Study: Nearly half with college degrees are overqualified for their jobs

Parents Forum
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<p>"In saying that retirement is not the issue, I added my 2 cents about retirement. Oops. Opinions don’t matter because the economics of retirement will force whatever changes need to be made even though it may be decades for public policy to catch up with it.</p>

<p>So, please, what was the topic of this thread?"</p>

<p>The topic is, “Nearly half with college degrees are overqualified for their jobs”.
And the reason for this is the lack of jobs, so people are having to settle for less. With many people delaying retirement, it is completely relevant to the topic. It may be one of the largest contributing factors to the issue.</p>

<p>Many want to delay retirement because they are uncomfortable with the economy and stock market, and the fact that people are staying active and healthy longer. Those in highly paid, professional positions are being well rewarded and don’t want to leave. College graduates are taking the jobs that high school graduates used to. When the people at the top don’t leave, progression stops. It’s not like all of the elderly are in WalMart greeter positions.</p>

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<p>There have been studies finding that raising the minimum wage does not reduce employment, but I think there are more studies finding the opposite result. A 2010 book “Minimum Wages” by David Neumark and William L. Wascher found that </p>

<p>“minimum wages do not achieve the main goals set forth by their supporters. They reduce employment opportunities for less-skilled workers and tend to reduce their earnings; they are not an effective means of reducing poverty; and they appear to have adverse longer-term effects on wages and earnings, in part by reducing the acquisition of human capital.”</p>

<p>(quoting the description of the book at the MIT Press site)</p>

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<p>I relayed two actual experiences and you come back with academic research. So, I shouldn’t believe my lying eyes.</p>

<p>Research means little in the real world. It meant nothing when I was trying to reconcile accounts and balance a budget. Nothing at all.</p>

<p>Whatever.</p>

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<p>What you relayed are called anecdotes.</p>

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Yeah, except for computers, drugs, satellites, medical techniques, economics, ecology, food crops, pesticides, plastics, genetic testing, aircraft and all the other things developed as the fruit of empirical research into living things and the world that sustains them. All totally meaningless, I guess.</p>

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<p>Apparently that’s right when a patient can sue for millions and win when they experience a documented, researched and known serious adverse event.</p>

<p>People want to ban guns when the empirical evidence shows that criminals won’t be deterred and citizens are left powerless.</p>

<p>Anecdotes matter to people. You call them anecdotes because you want to make them sound small. I said they were small myself but they were huge to the individuals involved and being small doesn’t make them irrelevant or rare.</p>

<p>I didn’t feel like picking out the flaws in the research cited because it would be boring. I work with research everyday and it’s real world application. I get it but I understand it’s limitations, it biases and applications.</p>

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<p>And empirical research didn’t build computers. People did. Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur not a scientist and he would struggle to build his business starting in today’s regulatory environment.</p>

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You think Steve Jobs invented the semiconductor, the transistor, the integrated circuit, the microprocessor and the graphical user interface in his garage?</p>

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That’s right, and we call these people “scientists” because they performed empirical research using the scientific method in an effort to discover fundamental properties of the universe and advance our technological abilities.</p>

<p>There would be no such thing as Apple Computer were it not for the scientists at Bell Labs who discovered the transistor. There would be no such thing as Amazon.com were it not for the scientists at DARPA who created the TCP/IP.</p>

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<p>You’ve proven that empirical research is never wrong, flawed, biased or false.</p>

<p>If we just listen to all the empirical data out there, life would be grand.</p>

<p>Empirical data rules supreme and the next time you witness something happening in your life, don’t forget to check the empirical data to see if it really happening. Ugh.</p>

<p>This is why young people are under and unemployed in large numbers.</p>

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<p>“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Mark Twain.</p>

<p>We are in an overregulated environment. The paper work and road blocks to start ups is staggering right now. We have also, statistically, really come to a stand still in terms of meaningful numbers of start ups in this country.</p>

<p>We need regulation, but we are regulated by politicians who need donations. we are, basically, regulated by lobbyists, and lobbyists protect the existing businesses by putting up road blocks to new business and inovation.</p>

<p>This is not a one sided issue. Both sides of the aisle like their rules and donations, and the little guy with a new idea is the one who is having a tough time.</p>

<p>Still, we need common sense regulation. You are both right.</p>

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<p>There is some sense to having a minimum wage. Wages are sticky, information is incomplete, and the cost of recruitment is high. Having a minimum wage helps prop up demand. </p>

