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<p>I agree it’s an interesting article, but they commit the usual sociologist mistakes of ignoring the importance of intelligence, its heritability, and its correlation with socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>Blossom,</p>
<p>Regarding your thesis that divorce is driven by the redness of the state – you have to look at marriage rate to really have a sense of what is going on. The marriage rate in the more blue states is lower, thus the incidence of divorce is also less.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m not a sociologist so clearly not qualified to weigh-in . . .</p>
<p>I have worked with a few PhD sociologists. They can be useful if they manage to refrain from advocacy “science” and most don’t.</p>
<p>Regarding this bill from the NC gov – it is interesting to think that high employment in good jobs fuels “revenue” (don’t you love that euphemism for taxes?!) and those funds pay for those super duper essential classes in gender studies, etc.</p>
<p>If we are a poor society we don’t have the luxury to fund that sort of . . . er . . . highly necessary scholarly endeavor.</p>
<p>Sew- someone who is not married, by definition, cannot get divorced. Divorce means was married and now is not.</p>
<p>The incidence of divorce that I cited does not measure the NUMBER of divorces (where you are clearly correct that fewer marriages mean fewer divorces) but the RATE of divorce, where the percentage of people who marry and then divorce is higher in some parts of the country than the others. Whether or not more people choose to marry is irrelevant- the fact that a higher percentage of married people split up is what’s relevant. And someone who has never married is unable to be counted as a divorce statistic.</p>
<p>I’m not a sociologist either but I did take several semesters of statistics in business school.</p>
<p>I have no opinion on advocacy science, but for my tax dollars, I would rather have people actually look at the census data we pay so much to collect than ignore it. If that means we need PhD sociologists- well, their advocacy is no more or less offensive than the pundits on TV, many of whom are blindingly ignorant of any social reality that is not their own.</p>
<p>Being someone who needs to be careful about my choice of major, I have to say the following:</p>
<p>I do not think that people are necessarily against Sociology, History, etc. What I think is that there is an over supply of these majors vis a vis what the market can absorb. I say this based on talking to my friends and folks at our Career Center.</p>
<p>This I think is a good analogy: Everybody would agree that it is great to have Orchestra Conductors. The issue is how many? </p>
<p>Putting information out there about average compensation is valuable. If less people decide to become (say) Sociology majors, so be it. Eventually, the supply of sociologists will decline and, most likely, their compensation will rise.</p>
<p>Inpersonal, you are correct except that people who major in sociology only rarely become sociologists. I run a large corporate HR department and we must have 15 sociology majors in roles ranging from entry level to SVP. Some have MBA’s and some don’t. A neighbor of mine works for our State managing a department which works with law enforcement to help families whose kids have been removed. She has a degree in sociology and 20 years of work experience plus a Master’s degree, and makes less than someone in my department with 3 years of experience.</p>
<p>So comparing sociologists and their salaries tells you what exactly?</p>
<p>FirstToGo is a sociology major who is graduating … and is likely headed to med school or grad school in public health or both … so she’s a sociology major not making a cent in a sociology so clearly an example of a worthless sociology degree.</p>
<p>SecondToGo is also a sociology major … and planning on being a middle school teacher … and in our kids experiences their best teachers tended to be highly educated people who went into teaching … so he also is a a sociology major not making a cent in a sociology so clearly an example of a worthless sociology degree.</p>
<p>While the proposed survey may not approve of our kids majors or the prospects of their majors Mom3ToGo and I are damn proud of the paths our kids have chosen to pursue and their education choices have set them up just fine for those career paths.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, the assumption that low SES students are not worth offering the opportunities to become educated or otherwise acquire merit is just a self-serving argument by high SES parents to protect their kids from additional competition.</p>
<p>Blossom, </p>
<p>I would not be surprised if the “rate” you’re citing is number of divorces in the numerator and number of adults in the denominator. </p>
<p>And that would not be a meaning stat.</p>
<p>Sociologists are fine. Most need a grad degree to do something that pays well after undergrad. Doing premed along with sociology can be a good strategy because sociology is not typically a concentration with grade deflation. Lots of kids major in non-science and go on to apply to med school.</p>
<p>But that actually is relevant in that those kids are finding it important to go back for another degree before they are done and able to earn well. And so yes, it would be helpful, I think, to know how many sociology majors from this or that school graduated with a college grad type job in hand.</p>
<p>No, sewhappy. Blossom is right. The divorce RATE. Not affected by the number of people who get married. The divorce rate is lower in blue states.</p>
<p>Ucb post 328 - you nailed Beliavsky. Could he be more of a one-note low SES and/or people who aren’t brilliant aren’t worthy of education?</p>
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<p>Not “brilliant”, but at least above average in intelligence. I don’t think it make sense for society to encourage people with IQs below 115 to get 4-year degrees. Charles Murray explains why in “Real Education”. If not going to college means one did not receive an education, then the K-12 system needs to be improved.</p>
<p>What should be done with the dregs of society, er, those with IQs below 115? Are they just fit for menial tasks or something?</p>
<p>Hi Blossom:</p>
<p>“So comparing sociologists and their salaries tells you what exactly?”</p>
