OT: New grad/profession/school pay….

[scaredyclassic]

as we learn in world war z, post-zombie apocalypse, management will be nothing, it will all be about concrete skills. forget lawyering — can you build a wall? mechanical repair? think about the needs of the marketplace when zombies walk the earth.

[equalizer]

[quote=EconProf]Debate about the military-industrial complex will soon be replaced by talk about the education-industrial complex. Higher education is grossly oversold by a cabal of educrats, professors, politicians, lenders, and other vested interests. The rate of return on college degrees is wildly overstated for several reasons:
1. The lifetime ROR data are for past years and decades, and do not take into account the current experience of recent college graduates in today’s job market–which is not likely to improve much in the near future.
2. The ROR studies do not consider the personal characteristics that differentiate college-bound HS graduates from the non-college-bound. The former generally are already somewhat smarter, more ambitious, better spoken, better connected, have more family wealth, etc., on average. Accordingly, their lifetime earnings would be expected to be higher regardless of college. How much of their higher income can be attributed solely to going to college? That is the question never posed to those overselling college degrees.
3. The type of degree granted matters hugely. My daughter graduated from the afore-mentioned Harvey Mudd College in 2003 and has made little money because her major was English (some coursework taken at adjoining Scripps College). Is now starting on a master’s degree in Accountancy to remedy the earnings problem.
In short, college has been hugely oversold by vested interests, and the victims are the indebted-for-life graduates struggling with dashed job hopes.
If there is one thing to be learned from this experience, it is that incentives matter. In the same way that the housing bubble became so big for so long was because the participants all had the incentives in front of them to keep it going (lenders, buyers, RE professionals, Fannie/Freddie, politicians), so also the education industry has grown due to incentives. Professors’ work loads have fallen over the years and their compensation (especially on a per-hour basis) usually exceeds what they could make in the private sector. College administrative staffs have exploded in number and compensation. Campus facilities and dorms are towers of excess. The students and their parents see college not as an intellectual pursuit but as a consumption item (social life, status, etc), with the degree devalued since “everybody has one”…
As a nation, our pursuit of credentials has left us overeducated in the formal sense of having degrees, but without knowledge and introspection in a broader sense. We are now awakening to this and college enrollements will have a much-needed downward adjustment.[/quote]
Here is Mish stating same thing while back:

“As long as government is willing to “help out” with student loans, universities and colleges will keep raising prices, and the total cost of an education will keep soaring until one day it blows sky high, just as happened with mortgages.

Note that the loans are guaranteed by the government. Also note that student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy. Those two facts are all you need to understand why the financial industry as a whole consistently champions the promise of postsecondary education and its value to American society. No one really gives a damn about the students. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/remarkable-comparison-affordable.html

[equalizer]

[quote=EconProf]Debate about the military-industrial complex will soon be replaced by talk about the education-industrial complex. Higher education is grossly oversold by a cabal of educrats, professors, politicians, lenders, and other vested interests. The rate of return on college degrees is wildly overstated for several reasons:
1. The lifetime ROR data are for past years and decades, and do not take into account the current experience of recent college graduates in today’s job market–which is not likely to improve much in the near future.
2. The ROR studies do not consider the personal characteristics that differentiate college-bound HS graduates from the non-college-bound. The former generally are already somewhat smarter, more ambitious, better spoken, better connected, have more family wealth, etc., on average. Accordingly, their lifetime earnings would be expected to be higher regardless of college. How much of their higher income can be attributed solely to going to college? That is the question never posed to those overselling college degrees.
3. The type of degree granted matters hugely. My daughter graduated from the afore-mentioned Harvey Mudd College in 2003 and has made little money because her major was English (some coursework taken at adjoining Scripps College). Is now starting on a master’s degree in Accountancy to remedy the earnings problem.
In short, college has been hugely oversold by vested interests, and the victims are the indebted-for-life graduates struggling with dashed job hopes.
If there is one thing to be learned from this experience, it is that incentives matter. In the same way that the housing bubble became so big for so long was because the participants all had the incentives in front of them to keep it going (lenders, buyers, RE professionals, Fannie/Freddie, politicians), so also the education industry has grown due to incentives. Professors’ work loads have fallen over the years and their compensation (especially on a per-hour basis) usually exceeds what they could make in the private sector. College administrative staffs have exploded in number and compensation. Campus facilities and dorms are towers of excess. The students and their parents see college not as an intellectual pursuit but as a consumption item (social life, status, etc), with the degree devalued since “everybody has one”…
As a nation, our pursuit of credentials has left us overeducated in the formal sense of having degrees, but without knowledge and introspection in a broader sense. We are now awakening to this and college enrollements will have a much-needed downward adjustment.[/quote]
Here is Mish stating same thing while back:

