jerseyshorejohnny
Well-known member
Evaluating Today’s Expensive College Degree
Richard Vedder and Justin Strehle are right about the declining value of the college degree, but they might have noted the nature of college education has changed.
June 14, 2017 / Wall Street Journal
In “The Diminishing Returns of a College Degree” (op-ed, June 5), Richard Vedder and Justin Strehle are right about the declining value of the college degree, but they might have further stressed that the nature of college education changed as it went from something that a fairly small percentage of the population pursued into a mass phenomenon that was widely taken as an entitlement.
Before the federal government began aggressively pushing higher education with grants and easy loans, the students who went to college were largely those who truly wanted to improve their knowledge and skills—their human capital. With the generally rigorous standards of the time, mostly they did. But as an increasing number of high-school graduates flooded into college, many of them with marginal academic ability and little interest in advanced study, most schools adjusted to their new “customer” base by letting their standards fall.
Huge numbers of college graduates now glut the labor market. Whereas a college degree used to indicate serious effort and learning, many degrees today show nothing more than the mild persistence it takes to accumulate enough credits to graduate. Inevitably, many of those degree holders have to settle for the kinds of jobs high-school grads or even dropouts can do. In short, we have oversold college.
George Leef
James G. Martin Center for
Academic Renewal
Raleigh, N.C.
Most people think of colleges strictly as institutions of higher learning, when in fact they’re businesses selling a product like every other business. That product is a “successful future.” Parents have been conned into spending thousands of dollars on college education just so they can tell family and friends that their children went to college, when in many cases the kids have no clue what they want to do. Government-sponsored student loans have enabled this scam, allowing college tuition costs to far outpace inflation. Many colleges have become nothing more than left-wing indoctrination centers. Worst of all, many boomers have forfeited their retirements to fund this. When kids graduate with a four-year college degree and are working at McDonald’s, maybe it’s time to do a value analysis of what that degree is really worth.
Chuck McGee
Moultonborough, N.H.
The general competence of today’s holder of a college degree has the employment capabilities that a high-school graduate had back when I got a diploma about 70 years ago. That’s not encouraging if the likely case is that a business employer’s requirements haven’t changed that much.
Harry R. Clements
Wichita, Kan.
The authors make the classic mistake in determining the reason for the higher earnings of Stanford University grads compared to those of Northern Kentucky University. Clearly a significant component of the increased pay is the academic superiority of those who are accepted by Stanford.
Allan von Halle
Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Jennifer N. Owens
Mr. Leef, as usual, is spot on.
Bill Wald
The problem is with high schools. They graduate kids with a 1950's 9th grade education.
Jennifer N. Owens
@Bill Wald
More like a 1950's 6th grade education in the three Rs. But they're experts in social media.
Sara Baker
Actually 1950's sixth grade graduates probably learned more than the kids today.
TERRY NELSON
Go study feminist anthropology, but make sure you’re picking up some skills on the periphery so that you can get a job when you graduate.
Matthew Sigelman, chief executive of Burning Glass, a Boston-based labor-market-analytics firm. With students facing rising debt and pressure to find employment after graduation, colleges and universities are focusing on job-ready disciplines.
STEPHEN OBRIEN
I have two major disagreements with the letters, comments and constant college bashing. First, colleges supply the resources for a student to significantly improve their level of education. It is up to the student to put in the effort to take advantage of this opportunity. The college cannot force feed an education. It is the education, not the degree that provides the opportunity for the individual to better themselves and lead a happy and productive live.
Second, never mentioned is that fact that historically that the unemployment rate for those with a college degree is always significantly lower than that for those without.
Richard Rider
@STEPHEN OBRIEN Also never mentioned is that those who GO to college are on average brighter than those who don't. So the "college degree" is not the only -- or even the MAIN -- factor affecting a person's earning capabilities after graduation.
Harry Reid
As is usual, college is what you make of it.
Tuition should be based on a percentage of first ten years' earnings so everyone has skin in the game and all can focus on success.
Sara Baker
Chick McGee is almost correct when he says colleges are in the business of selling successful futures. But it's more basic than that. They are in the business of selling credits. If the credits add up to a degree - great. If the credits don't, well, the colleges still have the money from selling those credits.
John Elam
Great insight Mr. Leef!
ROBERT SARTINI
We hired people with Masters Degrees for the simple reason that they bothered to do it. A masters degree required some rigor that the bachelors no longer did. HS Diploma is awarded for showing up. BS is awarded for showing up while partying.
Sapna Bhargava
Send Stanford and the Ivy League the bottom 20% of a graduating class and then see academic results, graduating incomes, wealth, and donations to the college.
I suspect that there would be a significant drop, but the colleges would really be earning their tuition and fees then.
Thomas Lafollette
I run an early-stage life sciences company, and I needed more help in the lab. I interviewed three millennials from the greater Northern California area (Berkeley to Reno), and all truly were outstanding. I hired one, and he has wonderful curiosity, integrity , motivation and work ethic, in addition to his skills in modern biological chemisty that of course he learned at the University. He was a great hire, and his investment in higher education will be well worth his money.
