College has been (vastly) oversold

[don]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

[jimmygu3]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Your post just prompted me to check tuition at my alma mater. When I graduated from the University of Georgia 20 years ago, the tuition was exactly $2000/year for in-state students. The current in-state tuition is $7,282, representing a 264% increase, or 6.7% annually. CPI over the same period averaged 2.6%. I suppose the education must be 2 or 3 times better now.

[Basil]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

That was me. Started in engineering, could not handle the math (my oldest definitely can handle it all), and switched to econ so I could take business classes and other classes I liked. Got out in 82, no jobs, got a decent one in 83 working for a guy who needed mood enhancers at times, learned the trade, and went on my way to recreate what I learned. dot com was very good to me in that business was great. Unfortunately, I do not think there is another such bubble coming our way to ride anytime soon.

Thus, we end up with a need to ensure that our kids either have a genuine passion for what they do, or at least the skills and talent to do what they learn and hopefully a dsire to like it in the end. In the case of a Petroleum Engineer, once you grind thru college, a lot of your time is spent travelling, on rigs, and reviewing data. this actually appeals a lot to #1, so if he makes it thru the program, the end reward will be exactly what he would like to do. As for #2? Still too early.

BTW, I think EVERY kid in college needs to take Accounting 101 and Business & Tech. Writing 101. Anyone who every has their own business will clearly need the skills in those clases more than anything else.

It is important to note that the majors that are increasing are not the liberal arts majors. In most universities liberal arts majors are actually on the decline. Majors in the social sciences are increasing rather dramatically, economics and business in particular. History is also rather popular because at many universities it is considered by students to be among the easiest majors. Global Studies is also a rather popular degree that unfortunately does not offer many prospects if it is not joined with an area specific major and rigorous linguistic training. The upshot is that one should not be so quick to lay the blame for joblessness on liberal arts majors (according to most statistics, psychology, a social science major, is the least employable and lowest wage major), nor should one stigmatize liberal arts majors as the easier ones (classics anyone).

[don]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

A parent never knows where it will lead. My youngest daughter was a psych major. In her last two years she drifted into statistical studies and continued mentoring at another school on her professor's grant. Now she's doing well in the trial management end of Big Pharma. She just changed companies and her first assignment was to attend a meeting in Zurich. At one time papa thought she's be scratching out a living counseling couples about to divorce. Who knew? Not I.

[c1ue]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Frankly the issue is not so much one of types of college degrees, as it is the relative economics of paying for college vs. pay from a job.

$5000/year for any degree equates just fine with even 'average' salary jobs of $40K. The problem of course is that college these days is more like $10K/year, and is far more in the 'better' schools or as an out of state student.

The same dynamic with real estate has migrated into college tuitions: just as ridiculously overpriced homes were being sold via crap NINJA loans which in turn were being sold off as AAA MBS's, so now we have ridiculously overpriced educations being sold via crap student loans which in turn are being foisted onto the government via loan guarantees.

All we need to make this comparison complete is to start blaming the students for taking on too much debt.

It is this FIRE aspect which makes me think FIRE should be changed from finance, insurance, and real estate to finance, insurance, real estate, and education.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Frankly the issue is not so much one of types of college degrees, as it is the relative economics of paying for college vs. pay from a job.

$5000/year for any degree equates just fine with even 'average' salary jobs of $40K. The problem of course is that college these days is more like $10K/year, and is far more in the 'better' schools or as an out of state student.

The same dynamic with real estate has migrated into college tuitions: just as ridiculously overpriced homes were being sold via crap NINJA loans which in turn were being sold off as AAA MBS's, so now we have ridiculously overpriced educations being sold via crap student loans which in turn are being foisted onto the government via loan guarantees.

All we need to make this comparison complete is to start blaming the students for taking on too much debt.

It is this FIRE aspect which makes me think FIRE should be changed from finance, insurance, and real estate to finance, insurance, real estate, and education.

Agreed....it's probably the rising average cost of higher education(without the commensurate rise in average starting salaries in most degrees) since I graduated in 93 with my first degree that started my search for what is really going fundamentally wrong.

