College has been (vastly) oversold

[Slimprofits]

http://marginalrevolution.com/margin...-oversold.html

Over the past 25 years the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) has remained more or less constant. Moreover, many of today’s STEM graduates are foreign born and are taking their knowledge and skills back to their native countries.





Consider computer technology. In 2009 the U.S. graduated 37,994 students with bachelor’s degrees in computer and information science. This is not bad, but we graduated more students with computer science degrees 25 years ago! The story is the same in other technology fields such as chemical engineering, math and statistics. Few fields have changed as much in recent years as microbiology, but in 2009 we graduated just 2,480 students with bachelor’s degrees in microbiology — about the same number as 25 years ago. Who will solve the problem of antibiotic resistance?

If students aren’t studying science, technology, engineering and math, what are they studying?

In 2009 the U.S. graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual and performing arts graduates in 1985.

[don]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Oversold - sort of like home ownership

[Sutter Cane]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Many problems in society today stem from older folks not recognizing that America is a very different place from how it was when they were younger. Many parents today grew up being told that having a college degree was a must, and that what the degree was in didn't actually matter. You can complain about this mindset all you want, but that won't change the fact that this was essentially true for the last few decades.

Many - hell, most - of the people I know who graduated from college in the 70's, 80's and 90's ended up getting jobs that weren't really related to their degrees at all. Good jobs. The thought was, the degree showed that you could show up on time, and read and write adequately at a college level, communicate effectively, play nice with others, etc. This was what employers wanted in entry-level workers, and holding any liberal arts degree showed you possessed those skills. You got hired, and learned the ins and outs of that particular job by doing it. Of course this wasn't true for scientists and engineers, but it was for a lot of vaguely defined cubicle jobs.

So in the past, it wasn't some ridiculous fantasy that a liberal arts degree from the state university could land you a decent job. Combine this idea that "it doesn't matter what your degree is, as long as you have a degree" with "follow your dreams" and you end up with a lot of art and theater majors. Folks need to figure out that the world has changed.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

I've got a daughter about to graduate with a bachelor degree in anthropology / primatology. She'll never make any money in that field.
Still, I believe her college studies have improved her thinking - I see it in her.
We're in a position to mostly pay for her education so she graduates with almost no debt and the cost isn't too much a burden for us.
I'm happy to pay for it. Whatever she does to earn money, she'll do it with a broadly polished mind, and I like those.

[don]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Folks need to figure out that the world has changed.

College degrees became less a guarantee of job success and more a means to marketing debt.

Basic goals like housing ownership were being transformed into lifelong debt-machines.

The steady draining away of both jobs and salaries was experienced in job availability and pay levels.

When, after 4 to 6 years of schooling, you end up back in your parents' house bedroom, an apolitical world view begins to fray.

These changes are being absorbed and understood. Student and post-grad participation appears to be growing in a wide spectrum of dissent, from on-campus to OWS.

For many of the newly educated, gaming the cubicles is apparently no longer an available option.

[Sutter Cane]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

I've got a daughter about to graduate with a bachelor degree in anthropology / primatology. She'll never make any money in that field.
Still, I believe her college studies have improved her thinking - I see it in her.
We're in a position to mostly pay for her education so she graduates with almost no debt and the cost isn't too much a burden for us.
I'm happy to pay for it. Whatever she does to earn money, she'll do it with a broadly polished mind, and I like those.

Good for you! I do think a college education is important for personal growth, and find the idea that an educated mind is valuable only so far as it can provide a financial return to be very depressing. Unfortunately, the cost of tuition makes it impossible for most not to view a college education with a mercenary eye.

I also find it interesting that communication gets singled out as a "fake major," as I've worked with plenty of people over the years who could have benefited from some basic training in public speaking and presentation skills like you get as a communication major. In addition, the class in the communications department, in mass media campaigns, that I took in college was a real eye-opener, and has proven more useful in my day to day life than many of the other "hard" classes I took. One part of the class involved watching and analyzing advertisements with a critical eye, and it served to help make me aware of, and inoculate me against, advertising and media manipulation for the rest of my life. I always thought such a class should be mandatory for all students (or all citizens...).

[ASH]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Quoth http://marginalrevolution.com/margin...-oversold.html:

Over the past 25 years the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) has remained more or less constant. Moreover, many of today’s STEM graduates are foreign born and are taking their knowledge and skills back to their native countries.

