<p>“our tax dollars in wasteful majors”</p>
<p>Who determines what is a wasteful major? </p>
<p>Colleges and universities are not vocational schools.</p>
<p>Okay, makes sense, turbo. Hope for an exit row or business class on any airline over the pond, any day.</p>
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<p>That is not what going to most colleges is about…not about job training. There are only a few programs that “job train” and some of those HAVE been incorporated into some university curriculum over the last fifty years (like Nursing, Pharmacy, etc.) but for the most part it is not about job training. As Emilybee points out college is not vocational training. You can choose where to spend your money and if job training is important, with only a few exceptions, college is not where the student belongs. There are even medical colleges that don’t require (but highly recommend) a bachelors degree.</p>
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<p>This. If I wanted my kid to learn a trade, I’d have steered him toward trade school. I wanted him to get an education, which is what IMHO college is for. </p>
<p>I majored in something “practical” that would net me a job after graduation; the irony is that I immediately got a job as a computer programmer instead (with a whopping eight credits of computer science), and have been in the field ever since. Most of the people I know do not work in their major field of study. I think that’s actually pretty normal for my generation (baby boomer), and for the current generation of kids coming out of school, that certainly seems pretty normal, too, at least at my organization. </p>
<p>I told my son to study what he was interested in; if he wants a trade, he can certainly go to trade school, but I don’t see college as serving that purpose. (And I think trade/vocational schools are great options for people; I mean no disrespect to them at all.)</p>
<p>YMMV.</p>
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My son left high school early to attend college, so doesn’t have a high school diploma. He mentioned recently that he’d been idly thinking about skipping getting a college diploma and just going on to grad school, but apparently he didn’t follow through on this idea to try to pull it off. This may have been prompted by the tale of a long-ago student at his first college, whose first diploma was for his M.D. </p>
<p>(S is due to graduate in May. With a degree in Philosophy, Political Science having been deemed too impractical. 
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<p>Except for the most selective colleges and universities (that seem to be the focus on these forums), most colleges and universities have most students enrolled in obviously pre-professional majors.</p>
<p>States subsidize state universities because they want a better educated population that can do higher skill jobs to boost the state economy. If that were not the case, then post-secondary education would just be a luxury of a finishing school for the scions of the super-wealthy.</p>
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<p>However, in earlier generations, having a bachelor’s degree in anything was considered a much bigger advantage in the job market than it is now, since the percentage of people with bachelor’s degrees is now larger than it used to be. And computer science was still in the “pioneering” stage in earlier days, so many went into the field from other backgrounds (however, it is still one of the subjects where motivated people can effectively self-study a lot of the material).</p>
<p>Momof ,I think it depends on program. </p>
<p>My business courses partnered with local businesses and we did lots of projects and analysis for them. it was a win win. We got experience and the companies got free analysis and reports from us. That, to me, is a college preparing you for the job market. Not too many fresh grads can list at their post college interviews the experiences we had during undergrad. Its not vocational but you’re interacting with major companies, working on real live projects… And some of our students went on to work for some of these companies. </p>
<p>Completely diff then going to a trade school and studying to become an electrician.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>
<p>The concept of “pre-professional” isn’t an anomaly. It’s more an amalgam of classes that relate loosely to the “professional” school of choice. Several years ago there was a lively thread about the fact that a very high percentage of kids in medical school have an undergraduate major of philosophy. I think business undergrad degrees are similar in that for the most part they are an amalgam of classes covering different aspects. </p>
<p>My oldest was a Business/English double major and one of his classes, an operations analysis class really turned him on to what he is doing now. So Fender, while I don’t think a Business major as directly pre-pro or vocational in some ways Business is also an outlier.</p>
<p>I told my kids what an undergraduate degree shows a future employer is that you have a stick-withitness. I told the kids that having the degree shows an employer that you have the ability to keep on with a task and complete it. It shows an employer that you are willing to learn something new. It tells the employer that you can read and write with some degree of proficiency. It shows an employer that you have some passion or interest in something. To me, that’s “how” a BA or BS “relates” to future employment, nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>I’m in somewhat of a “techie” job also which is hilarious considering my undergrad was political science and my master’s was in business and I’m in the downside of the fifties, BUT I have a lifetime love of learning new things that has allowed me to “grow” in the direction the world is going. And that knowledge and skill set and lifetime fascination with the power of the internet and programming languages differentiated me from the thousands of other unemployed middle-aged, middle managers caught in the auto shakeout several years ago even though those things were rarely used in my “original” career.</p>
<p>"Except for the most selective colleges and universities (that seem to be the focus on these forums), most colleges and universities have most students enrolled in obviously pre-professional majors.</p>
<p>States subsidize state universities because they want a better educated population that can do higher skill jobs to boost the state economy. If that were not the case, then post-secondary education would just be a luxury of a finishing school for the scions of the super-wealthy."</p>
<p>I have no idea if your first statement is factual or not. Do you have stats to back that up? Most universities, including state schools, have a College of Liberal Arts within it and it is usually has the largest enrollment of students. </p>
<p>Just as an example: UMich</p>
<p>“There are thirteen undergraduate schools and colleges.[56] By enrollment, the three largest undergraduate units are the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the College of Engineering, and the Ross School of Business.[57]” </p>
<p>[University</a> of Michigan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan]University”>University of Michigan - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>And at a lesser state university (SUNY Bing) it breaks down like this:</p>
<pre><code>“Harpur College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and largest of Binghamton’s schools. It has more than 7,000 undergraduates and more than 1,200 graduate students in 29 departments and 12 interdisciplinary degree programs in the fine arts, humanities, natural and social sciences, and mathematics.”
