become a lawyer and wanted to work on her reading / writing skills. Now she may not do law school and has no clue what to do with herself.

I remember she played around with the idea of social worker or hair stylist, but these professions wouldn't give her the income / prestige? she wants in life. She is extremely good at selling and managing things and always ends up as a manager at every job she gets. I think she should start her own business. She has no clue what she wants to do with her life yet. I know how she feels, because I switched majors so many times myself. But I took a break so I wouldn't waste more money...

Thanks GeoMamma and everyone else.

I don't quite agree that high paying careers generally provide more service to society than a low-earning ones. As one example of a very high-paying career, bankers have done a tremendous amount of damage to our society in recent years, and very little good to society at large. They draw heavily on graduates in physics, which may be why physics is on the list of high-paying majors. Ditto for mortgage brokers as a highly-paid group that made a lot of trouble for us. Creating marketing/advertising campaigns for stuff that people don't need can be very lucrative, but this job does not provide what I would call an important service to society. This list goes on.

Compare with these private sector jobs: nursing, veterinary medicine, or teaching at a private school. Each job requires education and provides a critically important service, yet they aren't known as lucrative careers. Whatever debates we've had here about our education systems, I suspect we'll all agree that people don't go into teaching for all those stock options and those huge annual bonuses.

Other low-paying private sector jobs that provide essential services to society: garbage collection, vegetable or fruit picker, janitor, employee at recycling plant, etc. etc.

Seriously Bostonian, where would we be without even one of these groups? With respect, when you make sweeping statements about the greater service value of highly paid jobs as a general rule, you come across as perhaps dismissing the value of people or jobs that lack what I will call glamour. <3 <3 <== Loving disagreement.

At the same time, if we're going to define "service to society" as packaging mortgage securities or as a job creating software designed to get kids to pester their parents to cash in so they can buy penguin points or rainbow gold for some online game...well, maybe we need to re-think our definition of "service to society." But this is just one quixotic loudmouth's opinion!

I think we need to step back and ask ourselves a simple, but important question:

Why do we use tax payer dollars to educate people? (Public schools, subsidized loans, etc)

There are probably a lot of different answers to this question. Some people can probably tell us the causes that motivated people to start public education in the first place. Some people will provide an answer in terms of human rights. Some will make an appeal to the consequences of NOT funding education.

For me, the answer to that question cannot be separated from the answer to a similar question:

What factors are voters considering when they vote for a school budget?

If voters are aware that music programs will be cut without an increased budget, and they vote against an increased budget, then teaching music is not the purpose of school. At least, not in that area. If on the other hand, they vote to save athletic programs, then school is at least partly about athletics.

The purpose of public school is different to different people, and even individual opinions change over time. I can see that people in this thread hold drastically different opinions on the subject.

Is the purpose of public school to bring fulfillment to students?

Is the purpose of public school to reduce crime and welfare dependency?

Is the purpose of public school to funnel new workers into the economy with precisely the right skill distribution to match the available positions?

Is the purpose of public school to create an educated electorate?

Most people probably want their tax dollars used to fulfill more than one purpose, and they prioritize their lists consciously or otherwise. When money is tight, they may decide that they would rather defund something at the bottom of their list that they previously wanted funded.

Currently, we have an abundance of college educated people who are not putting their degrees to use in the economy. Either they remain unemployed, or they work outside the field in which they obtained a degree. Thus, if you focus on economics, it would make sense to stop subsidizing the study of fields that have the highest concentrations of people not utilizing their degrees in the economy. Also, I'm not sure it makes economic sense to subsidize the education of someone who has little talent in the area they wish to study.

I thought the public school system was created mainly to create workers for the factories and the new jobs that came about with new technology.

A lot of nice ideas are thrown around about an educated electorate, blah, blah, but they are just nice ideas.

We use the factory model to teach children and I don't really think that model necessarily turns out informed citizens with great critical thinking skills (how could it?)

College used to be the place to train leaders, but I think that standards are lower these days (since more kids are going to college now and a lot of them get into college without necessary skills.)

Now, to be a leader, you have to get an advanced degree (or maybe go to some elite private schools your entire life?)

I was trying to respond to this in my own words, but realised I was basically trying to say the same things Val had said in response to it, but nowhere near as articulately. So, "what Val said"

Actually, I do believe in the value of an education population. I just don't think our schools turn out my ideal educated population lol.

