...and some of you will be aware of my problems with little'un and school (see my other posts)

Well, it's crunch time as a new term approaches and we have to send littl'un back into the 'lions den'. This isn't helped by the fact that because of bullying/gifted problems in the state school system we enrolled him in an ����expensive private school.

Anyhow, we were talking last night - like every night - about the problems with little'un: schools, teachers (spit!), bullies. I got to wonder if the schools are providing an education for a world that is rapidly vanishing.

The UK schools - maybe the US ones too - prepare the kids for SATs and GCSEs in Maths English and other subjects then, at 16 years old, they have a clutch of certificates saying how well they've done, so.....no work available for 16 year olds so on to A Levels.
then, at 18 years old, they have a clutch of certificates saying how well they've done, so.....no work available for 18 year olds so on to University
then, at 21 years old, they have a clutch of certificates saying.... (you get the picture)

My point really is that the work that used to be done here no longer is - no factories; shops and MacDonalds staffed by old folks like me or graduates waiting for the big break. And the jobs we once envied and wanted for our kids are either oversubscribed or done elsewhere (How many accountants/lawyers can the economy use/does the world need? How many UK or US IT tasks are performed online in the Asia and the Orient)

So - what to do? Is it better to send little'un to the ���private school, teach little'un at home and save the money. Or have him taught at state school and save the money. Okay, his certificates might not be as shiny as the private school ones. But with the money saved we could perhaps take him on some valuable vacations, and save up enough so when he gets to 16 and has his certificates the money will still be there for him to go train in something which will make him a living - like plumbing, or masonry, or carpentry......

The world has changed and is changing fast, Just this summer (this past week in fact) there are 150,000 (yes one hundred and fifty thousand) 18 year old leaqving school with shiny certificates with nowhere to go....and the pond just seems to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller...

Seriously - thoughts please

My thoughts: I don't think it's as gloomy as you say. This year there are individual cases of students with good grades not having places, but generally speaking, someone who was going to get good grades *and made intelligent applications* got a university place. Students should have been advised by their schools that places were going to be tight this year, and should have been applying down, to universities that would definitely see them as good catches, making sensible use of insurance offers, considering their choice of courses carefully, thinking about having a year out, etc. TBH the cases in the press that I've seen are of students who applied only to top flight universities for popular courses - that obviously carries a risk of not getting an offer, and students should have been aware of that.

You mentioned IT specifically, as though there weren't IT jobs. That's definitely not the case, at least for well educated software developers prepared to be reasonably flexible about where they work and on what kind of software. I know at least one good employer near me who recently advertised and got no applications - there is a shortage of people for these jobs, if anything. Yes, lots of work is done in Asia etc. now, but the sheer demand for work to be done is increasing more than enough to compensate for that.

I can't say whether this particular school is a good deal for your child - I understand that you're very concerned about the way they've handled bullying in particular, and maybe leaving your son there is not the best choice, I don't know. I do think that education is more important now than ever before, and if there is to be increased pressure on university places, I think it's best for one's child to have the shiniest certificates possible. With the best will in the world, it's harder for universities to make exceptions, look at students as individuals, etc., when they are overwhelmed with "standard" applicants than when they are not.

Thanks ColinsMum

I am from a very poor blue collar background. I have 4 A Levels. I have a good degree. I have 30+ years in IT at all levels. I am as flexible as a contortionist. Yet here I am able to type a reply to you at 11.40 on a Monday morning from home.

Is a degree from any university worth the effort and expense - when the available 'good jobs' can be filled from maybe the top 10 (Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, LSE, Imperial.....)? And I still wonder since when did University become simply a means too a job - my old 6th form tutor must be spinning in his grave.

Do I think it will be easier or harder for little'un to make his way than it was for me? What do you think?

