<p>While this may be true, it is no different from 30 years ago when I graduated from college, and actually it is probably somewhat less true now. Back then, no one, literally no one, ever asked about your college GPA when looking for a job, and most did not care what your major was; all that mattered was that you had earned a degree. Today, it seems that employers do ask about your gpa, your major and the classes you took. If my impression is accurate, then this should bode better for the kids who “buckle down and work.”</p>
<p>Then and now, whether your major matters depends on whether the job in question is one where a specific college major (or at least a closely related one) is necessary preparation. This is most obvious with certain pre-professional majors like engineering, nursing, accounting, and architecture and associated entry-level jobs (however, some other very specific pre-professional majors give little advantage over less specific majors even for the jobs that they target). Some other types of jobs do need specific types of college course work, such as actuary jobs needing math, statistics, economics, and finance course work.</p>
<p>But that leaves many graduates in other majors competing for the jobs with no specific college major or course work requirement. Note that law school also has no specific college major or course work requirements, so it may attract more students who have little idea what to do for job and career at the bachelor’s degree level.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to note if the choice of majors among low SES and high SES students of similar academic ability differs. I.e. do low SES students tend to choose pre-professional majors with perceived strong job prospects more often, knowing that they do not have as much of a parental safety net for finding post-graduation jobs, and knowing that they may need to find a decent job quickly after graduation to pay back student loans?</p>
<p>Note that this relates to the threads about unpaid internships replacing entry level paid jobs in some areas of work, which can basically screen out those from low SES families from those area of work (whether or not that is the intention).</p>
<p>I graduated over 30 years ago and employers that I talked with certainly cared about grades and being able to fit culturally. The dinner with reps from the company the night before formal interviews was considered very important. Could you eat at a nice restaurant and carry a conversation without being uncomfortable. These were major companies and banks that were household names at the time (1973 or so). Most wanted transcripts and several even SAT/GMAT scores before interviews. If you were below cutoffs–no interview.</p>
<p>UCB, in the study many high SES chose easy majors in fields like communications, fashion design or “business-lite”. Not only were they easier to make grades, but success after college relied more on social skills and network, than learned skills.</p>
<p>However, the quotes you give indicate that there is still substantial input from non-genetic inheritances. In a meritocracy, should people be competing more on their own ability, or on non-genetic inheritances?</p>
<p>After reading all these posts, and then reading a couple of those articles linked in a post near the beginning of the thread, I was surprised to see that the actual school was identified, and which school it was. Not sure if everyone knows what university it is, but after learning it’s identity, I think some of the comments that have been made here about public universities are overgeneralized. Hope I didn’t need to put a SPOILER ALERT at the begging of this post, but it is Indiana University Bloomington. I didn’t know they have a major in Fashion Merchandising.</p>
<p>Research has not found that SAT prep does much to raise test scores, so differences in test preparation probably do not explain the positive income/score correlation. An earlier Crimson article stated that the survey response rate was 80%.</p>
<p>I wish this worked in reverse: that my (no prep) S’s SAT scores could raise our income! :D</p>
<p>Honestly, the news that family wealth and connections help people make their way in life is hardly new. What probably IS comparatively new is that public universities have priced themselves out of the market for those “working their way through college.”</p>
<p>I completely agree consolation. The real news is the price tag. And it’s an unfortunate choice we’ve made, IMHO. </p>
<p>There are all sorts of results from this pricing, not the least of which is resentment on the part of students who have expectations an education can’t necessarily meet.</p>
<p>Rigaudon, the book refers the the school as Midwest University. It doesn’t disclose the name, and theorizes that the findings apply to many large publics, some more than others of course. Side note, I am <em>not</em> promoting this book, but found it worth discussion. Some think their sample size was too small, I’m not a researcher so I can’t comment on that, but this as a 5 YEAR study, so lots of data. Just reading through the data was interesting, (for the nerd in me).</p>
<p>In addition to price barrier, the other news is that these universities are structured to attract and graduate higher SES, at the disadvantage of lower SES, to support their business model.</p>
<p>College was always designed for high SES in this country. The price is an unfortunate new normal. But college education was never designed for lower SES students. </p>
<p>The egalitarian admissions policies are new. They are also not nearly as egalitarian as the PR campaigns would suggest. The ivies admit single digit percentages of Pell students, just as an example, even if they have a stated policy of recruiting talented impoverished students. </p>
<p>There is no school, besides perhaps, the community college system which is designed specifically for the needs of lower SES students. I’m not saying this is good or bad, simply that this is true.</p>
<p>Then let’s get rid of the need for college for many careers. There is no need to spend four years in college before going medical school or law school. Other countries do not require this.
The president has recently questioned the need for a third year of law school.</p>
<p>To those saying that “back in the day”, it didn’t matter what your GPA or major was - no kidding. Back in the day, graduating from college was a pretty big deal; it was harder to get in, fewer people went, and they would flunk you out if you couldn’t cut it. The degree told all of the story.</p>
<p>Now that college degrees have undergone a type of inflation (i.e. are worth less than they used to be), employers are looking for other markers of academic achievement. Those tend to be the type of school attended, GPA, major, and perhaps even how long it took the student to graduate.</p>
<p>Read this book this past weekend, and recommend it to ALL parents of college-attending students, whether male or female, because it contains excellent advice for parents and students regarding choices made once in college. Though book’s research is based upon one floor of female students, the authors’ conclusions can be universally applied.</p>