My ideal educated population would: have critical thinking skills, ask many questions, know more national and world history, appreciate other cultures, take responsibility for the things they complain about in our country and help to fix them, not be intellectually satisfied by reading about the lives of celebrities, etc.

For the factory model idea... well, I've read many books written by educators who think our schools don't teach things like critical thinking (or that the current system makes it hard to teach these skills.) So my sources are rather biased.

First, our public schools were originally based on the Prussian school system, which was developed purely to indoctrinate the citizens. Second, a lot of ideas in psychology and business converged at one time and the efficient factory model of doing business was applied to educating children. But as we all know, children are not widgets to be manufactured exactly alike.

The system isn't set up to encourage children to seek out new knowledge, learn on their own schedule, delve deeply into whatever is being studied.... Children are seen as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge, but we now know that learning does not happen like that.

We also know that grades are detrimental to learning and many of the other practices we use in schools don't make any sense for how kids really learn (like, younger children play (and learn!) side by side and older kids want to work together. Yet, young children are supposed to work in groups and the older ones mostly work alone.)

Eema,

I definitely agree with you re the importance of education for the sake of it. When I look at what has happened to political debate in here in Australia over the last few years (which is widely agreed to be somewhere near rock bottom), I can't help but think we'd be in a much better place if there was a broader understanding of history, politics, the international community etc.

What makes this a pressing issue as far as I am concerns is that here in Australia most states have only one major newspaper, all of which are owned by the same corporation. The same corporation also shares ownership of Australia's main cable TV provider and currently has one of their executives managing one of our free to air channels. So much for plurality of views!

I guess I see an educated, informed society as essential to enabling democracy to function effectively. Particularly when there is so little diversity in our media (here any way).

I am sitting here wondering if we've ever had such a society (in the US, or Australia, or anywhere) in history.
I think the majority of the population has likely always been mostly uninformed and preoccupied with their day to day survival needs and thus didn't pay much attention to whatever those in power were up to. What do you think?

Maybe we actually have the most educated people in the history of the world, but it still doesn't seem to be enough. Maybe most people just have enough energy to get their day to day survival stuff done and not much left over for the big stuff. Maybe the majority of people just want to watch American Idol and ignore current events.

Is the behavior of most people a function of personality, IQ, income, and / or educational attainment...? (or something else?)

If personality or IQ has anything to do with it, then I'd say things are likely to always be this way. Only those with certain personality traits and / or above a certain level of intelligence will be interested in fixing the problems in society.

If income is the reason, then you'd think all those people not living paycheck to paycheck would be informed active citizens (are they?) If it is educational attainment, we just need to improve our school systems.

Hi Islandofapples,

This is a topic a love, so can go on forever about it - I tried not to... but I couldn't help it... Please don't feel obliged to read it all...

I am certainly not naive enough to think that democracy can ever really be fully functional, but but because something isn't 100% achievable doesn't make it not a worthwhile goal (for example we don't stop trying to improve the health of the community - or even an individual - even though we can never have everyone 100% healthy).

I agree that realistically people's lives get in the way of participating in society in an informed way. Before I had my daughter I read 4 newspapers a day. I was so excited to go on maternity leave because I figured I'd just spend my days bouncing my baby on my knee while I caught up on world events. The reality was I barely picked up a newspaper for 3 years! But it's an easy habit to get out of, which makes a strong media and school system all the more important - because if you're not looking for information it's all the more important that the information you do stumble across is impartial and accurate.

From what I understand we are more educated than ever before and I agree with you that this isn't turning out people who think critically etc. But I think that that is in part because we're not invited to participate in the world as we once were. Don't get me wrong, I love social media and think there many great benefits to it (this board for one), but something is lost in debate and analysis when you can be 'politically active' but hitting a 'like' button on your Facebook page because the gist of it sounds alright. We don't have to use our education in any way.

The head of a major bank here recently came out saying he was concerned about the future of the banking industry because highly educated graduates were coming in on huge salaries without the capacity to analyse the broader implications of their decisions (and obviously he's not alone in his concerns given some of the analysis of the GFC). To me this is where education for the sake of it comes in - to encourage that questioning, that critical thinking. For me an acceptance of education in part promotes being curious about the world and not take what you're told at face value. So even if you're not reading 4 newspapers a day or actively educating yourself, you're still open to ideas and aware there is more than one side to any story.

