Two-Thirds of American Employees Regret Their College Degrees (cbsnews.com) 209
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: A college education is still considered a pathway to higher lifetime earnings and gainful employment for Americans. Nevertheless, two-thirds of employees report having regrets when it comes to their advanced degrees, according to a PayScale survey of 248,000 respondents this past spring that was released Tuesday. Student loan debt, which has ballooned to nearly $1.6 trillion nationwide in 2019, was the No. 1 regret among workers with college degrees. About 27% of survey respondents listed student loans as their top misgiving, PayScale said. College debt was followed by chosen area of study (12%) as a top regret for employees, though this varied greatly by major. Other regrets include poor networking, school choice, too many degrees, time spent completing education and academic underachievement. "Those with science, technology, engineering and math majors, who are typically more likely to enjoy higher salaries, reported more satisfaction with their degrees," the report adds. "About 42% of engineering grads and 35% of computer science grads said they had no regrets."
Those with the most regrets include humanities majors, who are least likely to earn higher pay post-graduation. "About 75% of humanities majors said they regretted their college education," report says. "About 73% of graduates who studied social sciences, physical and life sciences, and art also said the same." Somewhere in the middle were 66% of business graduates, 67% of health sciences graduates and 68% of math graduates who said they regretted their education.
Those with the most regrets include humanities majors, who are least likely to earn higher pay post-graduation. "About 75% of humanities majors said they regretted their college education," report says. "About 73% of graduates who studied social sciences, physical and life sciences, and art also said the same." Somewhere in the middle were 66% of business graduates, 67% of health sciences graduates and 68% of math graduates who said they regretted their education.
Is that so? (Score:5, Interesting)
Call Captain Obvious!
Re:Is that so? (Score:5, Interesting)
It follows that even more non-employees regret paying for a degree.
Seems to me that a lot of people confuse getting a degree with obtaining useful and marketable knowledge and skills, so they're disappointed when they finally realize there's often a difference.
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I wouldn't over value the skills taught to people to receive those degrees. I have interviewed a gaggle of comp sci graduates who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. IMO all that a degree shows is that you have the tenacity to get a degree, which isn't worthless, but it is not a good indicator of relevant skills.
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Yup. What is valuable is going back and studying some of that material after you've got experience. There is a much higher probability of retaining information because it will connect more closely with things you know and have experienced. You'll 'get' it on a much deeper level and generally give a shit. Some kid coming out of high school doesn't give a shit. It is like camp with tests, just like all school they figure they have to get through it and once they have their trophy they'll be magically transfor
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How did biology majors with a minor in geology do?
Re:Is that so? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.payscale.com/data/biggest-college-regrets
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"the back of some I.T. screwdriver jockey's closet"
Those jobs still start at about $75k/yr or about what a vet makes and you still don't need a degree to get them. Unfortunately, they are pushing many of the people without degrees out so they can replace them with diploma mill h1bs.
What do they want? (Score:2)
"35% of computer science grads said they had no regrets."
Either they are asking questions that slant towards negativity, or people just have a skewed understanding of their potential earning potential.
Re:What do they want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either they are asking questions that slant towards negativity ...
Indeed. TFA doesn't list the actual questions asked, and uses a lot of weasel words. The vague wording implies that what many people "regret" is taking on so much debt, not their degree.
TFA is very poorly written, likely by a journalism major.
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They posted this a day or two after that big Sanders announcement that he'd just make all student debt go away. ;)
There's an obvious agenda at play here. Maybe the editors here are in the above-mentioned two-third?
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Either they are asking questions that slant towards negativity ...
Indeed. TFA doesn't list the actual questions asked, and uses a lot of weasel words. The vague wording implies that what many people "regret" is taking on so much debt, not their degree.
TFA is very poorly written, likely by a journalism major.
A journalism major who regrets their college degree? ... sorry.
Re:What do they want? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all in the wording. They talk about "no regrets" vs "some regret of some kind". Saying you have "no regrets" about your college education is a pretty strong statement: it includes not regretting the degree, not regretting what you paid for it, no regretting where you got it, how long you spent on it, hell, it could even include not getting a more advanced degree like a masters, or not spending enough time socializing (or too much time socializing). Depending on exactly what questions you ask, you could probably get the number who "have regrets" about their degree to range from 0 to 100%, for any degree and any group. It's mildly interesting to compare different groups (assuming they asked everyone the same questions), but that's about the only interesting thing that can be said, without knowing exactly what was asked, and how it was asked.
