<p>Are some of you seriously arguing that the American public is not entitled to this information because it’s too stupid to understand it? That’s how your arguments come across to me. In general, I think folks ought to be given as much information as possible.</p>
<p>No, I don’t know about others, but this isn’t what I think. I just believe that the information gathered won’t be reliable or meaningful- and may even be misleading. And I don’t particularly want to pay for it in higher tuition and fees</p>
<p>They are entitled to the basic info. Customized, I don’t know. Much career info IS out there. Many kids are not accessing it- just as they don’t look at their loan repayment info.<br>
What’s really wrong with the BLS detail? That it doesn’t reflect specific colleges and their majors? That you can’t tell if it’s better to study at Princeton or SUNY or a much lower tier? The quality of each’s programs is more than what jobs some kids got- the matching is more than that. And things evolve quickly.</p>
<p>Here’s a relevant question: If some majors are so much more valuable than others, why do colleges mostly charge the same for both? Why not charge more – as they surely could – for those “golden ticket” majors? The ones that could easily attract market-rate financing, and whose majors (assuming they could graduate) could easily repay that financing with the wonderful jobs they will receive. And charge less for useless “parking lot” majors that need a few students to justify the existence of faculty in a traditional area of study?</p>
<p>Isn’t that the way markets usually communicate value? Not by providing scads of hard-to-interpret and probably-irrelevant data, but through easy-to-understand prices.</p>
<p>Clearly, the argument many of you are making is that academic fields you don’t respect aren’t worth the tuition dollars being charged for degrees in them. Fine . . . let’s assume you are right. But why are you all supporting such a, well, regulatory solution? Isn’t the answer to charge what those majors are worth (practically nothing, according to you), and charge more than the current price for engineering degrees? (I bet the cost of maintaining engineering departments is a lot higher than anthropology or literaature departments anyway.)</p>
<p>Uh, argbargy, isn’t the movie referring to STUDENTS working in a parking lot? Not graduates.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t know what kinds of workplaces you STEMmy types are familiar with where no one majors in psych, soc, anthropology, literature, or a language, but it certainly doesn’t describe my experience in the real world, where bright kids with those majors absolutely find jobs and become quite successful.</p>
<p>Let’s say there are some graduates working there, too? What exactly does the existence of a hippie parking lot in Charlottesville (or Santa Cruz, or Lawrence, or Eugene) prove? That some graduates like to hang out in college towns, and don’t care about making a lot of money? So what? Does the movie show them being forced to do that?</p>
<p>Re: #64</p>
<p>Many universities do change different tuition for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Different undergraduate majors, or</li>
<li>Lab courses, or</li>
<li>Upper division standing, or</li>
<li>Graduate students[1], or</li>
<li>MBA, JD, and MD programs</li>
</ul>
<p>[1] At least nominally for unfunded graduate students, whether or not there are that many unfunded graduate students.</p>
<p>Haha. The BLS shows anthro is acually a fast growing field, despite arg’s worries. But it does reflect that a masters is usually the entry point.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of when these statistics would not be helpful:</p>
<p>My first degree was in Occupational Therapy. At the time of my graduation, Occupational Therapists made more than a lot of new grads made. However, after 13 years in the field, I was only making $5K more a year than as a new grad because the field had no opportunity for growth and working in hospitals meant you never got more than a 2% raise in any given year, if you got one at all. OTs in NYC made a lot more than OTs in Detroit and OTs in Detroit made a lot more than OTs in Kentucky. If you tallied college statistics, it might look, at the five year mark, like OTs were highly paid, even though after 13 years, when taking inflation into account, they were making less money than when they started working. If people attending that college tended to stay in that geographic area, it would appear as though it was a better school for that major, without taking into account that a person could move elsewhere and make more (or less) money.</p>
<p>BarnardMom, but the additional info to which you refer (starting salaries versus midcareer salaries) is out there. Your experience with OT is seen in a number of similar majors. New stats wouldn’t negate what is out there-- it just provides additional info. </p>
<p>I do think this info would be helpful although I think it would be more helpful as the years went on. It’s sort of like Naviance. One year of graduating stats is of limited help but 10 years of grads from the same school and you start to see patterns.</p>
<p>JHS- your post #7 is assuming “cost” is sheerly tuition charged. Actually, cost is a lot more than that - it is opportunity for the student and the student’s family if they are helping to pay. Four years or more. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. This, in fact, is every bit as serious as mortgage boondoggles that went on not long ago. </p>
<p>Sure, as some of you argue, an anthro major can be prosperous but more because of personal attributes than the degree in anthro. </p>
<p>My DH did his degrees in a field akin to anthro. Some of his fellow grad students did ok eventually but most had trust funds, could bounce around dabbling in interesting research till they finally got a tenure track gig – or not. It didn’t matter because there was family wealth. </p>
<p>Ones like my DH had to scramble and. Essentially remake themselves post-grad to earn a living. The social sci degree was a liability to overcome, not an asset. </p>
<p>Sometimes very bright people are drawn to these degrees and end up doing really well financially. Most don’t. </p>
<p>Pedigree matters if you take that path. </p>
<p>In any case we are not in an era when it’s fair to kids and their families to tell them fairy tales about how anthro is Great for getting a job. It isn’t. </p>
<p>Universities want these departments and the ideology they pump out and they want parents to subsidies it so of course they don’t. Want info proposed in this bill to come out.</p>
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<p>Nope! But thanks for gainsaying! </p>
<p>If you watch the movie, the workers make a joke of that the existential despair of working in the parking lot booth is best handled by the anthropologists- many of whom are late 20’s into 30’s. </p>
<p>Its a good doc- if you like hipsterish stuff.