But for that to be socially acceptable education needs to be valued as more than a means to an end. Which is why I have a strong belief in the importance of the humanities. Today, I feel, education has been reduced in many ways to a competition that has little to do with learning. Which means that once you've got what you need to get the position you aspire to, you stop. You switch on American Idol. You absorb the drip feed of subjective news your exposed to from the bits you see on TV, the headlines you skim and so on.

In terms of where that attitudes to participation come from, I think it's about social norms rather than anything else. Here in Australia we have had a history of working class political acivitism, in fact it forms part of our national identity and mythology - a nation of battlers. But now we've got 'battlers' on 150k a year upset because that's the point that government subsidies drop off. We had a Prime Minister ousted from the job in part because of a concerted effort by some of our wealthiest private mine owners to stop a resource tax which would have stood to benefit smaller miners and the nation as a whole. They played the battler card, and the nation's real battlers rallied to the cause - fed by the monopolized media and a lack of understanding about the realities of the situation. To support the tax in the wider community would have had you labeled as unAustralian (and in fact you were told so during the ads produced by the miners that were on while you watched Australian Idol!)

In my view unless education increases in perceived value for it's own sake, not much will change.

Oh, and in case I hadn't said enough already, the major factor in making education socially acceptable, in my view, is making it relevant. Having options for those people who are more vocationally and practically motivated, options for those people who are artistic and creative, options for those people who are motivated by academics or entrepreneurialism. Accepting that the job of a plumber is just as valid as being a teacher, oil executive , etc.

Hoagies linked to a great presentation today, by Sir Ken Robinson. It's on changing educational paradigms - you've probably already seen it as I think I saw it some time ago, but it is great. Maybe not so many ideas on how to fix it - but a good summary on what isn't working. I'm typing on my iPad and couldn't get the you tube URL to work, so this is the TED link: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html

I'll stop now!

Great discussion--
Can I just say ditto to eema, Val and Giftodd?


Interesting question. A blend of each perhaps? If it were purely educational attainment or income, then I would expect each of those groups to be unified in its world view, which does not appear to be the case. Nor does it seem to me that personality on its own can determine, since environment, opportunity and experience surely shape priorities.

Re: the earlier question about the origin of public schools. My recollection is that compulsory education in the United States was largely motivated by a combination of immigration and labor issues. Placing children in school kept them out of the factories where they could be hired for less money, which depressed wages and job opportunities for adults trying to support families. Additionally, it kept unemployed youth off of the streets where they could cause trouble.
I can't find a link that relates to the job competition aspect, although it is something I recall learning both in my history of education class and my labor history classes. There are various articles that talk about the compulsory education movement happening alongside child labor movements, but these seem to focus on the impacts of child labor on children rather than the impacts of child labor on adult labor.

Americans were also reacting to immigration and saw schools as a way to assimilate immigrants, rather than to have immigrants change the dominant culture. There used to be a much bigger emphasis on the teaching of citizenship in school with the explicit goal of educating children to become good citizens of the United States.

America at School

It's interesting to recall some of that history at a time when there is so much discussion about discipline issues in schools and about the cost of providing services to english language learners.

I read about efforts at assimilation in Texas in the early 20th century; ouch! The schools could get quite mean to children who were caught speaking their native language (interestingly, they were after German immigrants, not Mexicans).


My eldest went to a French immersion school and speaks French like a native (albeit with a smaller vocabulary, but the accent is perfect and his grammar is excellent for his age level).

The school simply spoke to the kids in French and had extra bi-weekly classes for the ones who needed help. Everyone who finished more than about three years at that school had a fantastic grasp of the language, in spite of the fact that it wasn't the playground language, nor is it widely spoken in California.

The problem may be somewhat more challenging because we have so many Spanish speakers, but it's hard to say. At some point, though, there definitely has to be motivation in the home or in the student to learn the language well enough to succeed in the job market. Do any teachers here know how well the average immigrant student learns English after 6 or 12 years?

I like the idea of emphasizing the idea of citizenship in schools. It's important for every student to understand how the government works and the responsibilities of each citizen.