“As long as government is willing to “help out” with student loans, universities and colleges will keep raising prices, and the total cost of an education will keep soaring until one day it blows sky high, just as happened with mortgages.

Note that the loans are guaranteed by the government. Also note that student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy. Those two facts are all you need to understand why the financial industry as a whole consistently champions the promise of postsecondary education and its value to American society. No one really gives a damn about the students. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/remarkable-comparison-affordable.html

[equalizer]

[quote=EconProf]Debate about the military-industrial complex will soon be replaced by talk about the education-industrial complex. Higher education is grossly oversold by a cabal of educrats, professors, politicians, lenders, and other vested interests. The rate of return on college degrees is wildly overstated for several reasons:
1. The lifetime ROR data are for past years and decades, and do not take into account the current experience of recent college graduates in today’s job market–which is not likely to improve much in the near future.
2. The ROR studies do not consider the personal characteristics that differentiate college-bound HS graduates from the non-college-bound. The former generally are already somewhat smarter, more ambitious, better spoken, better connected, have more family wealth, etc., on average. Accordingly, their lifetime earnings would be expected to be higher regardless of college. How much of their higher income can be attributed solely to going to college? That is the question never posed to those overselling college degrees.
3. The type of degree granted matters hugely. My daughter graduated from the afore-mentioned Harvey Mudd College in 2003 and has made little money because her major was English (some coursework taken at adjoining Scripps College). Is now starting on a master’s degree in Accountancy to remedy the earnings problem.
In short, college has been hugely oversold by vested interests, and the victims are the indebted-for-life graduates struggling with dashed job hopes.
If there is one thing to be learned from this experience, it is that incentives matter. In the same way that the housing bubble became so big for so long was because the participants all had the incentives in front of them to keep it going (lenders, buyers, RE professionals, Fannie/Freddie, politicians), so also the education industry has grown due to incentives. Professors’ work loads have fallen over the years and their compensation (especially on a per-hour basis) usually exceeds what they could make in the private sector. College administrative staffs have exploded in number and compensation. Campus facilities and dorms are towers of excess. The students and their parents see college not as an intellectual pursuit but as a consumption item (social life, status, etc), with the degree devalued since “everybody has one”…
As a nation, our pursuit of credentials has left us overeducated in the formal sense of having degrees, but without knowledge and introspection in a broader sense. We are now awakening to this and college enrollements will have a much-needed downward adjustment.[/quote]
Here is Mish stating same thing while back:

“As long as government is willing to “help out” with student loans, universities and colleges will keep raising prices, and the total cost of an education will keep soaring until one day it blows sky high, just as happened with mortgages.

Note that the loans are guaranteed by the government. Also note that student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy. Those two facts are all you need to understand why the financial industry as a whole consistently champions the promise of postsecondary education and its value to American society. No one really gives a damn about the students. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/remarkable-comparison-affordable.html

[equalizer]