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I ran surveys on a number of topics for a little while when younger. It seemed like the idea was to show every effort at removing all bias while asking questions intended to lead to something.
In the example you give, the other options are supposed to set the frame of reference for a broad answer like "no regrets" but the surveyor can't answer a question about that from the survey taker and explain that "no regret" means not having any of the regrets listed here. Doing so would be considered leading and bia
Re:What do they want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either they are asking questions that slant towards negativity, or people just have a skewed understanding of their potential earning potential.
Add in a bit of sampling bias as well. Payscale visitors are likely to be out of work or at least unhappy with their current job, as it is geared towards job seekers. This could significantly skew the results. A better headline would be "Two thirds of people who are unhappy with their current employment status regret their college degrees".
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An dvanced degree in your technical field is great if that field has sought-after 'emeritus' positions you can eventually occupy that take full advantage of the education. Software development is not one of these fields. Taking four or eight years out for advanced education just puts you closer to age forty-and-out.
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"that 10 years of experience is difficult to prove because employers are so fearful of giving real recommendations, so they limit it just strictly employment verification."
Ummm... everyone just gives employment verification. Fortunately, that is all anyone hiring expects or requires to "prove" experience? By the time anyone even checks those things you already have an offer. Maybe your friends thought this is why they struggled in lean times but I very much doubt it. If you spent 5+ yrs in a notable positio
Better or worse (Score:4, Insightful)
>" two-thirds of employees report having regrets when it comes to their advanced degrees"
Solution: ironically, educate potential students about degrees BEFORE they act- what they are, what fields are out there, what they cost, what each degree disciplines means, if they are marketable, if that person has any aptitude for any degree (much less the one they pick), alternative choices, etc.
Causing it and making it worse: having government subsidize student loans, trying to get more people to have degrees, making it "free" (yeah, as if it is free), "forgiving" trillions of dollars of debt for people being irresponsible and shifting that debt to everyone else who was/is responsible, telling everyone they have to have a degree, rewarding colleges for doing the "wrong thing", etc.
No, gov't subsidized student loans (Score:4, Insightful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United_States#Funding_of_universities_and_colleges [wikipedia.org]
https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-down-tuition-up [cbpp.org]
https://www.educationnext.org/higher-ed-lower-spending-as-states-cut-back-where-has-money-gone/ [educationnext.org]
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-main-reason-tuition-is-skyrocketing/ [fivethirtyeight.com]
Education isn't the problem (which makes sense on so many levels). The problem is we don't value the next generation. We've become extremely short sighted.
Think about this, you're not gonna pay for these kids to be education (e.g. tuition free college like the rest of the free world). They're not your kids, why should you have to pay, right?
Like having a 401k? Like doctors? Plan on retiring on Social Security & Medicare? Where do you think that money comes from? It comes from a growing economy. Do you think an uneducated population or one burdened with debt equal to 1/10 the GDP can keep up with that? They'll come for you, you know. They'll see you sitting high with your nice house bought before prices went crazy, your single payer healthcare (Medicare) and your work free income.
They'll start by eliminating Medicare (we can't afford it). Next will come Social Security. Maybe you've saved enough. Maybe you were a VP and have a Pension and free medical care. A venture capitalist will buy/merge your old company and your pension and healthcare will go with it. You'll do a reverse mortgage to pay for your pills, but the laws'll change and you'll find yourself making payments somehow. You'll scream at the guy on the phone about how they can't do this, but they can. The Millennials will sell you out because you sold them out. Or if you're a Millennial Gen Z will do it.
This is what happens when we're all at each other's throats. The only ones that live are the butchers cutting us up and feasting on our flesh.
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God-damn! Where are my mod points when I need them?
Very insightful post!