For a broad coverage of the history of education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States

This is pretty concise.

http://www.servintfree.net/~aidmn-ejournal/publications/2001-11/PublicEducationInTheUnitedStates.html


As you can see, public education began long before industrialization did.

What is interesting is that large parts of the US were highly literate prior to compulsory public schooling. IIRC during the Revolutionary War, literacy among non-blacks was around 90 percent for the entire adult population. And almost all of the adults' education was based upon reading the bible, poetry, Latin and Greek works - and translations, circulars, and works and plays in English. Basically, an autodidactical liberal arts education. People did this on their own after a day of manual labor in candlelight.

Most people today could not read "Paradise Lost" and get even 5% of the allusions, yet I bet half of the population back then could get 20-40% of the allusions. Many works like "Paradise Lost" are really works of history and social commentary cloaked as fiction and a thorough understanding of them becomes a framework within which to compare the events in one's life and the events of the greater world.

Are we any better off today with the huge investment in education?

In response to the reasons behind the creations of schools...
I am sure child labor / immigration / ideals all played a part, but what I really am concerned about is the system that was created. The system that was created was based on ideas about learning and teaching that we now know don't have a lot of scientific basis.

Now I hope I make sense as I am trying to type while listening to this annoying singing vtech toy next to me lol.

I agree with this. I am definitely an idealist. We try to be (live and eat) "green" and I have a website based on teaching others how to "be green." Sometimes it feels like everything I try to do is pointless. I can't protect my child from all these chemicals because they are everywhere. I can't even eat really healthy all the time, but DH and I both agree that we still need to try.

This bothered me a little because it reminded me of how I used to be. I kept up with all the current events and I was reading so many books on the Middle East, China, globalization, etc. I always read the news every day. Then, I started to realize I was feeling cynical, depressed, and stressed out. I'd call it existential depression. I don't know if other people get like this just from watching the news. I seem to be really affected by this stuff.

(This makes me sound loony, but DH and I watched a whole bunch of CSI one time and I cried that night a lot because I couldn't handle that people really did those kinds of things to other people. I just watched all of 24 with him with no issue, so I don't know why it affected me so much.)

I was reading Eckhart Tolle at one point (spiritual guy, very Eastern spirituality type of stuff) and he said we are all fascinated with negative news, violence and imagery... We go to the movies and pay to see it, even. He said it satisfied our "pain body" as he called it. I think that is around when I decided to take a break from all the news and choose it very selectively.

I feel guilty that I've stuck my head in the sand in some ways, but I feel so much happier now. I choose what things I want to work on (like keeping chemicals out of my home, buying organic, not using pesticides on our lawn, etc.) Those are the things I feel like I can actually have some control over.

Maybe other people feel overwhelmed by it all, too? I haven't seen evidence that this is actually the case, but I guess it might be possible. We certainly are bombarded with more negative news stories, pictures and videos than we ever have been in all of human history. It makes you feel like the human race might be hopeless, yet for every one negative story, there are 100 positive ones that go untold.

I agree with the rest of what you said about education, but I don't really know if what you said here:
"In my view unless education increases in perceived value for it's own sake, not much will change."
can happen with the way our economic system is right now. I feel like a lot of people only view an education as something you purchase so you can make more money later...

I wish we did more citizenship too--it alarms me to think that we are raising generations who may feel completely disconnected from the political process--it's hard to have a "we the people" based government if most people don't understand that that means "the people" have a role to play in their government!

Outcomes for English language learners are pretty diverse, as are the approaches/programs. When English proficiency is measured in students, schools are looking at two different types of language development--social/conversational language development, which typically emerges first; and academic language proficiency, which typically develops more slowly. A student with a high level of proficiency in social English may appear to be more proficient than they are, which depresses academic performance. Social proficiency can lead others to overestimate the amount of classroom language that is independently understandable. One chart I saw stated that advanced fluency (social and academic language) takes 5-7 years in a U.S. school, but it wasn't clear to me whether that was an average length of time generally, or if it represented the length of time under "best practice" conditions. Advanced fluency does not necessarily represent comparable fluency to native english speakers either. Among fifth graders who have been in school since K, I see quite a range of english literacy skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing).

