The Nation's Pulse
No College Student Left Behind
The peril of turning colleges into diploma factories.
Despite the audacity of her lawsuit, Trina Thompson is a victim. The Monroe College alumna is famously suing her alma mater because she remains unemployed three months after graduation — joining nearly 80% of this year’s graduating class. The lawsuit claims the underperforming career development department at Monroe is responsible for her present unemployment. Now she wants her tuition back.
Ms. Thompson is probably more a victim of the horrendous job market rather than deliberately bad career advice. But she might consider targeting her outrage at politicians that have recklessly promoted the expansion of post-secondary education without little regard to filling existing and future gaps in the job market.
While most could benefit from some college education, the existing regime encouraging students to “get-a-degree-any-degree” is counterproductive. By turning college into a prerequisite of success we risk producing a generation of Trina Thompsons — average students disillusioned that a bachelor’s does not automatically translate into the types of jobs a four-year degree is supposed to merit. As Ms. Thompson put it: “It doesn’t make any sense: They [college graduates] went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald’s and Payless. That’s not what they planned.”
President Obama wants the U.S. to the lead the world in college graduation rates by 2020. This effort will likely continue to produce more sociology majors when — despite high unemployment — the U.S. still suffers from a skilled labor shortage, according to the Conference Board. To avoid this fate, the Obama Administration should concentrate more on increase community college enrollment and performance — institutions that teach practical and needed skills — rather than enlarging subsidies to four-year institutions that teach neither.
How did we get to a situation where someone with a 2.7 GPA from a mediocre institution feels horror at thought of working at Payless during a near depression? Expanding college enrollment and the growing stigma against those who do not get at least a BA help to explain this phenomenon. From 1997-2008, the Department of Education (DOE) reports the number of full-time students rose 34% and total enrollment (full- and part-time) increased 26%. During the same time period, however, the DOE said the traditional college age population (18 to 24 years-old) only increased 16% reflecting college’s increasing popularity.
Government tried to make college more affordable through increasing loan and grant programs. The total volume of federal student loans increased 76% from 1995-2005. Over virtually the same time period, DOE said the number of full-time undergraduates receiving federal aid rose 16% and the average award jumped over 40%.
But colleges and universities refuse to play the affordability game. Most institutions of higher learning simply add the subsidies to the cost of admission. Thus, the price for undergraduate tuition, room, and board at public universities soared 30% over the past decade. The higher rates outstripped the more generous government support leaving the average 2007 graduate almost $23,000 in debt, according to the College Board.
It appears that a burgeoning college-educated class is paying more for degrees that are worth comparatively less — particularly bachelor’s degrees in social sciences. As education scholar Charles Murray writes: “Outside a handful of majors — engineering and some of the sciences — a bachelor’s degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.” How will employers sift through this army of BAs? By requiring graduate degrees — saddling students with even more debt.
Meanwhile, skilled trades — welders, pipefitters, and the like — still need workers, despite tough economic times. Even as the economy was beginning to implode, The Wall Street Journal reported skilled trades grappling with “overcoming the perception that blue-collar trades offer less status, money and chance for advancement than white-collar jobs, and that college is the best investment for everyone.”
Anyone recent graduate of upper-middle class origins can attest the existence and power of this stigma. For us, four-year college was never an option but mandatory; frankly, many of our parents spent unholy sums to avoid the shame of admitting, “Jimmy’s not going to school” at dinner parties. Heaven help us if this ridiculous obsession begins to work its way down the socio-economic ladder.
Let us hope President Obama enacts policies that will produce people with real skills to compete in the marketplace — by focusing on improving community colleges and vocational institutions — rather than pushing more people into glorified diploma factories.
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chadlemay| 9.22.09 @ 6:26AM
2000 Chefs are needed in the next three years to meet the growing needs in the county. Get a degree and become a chef check out http://bit.ly/2zpEoA
Appleby| 9.22.09 @ 7:48AM
I was the second person in my family to attend university and the first one to graduate; my parents never graduated from high school and it was very important to them that we do better than they did. I took a classical degree and came out right into the middle of the Nixon Wage Price Freeze. My first job was janitor; my second was retail clerking in a fabric store. A brief what-was-I-thinking engagement which came to nothing, and a chance to disprove the old belief that if a man has enough money it doesnt matter what else he lacks, and I found a job at Woolworths -- and then, finally, got a foothold in a typing pool, because the only marketable skill I learned at university was typing, and worked my way finally into a position as an executive secretary to international lawyers.