Trailer here: <a href=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcT9rylhEdY[/url]”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcT9rylhEdY</a></p>
<p>More information is rarely a bad thing.</p>
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<p>I think that what people make the first few years has little to do with long-term success. All the engineers seem to have made a lot in the first few years, then they all seemed to plateau while liberal arts majors surpassed them and moved up, and the only one I know who’s made any serious money did so because she patented an invention.</p>
<p>
Research does not confirm this:
[In a Wage Rut for Years
Till von Wachter
New York Times
May 25, 2011](<a href=“Young Workers: In a Wage Rut for Years - NYTimes.com”>http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/24/the-downsized-college-graduate/young-workers-in-a-wage-rut-for-years</a>)
</p>
<p>Von Wachter’s paper on the subject is [Short-</a> and Long-Term Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession](<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/~vw2112/papers/grad_recession_vonwachter_oreopoulos_heisz_final.pdf]Short-”>http://www.columbia.edu/~vw2112/papers/grad_recession_vonwachter_oreopoulos_heisz_final.pdf)</p>
<p>For all you folks who think that “mandated data” is helpful- let me introduce you to the world of EEOC and Affirmative Action. For companies that do business with the federal government and are required to track and report all sorts of information as a condition of taking public funds- voila. Entire departments of employees who do nothing but compile statistics. Entire levels of management which exist to interpret “how many minority owned businesses did we do business with last year”, etc.</p>
<p>This transparency does nothing as far as I have observed in leveling the playing field for racial minorities or veterans (which was the mandate’s intent). Companies still hire the folks and do business with the vendors they’ve always hired and done business with. What it has done is create a boom in paperwork, costs, inefficiencies (instead of interviewing 8 people for a job and picking one of them, they now interview 20 in order to include a Latina, a disabled Vet, etc.) And there is a sub-culture of companies out there advertising themselves as “Minority owned vendor” when the minority in question has no operating responsibilities in the business whatsoever-- but shows up once a year if required for compliance.</p>
<p>So no- I think mandated data of this sort is both a bad idea and a waste of a university’s time and money. It requires investing in data gathering and interpretation, hiring people who create no value for the university other than covering their backside, and in many ways detracts from the universities mission. Parents who want value for their educational dollar don’t need to wade through statistics to learn that as of last year, CS and EE majors earn more 3 years after graduation than Art History majors. That data is abundantly available.</p>
<p>The question everyone wants to know is- should I invest MY money in MY kid to study Art History or EE. Well- if your kid is a malleable tool with no opinions or preferences of his or her own, then sure, stick them in a CS program and wait four years. If your kid is like virtually every other sentient human being- he or she will no doubt be good at some things and not so good at others and might well NOT be suited to studying CS, regardless of the payoff.</p>
<p>Do you really think that mandating MORE data collection is going to help you tell your kid that he/she should become a cardiologist and not a speech therapist?</p>
<p>True, “more info is rarely a bad thing” - but there IS info out there. It seems some assume some new efforts, surveys, compilations, etc, are needed- does it really have to be repackaged? Does it need some new law? Kids have to somehow seek out this info. </p>
<p>The trick isn’t, should the English major go to Princeton for more $ or choose another college. Not necessarily whether he should chose another major. It’s, no matter what major, will he have his stuff together by the college senior year?</p>
<p>The humanities major could have summer (or school year) internships/jobs or some community work that starts a resume. The best humanities kids can think, research, organize, write, manage, sell. I’m pretty sure we all know people who succeeded because they had the “stuff,” the vision and the energy, no matter what they studied- and not just because some college major slid them into a job path or the family was wealthy. And, we all know kids who are doing zip. </p>
<p>We’re talking passive/reactive versus activated/goal-oriented here. Not that info is being served on a different platter. And, once they get that first career track job, it doesn’t end there. You don’t just do the job and get your raises. We still need to be on the ball.</p>
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<p>Right. This is just common sense, frankly. If my kid didn’t have an aptitude for STEM (and one of mine doesn’t - the other does, but is unsure if that’s where she wants to head), why on EARTH would I ever urge him to major in it? Pretty dumb thinking that one can build a decent career out of something you don’t like and don’t have natural interest in or aptitude for.</p>
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<p>Why would I want to make more money if it was in a field I didn’t care for and struggled with? Isn’t happiness worth something? It is to me.</p>
<p>blossom,</p>
<p>You don’t have to introduce me to the world of affirmative action. As an attorney, I can tell you that there are a lot of firms with URMs and women that have benefited enormously from the regulations you think do nothing!</p>