The Value of Useless University Degrees

"Recent college graduates of the major, those ages 22 to 26, can expect an unemployment rate of 10.5%, well above the national average. "

I quit reading right there. Jenna has swallowed the Chimp in Chief's and his czars diddling with numbers. Obambam and "climate scientists"....birds of a feather. Besides. Did she mention anything about a degree on basket weaving, transgendered, affirmative action, man hating, gay worshipping, how to be a poverty pimp, major. Or urnialism?

Sec of State John Forbes Kerry would probably not have
any quibbles about the mag's "hard hitting" coverage.

The doctorate degrees which seem to lead to post-degree work these days are in "protest", "bumming the system", "being offended" and "vandalism" - get yours at a your local university today.

Many, if not all jobs in management now REQUIRE a college degree to even apply.

This, courtesy of the courts who have made it easy to sue employers for discrimination in hiring, and essentially made any employer who uses competency or intelligence tests in hiring open to massive court settlements.

The one type of hiring discrimination that is not illegal, is the requirement of a college degree merely to apply.

Any degree program that is not based on a true discipline is a fraud on the student, and a scam to separate the young'un from their money.

small c

U nailed it, education has become a screening tool, and a legal one at that.

and if U don't have the requisite education they may hire U, at a reduced pay rate, and quality it as "temp"!!

Allen, like a number of commenters on this site, I'm sorry to say, assumes without acknowledging, that the only reason to go to university, or the most important reason to go, is to get a job, to earn more money; they assume, that is, that universities are in the job-training business. This unacknowledged and un-argued premiss is nevertheless widely accepted by our governments, university administrations, the public at large, and increasingly by the commentariat. But it is false. It is also deeply pernicious.

The university is among our most important institutions because it is the only one devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, truth and understanding. Its history is one of undeniable overwhelming success. That its history also includes mistakes, less-edifying pursuits, intellectual silliness and sometimes academic fraud does not gainsay its success or its value. It remains our institution devoted to the excellences of the mind. It is our only institution where the young can go to learn about the best that has been thought and written, and what it takes to produce work of that quality.

The effort to transform universities into something else---job-training schools, credential mills, and the like---may be politically expedient: that's a much easier sell to the tax-paying public. It may also serve to compensate for the fact that our public school system has failed utterly, a fact obvious to anyone who will look, but a political potato too hot for our craven politicians and university administrators. However, those of us who know the work of the greats---Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Hume, Shakespeare, Galileo, Newton and their ilk---and therefore know its value for our lives as individuals as well as for our efforts to live together well in societies, have an obligation to resist the efforts of the barbarians to diminish and destroy us. A first step in meeting that obligation would be to resist joining in their efforts.

BA=$12.00 an hour office job - except for government union jobs - and they're at least five years off if even available then - hence the lament of the Occupiers.

It's the workplace ready equivalent to a high school diploma 30 years ago.

nick

seriously? If you want to blast away $60k in loans for "quest of knowledge" feel free, but, get with the program. Maybe there was a time where that was true, or, for the well-endowed kids who need a hobby for a few years, today, that wonderful interwebby provides a great conduit for one's "quest for higher learning" without listening to stuffy academics preaching dogmatic socialism.

In essence, they are and should be "job mills", for relevant degrees, necesary in today's world. There are too many degrees in "Useless studies", as noted in the weblink, where the kids are being led down the garden path. I've tried to guide my kids as best as possible. One is in thrid year business, aiming in the HR area. At least she will be prepped for the business world, one way or the other, and not stuck in retail wasteland....the son is still in high school, but have tried to keep him aimed into engineering, he originally wanted to design cars, and while that may not happen, the direction is good.

Recently he had said that he wanted to take programming or sys admin as an area of study. Unfortunately, I had to tell him the reality. One million Vendhans and Ganeshes in Mumbai and Delhi will do that work from overseas for $5 a day, and as much as it would be interesting, the longterm forecast is not good. I deal with those people daily in my own work, in the despised, hated, ought to be outlawed (but can't live without the latest tech toy) telecom industry.

(I would love to have an ADULT online discussion with anybody regarding this, but that seems impossible right now, James Moore has lowered the bar to a typical politicians place, uninformed and divisive! It's just a PR campaign, a cheap stunt actually. Trudeau is the REAL adversary, but I digress, for another thread)

Unfortunately, the downside is, it seems every single job, even cashiers, seem to require a degree. Thirty years of real world experience, gets "binned" because there's no degree. We live in a world where HR is stupid is as stupid does. Its a crazy job market.

When low skilled workers are displaced by (relatively) highly educated low skilled workers the market has been distorted by a system of subsidies encouraging too many low skill workers to acquire degrees. People should be free to study whatever they wish in whatever venue they wish, but why should those costs be leveraged by unborn taxpayers.

I agree with Nick's sentiments above but a library card and internet access can accomplish much of what the once noble but now thoroughly corrupted institutions are charged with. The cost curve of universities is what one would expect when the 400 year old lecture theatre modus opperandi is accompanied by a politicized and (mostly) state-funded administrative leviathan, blessed with guilded, tenured, and otherwise unionized waste, usually located within underutilized architectural monuments.

Another problem is the guild socialism of right to practice legislation which monopolizes the so-called "professions" when a free market of self-policing associations and private insurance could suffice.

I can think of one advantage to LibArts degrees; the cab drivers, gardeners or waiters can engage in more interesting conversations with their 'well-rounded' education.

I still prefer science and engineering, but that's just me.

"The university is among our most important institutions because it is the only one devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, truth and understanding..."

Oh, for the love of all that's holy, don't talk complete and utter COBBLERS, man!

Jesus Christ is the Truth, the Way and the Life. If you and yours are interested in the truth, any Bible society will be happy to give you and yours a copy of the Gospels. There. Four years of your flesh and blood's life and enough to set him up in an honest trade several times over saved, along with your flesh and blood's soul for good measure. In this day and age people are perfectly capable of reading the Bible on their own. They don't need to pay good money so universities full of Jesuits and doctors of philosophy can sit around and "interpret" it for them. The Gospels were written so simply so as to make it impossible to misunderstand by any with eyes to see and ears to hear. Anybody who tells you otherwise is an agent of the Evil One. Rest assured Canada's universities have ruined far many more souls than drink ever managed to do (and it was hardly for want of trying).

Karl Marx had a doctorate of philosophy from a fine German university. Major Douglas dropped out of Cambridge after four terms. No prizes for guessing which one's reward was greatest in heaven, and which one is owed most dearly by posterity.