Absolutely I think education is very important - absolutely - but education for what? As I said initially are the kids being educated for a today's world - a world that is fast moving on and East. A friend, a good friend, who is now working well below ability in a Civil Service job said recently "school taught me everything apart from how to make a living". the people I see thriving are the plumbers, builders, mechanics. The brains work is now global - and can be accessed globally (like I am now - via t'internet)

I can't speak from a UK perspective, but from a US perspective, I wouldn't assume that your child's experience in the job market will be the same as yours - at least, not up front. The job market for someone with 30+ years of experience isn't at all the same as the market for new grads - even if you're willing to do the same work for the same money, because employers assume that you aren't *truly* willing to do the same work for the same money.

I also can't speak from an IT perspective, but from a US accounting perspective, freshly-minted CPA-eligible college grads are a hot commodity, even from 2nd or 3rd tier schools. Particularly if they're young 20s and without family commitments (so happy to relocate and/or be 100% travel), but I know of 40-something women with elementary-aged children who got offers. Between SOX and IFRS, the auditors and industry need all the fresh meat they can get, and they're fighting over the same pool.

Truly though, if my DD7 had an interest in learning a skilled trade, I'd be supportive of that interest. The school system here is such that she could both get a university degree (I'd suggest in something like business) and training in a trade, the combination of which would prepare her to do more than "just" practice the trade. Skilled trades are good work, but just as dependent on the vagaries of supply and demand as any other work - plus she might not want to be crawling around in the muck at age 60.

AlexsMom, I come from both an acct & IT background, and your words are true for both!


I echo your thoughts here too.


Interestingly, my father turns 60 next month. He had an interview on Friday to do a less physical job now that he's older. He's been an HVAC guy since he came back from Vietnam in 1971. The trade has been good to him, but at 60, he can't be climbing to rooftops and lifting heavy equipment. He does not have a degree, but I imagine, if he did, he would have left the daily grind at least 10 years ago.

Thanks all - perhaps I am being too pessimistic. But when you see an accountant putting his 2 sons through the sausage machine and you think - you know - when he steps off the wheel that's half a job each for his kids. I am speaking from a perspective where I know lawyers who have been on short weeks for 18 months, other accountant friends work themselves to the bone hardly seeing their families (despite the quite strict laws we have in the EU) and "newly minteds" are spewing out in their 000s.

One educational professional said to us that the future is with the "creatives" - thank God little'un is just that with his sculpting and his art.

Kids - they're a worry

I believe the US has a surplus of lawyers. Between that and the huge debt burden generally associated with law school, I would discourage my kid from going that route.

Should my one kid go into accounting, she can have my mother's job and eventually mine. Mom is likely to retire as a CPA about the time that DD will graduate college. I'd just as soon she took up something like engineering, though. The accounting world is too subject to (both elected and appointed) political whims, but I know nothing of engineering, so can imagine it's better.

Maybe my perspective is different, Raddy, because my profession is not global, and I'm in the US.

I still maintain that education is fundamentally useful. One of the goals of education is to learn how to think critically. It's wonderful if those critical-thinking skills translate into a job at the end of those years of schooling, and I believe most of the time (at least in the US) they do.

I've known several people with advanced professional degrees (JD or MD) who ended up in vastly different fields than law or medicine. They were/are gifted individuals who, by virtue of their education and giftedness, were able to think critically and apply their skills in fields with no training or expertise.

My profession is such that I am based in one location at a time, so my (somewhat narrow) perspective is this - I remain hopeful about the need for jobs to serve the local economy. I have seen a number of people, in a range of professions, lose their jobs in the last 2 years, but our local economy seems to be picking up again. I understand that a fair number of those jobs lost in this economy will never return. Maybe that's what you're seeing in the UK.

I'm still investing everything I can in my children's education.

I guess it what we define as education. there are plenty of kids in the UK who spend 7 years at High School and still come out not knowing much.
I worked with a chap in the City Of London (in a US bank as it happens) on an IT system. He was maybe 20 years younger than me with some high falootin' certificate (degree maybe? Advanced Level?) in maths. We got talking with another guy and we got onto the subject of Integral Calculus - which I studied for public exams at 15 - and the "high falooter" was completely lost.

twomoose - from this side of the pond we hear the recovery in the US is being called "the jobless recovery"? same here in the UK I think. Maybe like the UK many people in work are working less hours to keep their jobs?? I think the local economy is probably the future for skilled people.

