The Education Scam

I recently ran across this article on the Web written in 2000. I'm interested in what others think about it. Is this hallucinating? A prophet? I have seen some evidence, personally, in my recent employment search. People with double MBA's looking for work, etc..As my President said, "Bring it on!"

Why Would Our Colleges Lie To Us?

The reason our colleges and universities have lied to us is to make everyone want to go to college. Increased demand for a college education also meant an increased demand for college professors and administrative staff which drove up salaries for college professors and administrative staff. Basically, they lied to increase their income.

Will College Educations Eliminate Poverty?

There are and will only be so many jobs for people with a college degree regardless of how many people get a college degree.

This has already occurred. I began hearing about this in the early 1990's and have sense personally experienced it myself. After I got my Master of Business Administration in 1996, I have not been able to get a job with it. It seems that with my personal experience, I should be paid in the range of at least $40,000 to over $65,000 for general management. There are so many MBA graduates with no experience who can be hired for less that no one wants me.

In the interim, I obtained a job working for America Online as a phone technician making $7 per hour. I was amazed that over half of the employees working there had one or more college degrees and were only making $7 per hour. I met one person who had two PhD's and was only making $7 per hour and was glad to have it.

What this over education of our society is doing, is that businesses now have the luxury of not hiring more experienced and more expensive labor and hiring less experienced and cheaper labor. This means that older people are increasingly finding it tougher to get jobs. These "older" people are getting younger. It started out being people in their 40's and 50's and is now happening to people in their 30's.

I also heard that this has reached a point to where businesses are now even willing to risk law suits by firing more experienced employees to hire less experienced and cheaper labor. The courts are permitting the businesses to get away with this because they are claiming that the people are not being fired because of their age but because they are more expensive to employ. Therefore, goes their logic, it is because of cost and not age. Yeah, right!

More and more of these college educated people are being forced to accept jobs in unskilled labor making less than $10 per hour.

The Big Scare

The second lie was a big scare designed to make people fearful of not having their children go to college. They did "studies" showing that there was an increasing economic gap between those who go to college and those who don't. What they did was put skilled labor with unskilled labor so that we could not see that skilled labor makes pretty good money. As a matter of fact, many people in skilled labor are making as much or more money than many people who have college degrees. They didn't want you to know that so you would think that the only way your children could have a chance was to get a college education.

So What Is Going To Happen?

Where are we getting all of these college students from? They are people who would have gone into skilled labor. We are going to develop a shortage on skilled labor.This will increase salaries for skilled labor. Where are these businesses going to get the extra money for the skilled labor they need to produce their product? You know they won't take it from their profits. The only place they can take it from will be the salaries they would have paid to college graduates. The businesses must bid down the college graduates' salaries to increase the salaries for the skilled labor.

[CarolX]

energy,

Scam - nah...just another business trying to increase profit (or in the case of universities...profit for the non-profit).

I agree....there are only so many jobs for all those MBA's out there. So many people are going to find that they just don't mount to a hill of beans. MBA programs have been sold for years as the way to get ahead of the competion in the work force. So now the standard has been raised. Everyone has an MBA and it no longer carries it's unique value.

Very soon we will see a shortage of trained and experienced trades people. Both the Local IBEW and UBC have had to resort to radio ads to hire apprentices. WOW....cuz when I was a young adult, the only way you got into those organizations was as a legacy.

How times have changed.

CarolX

In Reply to Parent Post by CarolX

energy,

Scam - nah...just another business trying to increase profit (or in the case of universities...profit for the non-profit).

CarolX

One can understand a business trying to increase profits. Parents are constantly being told that education of their children is the most important responsibility they have. A College education is drummed into the parents head as a necessity for their children or they have failed to live up to their responsibilities as parents. What's a scam, then? If it's not really the education and the real reason is to fatten the educators/institutions coffers, what is it? Larceny?

[Randy]

You've got a good point. I'm a fairly well educated person as are many of the folks that come here and I have learned that it's not the education alone that gets one ahead. Without good solid experience mixed with a little "luck" the diploma isn't worth the ink on it.

Randy, MBA (among other things)

[Randy Stewart]

Without good solid experience mixed with a little "luck" the diploma isn't worth the ink on it.

Yep, the first thing people that graduate from Michigan State say is "Would you like to super size that?"

I don't know if business is really looking at the education received, IMO it means more that they stuck to something for 4 years and did a good job (read gpa). We've talked about this before, book smarts are one thing but without application it doesn't mean much.

[Randy]

Remember the dip-stick academy graduates? Dumb as rocks and not even as useful. The problem was/is, they don't know that thier dumb. Fantastic education, no experience, usless for the 1st year or 2.

[Mike S.]

Some good points are raised, but does this mean a college education is useless? IMO no. A couple points:

Even if your job is unrelated to your degree, it gives you some knowledge and experience you may not realize you use, but you use it anyway and it may not be apparent to you but it might make a difference and be a/the reason you get where you are.

Try becoming a nurse (or any of dozens of other professions) without a college degree. Tell me if you're a nurse today you can't get a job. Supply and demand still holds.

College is no the only way to make a decent living of course. Skilled trades like mechanic, welder, plumber, etc. are and will always be in demand and pay a decent salary and are quite honorable.

Of course experience means a great deal. And we all know some "book smart" (college degrees out the ying-yang) people who seem to have no common-sense in many areas of life and are sometimes almost useless. Such does not mean college is worthless.

[CarolX]

In Reply to Parent Post by Mike S.

College is no the only way to make a decent living of course. Skilled trades like mechanic, welder, plumber, etc. are and will always be in demand and pay a decent salary and are quite honorable.

Of course experience means a great deal. And we all know some "book smart" (college degrees out the ying-yang) people who seem to have no common-sense in many areas of life and are sometimes almost useless. Such does not mean college is worthless.

Excellent point, Mike. And I tell my kids this (I've got one that is almost 21 - and KNOWS EVERTHING) - a college degree gives you more options. And I use my neighbor as an example. She has a business degree. She became a stay at home mom after her 1st was born. When her second was in 3rd grade, she decided to become a teacher....since she already had the four year degree, she only needed a few courses to go for her teacher certificate. So she never really applied her original degree to her life work, but it gave her a big head start.

Carol