The Rise and Rise of the Cognitive Elite

hessian writes "As technology advances, the rewards to cleverness increase. Computers have hugely increased the availability of information, raising the demand for those sharp enough to make sense of it. In 1991 the average wage for a male American worker with a bachelor's degree was 2.5 times that of a high-school drop-out; now the ratio is 3. Cognitive skills are at a premium, and they are unevenly distributed."

Interesting statistic

[chemicaldave]

In 1991 the average wage for a male American worker with a bachelor's degree was 2.5 times that of a high-school drop-out; now the ratio is 3.

Isn't this more an indiciation of a widening income gap between working class and middle class backgrounds? There are a lot of not-so-smart people with degrees.

I think that's what the article is trying to point out. Take this statistic FTFA as an example.

In America, for example, in 1987 the top 1% of taxpayers received 12.3% of all pre-tax income. Twenty years later their share, at 23.5%, was nearly twice as large. The bottom half’s share fell from 15.6% to 12.2% over the same period.

Degree /= Cognitive Skill

[couchslug]

I work at a typical institution that shall not be named. It's a fucking diploma mill and the grads can't do much of what high school grads back in The Day took for granted.

Two-year degrees mean so little that I would ignore them and test the applicant thoroughly.

Re:Class Difference

[commodore6502]

We don't have a class (aka caste) system.

If we did, you would be born a commoner and spend the rest of your life there, never able to rise to the level of Bill Gates or Barak Obama or one of their assistant managers. Those jobs would be reserved for the nobles while you would be stuck in the factory/office as a laborer.

Re:Class Difference

[fulldecent]

For advice on stuffing your resume with keywords and experimental results, see

Classic and modern job searching tips.
http://fulldecent.blogspot.com/2010/10/classic-and-modern-job-searching-tips.html [blogspot.com]

Re:Class Difference

[KovaaK]

You are correct that there is some difficulty for those with degrees in getting jobs, but the recession hit those with less education the hardest. December 2010's unemployment numbers are as follows: Less than highschool 15.3%, Highschool grad with no college 9.8%, Some college or associate degree 8.1%, Bachelor's Degree or higher 4.8%.

Source [deptofnumbers.com]

Re:Class Difference

[ArcherB]

Getting a degree could also mean you're overly conformist and likely to lack a lot of creativity. You probably lack a strong leadership personality and shy away from individual excellence. If I need a worker drone, you're probably a good fit. I may or may not desire a worker drone.

I don't think you are likely to find your employee with a strong leadership personality who doesn't shy away from individual excellence in your average high school drop out. "Individual excellence" is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of someone who couldn't get past the 10th grade. I'm not saying they don't exist, but you are not likely to find them.

Besides, my degree program emphasized leadership as well as working within a team to complete a given project. Creativity is also a must in any degree program with the exception of something like accounting. Then again, I don't want a "creative" numbers on my expense or profit reports.

Re:Class Difference

[Nadaka]

that isn't even true. The top 10% do not pay 90% of the income tax.

As of 2008 the top 10% pay 70% of the income tax and earns more than 75% of the income.

Meanwhile they possess 73% of net wealth or 83% of financial wealth and that percentage is increasing (mostly in the top 1%).

Higher tuition

[Beerdood]

Another related point here is the overall cost of tuition and how it affects the supply & demand of educated workers. As tuition fees are rising (much faster than inflation [wikipedia.org] ), there's going to be less and less people deciding to go to school at all. From the link, "Cost of living increased roughly 2.5-fold during this time (1978 - 2080); medical costs inflated roughly 6-fold; but college tuition and fees inflation approached 10-fold". This isn't just the states either - every year I went to University in Canada they raises the tuition by about 7 or 8% per year. And wasn't it just tripled in the UK?

Well, it comes as no surprise then that less people decide to get a bachelor's degree, the demand for these workers goes up. No higher eduction or taking a trade just seems like a better option to most people than spending tens of thousands of dollars on education (and risk not finding a job after that). They see a bachelor's degree as the new sucker's game.

Re:Class Difference

[russotto]

You are confusing "several orders of magnitude less likely than being struck by lightning" (seriously) with actual class mobility.

This kind of thing did happen in the past, read some historical literature. We only hear about the 1 in a billion now, because of the mass media.

My grandfather was a working-class immigrant with a high school education (he's retired now). His kids range from middle-class to moderately wealthy. And no, he didn't marry into wealth either. This is not an uncommon story in the US. Yes, there's still an advantage to being born at the top. And yes, very few make it all the way from the bottom to the very top; we don't have perfect social mobility. But it's far better than 1 in a billion.

Re:Class Difference

[Surt]

But the actual statistics say otherwise. The stats say the non-degreed person earns enough less that the degreed person is typically ahead by age 35-40. There are surely exceptions, but that is where the averages land you.