[quote=EconProf]Debate about the military-industrial complex will soon be replaced by talk about the education-industrial complex. Higher education is grossly oversold by a cabal of educrats, professors, politicians, lenders, and other vested interests. The rate of return on college degrees is wildly overstated for several reasons:
1. The lifetime ROR data are for past years and decades, and do not take into account the current experience of recent college graduates in today’s job market–which is not likely to improve much in the near future.
2. The ROR studies do not consider the personal characteristics that differentiate college-bound HS graduates from the non-college-bound. The former generally are already somewhat smarter, more ambitious, better spoken, better connected, have more family wealth, etc., on average. Accordingly, their lifetime earnings would be expected to be higher regardless of college. How much of their higher income can be attributed solely to going to college? That is the question never posed to those overselling college degrees.
3. The type of degree granted matters hugely. My daughter graduated from the afore-mentioned Harvey Mudd College in 2003 and has made little money because her major was English (some coursework taken at adjoining Scripps College). Is now starting on a master’s degree in Accountancy to remedy the earnings problem.
In short, college has been hugely oversold by vested interests, and the victims are the indebted-for-life graduates struggling with dashed job hopes.
If there is one thing to be learned from this experience, it is that incentives matter. In the same way that the housing bubble became so big for so long was because the participants all had the incentives in front of them to keep it going (lenders, buyers, RE professionals, Fannie/Freddie, politicians), so also the education industry has grown due to incentives. Professors’ work loads have fallen over the years and their compensation (especially on a per-hour basis) usually exceeds what they could make in the private sector. College administrative staffs have exploded in number and compensation. Campus facilities and dorms are towers of excess. The students and their parents see college not as an intellectual pursuit but as a consumption item (social life, status, etc), with the degree devalued since “everybody has one”…
As a nation, our pursuit of credentials has left us overeducated in the formal sense of having degrees, but without knowledge and introspection in a broader sense. We are now awakening to this and college enrollements will have a much-needed downward adjustment.[/quote]
Here is Mish stating same thing while back:

“As long as government is willing to “help out” with student loans, universities and colleges will keep raising prices, and the total cost of an education will keep soaring until one day it blows sky high, just as happened with mortgages.

Note that the loans are guaranteed by the government. Also note that student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy. Those two facts are all you need to understand why the financial industry as a whole consistently champions the promise of postsecondary education and its value to American society. No one really gives a damn about the students. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/remarkable-comparison-affordable.html

[equalizer]

[quote=EconProf]Debate about the military-industrial complex will soon be replaced by talk about the education-industrial complex. Higher education is grossly oversold by a cabal of educrats, professors, politicians, lenders, and other vested interests. The rate of return on college degrees is wildly overstated for several reasons:
1. The lifetime ROR data are for past years and decades, and do not take into account the current experience of recent college graduates in today’s job market–which is not likely to improve much in the near future.
2. The ROR studies do not consider the personal characteristics that differentiate college-bound HS graduates from the non-college-bound. The former generally are already somewhat smarter, more ambitious, better spoken, better connected, have more family wealth, etc., on average. Accordingly, their lifetime earnings would be expected to be higher regardless of college. How much of their higher income can be attributed solely to going to college? That is the question never posed to those overselling college degrees.
3. The type of degree granted matters hugely. My daughter graduated from the afore-mentioned Harvey Mudd College in 2003 and has made little money because her major was English (some coursework taken at adjoining Scripps College). Is now starting on a master’s degree in Accountancy to remedy the earnings problem.
In short, college has been hugely oversold by vested interests, and the victims are the indebted-for-life graduates struggling with dashed job hopes.
If there is one thing to be learned from this experience, it is that incentives matter. In the same way that the housing bubble became so big for so long was because the participants all had the incentives in front of them to keep it going (lenders, buyers, RE professionals, Fannie/Freddie, politicians), so also the education industry has grown due to incentives. Professors’ work loads have fallen over the years and their compensation (especially on a per-hour basis) usually exceeds what they could make in the private sector. College administrative staffs have exploded in number and compensation. Campus facilities and dorms are towers of excess. The students and their parents see college not as an intellectual pursuit but as a consumption item (social life, status, etc), with the degree devalued since “everybody has one”…
As a nation, our pursuit of credentials has left us overeducated in the formal sense of having degrees, but without knowledge and introspection in a broader sense. We are now awakening to this and college enrollements will have a much-needed downward adjustment.[/quote]
Here is Mish stating same thing while back:

“As long as government is willing to “help out” with student loans, universities and colleges will keep raising prices, and the total cost of an education will keep soaring until one day it blows sky high, just as happened with mortgages.

Note that the loans are guaranteed by the government. Also note that student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy. Those two facts are all you need to understand why the financial industry as a whole consistently champions the promise of postsecondary education and its value to American society. No one really gives a damn about the students. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/remarkable-comparison-affordable.html

[bearishgurl]

Here’s a piece I saw first thing this morning about the insidious shrinking of the *middle-class* in the US, due to outsourcing of work in entire industries to low-wage countries.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?

Excerpt:

“. . . The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new “global” labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are “less attractive” than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States. . .”