Re:No, gov't subsidized student loans (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the "education" that these kids are receiving isn't always valuable. Here we see that two-thirds aren't satisfied with what they got or think that it was a bad value. Sure your art history degree might have been loads of fun, but the number of jobs that actually require one are so tiny that your odds of getting one are practically none. Look at all of the people still trying to get journalism degrees even as media companies are shedding jobs left and right. Look at some of the universities that have come under scrutiny in recent years like Evergreen or more recently Oberlin where the college claimed in court that they cut ties with the bakery over concerns that their own students would throw tantrums. [legalinsurrection.com] Some of these universities sound more like poorly run daycare centers for children trapped in adult bodies. Add in the for profit universities that mainly prey on people who couldn't graduate high school or get accepted to a state school but can still get loan money and it's pretty easy to see that the value of a college education isn't quite what it once was.
Stop the government from subsidizing whatever anyone wants and the market will quickly correct the problem because private investors don't want to finance useless degrees from pricy institutions. You're not going to see a shortage of doctors, etc. because those are actually valuable and a good investment. Instead what you won't see loads of people getting business or history degrees that are of no use to them, and those people will be better off because they're still going to be able to get the same jobs they already occupy now that don't require a college degree only instead of being massively in debt, they'll be able to afford a home and a family. They'll have more money to spend into the local economy. And that doesn't preclude them from getting a degree later once they have a better idea what they want to do with their life or what would actually be beneficial to them.
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Is the dissatisfaction because the degrees are crap, or because the job market is crap? People keep saying that STEM graduates, particularly software engineers, are both under-educated and being replaced by H1B and being exploited with massive amounts of overtime and burnout.
I suppose you could argue that doing a CS or SE degree is a bad idea now, but what is a good degree to have? Seems like pretty much every industry is bad now, except for the odd bubble that only lasts a few years so by the time you grad
Re:No, gov't subsidized student loans (Score:4, Interesting)
>"don't make it worse, and I wish we could kill this myth immediately. Here are four links to prove otherwise:"
Interesting, but I don't think that proves that one of the problems with expensive education is government interference. It worked out quite well for a very long time before, and it slowly started reacting to increased money thrown at it and unnecessarily increased demand. Simple supply-and-demand economics explains a large part of the price increases, and government incentives are a large part of it. That last link wants to explain that tuition went up by the same amount state assistance went down- but his own data doesn't support that, it doesn't address how tuition assistance through government-backed loans artificially pushes up demand/supply.
I watched as the Fed pushed incentives for electronic medical records systems. You know what happened? The pricing of EMR software went up exactly the amount of the incentives (far beyond inflation and at a time when such pricing should have been going down), and then continued going up beyond that.
I can post links, too:
https://www.heartland.org/news... [heartland.org]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/p... [forbes.com]
https://www.cato.org/publicati... [cato.org]
https://thescholarshipsystem.c... [thescholarshipsystem.com]
https://www.usnews.com/opinion... [usnews.com]
So no, nothing I said in my posting was a myth.
>"The problem is we don't value the next generation. We've become extremely short sighted."
Certainly agree with you there. But that starts at home with values and family, something that has been steadily falling apart since the 60's. One can't value the next generation when everyone is a "victim" and demanding the government to try and solve all their problems. Saving, honesty, hard work, short and long-term planning, self-reliance, responsibility, morality, investing, learning, freedom, ownership... These are things that had been the foundation of the country and based in the family, tight community, and, yes, even religion. School was there to help with reinforcement but also with facts and skills. All three have been evaporating.
In studying history, I see more and more patterns indicating that as the government gets larger, the family role and involvement gets smaller and smaller. I know you like to always post about "the rest of the world", but the USA was not founded or intended to be like the rest of the world. With increased freedom comes an increased need for responsibility and accountability.
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>"but I don't think that proves that one of the problems with expensive education is government interference."
Obvious typo on my part- "education is" was meant to read "education isn't"
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Certainly agree with you there. But that starts at home with values and family, something that has been steadily falling apart since the 60's
Yeah, the baby boomers divorced in record numbers but millennials have largely corrected that problem. [bloomberg.com]
Meanwhile, baby boomers continue to hypocritically preach family values and hard work even though their selfishness is the root cause of most problems in America today. [theatlantic.com]
It's not an issue of whether government is good or bad, whether it's efficient or inefficient. The problem is that since the late sixties the government has only served the interests of the boomers regardless of which party is in power. They'
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From the article:
Young people get the credit for fewer divorces because boomers have continued to divorce at unusually high rates, all the way into their 60s and 70s.
