Counseling may be part of the problem:
“Right now, high-school counselors are focused on getting their students into college, while college counselors are focused more on getting students into the classes they need to complete their chosen major, and less on what that major should be.”
Maybe they want to be teachers and social workers. As long as people aren’t systematically being kept out of certain majors, I don’t see why it’s important if certain genders / races / religions / ethnic backgrounds distribute themselves differently along the different fields of study. Asian students tend to cluster more in STEM; that’s not a “problem” in and of itself. It has the unintended consequence that they then compete for fewer spits in a uni that still wants to fill its art history and philosophy and French literature spots, but it’s not a “problem” if these are the result of free choices.
I’ve seen a lot of underprivileged minority groups (blacks, native Americans, etc) that choose to go into fields that seek to have a positive cultural impact on their own group. That sounds like teaching and social work, among other professions.
Is it an issue of role models? If you don’t know many engineers, business executives, computer programmers, etc then those may not seem like the obvious majors. HS kids in general can be pretty myopic (understandably so) about career options. They know what is around them – what do the adults they know do for a living? Who do they interact with regularly? Self confidence may play into it to – we have another thread going about STEM grading practices, and have discussed that women sometimes drop out of STEM due to thise grading practices even if they are doing as well as the men are – is there a discouragement factor there that hits minority students harder, too?
Paying isn’t all about choosing majors. If they want to be teachers and social workers without minding low pay, that should be something to be praised.
A kid who chooses to major in education teach instead of studying finance and dreaming of Wall Street is undoubtedly choosing a lower-paying major. Do I view that trend as a disturbing one that needs to be reversed? On the contrary. The difficulty of finding good teachers in many states is proof positive that we need more students like him/her.
@NeoDymium@intparent I was thinking the same thing as both of you. This trend probably has something to do with wanting to help their own community, as well as the adult role models around them. As an African American girl myself, my intended major is Economics with possibly a double major/minor with Education/Special Education, depending on what college I end up choosing. You can bet that my desire to major or minor in Education is partly due to the teachers I have had as well as my desire to give back to my community. However, it’s not a problem if African American students want to go into fields such as education or social work. If that’s what they have a passion for and their opportunities are not being limited, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to.
The problem is not that African Americans are choosing fields that pay less – the problem is that we pay teachers and social workers – whose jobs are, in my opinion, so much more important for creating and nurturing a caring and well educated society than are other, perhaps better paying jobs – so much less than we pay people in STEM fields, business, banking, etc.
The reason that most STEM people get paid well is that less than 10% of the population can handle the academic workload. The reason that some finance people are paid very well is that being able to make money consistently is a rare commodity in itself. Compared to the general population, both are in limited supply.
When it comes to teaching, some enter the field because they love to teach and they recognize it is an important job. But in past years, many chose it because it was an easy degree that led to a reasonably well paid and very secure job with extravagant benefits. Lots of supply relative to the steady demand.
Teachers are far more revered in east Asia, and some of the strongest students enter the teaching profession. I would like to see that model take hold here, but I think the unions would be against it.
Part of the college process should be an education about the realities of given majors (in terms of careers, job opportunities, advancement possibilities, benefits, etc.) and given college debt loads. Kids entering college today have had the “gotta go to college” mantra repeated over and over to them since birth. Just go to college and get a degree…any degree… and you will be fine. 40 years ago, that was true. Its much less true today.
Ultimately its on the student and his/her parents to find this info and make decisions based on it. But schools should provide a lot more info than they do.
Another factor is the benefit of various colleges. Depending on your major/career goals, where you go to college will not matter a great deal. But the cost/debt loads post-grad will often be very different. Though colleges have a conflict in terms of providing this type of info.
Mentoring programs are also key (and this is not just true for minorities). Allow kids to see role models in various careers/professions that they may not otherwise see. Help them see what those careers/professions are like and what it takes to get there.
Teacher salaries vary by state. Overall, I think the “teachers are underpaid” line is much less true than it was 30-40 years ago. There are many states with average teacher salaries in excess of $50k/year (with certain districts in certain states well north of that). Based on the number of days/hours worked and the benefits provided, that is a pretty good job for most people (puts you above average income levels – and have husband/wife both as teachers and you are doing pretty well). But ultimately its a matter of supply and demand.
Unfortunately, while it seems like a greater social good for these students to enter into social work and teaching, it can also means they have a hard time paying off their students loans and getting ahead financially (or even doing okay financially) in life. I think there is some truth to the idea that wealth begets wealth. My dad is one of those “Midwestern millionaires next door” types – you would have no idea how much money he has because he lives a frugal life. But he pushed all his kids to get degrees in areas that would provide a solid living, and had plenty of little tips over the years that seem obvious to people who are good with money – but might not be discussed in low income households. Pay off your credit cards every month, take care of your cars and drive them for a long time, pay cash for cars as soon as you can get to that point and don’t buy anything super fancy and expensive because they just depreciate, invest, save for retirement starting early, cook and eat at home a lot, don’t spring for $4 cups of coffee, mow your own lawn and move your own snow if you are able. (Literally all things my dad says – and he is still mowing and snowblowing at age 89!). Now do I think everyone should major in high-paying majors? No… the world would be worse off. But I think all students should be more aware of their choices and the financial consequences of those choices. And I think if they were, a fair number of them would make different choices.