<p>The really bad regulations are the ones which directly stop people from working, including training requirements for many occupations. These are more often on a state-level rather than a federal level though.</p>

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<p>I agree, my H’s career path (when he started) in 1978 did not require a college degree although he had one but did required extension classes regularly that are offered through the university for recertification. Now that career requires a specific degree and colleges have “added” appropriate majors to accommodate.</p>

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<p>The plural of anecdote is not data. Using anecdotes and limited personal experience runs the extreme risk of confirmation bias. Finally, you do realize that empirical research is how ALL knowledge is created, right?</p>

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<p>Truly empirical data is nonexistent in the social sciences. There are too many uncontrollable outside issues. Economics is a social science, and every researching brings a bias. Also, and unfortunately, there have been a lot of scandals in the sciences lately about “empirical” data.</p>

<p>It is the rarest thing. And just because someone says it is empirical does not make it so. Most knowledge is ACTUALLY gained through experience.</p>

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<p>Knowledge is created by deduction (especially in mathematics) as well as induction (which relies on empirical data).</p>

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<p>So who’s on first?</p>

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<p>exactly… :p</p>

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<p>All mathematical knowledge can be ultimately reduced to generalized human empirical operations performed on physical objects; while we will be subsequently able to perform these operations mentally and develop higher mathematics from these mental abstractions, nonetheless the mental operations represented by mathematical notions are still traceable ultimately back to empirical, physical operations.</p>

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<p>hit the nail on the head. be appreciative that you can work ya know.</p>

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<p>I remember studying abroad in Australia in 2009 and noticing they had a minimum wage of $14-15 US dollars an hour. I even did some catering events and remember making something like $160 for 9 hours. This was doing COMPLETELY unskilled labor. Somehow people survived and companies didn’t bankrupt. Of course there’s fewer CEOs and top management pulling ten million dollar bonuses as they proceed to bankrupt the company all around them. Oh yeah and university cost $4,000 a year. Let’s not forget public healthcare for everyone. Guess what their unemployment was when I was there?</p>

<p>4.5%.</p>

<p>Old people retired. Poverty was non-existant (except for mentally ill/drug dependent). Gun death’s per capita were a fraction of what they were in the USA. Doctors and high level professionals still pulled 200k+ salaries.</p>

<p>I would move there in a heartbeat. But guess what. They strictly limit immigrants. Natives hired first. Wow, what a concept.</p>

<p>America is what it is because of unregulated greed. I’d be more worried about corporate starbucks eliminating your coffee business by undercutting you than minimum wage laws.</p>

<p>If every damn employer is going to require a college degree then expect to pay for it, don’t offer $12.00/hr temp assignments, whine that nobody will work for it and then outsource the job or import an H1-B. Pay for the talent if you’re going to require it. Otherwise, don’t require “formal” education. Now some employers are requiring credit checks to get the jobs! Seriously?!</p>

<p>Also no generation graduated with our debt level. Colleges adjusted for inflation have risen astronomically in the last 50 years. You should see the perks, bonuses, pensions and salaries of the wall of administrators at “non-profit” schools like Rutgers get. It’s terrible. My father’s school was considered expensive when he went in 1978 and it cost $3500. Adjusted for inflation it costs today between $9000-10000. Now tuition alone is $50,000. </p>

<p>The days of studying whatever the hell you want and taking 10 years to find a suitable career are over. Today it’s either engineering, computer science, a medical field (i.e. nursing, CLS, med, PA, dental, podiatry etc…) or accounting. Otherwise either go ROTC or default on your ridiculous loans.</p>

<p>I graduated from a flagship state University with a STEM degree, internships, a respectable GPA and independent research and voluteer work. I only found crap jobs. I remember working at a fortune 500 company where my boss basically ran the entire department with temp workers on low salaries. He sat there and as far as I could tell did nothing but surf the net, yet his employees only were kept as permatemps. And now that company is laying off even more people. Hmm–maybe has something to do with greedy business practices? Most of the permatemp workers didn’t give a $$%# and productivity suffered. Now I’m back in school out of necessity, but I don’t think extra degrees will totally help me.</p>

<p>Avarice has destroyed America. Our education, workforce or anything else is not superior to most of the rest of the world make no mistake. the point of this post is to be flexible and to emigrate out if you can. Learn another language. Great civilizations rise and fall it’s only inevitable.</p>

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<p>Biology major?</p>