You summary of the article I cited was completely inaccurate, so I would describe your post as "clearly attempting to hide several key take-aways and obfuscate data into false points."
Of course, someone who employs the golden age fallacy, deploring the supposed decline of "family values that made the west what it is" obviously has some disconnect with reality. "Family values" are a pretty universal cultural practice, whether in the west or elsewhere. Both successful and unsuccessful societi
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Educating the public does not pay any dividends for the next generation if we are not going to employee those people and their educations! The economy derives no benefits from the guy slicing bagels and brewing coffee having a PHD.
The REAL problem and this will get me drummed out of most Conservative circles IS in fact "globalism" and "free trade" those things NEED to end at the national boarder and we need to start treating offshore labor as a import and tax it! Otherwise the capital owner class (now the i
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It was founded by people escaping religious persecution (only to turn around and eventually be persecutors). And not have a king. Those are the only founding differences. At the time, the rest of the world didn't have free health care or education either; but they eventually did (i.e., they grew up and became mature, civilized countries where the government is not the enemy
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It's also very important to take into account the impact of the "Great Recession" on State budgets. States cut education spending in response, which will be restored in the places where it hasn't been already, but the cost of higher ed had been exploding for years before that.
But, that just magnifies a different issue - that demand is far too high. We've come under this notion that everyone shou
I FOUND him! (Score:2)
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There's a lot of FUD to your arguments. As others have pointed out, arguing per-student support in an era where the number of students is increasing faster than state budgets, the population, or the economy is pretty irrelevant.
There's another way to read the statistics you cite, and you'll get more clarity by looking up some of the raw information:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/670... [gao.gov]
Pay particular attention to the details in the appendix of that GAO report.
You're arguing that a $9 billion drop in state fundin
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You hit the nail on the head.
We're sharpening the axes already. Every one of the comfortable people telling you that you are wrong will fill our bellies. I suggest you make friends with the poor while you still can.
You know you could go read them (Score:2)
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They never said Trump wasn't going to win. 538 gave one of the highest percentage chances of Trump winning, at around 1 in 6 if I remember correctly. They also were clear they felt uncertainty was high even with clear polling results because of the likelihood people didn't want to admit to voting for Trump even when asked anonymously.
Re:There are vanishingly few of those (Score:4, Interesting)
>"In total there were 2000 women's studies grads last year out of 2,000,000 total graduates. That's .01% for God's sake. And that's actually way up. Art history is equally few and far between. "
But when you add all of them up and add in other relatively non-marketable/high-unemployment degrees (anthropology, archeology, film, philosophy, ethnic studies, religious studies, liberal arts, music, physical fitness, commercial graphics, history, English, literature, culinary, fashion, communications, architecture, sociology, international studies, undergrad psychology, creative writing, and so many more) it becomes very, very significant.
That is not to say those fields are useless or without value. But society just doesn't have much need for so many. So it should be no surprise that such grads can't find work in their "chosen" field. It isn't enough to just like the subject. In most obscure fields of study, you either need to go rich and/or with lots of connections, which is rare, or you have to be REALLY REALLY good at it (which very few are).
Like most any other investment, if banks looked at your college risk of "investment", it is likely they would stop issuing loans for non-marketable degrees, or price such loans accordingly. Exactly like they would do with a house you might plan to buy or business you would like to open/finance. Degree demand would fall, competition would increase, defaults on loans would plummet, everyone would save money. But there is no incentive for banks to do any such things with GUARANTEED LOANS- quite the opposite, they loan out HUGE amounts for any degree, the more the better.... and that is because of government.
It is a utopian dream that you can be "anything you want to be," it doesn't fit with reality. And if your parents/family and teachers and high school guidance counselors don't let you know this, colleges and government certainly will not. Kids need to be grounded in reality and try to find *marketable* options that can BEST meet their abilities and interests and current/future wallets.
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But when you add all of them up and add in other relatively non-marketable/high-unemployment degrees (anthropology, archeology, film, philosophy, ethnic studies, religious studies, liberal arts, music, physical fitness, commercial graphics, history, English, literature, culinary, fashion, communications, architecture, sociology, international studies, undergrad psychology, creative writing, and so many more) it becomes very, very significant.