And at the moment, higher education "feels" like the building industry circa 2005.

Well paying building jobs, almost looked upon as real and sustainable "manufacturing" jobs, turned out to be quite vulnerable to the FIRE tap being turned off.

Aren't well paying higher education industry jobs looked upon as real and sustainable "white collar" jobs, but could potentially be quite vulnerable to the FIRE tap of non-defaultable student credit/debt being turned off?

[Sutter Cane]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

All we need to make this comparison complete is to start blaming the students for taking on too much debt.

This is already well underway. Look at the comments on any article on student loan debt, or the OWS coverage. Lots of blame being directed at stupid students for going into debt for degrees in underwater basket weaving (regardless of what actual degrees the people featured in the article might have).

As is typical with any problem in America nowadays, most people take any chance to blame individuals (who may very well be worthy of blame - or may not) while refusing to admit that there are larger systemic issues.

Even if we pretend that every student made poor decisions, that doesn't change the fact that there is still some underlying problem.

[Roughneck]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

I've always told my kids you need to be something. If you aren't book smart enough to be an engineer you can make a good living as a machinist.You must have a marketable skill.Doctor,nurse,plumber,electrician etc beats a general business degree from a state school.

[mikedev10]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Your post just prompted me to check tuition at my alma mater. When I graduated from the University of Georgia 20 years ago, the tuition was exactly $2000/year for in-state students. The current in-state tuition is $7,282, representing a 264% increase, or 6.7% annually. CPI over the same period averaged 2.6%. I suppose the education must be 2 or 3 times better now.

[doom&gloom]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

I've always told my kids you need to be something. If you aren't book smart enough to be an engineer you can make a good living as a machinist.You must have a marketable skill.Doctor,nurse,plumber,electrician etc beats a general business degree from a state school.

aka a "limited entry profession" where not everyone can decide to be one the next day.

[bpr]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Great thread.

Data bares this out somewhat. It's probably very simply a matter of supply and demand. Don't major in clinical psychology any time soon...

Very interesting data, but I don't see specification on timeframe (e.g. 1 year after graduation, ten years after graduation...). Going to have to go to the source.

Here's something I wonder about: I went to college at a 4-year school dedicated primarily to science and engineering. However, I was required to take one class in the humanities or social sciences per term until graduation. We were on a quarter system, so that was 12 terms of humanities and social sciences -- enough coursework to be useful, although well short of a major. What I wonder is whether there are equivalent requirements for 12 terms of math, science, and engineering at liberal arts schools. You couldn't produce a well-rounded STEM major in just 12 terms, but with a little judicious concentration, I bet you could actually impart employable technical skills. For instance, I only took 1 term of sequential programming in college, but I use my (minimal) programming skills all the time in my work. If I had taken 12 terms of programming, that wouldn't make me a computer scientist, but it would have made me employable as a programmer... maybe not as senior as my wife, but skilled enough to hire. It seems to me that those majoring in the humanities and liberal arts could probably fit enough technical coursework into their syllabus to be employed after graduation, but they don't because (a) they lack the preparation and interest to do well in STEM classes, and (b) unlike my science and engineering school, their liberal arts schools don't require that they study the "other" curriculum in any depth.

In my experience, no, I don't think the requirements are as stringent for most LA majors. There are typically math requirements that don't extend beyond what should be high school algebra and trig.

I was an engineering major for two years before moving over to liberal arts. It was the right decision for me, and your posts point out why.

Sciences are part of the "general education" requirements at most LA schools, but they are divided into the "social" and "physical" sciences, at 9-12 credits each ( 3-4 one-semester courses). They are further subdivided into things like "physical sciences" (physics and chem) and "biological sciences" (bio and kinesiology) and "natural sciences" (geology and astronomy).

The result is, if you're lucky, you get one semester each of Physics (mechanics), Geology, and Bio. If you decide to dip a toe deeper into physics and take a course on electromagnetics, it won't count toward your degree requirement, since you've already met your physical sciences requirement by taking a physics course in mechanics.