Lately I�m hearing that some of the most promising outcomes are in well implemented two-way immersion programs (aka dual immersion programs); in which an equal number of spanish speakers and english speakers are grouped together. There are 50/50 models and 90/10 models (90% of instruction in spanish in K, gradually shifting balance until it is 50/50 in upper elementary). These programs appear to have stronger outcomes and to achieve a higher level of bilingualism when compared to transitional bilingual education models). In transitional bilingual programs there appears to be more loss of native language literacy.


I'm right there with you, particularly since becoming a parent. The reality of what people do to other people became horrifying and real to me in a completely new way once I had a child. I've found that I cannot read the details of violence in Sudan at all. I still have a really visceral reaction to an article I read at least 6 years ago. I don't recall being overwhelmed by CSI (usually), but I get what you're saying, because SVU was impossible for me to watch for quite some time. I suspect that as my children age, the types of issues that I can't fully engage with will change as well. Right now it's the issues which involve violence towards children, teens and young adults that overwhelm me.

I think that there is a difference between being an ostrich and being aware of your own limitations. We don't do anything positive for the world when we become paralyzed by fear or hopelessness. I've settled on headline skimming for paralyzing issues that I can't in good conscience ignore. It keeps me from drifting into apathy, respects the limits of what I can handle and preserves the energy I need in order to have a positive impact on the things within my control.

Not that I'm unwilling to spout off about the things I cannot control .

Apologies for topic drift....

Me too!

Great discussion, I enjoyed reading it.

I don't read or watch the news at all, and haven't for years. But I still manage to hear when something happens that I really do need to read about. And I definitely read rather than watch, mostly though because (if it's available) you can get so much more information much faster. I hate that online news writing is getting shorter and shorter with more and more video being integrated instead.

http://www.insidehighered.com/layout/set/popup/news/2011/08/02/qt

Predicting the future is always hard. You can never guarentee the boom field now will still be booming when you finish, let alone years from now. That's why I think you need to something you love.

Having said that, the system here is very different, the debt is lower and paying it back is linked to income.

Formal education is just a certification process these days. You get the certificate to get the job. It's mostly a waste of time and a huge financial burden on students.

When I attended college and law school, I was just there to get certified.

Most real education is learning tacit knowledge. And, in many cases, you need the tacit knowledge *before* taking the formal courses for the courses to be helpful.

We have education all messed up because it's using a factory model.

More on debt, this time from the Atlantic.


http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/the-debt-crisis-at-american-colleges/243777/


Yoked for life.

This thread has discussed the relative merits of humanities and more career-oriented majors. Many universities may not be good places to study literature and history, because many of the professors don't respect the subjects they are supposed to be teaching. They have left a vacuum that is being filled, at much less expense, by the Teaching Company (now know as Great Courses), as discussed in a recent essay:

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_the-great-courses.html
HEATHER MAC DONALD
Great Courses, Great Profits: A teaching company gives the public what the academy no longer supplies: a curriculum in the monuments of human thought.
City Journal
Summer 2011

Joseph Epstein explains why fewer students major in English:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903999904576468011530847064.html
What Killed American Lit.
Today's collegians don't want to study it�who can blame them?
by Joseph Epstein
Wall Street Journal
August 27, 2011

I think parents who want their children to be liberally educated should look at home schooling curricula such as the one in the "Well Trained Mind" book for classical homeschoolers.

Yes, quite true. The best history lecturer I know taught at a small state school. A friend would record his lectures for studying and one day I heard him. She let me make copies of the tapes for my own pleasure. He only had a master's degree and was just an adjunct. But he was hugely popular for his speaking ability and ability to get inside the minds of people.

Very sad. Courses from The Teaching Company are wonderful in certain ways, but they don't teach people how to read and write. For me, one of the major benefits of a degree in the humanities was that it taught me how to read and how to write --- so I don't see them as replacements for a course at a university. A video can't replace live discussions and essays and the ideas they generate.

My professors expected all of us to read between the lines of a text, pick out the theme sentence of a thousand-page novel, figure out what motivated a character, and understand about different perspectives on historical people and events. Then we had to write this stuff down, essay after essay. After my freshman year, I wrote more than a hundred pages every semester. These skills carried through later when I became a scientist.

What's sadder still is that the people who are supposed to be upholding this practice with their own students seem to have taken a pass.

