So basically credential creep.
These are theoretically indicated by a HS diploma as well.
You forgot #5: more likely grew up in a financially and socially supportive (of college) family.
I took a job shortly after college where the only credential was having a college degree, any college degree.
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No. But students who met their college’s requirements to receive a diploma in “some major” earned a diploma.
Looking back at the title of the thread and the link provided in your OP, your original premise was that we are sending to college too many kids who were unprepared/underprepared to meet the degree requirements.
Now you seem to be arguing that we should only be sending kids to college if they will graduate in major which you deem sufficiently worthy. Yet, aside from your mention of Gender Studies, you have yet to identify your a list of inherently unworthy majors. If we are going to purge the colleges of students pursuing these unworthy majors, we are probably going to have to come up with a list.
How about History? Political Science? Comparative Literature? Philosophy? Sociology? Early Childhood Education? Hotel Management? Latin? Psychology? Gender Studies? Music? African American Studies? Design and Applied Arts? Journalism?
Which if any of these majors should we purge? What is the standard by which we judge the worthiness of the major? Is it based solely earning potential upon graduation? If so, many of these majors have to be in the chopping block.
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Perhaps you would be better off asking the tens of thousands of kids who regret their college major/attendance. But you knew that already.
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Sure, but let’s also ask the 10s of millions who do not regret going to college.
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And that addresses the drop out problem, how, exactly?
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This thread is so long I may have missed it, but where did that stat come from? I haven’t personally met anyone that regretted going to college, but that’s just anecdotal, of course.
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Various Indeed or Linkedin surveys. Just a guess, but you probably dont know many unemployed with substantial debt college grads, although there are plenty.
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Could you link these various surveys, so we are on the same page?
I don’t doubt there are surveys that suggest that many people are dissatisfied with their jobs and income, as well as surveys that suggest that many people are dissatisfied about the extraordinary college debt incurred, but both of these seem distinct from whether people would have truly been better off had they not gone to college. Without actually looking at these various surveys, it it impossible to tell whether the surveys support this last point.
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An actual link with a citation would be helpful if you’re going to list figures like that.
More anecdotes, but I have 8 millennial nieces and nephews and the 6 that went to college are doing substantially better than the ones that didn’t.
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Here’s a link to an article from 2019 with a bad headline: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees - CBS News
Maybe that is what you saw? Because the article definitely DOES NOT say that 66% of people with college degrees regret going to college. It says:
Two-thirds of employees report having regrets when it comes to their advanced degrees, according to a PayScale survey of 248,000 respondents this past spring that was released Tuesday.
Student loan debt, which has ballooned to nearly $1.6 trillion nationwide in 2019, was the No. 1 regret among workers with college degrees. About 27% of survey respondents listed student loans as their top misgiving, PayScale said.
College debt was followed by chosen area of study (12%) as a top regret for employees, though this varied greatly by major. Other regrets include poor networking, school choice, too many degrees, time spent completing education and academic underachievement.
This is not the same as regretting going to college at all. A small number of people wish they had majored in something else (88% do not have that regret). This article doesn’t indicate regrets about attending college vs not attending college. A lot of them regret student debt. Most people would rather not go in debt so that’s not surprising.
Here is the link to the survey results: Biggest College Regrets - Compensation Research | PayScale
Note that regretting going to college at all was not one of the options on the survey.
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The CBS page is fairly useless compared to the primary source that is the PayScale page. Note that it includes those with degrees beyond bachelor’s degrees.