<p>It is obvious: it tells me how much more/less they make in comparisont to other majors.</p>
<p>Notice that we are (as an example) talking about the salary of sociology majors, not sociologists. So I stick to my original point that if the skills these graduates have are sought after by employers, their salary will increase. It does not matter if the graduates become teachers, HR managers, or government workers.</p>
<p>Sew- my experience hiring sociologists suggests that you are looking at a very narrow band of “sociology jobs”. My VP Compensation has a BA in sociology, no grad degree, got her first job in data entry for a big company in its Human Resources department and has been on a straight and upward trajectory ever since. She has combined her very keen interest in people with a linear and analytical mind, and her training in a social science has served her very well, particularly in a field of HR that requires very strong quantitative skills (relatively speaking.)</p>
<p>Agree a sociologist who wants an academic career needs a PhD- like every other discipline. But sociologists work in entertainment, the computer industry, in human resources across all industries, etc. </p>
<p>Believe it or not- there are lots of high earning young adults who do not go to med school. Ever.</p>
<p>Inpersonal- this is exactly what the data will not tell you:</p>
<p>It is obvious: it tells me how much more/less they make in comparisont to other majors.</p>
<p>Notice that we are (as an example) talking about the salary of sociology majors, not sociologists. So I stick to my original point that if the skills these graduates have are sought after by employers, their salary will increase. It does not matter if the graduates become teachers, HR managers, or government workers. </p>
<p>There is selection bias in the data; there are sample size issues (if Connecticut College graduated three Medieval History majors in the last 10 years and one is a neurologist, one a dermatologist, and one runs a hedge fund, how is that helpful for you in deciding whether or not to study Medieval History?), there are geographic distortions (all things being equal, someone in SF will make much more than someone in Missoula even doing the exact same job), etc.</p>
<p>So i’m not sure that the costs of collecting and interpreting the data are outweighed by the very modest upside of having numbers which don’t actually add to the debate all that much. Nobody who is heading off to major in Sports Management cares that cardiologists make more than trainers; (or maybe they care but it’s not actionable); nobody who is teaching Kindergarten is going to be persuaded to become a chemical engineer instead JUST BY LOOKING AT THIS DATA. But there will be LOTS of people convinced that if only they peer deeply at the numbers they will be able to find a statistic which supports a belief they already hold.</p>
<p>Kinda like right now, only we don’t need a Federal mandate and more costs to do that- we’re all doing it right now.</p>
<p>Do you think the folks enrolled in Master’s programs in K-12 education are too stupid to figure out that they’d make more money as dermatologists?</p>
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About 70% of the population does not have a 4-year degree, and looking at Figure 1 of [Educational</a> attainment in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States]Educational”>Educational attainment in the United States - Wikipedia) , that number is changing pretty slowly. The 70% are doing a wide range of things, and I have more respect (not calling them “dregs”) and confidence in them than you do.</p>
<p>Hi Blossom:</p>
<p>I guess we will need to agree to disagree. Although I am not an expert in statistics, I know that there are ways to deal with many of the issues you are pointing out. For instance, requiring a minimum sample size before reporting a statistic. Also, if people who graduate with our hypothetical Sociology major later became dermatologists, neurologists, or hedge fund managers, more power to that major at that college. It means the training was rigorous enough that allowed the graduates to transition to the fields they wanted.</p>
<p>And what about the voluntary choice of low-paying jobs you may ask? I think that students from major X and Y have the similar probabilities of choosing the helping professions. When all is set and done, if on average major X still leads to significant earnings than major Y, people are better of knowing it. </p>
<p>Would you honestly believe that, on average, a Finance major from Penn (Wharton) is likely to make the same as a Sociology major from Penn. What about the averages of CS major from Carnegie versus Sociology majors from that school? </p>
<p>I believe that data about average salary by majors for each college could help reduce problems such as this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1459734-student-graduates-100-000-debt-pol-sci-degree-goucher.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1459734-student-graduates-100-000-debt-pol-sci-degree-goucher.html</a></p>
<p>Uh, Beliavsky, I was being sarcastic. That must not have been on the SAT. </p>
<p>Why does a college education need to be so precious, prized and reserved that it is doled out so sparingly, in your worldview?</p>
<p>Re #330: “No, sewhappy. Blossom is right. The divorce RATE. Not affected by the number of people who get married. The divorce rate is lower in blue states.”</p>
<p>I’d hypothesize that the rate IS strongly affected by the number of people who get married. Your statistic isn’t explanatory without context – namely the marriage rates and cohabitation rates in red states vs blue states. Unhappy relationships end. My hypothesis would be as follows: In red states, a greater proportion of people in relationships get married (and get married younger), so that when their relationships end, it’s a divorce. In blue states, folks are more likely to cohabitate before marriage (or never marry) so that when their relationships end, they just end without a legal proceeding or a statistic. But I’m just a dumb business major so y’all will have to test that for me. </p>
<p>More generally, this conversation reminds me of the story about the geography professor getting his intro class at Carolina all fired up by telling them that “last year, the average starting salary for UNC geography majors was $250,000.” Then, after a long pause and lots of whispers from the class, "Without Michael Jordan, the average was . . . . "</p>