I believe that college is a certification process. That is what I was brought up to believe. Learning is forever. Just because I took engineering doesn't mean that I cannot spend my life enjoying history, literature. I read Proust from beginning to end, not many engineers can say that I bet. Val mentioned writing. I was not a good writer in college. My lab reports were minimal. But I had to take a writing course since I had to write for my work and taking one course taught me the basics. I was the only A the prof ever gave, he said at the time. You can learn to write, just like you can learn to play the piano. But paying the mortgage, you need a skill set to get a job.

Everyone in my neighborhood bascially went to college to get a job, and were specific about it. Maybe I am too old on this forum.

Ren

I believe that college is a certification process. That is what I was brought up to believe. Learning is forever. Just because I took engineering doesn't mean that I cannot spend my life enjoying history, literature. I read Proust from beginning to end, not many engineers can say that I bet. Val mentioned writing. I was not a good writer in college. My lab reports were minimal. But I had to take a writing course since I had to write for my work and taking one course taught me the basics. I was the only A the prof ever gave, he said at the time. You can learn to write, just like you can learn to play the piano. But paying the mortgage, you need a skill set to get a job.

Everyone in my neighborhood bascially went to college to get a job, and were specific about it. Maybe I am too old on this forum.

Ren

I believe that college is a certification process. That is what I was brought up to believe. Learning is forever. Just because I took engineering doesn't mean that I cannot spend my life enjoying history, literature. I read Proust from beginning to end, not many engineers can say that I bet. Val mentioned writing. I was not a good writer in college. My lab reports were minimal. But I had to take a writing course since I had to write for my work and taking one course taught me the basics. I was the only A the prof ever gave, he said at the time. You can learn to write, just like you can learn to play the piano. But paying the mortgage, you need a skill set to get a job.

Everyone in my neighborhood bascially went to college to get a job, and were specific about it. Maybe I am too old on this forum.

Ren

The problem with college these days is that the net present value of the future stream of income is not justified by the massive debt.

Mostly because universities are being flooded with massive inflows of "free" government money that is then yoked to their marks. I mean students. Yoked to their students.

[quote=Val]<snip>Very sad. Courses from The Teaching Company are wonderful in certain ways, but they don't teach people how to read and write. For me, one of the major benefits of a degree in the humanities was that it taught me how to read and how to write --- so I don't see them as replacements for a course at a university. A video can't replace live discussions and essays and the ideas they generate.<snip> /quote]

I wish my courses were like that. Tutorials are now so big and students so focussed on 'what do I have to do to pass' that I just didn't see much of that anyway.

I believe that college is a certification process. That is what I was brought up to believe. Learning is forever. Just because I took engineering doesn't mean that I cannot spend my life enjoying history, literature. I read Proust from beginning to end, not many engineers can say that I bet. Val mentioned writing. I was not a good writer in college. My lab reports were minimal. But I had to take a writing course since I had to write for my work and taking one course taught me the basics. I was the only A the prof ever gave, he said at the time. You can learn to write, just like you can learn to play the piano. But paying the mortgage, you need a skill set to get a job.

Everyone in my neighborhood bascially went to college to get a job, and were specific about it. Maybe I am too old on this forum.

Ren

Hmmm Has anyone tried The Great Courses? I went to their site and DH and I just want to buy every DVD on there. Maybe we could justify them as a "homeschooling expense."

Island, check your public library before you lay out the funds... ours has several of the courses. Some of them are excellent, some of them less so.

DeeDee

The courses regularly go on sale, so I suggest not paying the list price for anything. I bought courses on statistics and astrophysics for my 8yo boy, and he preferred the little blue books distributed along with the videos to the videos themselves. I agree with him -- it's faster to read than to listen to someone talk. A big audience for the courses are people who spend a lot of time driving to work, who can listen but not read in the car.

And maybe also mamas of infants. I've been really bummed that I can't even finish a book lately. I wish I would have had good videos to watch when DD was first born. I spent hours chained to the couch bfing or letting her nap on me. DH and I managed to watch ALL of the seasons of 24 in the past few months. We'd watch an episode when he got home from work. We'd probably do the same with these.

Maybe I can just buy one or two. Our local library doesn't have any, but I might be able to get them from a library from the closest city. It will be a PITA though.

Are you teaching or studying?

