Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion go to college or no?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/b...d-by-increasing-number-of-companies.html

It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
New York Times
February 19, 2013

ATLANTA —The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.

Consider the 45-person law firm of Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh here in Atlanta, a place that has seen tremendous growth in the college-educated population. Like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills.

This prerequisite applies to everyone, including the receptionist, paralegals, administrative assistants and file clerks. Even the office “runner” — the in-house courier who, for $10 an hour, ferries documents back and forth between the courthouse and the office — went to a four-year school.

“College graduates are just more career-oriented,” said Adam Slipakoff, the firm’s managing partner. “Going to college means they are making a real commitment to their futures. They’re not just looking for a paycheck.”

Economists have referred to this phenomenon as “degree inflation,” and it has been steadily infiltrating America’s job market. Across industries and geographic areas, many other jobs that didn’t used to require a diploma — positions like dental hygienists, cargo agents, clerks and claims adjusters — are increasingly requiring one, according to Burning Glass, a company that analyzes job ads from more than 20,000 online sources, including major job boards and small- to midsize-employer sites.

This up-credentialing is pushing the less educated even further down the food chain, and it helps explain why the unemployment rate for workers with no more than a high school diploma is more than twice that for workers with a bachelor’s degree: 8.1 percent versus 3.7 percent.

Some jobs, like those in supply chain management and logistics, have become more technical, and so require more advanced skills today than they did in the past. But more broadly, because so many people are going to college now, those who do not graduate are often assumed to be unambitious or less capable.

Plus, it’s a buyer’s market for employers.

“When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,” said Suzanne Manzagol, executive recruiter at Cardinal Recruiting Group, which does headhunting for administrative positions at Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh and other firms in the Atlanta area.

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Ugh!

Your college sounds awesome


(sigh)<--(empathy for you)

Co-parenting can be hard (no disrespect to your DH - I'm sure he's a great dad). My DH thinks that post secondary is a waste of time and money. My kids are only 8 and 10 and already I'm stressed about it.

I wish my parents had made college a requirement.

I'd say keep it on the table for sure (without creating too much conflict with your DH). Could you show your DS this thread so he can see how everyone has weighed in? (I couldn't with my DD10 - she'd be embarrassed even with the anonymity).

This was pretty much my point.

A basic college degree simply means that you can be hired for a non-labor intensive job.

My assistant (formerly the receptionist) has a college degree.

The college degree is one reason she got hired in the first place (I didn't do the hiring).

After high school, graduates have many more options than they think. While many people push them into college, this decision has to be theirs. No point in wasting that much money if one really doesn't want to be there. If he wants to go right into the work force, then he should go for it. He may find it hard to sell himself above someone with a college degree, but that's where you have to think harder. A college degree is just something that tells employers you're smart. What you did in college tells employers how involved you are - showing work ethic. If he can build a portfolio with work that relates to the type of work he wants to do, and if he was involved in high school and can show he was above the rest, then he should have no problem finding a job. However, college provides an opportunity to learn and grow his skills in whichever field he chooses to pursue. With this, he'l get experience in other fields and maybe even find something he never would have considered to be more enjoyable than being a video game developer. Let me know you're thoughts on a college degree and what it really means to an employer

MoN, this has been a hot topic socially among faculty for over a decade. Post-secondary educators were pretty savvy, IMO, to that particular shift in thinking the moment that "partnerships with industry" and "certificate programs" started becoming major buzzwords outside of engineering fields, back in the late 90's.

We knew what it meant. But administrators only saw $$, and told us that we were just Ivory Tower Snobs who didn't care about our students and their "real world needs for marketable skills."

I think it's increasingly obvious that this shift has done NOTHING to benefit students (and the alums they become), but much to help employers heave much of the burden of training off onto applicants.

