<p>I don't know if this has been discussed here, but here goes:</p>
<p>Bad</a> Job Market: Why Media Is Wrong About Value Of College Degree | The New Republic</p>
<p>Yes, the article is more anecdotes and wishful thinking than factual.</p>
<p>There’s nothing anecdotal about the overall message:
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<p>Thank you for sharing this, achat. As a parent of a yet-to-be-employed college graduate (class of '11) I found it reassuring. The job market may be tough, but job markets have been tough before. Eventually people with brains, skills, and a good work ethic will find their niche and be fine.</p>
<p>Looking backwards is not a guarantee of future success. There has been a sea-change in US corporations with much middle-mgt just eliminated or off-shored. Ask anyone over 50 with a college degree now unemployed or the 75% of recent grads under-employed. Even teachers and nurses are having a harder time now. Baby-boomers can’t afford to retire. Now I think grads of the top 100 colleges will be better off than than all the grads of less competitive colleges and they will be better off than most online grads.</p>
<p>Agree with barrons - just because a college degree USED to be a sort of a ticket to a better future doesn’t mean it will remain so in the future. </p>
<p>We need to face the fact that America is not the nation it’s been for the past 50 years. If we want the same opportunities for our children and grandchildren that we ourselves have had, we need to start reversing many trends. Otherwise, we are certain to become more like the third world: with vast gaps between the haves-and-have-nots, and with a struggling middle class that’s barely making it financially, socially and psychologically.</p>
<p>^^^Ask any fifty year old whether they’d trade places with an unemployed, college educated, twenty-one year (assuming they could keep the knowledge and experience they have now), the odds are they’d take their place in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>It is nice to read an alternative argument to the many depressing reports recently about the worth of a college degree. But this article does not address the huge difference between the job panorama in the 80s and now. The real cost of college has risen so much that the debt burden for many grads will profoundly affect their career path, as choices are limited by their obligations. Thus the cost/benefit analysis will be different for a lot of families nowadays.</p>
<p>First, try landing a well paying job without a college degree…that said, many decent jobs probably don’t ‘need’ a college education,but degrees are deemed required for some reason…that sets the stage for secondary and tertiary type colleges to fill their schools with students,and the number of students that actually graduate and receive a degree from these schools is weak…</p>
<p>Wildwood11, the cost/benefit analysis needs to include how little people without a college degree earn, and the fact that their unemployment rates are much higher.</p>
<p>It used to be that a college degree sort of guaranteed you a good job. Now, the lack of a college degree pretty much guarantees you WON’T get a high-paying job.</p>
<p>A degree may not mean you will end up on the top rungs of the ladder… but you can’t even get onto the bottom rung without one.</p>
<p>I’d agree that a degree may be necessary but not sufficient to indicate a good job in the future. I’d also say a good tech training in some fields might have a higher success rate than college degrees.</p>
<p>The past couple of decades have been easy on college grads. I graduated in 1982 in the middle of a recession. Just like today, there were very few entry level jobs particularly for someone like me that graduated from State U. I literally knocked on doors, showed up at companies and begged the receptionist to fill out an application. I sent out close to 400 resumes, networked like crazy and got two interviews. I did land a job within 6 months. Not the job of my dreams but a paying job in a related field - bottom of the barrel. I kept my waitressing job that I had in college on the weekends to help pay off my school loans and sold Avon to friends and family to try to gain sales experience. I made more money initially with my part time jobs than at my full time professional position. But both part time positions along with my entry level position helped me land a high paying management consulting position after a couple of years when the market came back. </p>
<p>It is tough out there but there are jobs. But many kids just don’t think that they should start out at the bottom. Many parents don’t think that after they have paid huge tuition bills that their kids should “undersell” themselves. But you have to start somewhere. I just don’t see the tenacity in many new grads these days.</p>