I’m now of the mind that young people just starting out should endeavor to train in occupations that cannot be outsourced (where a human must be present and local to perform the job).

[bearishgurl]

Here’s a piece I saw first thing this morning about the insidious shrinking of the *middle-class* in the US, due to outsourcing of work in entire industries to low-wage countries.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?

Excerpt:

“. . . The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new “global” labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are “less attractive” than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States. . .”

I’m now of the mind that young people just starting out should endeavor to train in occupations that cannot be outsourced (where a human must be present and local to perform the job).

[bearishgurl]

Here’s a piece I saw first thing this morning about the insidious shrinking of the *middle-class* in the US, due to outsourcing of work in entire industries to low-wage countries.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?

Excerpt:

“. . . The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new “global” labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are “less attractive” than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States. . .”

I’m now of the mind that young people just starting out should endeavor to train in occupations that cannot be outsourced (where a human must be present and local to perform the job).

[bearishgurl]

Here’s a piece I saw first thing this morning about the insidious shrinking of the *middle-class* in the US, due to outsourcing of work in entire industries to low-wage countries.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?

Excerpt:

“. . . The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new “global” labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are “less attractive” than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States. . .”

I’m now of the mind that young people just starting out should endeavor to train in occupations that cannot be outsourced (where a human must be present and local to perform the job).

[bearishgurl]

Here’s a piece I saw first thing this morning about the insidious shrinking of the *middle-class* in the US, due to outsourcing of work in entire industries to low-wage countries.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?

Excerpt:

“. . . The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new “global” labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are “less attractive” than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States. . .”

I’m now of the mind that young people just starting out should endeavor to train in occupations that cannot be outsourced (where a human must be present and local to perform the job).

[Arraya]

[quote=equalizer]. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

[/quote]

Wait until the outrage from several years of graduates not being able to find jobs while having unserviceable debt.

This is another slow-moving, debt-induced social catastrophe on our hands, in which we’ll blame the victims.

Something like 60% of the 780 billion in debt is either deferred or in default. A few months ago I read about kids fleeing the country to get away from the debt.

In most industrialized nations you can go to college for free while getting health insurance. Even if it was logistically possible, most americans, from a cultural perspective, would consider it distasteful. I guess, clawing down basic things like an education in such a competitive, reptilian environment makes people hard.

[Arraya]

[quote=equalizer]. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

[/quote]

Wait until the outrage from several years of graduates not being able to find jobs while having unserviceable debt.

This is another slow-moving, debt-induced social catastrophe on our hands, in which we’ll blame the victims.

Something like 60% of the 780 billion in debt is either deferred or in default. A few months ago I read about kids fleeing the country to get away from the debt.

In most industrialized nations you can go to college for free while getting health insurance. Even if it was logistically possible, most americans, from a cultural perspective, would consider it distasteful. I guess, clawing down basic things like an education in such a competitive, reptilian environment makes people hard.

[Arraya]

[quote=equalizer]. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

[/quote]

Wait until the outrage from several years of graduates not being able to find jobs while having unserviceable debt.

This is another slow-moving, debt-induced social catastrophe on our hands, in which we’ll blame the victims.

Something like 60% of the 780 billion in debt is either deferred or in default. A few months ago I read about kids fleeing the country to get away from the debt.

In most industrialized nations you can go to college for free while getting health insurance. Even if it was logistically possible, most americans, from a cultural perspective, would consider it distasteful. I guess, clawing down basic things like an education in such a competitive, reptilian environment makes people hard.

[Arraya]

[quote=equalizer]. Worse yet, were funding cut off, there would be student outrage over it when stopping funding is exactly what is needed to bring costs down.”

[/quote]

Wait until the outrage from several years of graduates not being able to find jobs while having unserviceable debt.

This is another slow-moving, debt-induced social catastrophe on our hands, in which we’ll blame the victims.

Something like 60% of the 780 billion in debt is either deferred or in default. A few months ago I read about kids fleeing the country to get away from the debt.

In most industrialized nations you can go to college for free while getting health insurance. Even if it was logistically possible, most americans, from a cultural perspective, would consider it distasteful. I guess, clawing down basic things like an education in such a competitive, reptilian environment makes people hard.

[Author]

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