I think college for everyone is leading us down the wrong path. Many kids are getting expensive college degrees, and a load of debt and still can't get a job. Yet, the guy who comes to fix my dishwasher gets paid $100 for working one hour. And had enough disposable income to spend $20,000 on model trains last year. But I think professions like that are looked down upon. I just moved and I can't have TV for over 2weeks b/c there aren't enough technicians to do the install. I call to get propane installation and they are booking 1-2 weeks ahead. Yet there are so many people out of work w/ college degrees.

I was talking to the builder of my new house. I asked if is 14yr old son was interested in becoming a builder. He said he's pushing his son to get his education. I asked his son what he wants to do - computer technician. Builders/contractors are professions that can't be outsourced.

A good programmer with good DB skills is in great demand right now in the USA.

The real problem in the Anglo-Euro Sphere is that taxes are too high. You cannot take 50%+ of what a person earns or what a business makes and not stunt a nation's opportunities.

In ranching it is called overgrazing. Too many cows on too few acres. The grass dies. And that is what is occurring to the industrial base of small machine and IT shops.

I'll caution you not to conflate that with "the person who works at the office gets paid $Y for working one hour."

If your dishwasher guy is self-employed, he pays for wear and tear on his vehicle, licensing, continuing education, supplies and tools, advertising, insurance, employer-borne payroll taxes, and other "overhead" out of that $100 - and got paid nothing for the time it took to drive to and from your house. If he's someone else's employee, he doesn't have the overhead, but also didn't get paid anything like $100, even if that's what you paid to his employer. Rule of thumb in the service industry I'm most familiar with is that the employee's gross wage is 1/3 of their hourly billing rate, so a tech billed at $100 an hour might have a wage of $30 an hour (or $60k a year).

Spending money on an expensive hobby is more an issue of limiting outgo in other areas than it is in having significant income.

Hey Austin
One of the things is that a lot of the IT work is outsourced to the subcontinent - this has happened massively in the UK, and especially by the US banks in the City. I know, I worked for 'em. A programmer earning $45000 in the UK can't compete with a far eastern person earning $15000 - and well paid locally for that!

A lot of my mates are business analysts who are working on outsourcing projects. there is a reduced need for professionals 'on site'.

25 years ago to set up a company in the UK you needed to speak to an accountant, pay him $300 and he would set up a company. Now, you do it online, it is set up and docs. arrive by email - cost $40. That's a big slice of work for the suits gone.

Which was why I posed my initial question.

I have good d/b design skills, years of experience in IT in Banks/Financials using iSeries. I'm afraid US work permits are harder to come by than the proverbial snowball in summer (even a UK summer )

I remember what you said about the school. Have you sat down and made a pros and cons list with your little guy to see if he really even wants to put up all the drama in exchange for a Really Awesome mentor in one class which he loves? This was a about the art class right? Actually, let me go look before I assume.
Yeah that was the same story.

Hi Raddy,

I am the contrarian for the bunch that say they live in the US and jobs are available. Every day on CNBC they talk about the lack of jobs here, and estimated GDP growth just got downgraded to less than 2% which means there isn't enough growth, let alone job creation to provide for new entrants or take care of the 9.5% unemployed.

Maybe there are a few pockets where some jobs are available, but overall not so much. And knowing many financial IT people, jobs are getting harder to come by. That boom ten years ago, when a second or third level IT executive could claim 4MM in compensation is lucky to get 400K now. Yes, that still is great money for most but so many more people are trying for that job, obviously for the price to fall that there are not jobs.

So I agree with you Raddy, times are changing. But not for human nature and there are always people that believe that it will be different for them or for their child(ren). Until the lack of opportunity strikes, as it appears to have hit you.

I am not sure of what the difference public school vs private provides there. I have opted for a gifted public with a bunch of supplements. Like a daily vitamin. Online math acceleration, science programs at the museum, Mandarin.

Don't know what will help, what won't but I am trying to make the options as broad as possible so that my child has options. I hope she has options.

Ren

Here is my perspective and I think its a good one.