</code></pre>
<p>[Binghamton</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binghamton_University]Binghamton”>Binghamton University - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Total enrollment including graduate students is 15K so the vast majority of undergrads are in the College of A&S. </p>
<p>Imo, there are graduate schools for a reason - for specialization. </p>
<p>If someone wants to get a pre-professional undergrad degree - that is certainly their prerogative, but to suggest that some majors should be deemed wasteful and not worthy of gov’t subsidized loans I find extremely offensive.</p>
<p>I can easily argue that getting an undergrad degree in business is equally as wasteful or any other pre-professional degree which requires a Masters or more to get a job, like physical therapists, for example.</p>
<p>I’m divided on this issue. I study philosophy, history, religion and political science as a hobby. I enjoy intellectual pursuits but majored years ago in a STEM field. I think their are different types of kids in college today.</p>
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<li>Those who need to improve their immediate financial circumstances</li>
<li>Those who don’t need an immediate boost in their economic circumstances.</li>
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<p>The struggle I have is that colleges don’t recognize that consistently and advise accordingly. A poor kid majoring in a low paying field is probably not getting the bang for the buck they could get in another major.</p>
<p>Kids are overwhelming influenced by society at large and by parents in the home to feel that college is the next step, at least more kids than are really ready for college hence the high drop out rate.</p>
<p>We don’t have enough respectable vocational institutions. I love liberal arts learning and the benefits it offers. But I think a large number of kids are ill-advised and misdirected and mismatched when it comes to college and vocational pursuits. We have too many square pegs we are try to force into round holes and at great cost.</p>
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<p>Whether poor, wealthy, or anything in between, few poly sci, art/music, English, etc, majors would want to or be able to major in engineering or similar. Sometimes vice versa too. Humans have talent in certain areas. It doesn’t always carry over. Many start off in tough majors and soon find out they aren’t the right person for it. Even if they were to graduate as a C student in a field they didn’t have talent in, with today’s economy, that’s not likely to land them a job. Talk about trying to put a square peg in a round hole… that’s the epitome of it.</p>
<p>IMO, it’s better that they study what they are both interested in and talented in (whether trades or academic), then work to be the best they can in that field. Generally, those who are “the best” find jobs. If nothing else, they have the degree to be able to check the “degree” box and go for non major jobs.</p>
<p>^I think we kind of agree. I think there is a burden on a student to know what they want to study and do with their lives.</p>
<p>However, I think that is a very tough question for an 17-20 yo to answer on his or her own. That is why I singled out societal and parental pressures as being to narrowly focused on just getting a degree and on poor advising not being able to give kids a full range of advice. Once in college, how many college advisors tell a kid to drop out and learn a trade? I don’t think hat happens too often. A kid that goes to school to be an engineer may find he’s not cut out for it but he may be a great mechanic or builder or electrician, etc. Instead, he probably changes his major to history or as one guy I was recently speaking with told me he did when he was a junior in college, “I asked my advisor what major can I apply most of my credits to?” And that’s how he got his degree.</p>
<p>I’m all about pursuing ones passion but I guess because I see a lot of drop outs, and they are all good kids, I think that guidance needs to really be more about the individual, the world of choices that exist and less about just getting a degree. </p>
<p>Which leads me to one societal pressure that I really hate - too many jobs require a degree that never used to require one. Too many employers want college educated kids for entry level work. Nobody does OJT anymore. That is a huge disservice to young people. It bugs me to no end.</p>
<p>“Nobody does OJT anymore”</p>
<p>Costs too much and cuts into their profit. </p>
<p>Nobody want to pay for anything anymore. :(</p>
<p>Many companies spend tens of millions on training. Mine does. The issue is not that it costs too much-- the issue is hiring people who don’t need training so much as highly remedial work.</p>
<p>If we can’t find HS graduates who can interpret bar graphs and do basic analysis (I’m talking 9th grade math) then we end up requiring a BA (and then we still need to train- but the fundamentals are there.) If we can’t find HS graduates who can write an error free email or compose a three paragraph memo (and believe me, sometimes it’s hard with college grads as well) the bar keeps ratcheting upwards on credentials.</p>