Yes! Aren't they fabulous? We have watched quite a few by now, and have an embarrassing number stacked waiting to be watched (we watch a lot more in the winter, and I splurged at the end of last winter). The only one we have that I'd vote a definite "avoid" is the high school chemistry one - it starts from the premise that you hate math and are scared of it and need to be dragged through an exam. Whilst it might well be good if that's the case, it bemused my chemistry-and-maths-mad 5yo...

Really memorably good ones:
- the particle physics one, a tour of the microcosmos or something like that. We all watched this beginning to end, including DS-then-6. Only caveat is that there is no maths, and if you would have been happy with it, you'll miss it.
- the Bob Brier history of ancient Egypt. He's a natural story-teller. Long though!

Things we've enjoyed:
- Joy of Mathematics
- Mathematics of the Visual World
- Meteorology, the wonders of the weather - have yet to finish this though, as you really need to concentrate!

Things that have only just been started:
- From Yao to Mao, history of China; I've watched the first couple of episodes, which were promising
- Calculus; despite liking the lecturer from other things, I'm not yet totally convinced, on the basis of the first couple of lectures

On the shelf waiting to be watched I have the history of maths one, the integrated history of Greece and Rome, empires before Alexander, and a couple of the geology/earth sciences ones.

If anyone's watched any of the medieval European history ones, I'd particularly appreciate reports on them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/f...ait-for-their-real-careers-to-begin.html
Generation Limbo: Waiting It Out
JENNIFER 8. LEE
New York Times
August 31, 2011

...

Meet the members of what might be called Generation Limbo: highly educated 20-somethings, whose careers are stuck in neutral, coping with dead-end jobs and listless prospects.

And so they wait: for the economy to turn, for good jobs to materialize, for their lucky break. Some do so bitterly, frustrated that their well-mapped careers have gone astray. Others do so anxiously, wondering how they are going to pay their rent, their school loans, their living expenses � sometimes resorting to once-unthinkable government handouts.

�We did everything we were supposed to,� said Stephanie Morales, 23, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 with hopes of working in the arts. Instead she ended up waiting tables at a Chart House restaurant in Weehawken, N.J., earning $2.17 an hour plus tips, to pay off her student loans. �What was the point of working so hard for 22 years if there was nothing out there?� said Ms. Morales, who is now a paralegal and plans on attending law school.

Some of Ms. Morales�s classmates have found themselves on welfare. �You don�t expect someone who just spent four years in Ivy League schools to be on food stamps,� said Ms. Morales, who estimates that a half-dozen of her friends are on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A few are even helping younger graduates figure out how to apply. �We are passing on these traditions on how to work in the adult world as working poor,� Ms. Morales said.

<end of excerpt>

Yikes.

Thanks Bostonian for the post but people don't want to hear about that here.... I keep talking about the limits of options for our kids and there seems to be a feeling that our gifted kids will somehow find a way.

Anyone read the op/ed by David Brooks?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/opinion/brooks-the-vigorous-virtues.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks

he writes "deeper structural problems. Tackling them means shifting America�s economic model � tilting the playing field away from consumption toward production; away from entitlement spending and more toward investment in infrastructure, skills and technology; mitigating those forces that concentrate wealth and nurturing instead a broad-based opportunity society. "

This is not going to get better for our kids just because they are gifted.

Ren

Yeah.

Law school.

That will help you lard up with $150,000 in debt for a $40,000 per year job in this economy.

I think it's more that the focus of people here tends not to be so much on material success, but more on keeping kids happy and learning, then supporting the ability to achieve academically later on. If a child matures into a thinker who is poised to make great discoveries, she's simply different from the many educated people out there who have difficulty finding jobs. It's not about finding a job for that person, but about expressing brilliance.

So, for example from the article, I think the highly educated person who wanted to work in the arts simply doesn't matter in a discussion about exceptionally gifted people. Nothing in the article suggested that she was on the path to being an exceptional artist. Who cares if she can't find a job, really? (I mean, it's good if she does, but it doesn't matter in making life choices for my family and children.)

Also, I really do think that as long as my kids turn out to be psychologically stable, high ability will let them excel to some extent in their chosen field, so I don't worry too much. If they turn out not to reach much of their high potential, as long as they're able to live well enough, I don't care much what they do. I just don't care much if they become wealthy; I do care to give them the best shot at reaching the limits of their potential based on their gifts.