I am the senior technical person at my firm and that provides financial services. I do high level analyses of competing approaches and lead the technical delivery of the selected approach plus support the other teams in the company and also program artificial intelligence projects. I also do outside consulting looking at firms' cost structures.

My main firm has 7 million customers. We have an IT staff of about 100 people in the US and about the same outside the US plus operations staff of about 200. Many of our inshore staff are from India or the PRC, too.

We lost four good database/java and one good operations people in the last four weeks and all my system admins are getting calls from recruiters. I know I can go into any firm and cut their costs by 25% and I get the hard sell from executives about once a quarter to come help them.

I have a number of friends who were laid off in the last three years. They all went back and got their Java certifications and are employed again. The longest was out of work for 9 months. None of my classmates from college or high school are out of a job.

I can see how if you are stuck in a high tax state things might look bad. But I don't see it from where I sit. I am glad I am in Texas.

Outsourced staff are actually a lot cheaper than you posted. Here is why. It is a service therefore the hiring firm does not have to pay all the overhead required by state and federal regulations. No matching taxes, no workers comp, no unemployment insurance, no HR, no compliance costs, etc. All this works out to about 2.2 x the in-shore worker's salary. So in reality, the cost of outsourcing per resource works out to about 1/10 the total cost. It has to be managed right, and that is the hard part. I do not think it will last for long though as costs for Indian services have doubled in the last three years and Vietname/PRC is starting to show the same trend. But I doubt if it will end in the next 20 years.

Looking at small and medium firm's cash flows the last three years, I find that their biggest overhead items are their 941 non-withholding line entries and workman's compensation/unemployment insurance. For instance, a 20 million dollar firm will pay $500,000 in these areas. And this is in Texas. It far higher in other states. Why have employees if you are taxed to have them?

Wren - you are absolutely where I am coming from. Little'un has just 6 years left.This from this morning's 6 a.m. radio news:

(paraphrased) "The joyful boys and girls with their good passes in their GCSEs (aged 16 exams) will find themeselves today competing with hundreds of thousands of 18 year old students who can't get jobs or college places. And all in turn will be competing with the recent slew of graduates who can't get a foot in the world of work"


Austin - you are right outsourced jobs are cheaper then the $15k I quoted.
Let me tell you how it is in the UK. The country is stuffed to the gills with "qualified" people. The whole economy - well 80% - revolves around London and the City. I have another friend with 15 years(?) Java and was out for 9 months. he now travels 150 miles round trip a day to a job where the Java got him in, but he is brain dead doing non-Java related documentation (it's still a job, right). - I could go out and sign up for a Java course and graduate in 9 months and here it would mean zip. In IT in the UK a piece of paper is worthless, and experience is everything. Employers are just not that desperate, or are willing to pay $astronomical for the right experience. (having said that some would want, say ".Net, ASP, HTML, XML, SQLServer, some knowledge of c#....." I mean, come on who has this skillset to any depth. Oh, and he might pay you $27000.) Also the rules are so relaxed employers can just import the skills (which is why I mentioned the work permit/Green Card issue with the US which offers some kind of protection). I just wonder if this is what I want my son to be groomed for? Next time I'm being born in Switzerland or Germany

La Texican - wise words. At the moment he is dreading going back in because of the bullying which is dragging on...and on. The Gifted Children Advisory organisation (NAGC) were point blank - pull him out now! But he loves the school, It's tough.

Thanks all again

I have two in college. One will be a senior this year and he is alreadyn planning on going for a Masters degree. Why? Not because he wants to but because he says there are no jobs so why graduate? In the meantime he racks up school loans and then what? His goal is to get an internship or something that will give him experience and connections but it still looks like a tough sell. Other DS will be a sophmore in pre-law so he has a lot of school and a lot of loans ahead of him and then he becomes another one of the millions of lawyers - hopefully not the unemployed kind.
My little ones are too young to have serious career plans but I can tell you that I share your worries Raddy. I have a Master's degree and I am unemployed. DH has more work than he can handle and he is....tada!...a mason. So here I am hoping that my HG DS9 finds stone work interesting so he can learn a trade to fall back on when his excellent intellect and schooling fail to secure his place in the world.
DD7 - My only DD and I would love to have her as a strong independent woman someday. Right now she wants to be a veterinarian....it does seem like there are job opportunities here but I know getting into a good school is tough. Plus she is only 7...LOL

Raddy - any chance your little one could get a student visa in another country? I had two classmates in my professional degree program who were on student visas here in the US, and both are still here working now >15 years later - one in Washington, DC and one in Los Angeles. I'm not sure what paperwork is involved (I'm sure it's cumbersome), and it's difficult to be away from their families, but it worked out well for each of them.