<p>Don’t blame the companies. Do you really expect a Fortune 100 company to do remedial sixth grade? The last non-college grad my department interviewed for a clerical job told us she couldn’t “do percentages”. I’m not talking about calculating complex numbers in her head… it was a very basic "20 % discount on 3,000 equals how much money’ kind of stuff.</p>
<p>How attractive are HS grads to employers if they’ve got to re-tool their existing training courses and millions of dollars spent on programs to include what every middle school in America should have already taught?</p>
<p>I wasn’t thinking along those lines, Blossom. I was thinking more in terms of specific job training. I haven’t heard of many companies still doing that - as opposed to when I entered the job market out of college and went into a management training program. Glad to learn I am misinformed.</p>
<p>We hire entry level positions at my company. College degree preferred but not required. Tons of money is spent on training. Training is a month long. Many if the more advanced positions require a degree or equivalent work experience.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>
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<p>I once looked at the percentage of degrees conferred in various majors at various schools in California, including a top end private (Stanford), some UCs, and some CSUs.</p>
<p>Stanford and the UCs were mostly liberal arts majors. The CSUs were mostly pre-professional majors. Note that CSU enrollment is about twice as high as UC enrollment.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised to find something similar in many other places, where the more selective state flagships and private universities are liberal arts dominated, while less selective state universities are pre-professional major dominated.</p>
<p>In addition, many liberal arts majors choose their majors for pre-professional reasons:</p>
<p>math, statistics => finance or actuarial jobs
art => artist
music => musician
biology => pre-med (even though it is not required to major in biology to do pre-med)
science majors in general => perception that job prospects are better than for humanities and social studies majors (big mistake for biology and chemistry majors)
economics => substitute business major
English, political science => pre-law (even though any major is fine for pre-law)</p>
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<p>I was not claiming that, but just pointing out that most college students (and likely government policy makers) disagree with the claim that “colleges and universities are not vocational schools.” Indeed, many do recognize the value of studying liberal arts in college, but do not see that value as mutually exclusive to offering pre-professional study at the bachelor’s (or associates) degree level (as opposed to limiting pre-professional study to those who have completed a bachelor’s degree).</p>
<p>Re: #234</p>
<p>Yes, the perception may be that anyone who has not gone to some form of post-secondary education (whether college as we discuss on these forums, or education for some skilled blue collar job, or proven self-education) will be too difficult to train on the job due to remedial needs.</p>
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<p>Exactly. The companies that require or prefer a degree when one isn’t truly needed are looking for more of a base knowledge overall - a base knowledge that used to come with a high school degree, but no longer does. They are also looking for someone who was able to stick with it (rather than dropping out) when something got difficult or boring, so the person who got “a” degree because most of his credits counted for that still has a leg up on someone without a degree.</p>
<p>Once someone has some work experience, a degree tends to be less important, but to get that first job, it’s almost a requirement except for the more menial jobs for the most part or for those with hooks. And now, even those seem to be being staffed by degreed folks more and more. (To me, a degree/certificate can be from a trade school… I’m not just talking the 4 year varieties.)</p>
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<p>It may bug you, but to quote a popular phrase, “It is what it is.” Those trying to talk capable students out of getting that piece of paper are doing them a huge disservice IMO. Talking to them about minimizing debt is a good thing, but most should still go for a degree or similar. Sure, some folks will do fine without a degree/certificate, but it sure isn’t the majority nor is our country heading that direction. Odds-wise, it’s akin to telling students to play the lottery and hope for the best. </p>
<p>There are those who can’t get a degree/certificate. It may soon be very difficult for those to support themselves. It’s already not easy.</p>
<p>True. It is what it is.</p>
<p>A lot of kids are falling through the cracks though. They do find it hard.</p>
<p>Not college ready and not having the minimum requirement for many jobs. Ands its not entirely their fault. I have a niece that graduated with a 3.5 gpa that got, roughly, a 1300 on the SAT. She thought she was good but had no clue her school was bad. The result, failed out of college after a semester and SAT is an unfair test.</p>