A bleak job forecast for those who skip college
Findings released today by Georgetown University indicate the U.S. will not have enough college graduates by the year 2018.
Some bullet points from the school’s Center on Education in the Workplace:
-By 2018, the U.S. will need 22 million new college graduates
-Projections indicate the country will fall short by 3 million people
-Nine out ten workers with a high school education or less are limited to three occupational clusters that either pay low wages or are in decline
-Over the next five years, 60 million Americans are at risk of being locked out of the middle class, toiling in predominantly low-wage jobs that require high school diplomas or less
The study says the change is due to advances in technology:
The core mechanism at work in increasing demand for postsecondary education and training is the computer, which automates repetitive tasks and increases the value of non-repetitive functions in all jobs. Occupations with high levels of non-repetitive tasks, such as professional and managerial jobs, tend to require postsecondary education and training. These types of jobs are growing, while positions dominated by repetitive tasks that tend to require high school or less, like production jobs, are declining.
-In 1973, there were 25 million jobs available to people with at least some college or better
-By 2007 that number ballooned to 91 million jobs
This sums up one of the Center’s findings:
Our grandparents’ economy, which promised well-paying jobs for anyone who graduated from high school, is fading and will soon be altogether gone.
The Center also broke down the study for each state. In New York:
-Between 2008 and 2018, new jobs across the state requiring post-secondary education and training will grow by 359,000
-Jobs for high school graduates and dropouts will grow by 137,000
-Statewide, 2.8 million jobs will open up or be created
-1.8 million will require post-secondary education
-750,000 positions will be available to those with only a high school diploma
-287,000 jobs will be available to high school dropouts
-In 2018, 63% of all jobs across New York (6.1 million jobs) will require some post-secondary training
Shocking that an institution of higher learning would release a study warning that our country will have a short fall of college educated individuals eight years from now. This despite more and more evidence indicating that a college education (depending upon the program and cost) isn’t necessarily a very good investment in the first place. Don’t believe the propaganda. It’s in their interest to convince parents and young people that a college degree, any college degree, is a must have.
Instead our education system (post-secondary institutions, high school personnel, banks that lend the money, etc…)should be honest with young people and parents and promote the use of apprenticeships, on-the- job training, and short-term affordable career and technical education programs similar to what European and Asian countries now utilize. These programs are much more skill specific, cost effective, and affordable for both businesses and individuals. Imagine paying $10,000 for an actual skill with a job waiting for you instead of spending five years in a post-secondary institution to earn a bachelor’s degree for a non-existent job and a student loan balance of $50,000-60,000 (even higher in some cases).
And businesses are not innocent in this either. The idea that you need a bachelor’s degree to hold the jobs they actual hire for is false as well. Again, they’re certainly are exceptions, but many employers who require these degrees as a condition of employment do so because it’s the norm and nothing more. Actual skills needed be damned.
The key is having specific useful training beyond high school. You don’t necessarily need 50K in school loans to get that training.
It also depends on why you go to college. If the only reason you want to go to college really is vocational then you need to be very specific and focused on what your degree is in and specific and focused on your internships etc. The fact is accountants, doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, geologists etc all need college degrees. However if you go to college to broaden yourself to learn how to live life in a different way to think differently then you are paying for that process not necessarily for learning anything vocationally. I think kids really need to be clear about that and understand what they are doing. If you go to college and come out with 50k in loans and a liberal arts degree thinking you have vocational training you are in for a rude awakening.
However you know there are many many skills that do not need a four year degree that do very well from a vocation standpoint.
This study seems to assume steady growth and completely discounts the fact we’re on a collision course with a major world wide depression, outrageous fuel costs and food shortages.
I wish I’d seen this earlier, as it is one of my pet peeves and I would like to have made a comment when someone might have read it. Basically, amen to the skeptics above, especially “Clapton”. A few years ago a visited the CV-Tech facility in Plattsburgh, where I saw kids learning vocational skills. Though many, in fact, went on to college, those that didn’t almost all found well-paying work in auto mechanics, refrigeration and cooling, computer repair, medical, and legal secretary fields, to name a few. I remember our guide telling us that many local employers sought out these kids for summer work while their regulars were on vacation, and this often led to full-time employment on graduation. This may have cooled a bit lately, but I’d rather be one of them than, say, looking for work with my newly-minted Education major.
It’s a bleak forecast even if you went to college.
I read in today’s Post Star that most jobs being created today don’t require a college education.
Nothing against college but let’s admit the push for a college education is pushed by the professors (those who claim to have knowledge) and the college administrators, all of whom just want to be paid.
It all depends.
The point is a high school diploma and nothing else will make things very hard. Being a high school dropout even worse yet. The new jobs require training and skills. But as far as college goes, engineers are still being hired, accountants and doctors are still being hired, RN’s are still being hired, etc., they all require degrees or advanced training beyond high school.
It all depends on the life course you choose. I would not just blunder into college borrowing tons of money without a clear path of what you are doing and more importantly why you are there.
Mervel, you make a good point. I see all too many kids leave high school and go to college with no plan, much less a clear one. For the vast majority of these kids it seems college is a rite of passage, a 2-4 year party, a way to escape the bonds of home life while still having someone there to cushion the falls they take.
I’d much rather see kids leave high school and enter the service or work a few years till they got their heads on straight and had some idea what they actually wanted to do rather than put themselves (their parents) in incredible debt just to fulfill some expectation that the “deserve” to go to college. The small percentage that actually have a clear plan and solid knowledge of what they want to do seems to be a very shrinking to me.