FWIW, in the last 6 months, my company has increased our professional staff by 10%. It does sound like IT is tough right now. Throughout this recession, other sectors (e.g.healthcare) seem to have maintained/survived more or less.

Breakaway
Well we have it in the newspapers today that 15,000 law graduates are chasing 5,000 vacancies.

Mason - I always wanted to do that. For a moment I thought you meant 'freemason' - then our worries might be over

twomoose - the future is always uncertain I guess - and what is down today might be up tomorrow. Just what kind of educational path do you put a boy heading into High School in a years time? As somebody else said - best act before the reality bites that the hard work and certificates jut represent wasted energy that maybe could have been put to better use? But what? Maybe just finding a piece of land and trying to build something - that could be a useful & practical education that might in the long run prove more worthwhile in every way? (Imagine having it on your CV!)

I am not sure the US is the place to look for opportunities. If I was a student now, I would look to China or South America. Now that the economy (watching CNBC now) is really hitting the rocks and heading for a decade of problems, job growth should be negative. The government has to cut back (where most growth has come from) and company CEOs are being interviewed and saying they are thinking of cutting back or maintaining. Except CISCO, Raddy you should contact CISCO in the UK. They were hiring 5000. Though the CEO did say their clients were not positive.

But the good news, is that a highly gifted kid can usually do well trading. And in the history of the world, there is always a market. I am planning to teach DD(almost 6)how to trade in a few years so that she can support any passion. There is always a market in something. And you can make money up or down.

It does require a certain personality, but that is another story.

Otherwise, I hope that she has options with all the crap and overscheduling I provide for her.


Ren

Here is another perspective on this. He makes billion dollar decisions. I make millions of dollars decisions. But they are the same decisions.

Read the whole thing.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014563-38.html?tag=mncol;1n

Raddy,

I would look at doing an open source project.

Have you heard of Asterisk?

Google it. Right now it and many other open source apps lack good database back ends and corresponding GUIs.

True - but $60K/year is much better than being a BS-holding unemployed college graduate with student loan debt!

And one of the subcontractors for my house was complaining about how much work he has when he'd really rather just be fishing.

Actually the dishwasher guy got $35 for the service call for just showing up.

Other jobs aren't fairing so well. I just moved. It cost $1500 to move me 2miles. I have a 1000sq.ft house. One of the movers said just a couple of years ago, that same job would cost $2500 but there is a glutton of movers now and he has to keep dropping his prices to be competitive.

Austin
I'll try that - thanks

I think for me the message is that we need education - but educating our people with usable/sellable skills (even IT ones), maybe keeping them local too. Being paid cash is a good thing too, especially for those wary of paying taxes

I am copying what I posted under IQ tests because I think the point is relevant in both.

I just heard something interesting, as the US struggles to be competitive going forward and create jobs.

There is an annual super computing conference in San Francisco every year. It was started by some of the biggest names and brightest minds in computing 21 years ago. And most of those were American males who are around 60 now.

The younger members are now mostly from China, India. I was told by one of the founding members that there wasn't one woman from America. The few women were from China, mostly, India, Japan and a couple from Scandinavia.

He said that the original members realized that the brain trust in America is dissapearing and moving to China.

Ren

My brother went to that in San Francisco. He was all hyped up about it. I was all like, "yeah, enjoy your super nerdfest". Oh I'm awful. Ha Ha. I know he was happy about going. I guess you're right though because he's going out of his way to skyppe with people in other languages because he thinks he needs Japanese for a lifetime career in videogame design.