LOL. Seriously.

It would be relevant if we are assuming that Dartmouth serves as a proxy IQ signal to the world.

That is to say, if you went to Dartmouth, you assume IQ = 99th percentile and above.

I'm certainly not trying to shut down discussion on the topics in this thread, but I disagree. The difference is between seeming possibly highly intelligent, and being poised to take full advantage of one's talents. (FWIW I also wouldn't assume that someone from Dartmouth is at or above the 99th percentile for IQ anwyay.) There's something to be said for having academic opportunities opened for one at an institution, but employment opportunity is just that.

With regard to needing credentials in order to be in the right place at the right time to foster one's development, that may be truer for some disciplines than others. One can't sit in one's basement doing research on one's own that requires a large hadron collider, but one can think the heck out of some abstract math concepts.

This is a good op ed. The main thing is to increase opportunity.

Jonlaw's comments on debt are right on. I do think that not having debt leaves people free to try things. You cannot start a business with 100K in debt.

I really don't think we are pulling ourselves out of this, either. Good article.

My daughter, who lives in Dallas, finds jobs easily even without a degree. She hasn't seen any lack of opportunity. She is making almost $80,000 a year in a job that normally requires a marketing degree. She says if she lost her job today she could find another one easily. It almost looks like social skills, networking ability, physical attractiveness, knowing how to dress well and fit in with all kinds of people and the ability to learn quickly and the drive to work hard and earn more and not settle for a dull boring job is more important than a college degree for some people. Her friends are all young professionals with enough money to travel and enjoy life. They don't have any trouble finding jobs. One recently got a good job after getting his law degree. She is the only person in her group of friends that doesn't have a degree and she thinks it is my fault because I told her not to take out student loans. I thought she should just take a few classes at a time while working full time to get experience. She did that and she has a good job but she is telling her little brother not to listen to me if I tell him not to take out student loans when he is old enough to go to college. She would rather have the debt and the college degree because it bothers her that she doesn't have a degree.

She also told me that one of the things that motivated her to work hard was living where she didn't fit in. She felt people in our town and family were judging her. She hated it just like my son hates it.

I've always found work easily without a degree as well, but I've definitely reached the limit of my career unless I go back to school. I'm an IT Manager and I make low 6 figures. Honestly, I'm lucky to have made it this far. My limited social skills count for a lot in the IT world, but I'm pushing my luck without the official piece of paper.

In Texas, no one cares what credential you have, just if you have a job and can do it well. When I am in San Jose, Seattle, or NYC, I get a lot of questions about where I went to school, etc. I never get those questions in Texas or Florida.


Above that level it becomes political and people also weigh in as to what your value is relative to what needs to be done. So, getting a degree will not help. To go further, you can find a set of coattails to ride or develop sales ability. Nothing wrong with six figures and leading a team well to get things done, though.

To go any "further" I'd have to either write for a living or buy a company. Its a nice problem to have.

On the general subject of college major choice and earnings, I think this recent article is interesting:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/what-the-top-1-of-earners-majored-in/
New York Times
January 18, 2012, 10:00 AM
What the Top 1% of Earners Majored In
By ROBERT GEBELOFF and SHAILA DEWAN

...

According to the Census Bureau�s 2010 American Community Survey, the majors that give you the best chance of reaching the 1 percent are pre-med, economics, biochemistry, zoology and, yes, biology, in that order.

<end of excerpt>

Looking at the article's numbers, I was surprised to see that art history majors were more likely than math majors to be in the top 1%, (5.9% vs. 3.9%). I remember someone at college saying that art history majors tended to be from well-off families and wonder if this plays a role. The optimistic take from this article is that one can major in a range of subjects and still have a chance becoming affluent.

This entire 1%/99% meme is kind of irritating to me because it keeps talking about income rather than accumulated wealth.

Income isn't the same thing as wealth, inherited or otherwise.

That being said, I-banking, medical specialties, and NYC BigLaw strike me as the best career tracks for the money oriented, with medical specialties offering the most security.

The key to the 1% is getting on, and staying on, a high-paying career track.

Math majors probably have to be hedge fund quants (or medicos) to get into the 1%. Art history majors get a plum job with the family foundation?