@hebegebe, I don’t think the problem is the unions, I think the problem is that teaching is undervalued in this society. I know that in my mother’s generation, teaching was one of few options available to women, and only the best and the brightest women went into teaching. In Finland’s highly touted educational system, students must at the top their class to enter a teacher training program, and teachers are closely mentored and receive continuing education throughout their careers. They are also paid well and work far fewer hours than they do in the U.S. – which ranks 22 out of 27 countries with respect to teacher salaries. And in Singapore, beginning teachers have higher salaries than beginning doctors,
I also beg to differ that fewer than 10 percent of students can handle the STEM workload, given that 62 percent of college students that enter college as STEM majors graduate with degrees in STEM fields. Part of the problem for the other 38 percent is that they were not well prepared in math and science before entering college. And don’t get me started of finance people’s ability to make money – the economy is still reeling from how the “finance people” behaved in 2007 - 2008. They may have made money, but at whose expense?
I would argue that the more “people-oriented” professions such as teaching and social work require a different skill set that is just as hard – if not harder – to come by than the ability to program a computer or solve an equation.
If we as a society want diversity in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, then diversity has to be encouraged within majors on a college campus. You can’t force someone to major in something they don’t want to major in but you can try to figure out why they don’t and whether that is the result of a barrier that might need to be removed.
In 2015, for two openings I had, 0% of resumes were from caucasians.
In 2015, for two openings I had, 0% of resumes were from people of Chinese descent.
In 2015, for two openings I had, 100% of the openings were filled with Masters graduates.
A female engineering friend of mine told me that females aren’t aware that their male counterparts have caught up intellectually by the college level. Most females are stunned that they are no longer at the top of their class, and are equally stunned that their male counterparts have in most cases surpassed their intellect. The male takes much longer for his intellect to kick in. Yeah software engineering jobs pay extremely well, but the competition is brutal as the US attracts the top engineering talent the world over. Cisco’s elite program in 2008 was intended to hire Masters graduates from only 8 select schools, with a minimum GPA of 3.9. Nearly 90+ percent of those hires were Indian and Chinese, and I’d guess 80% of them were males.
As we get s larger proportion of kids educated through private/charter schools, especially in voucher states like Nevada, pay and benefits will rise for the better teachers. The problem in traditional public schools is that the unions conspire with the politicians to protect the position and remuneration of poor teachers at the expense of better teachers - typically by seniority based pay and lay-off policies.
Research paper showing how at Duke University, URMS enter w ambitious STEM majors. But because they enter less prepared bcs of less rigorous HS, they disproportionately end up switching to less demanding (and lower paying) majors.
Assuming that African Americans (and Latinos, and women) don’t choose STEM majors because maybe they just want to be social workers and teachers is looking at the issue in a very narrow, superficial way. Not all choices are free and unconstrained and educated choices.
African American students may self-select out of STEM majors and careers because
-they don’t have any role models in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical careers
-they have less rigorous preparation in the area because of their high schools or because of academic tracking
-predominantly white and/or Asian science and engineering departments may feel like uncomfortable or hostile environments to them
-they don’t have a sense of the differences between “enough money” and “better paying”
-they’re being tracked into colleges that don’t offer good engineering and technology programs
or any other number of systemic reasons. So yeah, if you ask them point-blank they will say they chose their career because of X reasons (just like I chose my psychology major because I love the major and I wanted to help people). But poking around in their history or looking at the bigger picture may reveal some systemic pressures and reasons that are bigger than the students’ individual likes and dislikes. In fact, the student’s individual likes and dislikes may have been shaped and created partially because of socialization and systemic bias - my own career choices were constrained to things that didn’t require college prior to the end of my junior year of high school because I never imagined myself going to college until then. If a high school teacher hadn’t overheard a conversation and decided to intervene, who knows what I would’ve done instead?
However, I do take issue with the article’s lazy and inaccurate stereotyping of social sciences and humanities majors (“he does think that if a college freshman says she wants to major in psychology, a counselor needs to point out that she will likely also need a graduate degree to earn a good living” and “Part of the problem is that no history department wants to reveal that its graduates are working at coffee shops”, neither of which is largely true).
many people I know of all backgrounds start off as pre-med or engineering majors…take one semester of biochemistry or an engineering math class and have an awakening! yeah I always wanted to study sociology or education.
(Literally all things my dad says – and he is still mowing and snowblowing at age 89!). Now do I think everyone should major in high-paying majors? No… the world would be worse off. But I think all students should be more aware of their choices and the financial consequences of those choices. And I think if they were, a fair number of them would make different choices.