- 33.9% I have no regrets
- 27.1% Student loans
- 12.2% Area of study
- 11.2% Poor networking
- 5.8% Time to complete
- 5.2% Academic underachievement
- 3.4% School/Institution choice
- 1.2% Too many degrees
Across generations:
- Baby Boomers: 51.3% No Regrets, 13.4% Loans
- Gen X: 37.3% No Regrets, 26.2% Loans
- Millennials: 28.7% No Regrets, 28.8% Loans
Area of study, percentage with no regrets:
- 42.2% Engineering
- 37.3% Education
- 34.9% Computer Science
- 34.2% Business
- 33.0% Health Sciences
- 32.3% Math
- 31.6% Communications
- 27.2% Art
- 26.9% Physical & Life Sciences
- 26.9% Social Sciences
- 25.2% Humanities
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Note that having regrets about college is not the same as wishing that they had not gone to college at all. Perhaps some of those who regretted their student loan debt (the most common regret in the PayScale survey) would have chosen to go to a lower cost college (rather than not gone to college at all) if they could do it all over again. Perhaps some of those who regretted their area of study would have gone to college, but chosen a different major, if they could do it all over again.
Looking at the Payscale survey, one of the options addresses whether the respondent regrets obtaining a college degree: “Too many degrees/over-education for my career.”
Less than one percent (0.7%) of respondents who only received a bachelor degree marked that they most regretted getting their degree/being overqualified for their career.
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The only regret that I have about my college career is that I didn’t go on to get a grad degree. I have a few friends in a similar boat.
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Thread to discuss regrets about college and whether you would have chosen differently if you could do it over: Regrets about college (or not going), or what would you do if you could do it over?
If there’re too many unprepared/underprepared students, the colleges can’t let them all fail (i.e. not to graduate), can they? The proliferation of majors, and grade inflation, are part of colleges’ responses. Why would that be inconsistent or surprising?
I didn’t pick Gender Studies for this purpose. I picked it to illustrate a major at UCLA with light course requirements. Do I think Gender Studies is a rigorous major? No. Do I think it’s the least rigorous major? Again no.
I don’t judge a major’s worthiness by earning potentials, but by their academic potentials. Of the 1,800+ majors, a large number of them don’t meet that standard.
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I think very few of us, whatever our political bent, would disagree that student debt is a big national problem. It is a problem for the students who are under financial pressure, and it is a problem for taxpayers. The fact that student debt has become such a ticking time bomb is proof enough to me that the higher educational system is broken. If students cannot pay their debts, it means they paid too much for something that did not give them an adequate benefit. They are underemployed relative to their investment in higher education, whether they graduated or not.
Let’s look at some numbers. According to this recent Forbes article out of $1.6T in federal direct loans, $112B were in default and $41B are in a grace period (which I interpret as they are not current but might be as much as 270 days late). Close to $1T is classified as in forbearance most likely related to Covid. So who knows how much red is in there. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-statistics/
Also disturbing is this Pew analysis on default rates. 35% of borrowers of federal loans have defaulted at least once, with 66% of those who have defaulted, defaulting multiple times. Government Hits Reset on Student Loan Defaults, But Many Could Experience Default Again | The Pew Charitable Trusts With default rates this high, a “market rate” for student loans would look like what “Al the loan shark” would quote you.
Remember, we are only looking at the hardships created by the loans. We are not counting the waste of earned/saved money as well as time/opportunity costs put into a college degree which did not pay off.
I cannot help but come to the conclusion that colleges are charging too much for a large proportion of students who have little chance of making a return on their educational investment costs, either because they are are unprepared (academically, emotionally, financially…) and drop out or even if they graduate, have not attained a skill that allows them to make a return.
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A major point here.
If they have finished a degree and cannot pay their loans then perhaps the investment was a bad one. Could be they overspent instead of taking a more fiscally responsible route, a cheaper alternative. Could be they didn’t have anyone help them look at what their degree would lead to. Could be they aren’t competitive in their field.
If they had to drop out for numerous reasons they are likely not in a better position than if they hadn’t racked up the debt.
Students certainly should be thinking more about what their college choices mean for their future.
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Be careful with those numbers as ~half of that federal debt is grad/professional school loans, which includes doctors and lawyers with $300k in debt, but making bank, so will have no issue paying it off.
OTOH, there are grad programs that charge $100k/yr for a Masters in Art or Social Welfare and those students have little chance of earning enough to pay the loan back. Regardless, those students were well prepared academically (to get into a good grad program), so not relevant to this thread.
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