HowlerKarma, could you further explain the shift you mention? I agree that college these days benefits more the employers than the students, but for reasons that pertain to what college has become. From higher education being about broadening one's education and truly becoming "educated," nowadays, colleges have strict curricula for majors that prohibit students from becoming educated in other areas of interest. For example, science and engineering majors are increasingly pushed further away from liberal arts areas of study, and never get the chance to be exposed to these areas which may or may not have held interest to the student. This seems like a fast track for a student to become specialized to work in a specific field, rather than a true secondary education for a student to experience a variety of knowledge. Being a current student, this is just my opinion, is this the shift you were mentioning?

Not exactly.

Also, what you're currently experiencing is neither new (I recall that same frustration in the 80's as a college student in a STEM field) nor the result of any shift/commoditization.

It's the result of laboratory coursework on campuses requiring a disproportionate bite out of a STEM major's schedule, and the nature of STEM disciplines, which really require a sequence of learning that is both additive and dependent in order to master the discipline (as required of a BS degree, I mean). The other thing is that STEM classes with labs run on a five-day schedule (three lectures, two lab blocks) or a four day (three lectures, one lab block) and that lab block interferes with humanities coursework, which tends to run on a different kind of 'schedule' week to week. It's hard to fit the two schedules together.

There really ISN'T a lot of 'wiggle' room in those STEM majors past the 200-level, either. It's a lot of information, is the problem, and while you could make room for more humanities coursework and fine arts... it would be at the expense of that hands-on time in laboratories. And that is where good STEM students learn to be fearless in tackling and solving real problems, which is our real value in later workplace/graduate studies. That's really where we learn to be autodidacts. So the lab bit of things cannot be "virtualized" nor can it be trimmed/ditched without losing something pretty essential.


Besides, exploring some of those other things is what the general education core is for on most campuses. I know this because I've been involved in producing the standards/creating courses that meet them on two different campuses. That really IS the goal.

The other option is to take overload credits, but I also know from experience that this can (because of those lab hours, darn them!) be easier said than done. This is yet another reason why I consider it DEEPLY distressing that high school students are caught up in a sort of arms race that doesn't allow for "fluff" in order to make themselves look "better" on paper to elite colleges.

Okay-- so that shift, though? That is about "distance" coursework, offering "certification" (the kind of thing that only trade schools used to do), and two year programs, or requiring internships, etc. etc. Things related to "the needs of industry" are particularly troubling. Those things are transparently about JOB TRAINING.

The troubling part is: a) this is higher education (not post-secondary job-specific training), and b) wait a second... aren't companies supposed to TRAIN their hires at their own expense, not choose from those who have paid to be trained to specs?? Neat trick, that. Education is portable and broadly applicable to learning NEW things that can fit into, or add onto, the framework that has been carefully built, but it almost always requires refinement/shaping in order to fit the needs of particular demands in the workplace. Training, on the other hand, is about learning particular tasks, protocols, or skills-- which may or may not have any other application or use.

Personally, I feel that college is important. People may be successful in life without it, but studies have shown college graduates earn more money, on average. And if money isn't your thing, then I feel college provides you with skills, such as critical thinking, collaboration, monotony, commitment, and life experience- skills that are useful in any career path.

I always talk to my eldest about college as though it is the done thing. I tell him it is another lot of schooling after high school. Even if my boys choose to outside of academia, I think college should be done first, then your dream.

I had no idea what the point of that was.

The laboratories, I mean.

I was mostly annoyed that I actually had to show up for them and do things while there.

The lab is not where I learned to be fearless in tackling and solving real world problems, and I've known a number of STEM workers who completed those labs and were still frozen by fear, and rendered ineffective in their jobs as a result. Labs are scripted, and they're designed to reinforce or challenge your mastery of concepts that have already been formally taught. The real world doesn't work that way, because it has zero regard for what you've learned. It's perfectly comfortable behaving in ways that directly contradict your certainties.

Fearlessness is gained in the real world by successfully overcoming real-world challenges, and especially by successfully overcoming the ones you've caused yourself. That can only be done on the job.

I'm not saying labs are worthless... they're important baby steps to becoming familiar with the equipment and processes. I'm just saying the benefit isn't what you say it is, and that OJT still provides tremendous value, which is why nearly every job description is asking for experience.