At the risk of being obnoxious, it may be that the capacity to do productive work in STEM doesn't scale proportionally to the number of students who attend college. Even disregarding questions of innate ability, pre-college preparation like accelerated coursework and extracurricular enrichment activities are necessary to produce college students who are capable of learning professional skills in STEM. Also, putting in the time and effort required to master STEM coursework requires a lot of self discipline, which is rendered easier if the student has genuine interest in the subject matter. I read everything I could about physics from about 5th grade, and applied myself to schoolwork from that point onward because I knew I wanted to go to college and study science; at the same time, my brother -- now an electrical engineer in silicon valley -- was wiring circuits and programming microcontrollers. My wife, a software engineer, coded for fun all through her teens. I'm sure there are some people who get to college, suddenly decide they want to be scientists or engineers, and successfully develop STEM careers. But almost everyone I know who is working in STEM developed an early interest, and put time and effort into such career development way before college. Having an outlook that makes a career in STEM seem appealing from a young age, and having access to the resources, role models, and encouragement that enable preparation for a STEM career, has a socioeconomic component. Therefore, it seems probable to me that 25 years ago, we had already exploited most of the population with both interest and opportunity to pursue STEM careers. And if we've made it easier to attend college, the additional students aren't necessarily individuals who have an easy shot at becoming STEM graduates.

Many problems in society today stem from older folks not recognizing that America is a very different place from how it was when they were younger. Many parents today grew up being told that having a college degree was a must, and that what the degree was in didn't actually matter. You can complain about this mindset all you want, but that won't change the fact that this was essentially true for the last few decades.

Many - hell, most - of the people I know who graduated from college in the 70's, 80's and 90's ended up getting jobs that weren't really related to their degrees at all. Good jobs. The thought was, the degree showed that you could show up on time, and read and write adequately at a college level, communicate effectively, play nice with others, etc. This was what employers wanted in entry-level workers, and holding any liberal arts degree showed you possessed those skills. You got hired, and learned the ins and outs of that particular job by doing it. Of course this wasn't true for scientists and engineers, but it was for a lot of vaguely defined cubicle jobs.

So in the past, it wasn't some ridiculous fantasy that a liberal arts degree from the state university could land you a decent job. Combine this idea that "it doesn't matter what your degree is, as long as you have a degree" with "follow your dreams" and you end up with a lot of art and theater majors. Folks need to figure out that the world has changed.

I think that the conventional wisdom is finally starting to change, because I keep seeing stories in the MSM along these lines. Unfortunately, that's just the first step. Most college students can't just decide to be an RF integrated circuit engineer, sign up for an electrical engineering major, and then graduate to a six figure salary. The pay is good because the supply of competent workers with those skills is low; it's true that the supply of competent workers is low because we're not graduating them in large numbers, but... one reason we're not graduating a lot of electrical engineers is because that stuff is hard. In order to significantly increase the supply, I think we'd have to start much earlier than college. We'd have to build a primary education system with higher standards, and we'd have to cultivate interest in technical matters from a young age. And as I argue above, I think there may be a limited supply of "natural" science nerds, and we may have already fully exploited that natural population.

[ASH]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

I also find it interesting that communication gets singled out as a "fake major," as I've worked with plenty of people over the years who could have benefited from some basic training in public speaking and presentation skills like you get as a communication major. In addition, the class in the communications department, in mass media campaigns, that I took in college was a real eye-opener, and has proven more useful in my day to day life than many of the other "hard" classes I took. One part of the class involved watching and analyzing advertisements with a critical eye, and it served to help make me aware of, and inoculate me against, advertising and media manipulation for the rest of my life. I always thought such a class should be mandatory for all students (or all citizens...).

Communicating is essential to career development in most fields -- it definitely is in STEM professions. The reason communications is a major that doesn't need to produce a large number of graduates is that the communications skills necessary for most professions can be imparted in the core college curriculum. It's vital that all college students take classes on how to communicate effectively, but it's somewhat less vital that a deep academic study of communications be the primary skill set of a graduate.

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.

[dcarrigg]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

And as I argue above, I think there may be a limited supply of "natural" science nerds, and we may have already fully exploited that natural population.

And hence the fallacy of the "knowledge economy."

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

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.

