Comments on: A College Degree Does Not Guarantee a Job

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:47:56 +0000

Good for her. At least she might bring some awarness to the problems of higher education, which there are many.

So if her grades were 4.0 would that change some of you people from snickering? I doubt it.

Self-obsessed entitlment for her may or may not have anything to do with but its nice to see you decided to make that assumption (another mentality that plagues our culture).

I’m in a similar situation to her, yrs of school and can’t get a job even though my grades are much better than 2.6, and I went into specialized field that is supposedly hurting for employees even in the recession.

In my situation eventhough there was no guarantee I feel like I was sold snake oil I’m not asking for my money back, but if they can’t even help me and others that have graduated why should they continue to be allowed to provide false hope to prospective students who could quite possibly be worse off then me by the time they graduate?

By: ers

ers — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:23:15 +0000

Sadly this news item is pointing to deeper economic and educational crisis in this country indicating that our whole process of education, training and employment as well as suicidal trade laws are long overdue for an overhaul.
Example: I took a six month course at a computer school in Calif. that the state government had paid 9k$ for each student laid off from aerospace or other jobs. (regular cost 15k$). The requirement was that the school had to re-employ graduates at good paying jobs and get them back into the working economy. Sadly the school did not achieve the min. limit of graduates re-employed at good jobs after they graduated. The state pulled funding and th e school went bankrupt.

There are many reasons you could find for the failure, but you have to acknowledge that all the groups of people required to work together; government, labor, management, business owners do not work together in this country. Whereas countries like Japan all of them work together, and even have 10 yr plans to take over world markets. They have already done so with cameras, electronics, consumer items and almost the car market.

In the USA corporations will not even take on an R&D product to design, develope and market and distribute unless they can make a profit in 6 months (US corps. more controlled by the stock market and taxes rather than long term innovation.)
WHAT IT PROVES IS WE HAVE TO CHANGE HOW WE DO EVERYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY OR OUR ECONOMY WILL DIE. Countries like Japan and China know this, but we do not have a clue… REMEMBER THE BIGGEST CAUSUALTY IN THIS ECONOMIC WAR IS THE MIDDLE CLASS, IF WE DO NOT LEARN TO CHANGE AND PUT EACH AMERICAN’S BEST INTEREST FIRST OUR ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE. I GUARANTEE YOU NO AMERICAN WANTS TO LIVE IN A RUSSIAN STYLE OLICHARCHY BUT THIS IS WHERE WE ARE HEADED. FIRST REPEAL NAFTA AND GET US OUT OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION AND ELIMINATE ALL SUICIDAL TRADE POLICIES. WE ARE IN AN ECONOMIC WAR.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:49:44 +0000

as to the subject of this blog entry, I would guess that a class action suit involving millions of dissatisfied customers (students) and thousands of educational institutions concerning false advertising and misleading statistics would make most schools liable and ultimately look like idiots.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:46:07 +0000

Sean, you make a good point. I would venture to guess that the majority of graduates in most degrees are either underemployed or not employed in their field. Sure, the myriad of choices of degrees are great, but they could stand to have fewer, such as practical business, paralegal/law, law enforcement, computers, teaching, and engineering. Those are all well-paid careers with many employment opportunities. Also, since there are tons of jobs in retail then have another department that specializes in short courses in retail sales or restaurants: cooking, management, customer service, and maintenance. The rest of the degrees are mostly esoteric, or they require that you buddy up to an influential/active professor that can get you an internship while you are in school. Otherwise you have to make do in retail or restaurants with low wages and hope that someone takes you seriously in the job market with your degree and the fact that most of your experience is in retail rather than that subject. Being in school does expose you to what academic jobs are like in your field, but those are mostly few, low paying and dull. I also found that most of my professors were completely cut off from the actual non-academic job market, except for the tiny, well-protected niche that they had carved out for themselves.
The whole affair is frustrating in retrospect. I blame myself alone for doing honest work, seeking an improved, honest profession, and wanting a better life. I think it all links back to the adage that my parents often repeated in our house: “You need to go to college if you want a good job.” In their day people with degrees were rare and formed the elite in society, but today the market is flooded with degreed people and few actual jobs for them. I think the job market is geared toward internal promotion of the educated/skilled jobs and a large labor force of unskilled workers.

Honestly, my goal is to be debt free, self employed, and self sufficient. I can put up with a little abuse in the job market, but that will always be my goal: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This is better than unemployed or working a crap job and being bitter and frustrated. It is also ideal to be in control of your life and not hand that control over to an abusive employer or government official. In the end, my education and mental freedom are things no one can take away from me.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:39:51 +0000

Oops!! I meant I am still waiting tables.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:39:02 +0000

I graduated with a finance degree in May of 06, but I am still waiting because I am under qualified for degreed jobs due to lack of experience, or over qualified for entry level jobs because I have a degree. Now I am living with family because I am unable to support myself due to student loans, and I feel like my time, money, and effort spent in college was a waste of time. While I don’t believe she should sue the school, I do believe that if schools are selling their degrees based on implying success of their graduates, then they should be held accountable for the success (or lack of) of the students. For instance, they should be required to make public the percentage of students who are underemployed, unemployed, etc.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:07:15 +0000

i don’t think a university should exist if all they do is churn out unemployable, over educated people. I think it is the responsibility of schools that offer a product like a degree to also provide a disclaimer that the degree is worthless without experience. I was lucky to be chosen to do 3 internships (some mutiyear), busted my ass in student jobs for most of my college career, and did a graduate assistantship during grad school. However, since graduating I have yet to find any job besides working in retail, which I only do begrudgingly. I spent about 7+ years total getting my education and I think with my hard work, nearly perfect attendance, good GPA (3.50 undergrad, 3.79 grad) and experience that I deserve an equal chance of employment to these unseen, unemployed masses. I am still waiting to see soup lines, but I think it is all fake in order to keep people depressed and out of the job market, i.e. controlled. I did learn two things in college: 1. schools are in the business of selling snake oil and dreams, and that they are experts at suckering people out of their savings and future earnings, 2. the united states rewards athletes, politicians, pushy salesmen, drugged out movie stars, and somehow discounts the worth of intellectuals, which in many ways is counterproductive to our civilization’s survival

Magnus

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:20:31 +0000

-”By the way, her GPA was a robust 2.7, which should have most employers knocking down doors.”-

This is my favorite part of the article.