The kind of industrially-applicable knowledge you're looking for here doesn't apply, since the programs focus on a broad-based knowledge, rather than specialization. In other words, 12 credits (3 semesters) of physics, which will get you through mechanics, electromagnetics, and intro to quantum/wave theory, which would provide a working knowledge of the fundamentals to intelligently discuss the subject is impossible (or, rather, impractical, if your goal is a piece of paper).

Further, the mathematics requirements are wholly insane, based on the following observations:
1. math beyond trigonometry is not required.
2. Calculus is divided into two different tracks: one for the social sciences; and one for the natural sciences.

The division of calculus is no more than a "dumbing down," which focuses on application as opposed to theory, and it is used for BS degrees in the social sciences, to separate them from BA degrees in the same. One of the main differences, for instance, in a BA in Psychology from a BS in Psychology is that the BS requires calculus courses. But they do not have to be the same calculus courses that engineering or "hard" science majors take.

[Guest]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Possible factors to consider.

- The increase in college students may be mostly those who previously were not "college material". You're not going to turn them into actuaries or biologists.

- Technology has reduced the number of people needed to accomplish a certain task. Wouldn't that reduce demand for these professions accordingly, offsetting much of the increased demand from other reasons?

- Someone in college only because of the belief that "it helps you make more money" is probably going to seek the path of least resistance. If they think "any degree" is the path to wealth, they won't bother with the harder ones.

- Has outsourcing and an influx of skilled immigrants caused wages in these fields to fall or stagnate? You might get more applicants if wages were higher.

- Could factors such as 45 years of a welfare state/safety net, average IQ dropping, immigration growth skewed towards unskilled and presumedly less intelligent migrants, and a pathetic education system, over time, limit the number of students qualified for those fields? It's pretty much understood that smarter more educated people have fewer children. What if the high IQ types are not having replacement level births?

-What if all our population growth is in generally less intelligent people, who are now also less well educated through high school than in the past, yet government loan guarantees made it possible for more students to go to college, so those additional slots would logically largely be filled by those of merely average intelligence. Is it any wonder they study sociology instead of physics?

-What cultural changes in the US society such as a larger immigrant(and their descendants) population could influence their choices? Some cultures traditionally see commerce as the way to wealth rather than hard sciences. Maybe their best and brightest are all going to business school. Or not going at all to work in the family business?

-The FIRE economy skewed earnings potential towards finance, real estate, and insurance. The bubble in these areas may have siphoned off the brightest who otherwise would have chosen STEM fields.

-Growth in the number and pay of government workers and bureacrats will tend to send more students into political science, city planning, teaching, etc. As an extreme example, lifeguards in California have been reported to retire at 40 with huge pensions. Why would they bother with a difficult and expensive course of study that might be less lucrative? Growth in the idea that government is great may also have influenced more students to study areas related to working in government. Previously the attitude seemed to be that government jobs were more for the mediocre or less industrious types. Whereas now they may want to 'change things' in government service.

-25 years of barely interrupted prosperity and low unemployment may have given people the idea that you could always find a good job, no matter your field of choice. Students entering college when the 2007 recession started are just finishing up college. With time people may get a lot more serious about what they choose to spend a ton of money learning. Has there been any change in majors of entering freshmen in the last couple of years?

Government policy influences on society will start to show up after 45 years. I think this was all quite predictable.

[Guest]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

How or why does someone in the psychology field use calculus?????

Trade schools went out of fashion and need to make a comeback. Americans need real world job skills if they want to get real world jobs. Many of those soft major students would be better served with a quicker and less expensive education. They'd have less debt, and be more employable.

[jimmygu3]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Wow, great info!

[bpr]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

How or why does someone in the psychology field use calculus?????

I think it may apply to statistical analyses and research, but I honestly don't know.

The calculus requirement is only one of the main distinctions I've noticed between a B.S. and a B.A. in fields that offer both (e.g. Economics, Sociology, Psychology). Another requirement is more coursework in physical sciences, which may require calc as a prerequisite.