I think your point is good, as long as the math and science classes for others are rudimentary. I'm an engineer, so that stuff comes easily to me. I took required humanities classes like you; I recognize the art class I took was a laughable approximation to even the intro courses that real artists take, same with my English and history classes. Folks who have no aptitude or interest in math would get nearly nothing out of a technical-track math class.

But it sure would be good if they'd take something like algebra appreciation or survey of physics.

[Sutter Cane]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Having an outlook that makes a career in STEM seem appealing from a young age, and having access to the resources, role models, and encouragement that enable preparation for a STEM career, has a socioeconomic component. Therefore, it seems probable to me that 25 years ago, we had already exploited most of the population with both interest and opportunity to pursue STEM careers. And if we've made it easier to attend college, the additional students aren't necessarily individuals who have an easy shot at becoming STEM graduates.

In order to significantly increase the supply, I think we'd have to start much earlier than college. We'd have to build a primary education system with higher standards, and we'd have to cultivate interest in technical matters from a young age. And as I argue above, I think there may be a limited supply of "natural" science nerds, and we may have already fully exploited that natural population.

In addition to being hard, "hard" science degrees suffer many of the same problems as degrees in other fields. This article is a year old, and may have already been discussed here, I don't recall. But it begs the question - What's the point of starting young and putting in all the work necessary to succeed in a challenging STEM field if you wind up in the same unemployed boat as your liberal-arts peers?

The Real Science Gap

It’s not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It’s a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.

For many decades, and especially since the United States attained undisputed pre-eminence in science during World War II, a parade of cutting-edge technologies has accounted for much of America’s economic growth. Countless good jobs now ride on whether the Next Big Thing — and the several things after that — will be developed in America and not, as many fear, in China, India, the European Union, Japan, Korea or another of the powers now producing large numbers of scientists and engineers.

Brilliant advances and the industries they foster come from brilliant minds, and for generations the United States has produced or welcomed from abroad the bulk of the world’s best scientists, engineers, inventors and innovators. But now, troubling indicators suggest that — unlike the days when the nation’s best students flocked to the challenges of the space race, the war on cancer, the tech boom, and other frontiers of innovation — careers in science, engineering and technology hold less attraction for the most talented young Americans. With competitors rapidly increasing their own supplies of technically trained personnel and major American companies outsourcing some of their research work to lower-wage countries, an emerging threat to U.S. dominance becomes increasingly clear.

America’s schools, it turns out, consistently produce large numbers of world-class science and math students, according to studies by Harold Salzman of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University and his co-author, B. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies for the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. But the incentives that once reliably delivered many of those high scorers into scientific and technical careers have gone seriously awry.

If the nation truly wants its ablest students to become scientists, Salzman says, it must undertake reforms — but not of the schools. Instead, it must reconstruct a career structure that will once again provide young Americans the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.

“It’s not an education story, it’s a labor market story,” Salzman says.

[c1ue]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Let's not forget the for-profit aspect.

The fastest growing business in San Francisco might well be the Academy of Art College.

[ASH]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

In addition to being hard, "hard" science degrees suffer many of the same problems as degrees in other fields. This article is a year old, and may have already been discussed here, I don't recall. But it begs the question - What's the point of starting young and putting in all the work necessary to succeed in a challenging STEM field if you wind up in the same unemployed boat as your liberal-arts peers?

We've discussed articles like this in the past. Typically, the discussion presents me with a conundrum, because the narrow window of my experience doesn't line up well with the broader statistical data behind such articles. I'm not one to go with anecdotal evidence over a broader survey, but my experience has been that STEM graduates with training in technologically relevant disciplines are in high demand in the workforce, are relatively hard to recruit, and command relatively high wages. I wonder if the disconnect is that we're graduating too many pure scientists seeking academic careers, and all the jobs are in engineering and applied science?

[don]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

Let's not forget the for-profit aspect.

The fastest growing business in San Francisco might well be the Academy of Art College.

They seem to filling any and all CRE vacancies

[dcarrigg]

Re: College has been (vastly) oversold

We've discussed articles like this in the past. Typically, the discussion presents me with a conundrum, because the narrow window of my experience doesn't line up well with the broader statistical data behind such articles. I'm not one to go with anecdotal evidence over a broader survey, but my experience has been that STEM graduates with training in technologically relevant disciplines are in high demand in the workforce, are relatively hard to recruit, and command relatively high wages. I wonder if the disconnect is that we're graduating too many pure scientists seeking academic careers, and all the jobs are in engineering and applied science?

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...