Richard Vedder and Justin Strehle are right about the declining value of the college degree, but they might have noted the nature of college education has changed.
June 14, 2017 / Wall Street Journal
In “The Diminishing Returns of a College Degree” (op-ed, June 5), Richard Vedder and Justin Strehle are right about the declining value of the college degree, but they might have further stressed that the nature of college education changed as it went from something that a fairly small percentage of the population pursued into a mass phenomenon that was widely taken as an entitlement.
Before the federal government began aggressively pushing higher education with grants and easy loans, the students who went to college were largely those who truly wanted to improve their knowledge and skills—their human capital. With the generally rigorous standards of the time, mostly they did. But as an increasing number of high-school graduates flooded into college, many of them with marginal academic ability and little interest in advanced study, most schools adjusted to their new “customer” base by letting their standards fall.
Huge numbers of college graduates now glut the labor market. Whereas a college degree used to indicate serious effort and learning, many degrees today show nothing more than the mild persistence it takes to accumulate enough credits to graduate. Inevitably, many of those degree holders have to settle for the kinds of jobs high-school grads or even dropouts can do. In short, we have oversold college.
George Leef
James G. Martin Center for
Academic Renewal
Raleigh, N.C.
Most people think of colleges strictly as institutions of higher learning, when in fact they’re businesses selling a product like every other business. That product is a “successful future.” Parents have been conned into spending thousands of dollars on college education just so they can tell family and friends that their children went to college, when in many cases the kids have no clue what they want to do. Government-sponsored student loans have enabled this scam, allowing college tuition costs to far outpace inflation. Many colleges have become nothing more than left-wing indoctrination centers. Worst of all, many boomers have forfeited their retirements to fund this. When kids graduate with a four-year college degree and are working at McDonald’s, maybe it’s time to do a value analysis of what that degree is really worth.
Chuck McGee
Moultonborough, N.H.
The general competence of today’s holder of a college degree has the employment capabilities that a high-school graduate had back when I got a diploma about 70 years ago. That’s not encouraging if the likely case is that a business employer’s requirements haven’t changed that much.
Harry R. Clements
Wichita, Kan.
The authors make the classic mistake in determining the reason for the higher earnings of Stanford University grads compared to those of Northern Kentucky University. Clearly a significant component of the increased pay is the academic superiority of those who are accepted by Stanford.
Allan von Halle
Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Jennifer N. Owens
Mr. Leef, as usual, is spot on.
Bill Wald
The problem is with high schools. They graduate kids with a 1950's 9th grade education.
Jennifer N. Owens
@Bill Wald
More like a 1950's 6th grade education in the three Rs. But they're experts in social media.
Sara Baker
Actually 1950's sixth grade graduates probably learned more than the kids today.
TERRY NELSON
Go study feminist anthropology, but make sure you’re picking up some skills on the periphery so that you can get a job when you graduate.
Matthew Sigelman, chief executive of Burning Glass, a Boston-based labor-market-analytics firm. With students facing rising debt and pressure to find employment after graduation, colleges and universities are focusing on job-ready disciplines.
STEPHEN OBRIEN
I have two major disagreements with the letters, comments and constant college bashing. First, colleges supply the resources for a student to significantly improve their level of education. It is up to the student to put in the effort to take advantage of this opportunity. The college cannot force feed an education. It is the education, not the degree that provides the opportunity for the individual to better themselves and lead a happy and productive live.
Second, never mentioned is that fact that historically that the unemployment rate for those with a college degree is always significantly lower than that for those without.
Richard Rider
@STEPHEN OBRIEN Also never mentioned is that those who GO to college are on average brighter than those who don't. So the "college degree" is not the only -- or even the MAIN -- factor affecting a person's earning capabilities after graduation.
Harry Reid
As is usual, college is what you make of it.
Tuition should be based on a percentage of first ten years' earnings so everyone has skin in the game and all can focus on success.
Sara Baker
Chick McGee is almost correct when he says colleges are in the business of selling successful futures. But it's more basic than that. They are in the business of selling credits. If the credits add up to a degree - great. If the credits don't, well, the colleges still have the money from selling those credits.
John Elam
Great insight Mr. Leef!
ROBERT SARTINI
We hired people with Masters Degrees for the simple reason that they bothered to do it. A masters degree required some rigor that the bachelors no longer did. HS Diploma is awarded for showing up. BS is awarded for showing up while partying.
Sapna Bhargava
Send Stanford and the Ivy League the bottom 20% of a graduating class and then see academic results, graduating incomes, wealth, and donations to the college.
I suspect that there would be a significant drop, but the colleges would really be earning their tuition and fees then.
Thomas Lafollette
I run an early-stage life sciences company, and I needed more help in the lab. I interviewed three millennials from the greater Northern California area (Berkeley to Reno), and all truly were outstanding. I hired one, and he has wonderful curiosity, integrity , motivation and work ethic, in addition to his skills in modern biological chemisty that of course he learned at the University. He was a great hire, and his investment in higher education will be well worth his money.