The numbers [ed.gov] don't seem to agree. My highly distracted, back of the notebook calculations show these areas to be like 5 to 7% of all graduations. Significant, yes, "Very Very significant", not even close. Also, we have no way of knowing from these numbers how many of the psych majors went on to continue their degrees.
Kids farting away borrowed money to delay entering the real world is a popular narrative, but not well grounded in reality.
Re: There are vanishingly few of those (Score:2)
Moreover, those 2000 annual Womens Studies majors can probably find semi-lucrative jobs as lawful-discrimination commisars at megacorps. If I'm not mistaken they are automatically enrolled on the nomenklatura list upon graduation.
Because you subscribe to right wing media outlets (Score:2)
They're harmless. Not even annoying. Like an ant outside your window sill. Your house is full of mosquitoes (the super rich) sucking you dry while you rage over that little ant.
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I've always been baffled at the anger over a few snotty tumblr using kids writing annoying articles on whatever.
Like, this tiny minority of people have no power at all, and are laughed at even within the social justice movements, and yet we're told to believe these people are some how in command of Hollywoods vast riches and are launching some sort of "cultural marxist" (A term that is perhaps Goerrings most enduring creation) war on everything.
Folks, its a myth concocted by the same culture war assholes w
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Strongly agreed. We need to start giving kids a taste of lots of interesting subjects really early (e.g. a half-semester-long CS class in elementary school), and should teach them how to choose a degree program
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The increasing cost of education cannot possibly be caused by increased government subsidies. Thirty or forty years ago, government paid somewhere around 70â"80% of the cost of college at public institutions. Now, government pays more like 20â"30%. Increases to government funding have not even remotely kept up with the increases in the cost of education.
Approximately forty years ago, roughly 50% of HS graduates would enroll in college upon graduation. In 2015, this climbed to 70% (source [ed.gov].
And although the pressure for everyone to get a college degree does mean that those dollars are spread across more students, over the past two decades, the percentage of high school students going on to college has only gone up from 65% to 69%. So this also cannot explain the skyrocketing costs.
Yes, the percentages are relatively small, but the actual numbers tell a different story. The number of HS graduates enrolling in college went from ~14 million in 1995, to ~20million in 2015. That's a 25% increase in enrollment in the span of 20 years (source [statista.com], and nearly 5 million additional students potentially looking for a loan.
Government can't afford to pay for everyo
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You're looking at too long a period, creating the illusion of correlation where none exists.
In 1995, the rate of college attendance for new high school grads was about 60%, and it was at 65% by 1999. By 2009, it was 69%, and it has remained at about 69% for the ten years since. So 75% of the increase in college attendance rates happened between 1979 and 1999.
By
student loans bankruptcy can fix so many things (Score:2)
student loans bankruptcy can fix so many things
High fees
BS filler classes nice to have but not at today's costs
forced residency rules at high cost
The push to make Masters the new HS
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>"student loans bankruptcy can fix so many things"
Not unless it is also combined with getting rid of any type of "guarantees" by the government that the loans will be paid back. That will put the risk on the lenders- and they will suddenly start looking at their prospective "clients'" possibility to pay back the loan and which degree they seek, etc.
Just allowing bankruptcy without any other reforms would make the problem much, much worse, very quickly.
Read the article, look at the degrees (Score:2)
If parents tought respect and morals. The problems childern/people would not need these skills. As it is, they don't want them. Read back.
Respect and morals for others, being tought from child hood. Even when you disagree. Would resolve a lot of the hate we see.
But, people don't have it. And karma is kicking in. When you hate someone, that is what you receive back.
Perhaps money isn't the only consideration (Score:2)
Assuming there is still some intrinsic value in doing what you enjoy, regardless of the pile of dollars you leave on the table, shouldn't happiness factor into the equation?
Re: Perhaps money isn't the only consideration (Score:4, Insightful)
I regret my degree, but I also dont. I have a good job-that doesn't match my degree, but my graduate degree helped me stand out when I interviewed for the job-making decent money, and I got to study a topic I enjoyed (history) and was frankly good at. I also went to a smaller school and got to play college football. Sure, I could have gone to a major, well known university and studied biomedical engineering and I'd be making probably double what I do now, but I also likely would never have met my wife.
Basically, theres no way to know for sure that my life would have been better had I gotten a different degree. I only know that it would be different. And I'm ok with that.
Re: Perhaps money isn't the only consideration (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes indeed. Regret, anyway, is just a soul-eater.
The only thing you can change about the past is how you feel about it.
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shouldn't happiness factor into the equation?
Going into debt to buy happiness doesn't seem very intelligent.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Perhaps their debts make them sad.
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Sure - which is why "I REGRET HAVING GOTTEN THIS DEGREE" is a far better measure than money. Which is what this article is saying.
Yes, the survey by Payscale is a meta-interpretation of overall well-being, regardless of remuneration.
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Doing the thing you enjoy as a job is a sure-fire to way to end up unhappy in short order.
Yes, Mr Mxyplyzyk, while doing a job you detest invariably leads to unmitigated bliss.
A few years later... (Score:2)
The article doesn't mention anything about the amount of lapsed time since completing their degrees, so I wonder if it was even considered.
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The article doesn't mention anything about the amount of lapsed time since completing their degrees, so I wonder if it was even considered.
They mention that boomers are the most satisfied, millennials the least, and gen-XY in the middle.
College was way cheaper in the past, and degrees were less common, so the relative payoff was higher.
I am a boomer. Engineering degree. No debt (thank you GI Bill). No regrets.
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Not really surprising (Score:3)
I mean you ended up taking one path, but you can have regrets about tons of paths you didn't take. And since we never went down that path we can have a rosy colored imagination of what that would be like. Money is easy to like, for a while. Then when you have enough of it, people will start feeling they should have chosen something that's more of a passion or on working so much in the first place. Personally I've decided to look on it this way, if I want to beat me up over things I did ten years ago I'd also have to try doing what future me would want ten years from now. I don't want that dark cloud on my horizon, so I do what I feel like doing now and if future self wanted a say he should have been here.
Rules of thumb (Score:2)
There's a rule of thumb that your total loan debt shouldn't exceed your first year of salary (assuming a job in your major).
Also, "big name" universities may not be worth the extra cost for some majors. State-U is usually a better lifetime bargain, but it does depend on the major. Resist a focus on status or bragging rights; egos can't pay off debt, and the money you save can buy other ego boosters anyhow.
Similarly, get your basic ed. at a community college if possible. The "name power" of starting at a 4-y
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State-U is usually a better lifetime bargain, but it does depend on the major. Resist a focus on status or bragging rights; egos can't pay off debt
Counterargument: egos can't pay off debt, but well-paying jobs can. Elite schools tend to involve elite connections. It's far easier to skip the job hunt if you make yourself known within a pool of people that are likely to offer you a solid starting salary and the ability to cut the line.
Even if one isn't well-connected, A resume listing "Stanford" is going to stand out more than "SUNY Buffalo", making it far more likely to avoid the first round of circular filing even if everything else between two resume
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Rules of thumb are great if they are at all within your control.
Their degree is the reason they are employees (Score:2)
That degree may be the reason these people have a job in the first place.
Because yeah, degrees get you jobs. If you take two candidates with roughly similar profiles, employers will take the one with the degree, 90% of the time.
The rest is just bias. You worked your ass off for 5 years, you are now in debt and you see that one guy who barged in without any qualification. It is easy to feel bad about it. What you don't realize is that the guy is an exception. He may be particularly gifted, have a good networ
How not to regret (Score:2)
Pass the needed exams better than most to get accepted into college.
Get a loan/scholarship/pay for college.
Do well as you have the skills to study.
Find work given your academic ability and education.
Get a good wage on merit and skill.
Pay back your loan.
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Even the most complicated things, such as life itself, sound easy when you break them down into seven simple steps.
Re: How not to regret (Score:2)
"Get a good wage on merit and skill."
Not applicable. The article is about the American job market.
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Whats the problem?
Too many really well educated people every decade?
Wage too low to pay back the huge loan?
Expecting to prosper in a state that is too expensive on the given wage?
I want to live in a college-educated society (Score:3)
I want to live in a college-educated society. I want there to be lots of people around me, in my towns and cities and countryside, who have studied humanities and literature and languages, even if these studies don't provide any benefit to employment or job productivity or GDP. I think the benefit they provide is by making a society that's more enjoyable and interesting and colorful.
I live in a democracy, i.e. a society where everyone is given through their vote some small power for influencing how that society should be organized. I use my vote accordingly. I also live in a capitalist nation, i.e. a society where every dollar has some small power for influencing how that society should be organized. I use my dollars accordingly - through supporting arts, supporting education, and contributing to lobbyists.
(All that said, of course the current student loan model is distorting the market. I grew up in the UK where the government offered taxpayer-funded education to everyone who got into college, and that was a successful means for forcing the cost of education down).
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Ditto. If for no other reason, college education creates relatively informed voters.
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(All that said, of course the current student loan model is distorting the market. I grew up in the UK where the government offered taxpayer-funded education to everyone who got into college, and that was a successful means for forcing the cost of education down).
Quite a while back in the UK then. Government grants did allow people to gain a degree without the high level of debt, but the current method is more of a graduate tax than a real loan, and it allows those who couldn't have won one of the limited places under the old system to have a go - and a lot of people come good once they are in university and do better than their grades would have predicted. Similarly, some great students tank completely once at university - I was one.
Better to give every citizen a v
Pretty much means 2/3 did not learn anything (Score:2)
That may be due to bad degree programs. Would not surprise me, most degrees in the US are pretty much worthless trash. Sure there are some good ones, but they are a small minority. Anybody that learned valuable things and, in particular, learned to think, does _not_ regret that later on.
Really bad summary of research (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what kind of education the CBS news reporter had.
The report from PayScale's site is here: https://www.payscale.com/data/... [payscale.com]
People were asked to pick their biggest educational regret. 66% of respondent picked one. Options included things like "academic underachievement" and "poor networking".
Summing that up as "two thirds of Americans regret their college degrees" is idiotic. Few of the options suggest that people regret their education, only that they think that some things could have been done better.
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You also need to be at least somewhat intelligent to understand what more education could have done for you.
People living in ignorant bliss probably have no regrets. But that's gonna be cancelled out by the guy who regrets not studying harder for his third PhD, depending on how the survey was conducted.
Even there - the intelligence to *know* that the study is bad is a lot more useful than having 50 bad studies.
Have degree. Do not regret. Got me jobs specifically with the wording "You have a degree, so yo
Obviously (Score:2)
"College debt was followed by chosen area of study (12%) as a top regret for employees, though this varied greatly by major. "
Obviously, people with an English Major regret their college loans if they're driving for Uber and Lyft because it even that pays more than being a teacher.
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I was unemployed for a few months last year.
I drove Lyft and Uber for a while, but it drove me crazy because, I didn't feel like I was making money. I developed cash flow, which helped with the bills, but didn't feel like I was getting anywhere.
When I did my taxes this year, I figured out why I felt that way. My profit from 2 months driving for Lyft and Uber was $50. Based on the number of hours I was away from home, I was making about $5 per hour gross.
Lyft and Uber don't pay better than being a teacher
Put off buying houses (Score:3)
"About 70% of college students graduated with student loan debt this year, averaging about $33,000 per student. And as younger grads pay off student loan balances, they're struggling to accumulate wealth or are putting off purchasing homes — some millennials are even struggling to purchase groceries."
OK, I can get buying a house being delayed a bit, but the average house down payment ranges from $20k-40k I believe. If they are having a hard time paying off a $33k loan with the job, they would also have a problem saving up $40k to buy a house. If they can't handle that little loan and struggle to purchase groceries, how are they going to do that with a $100k-200k+ house loan? Especially if the job they would find without the degree pays less (assuming the degree isn't worthless).
Am I completely failing comprehension somewhere here?
Exemplary incompatibility (Score:2)
"Somewhere in the middle were 66% of business graduates, 67% of health sciences graduates and 68% of math graduates who said they regretted their education."
Y'all see the problem, right? Math majors are both among the most satisfied and "somewhere in the middle"? You don't need to have been a math major to see there's a problem with that.
I'm laughing (Score:2)
Easy.... (Score:2)
That's cause two thirds of them got useless "liberal arts" degrees.
Syntax is everything here (Score:2)
Have known many STEM PhDs and Masters (Score:2)
In my experience, the PhD and Masters degrees that came with the most insightful scientific discoveries were for people who had a B.A. (aka humanities), not a B.Sc.
So, it depends on your end goal.
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Your grammar doesn't parse.
Please restate in legible English
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That is good English, Kate.
College majors with the lowest unemployment: (Score:2)
24/7 Wall St. reviewed data from the U.S. Census Bureauâ(TM)s American Community Survey to identify the college majors with the lowest unemployment rates. Average earnings include all people who graduated with a degree that major, even if they are unemployed, working part time, or out of the labor force.
While getting a job is the ideal outcome for college graduates, not all jobs are equally lucrat
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My brother managed to graduate high school and became a union electrician making $150K per year. Try the skilled trades instead of gender studies and you might be able to support yourself instead of become a professional snowflake.
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"What a degree gets you is stability. And stability is still better than constantly losing everything every 10 years when the economy goes pop because Americans don't believe in Government Regulation."
Hahahahahahaha. No.
I have literally watched my company lay off THOUSANDS ( ~2k just within the past two weeks ) and not give a flying damn if you are college educated or not. They don't care what skills you have, what wisdom you possess or unique expertise you can provide the company. ( Yes, this is coming
You need to re-read my post (Score:2)
It doesn't matter if your company is insane. The insanity will be temporary and there's plenty of fish in the sea for college grads. It's high school grads that were boned.
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You keep using that word, midterms. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Trump has let Wall Street go back to risky loans (Score:3)
As for your estates, you'll lose those to healthcare costs unless Bernie is elected. Warren _might_ work too, not sure as she doesn't seem to su
Re: Trump has let Wall Street go back to risky loa (Score:2)
"if the candidate of either party wins you'll spend your twilight years digging up every ounce of money you can, selling everything you own just to get the medicine you need to live"
FTFY
Nope, you're wrong sir (Score:2)
And yes, Bernie's noticed how he pronounces "Human Right". He says it so much these days how could he not?
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While nursing provides a decent salary, it's a stupid career choice if all you care about is money. You have to genuinely enjoy caring for people for that job not to be soul-sucking. My wife does it and loves it. There's no way I could get through one day of working in a hospital.
Your friends should have chosen marketing majors. It's the ideal major for people who have limited skills beyond being somewhat personable, all they want is money, and no ass-wiping is involved (unless you count turning into an ass
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R.N.
Okay, BS not required, but most nurses that I've asked have one.
Of course MD, PA, nurse-practitioner, and quite a few others in healthcare management require a BS.
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"Pretty sure that requires a doctorate in medicine (hence the name medical doctor). And, uh, Nurse Practitioners require a Masters or Doctorate, according to nursejournal.org."
And getting a masters or doctorate requires *drum roll* a bachelors.
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Of course MD, PA, nurse-practitioner, and quite a few others in healthcare management require a BS.
MD technically does not require a BS (or equivalent undergraduate degree).
It is possible to enter medical school with an undergraduate degree, as the formal requirement for application is only that you have completed a certain number of credit hours in a list of required subjects. Although practically, just about all applicants will have a completed degree, as hitting the required credit-hours is very close to what you would need to finish.
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Well I guess if bestmedicaldegrees.com says so.
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Every stat shows that masters degrees, despite costing twice, add little if anything to your total earnings, STEM or otherwise.
If you pay for a graduate degree then you're doing it wrong. University graduate programs aren't as picky as one would think. They'll take pretty much anyone's money and let them sink. If they truly believe in you, they pay you to attend. I'm willing to bet if you subtract the students who pay for graduate school the numbers would look quite different.
Re: In before the usual derps (Score:2)
I, for one, do not at all regret getting a solid (small-l) liberal education. However I attended a low-blat state university, and have no illusion that my education increases my employment market value.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This. A couple of years ago, they were saying that those Liberal Arts degrees were at a premium, given the number of students who wanted them. Only thing I was left wondering - if you have a PhD in Women's Studies, who exactly can hire you?
I know that they made that decision, but just as the feds are looking at cracking down on robocalls, they should crack down on colleges that offer worthless art degrees and force them to get rid of them. If we have a labor shortage and are trying to get people jobs a
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"if you have a PhD in Women's Studies, who exactly can hire you"
Anybody can hire you for the most part you only need a RELATED degree for STEM but hopefully nobody will hire you.
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