I was not ashamed to start at the very bottom and earn honest money to support myself; my parents had done the same, without whining and filing lawsuits, mind you. And believe it or not, my classical education has served me very well in every last one of my jobs -- not to mention in my world wide travels and in simply living in and adapting to a rapidly changing world. People who cannot learn cannot survive.
Its not the rectangle of paper you get from your university education; nobody cares about that. Its what you can do and what you know and how quickly you can adapt and what you can learn. If you are not too busy getting stinking drunk and trying to gettaman in between panic-stricken pregnancy tests, university is very likely a good step up. But it is not an all-access pass. THAT has to be earned, and if you have to start at Payless or McDonalds, so what?
By the way, who do you think is going to hire you if your first action as an adult is to sue because you thought somebody promised you a free ride and you found out that you had to walk?
bluecollarbytes| 9.22.09 @ 8:25AM
Daughter obtained a bachelor's degree, then was somewhat surprised and initially disappointed that jobs were not lining up for her. After being reminded that school was simply the first of many steps throughout her life, and that real training begins on the job, she competed in a declining economy and is currently succeeding. She succeeds not because she has a ticket that automatically gets punched. She's doing it through her own efforts and by continually striving. Her ultimate worth to any company is what she's capable of, and willing to do for them. She Did have the 'unfair advantage' of the example of mom and dad set, working to succeed, striving to compete, and as important: Accepting Responsibility for the Failures.
Second note: there seems to be a perception on the Left that only idiots and 'the oppressed' choose 'blue collar careers'. Yoots who may be better off learning a trade or trades are told over and over they can't succeed without college. There's no need or reason to elevate blue collar work to some undeserved height. Supply and demand is what elevates Doctors to their general status in society, accompanied by much better paychecks of course. This is about facing the reality that all people are not equally competent or driven. A revised emphasis (or rebirth?) on vocational training needs a champion, because millions need the livelihoods. Blue collars don't need to be pampered. They need opportunities they can utilize or fail in. Competition will take care of the rest. But I would never suggest that the Feds offer a 'vocational stimuless'. This is better left to local entities, minus the layers of redundant expensive bureaucracy, political interference, P.C.-requirements and corruption that currently rule.
WRTolkas| 9.22.09 @ 8:34AM
Dear Appleby,
Thank you for the quote I'm going to read to my daughter: "People who cannot learn cannot survive. "
This is a powerful message.
Regards,
WRTolkas
Appleby| 9.22.09 @ 9:34AM
You can thank my late Daddy; it's one of his axioms. Although he never finished high school, he was a life-long self-educated man and among other things he committed the Constitution of the USA to memory, including all the Amendments, and would prove it at the drop of a false citation. Many in his generation were self-educated, as were their parents before them. With today's virtually unlimited access to knowledge, there's no reason why the rest of us can't do the same.
Denver Todd| 9.22.09 @ 9:08AM
My 2-year associate in a trade has taken me much farther in life than the 4-year BA I got before it. Many of my coworkers don't understand why there is such an animal as I, and I try to tell them that there are not that many jobs tied directly to any one BA subject (nursing is a good example), but the AAS is a springboard to immediate employment. My BA left me in debt and effectively impacted the job choices I made after college, but I paid for the AAS along the way, and have never looked back.
Becky| 9.22.09 @ 9:24AM
Like the columnist Mike Adams says to students "contrary to what your mother told you, you are not special" applies to most college students today.
I am a gradutate (3 degrees, actually) of a community college, and even they are not fully aware that the reason older students go is for job skills, not to become more well rounded. I would scrap the mandatory gym and health classes for all graduates. The health class I took used a 10 year old book, and that was what was taught. Any health info from the last 10 years was missing. Of course, they may be ahead of the game if we get universal care, we'll be back there in no time.
The college push starts in primary school, where teachers, counselors continually lecture that you have to go to college.
crookedwren| 9.22.09 @ 9:51AM
This is what comes of "using" colleges as tech. schools leading to a fairly cushy job with some prestige (if not a great salary) attached.
A college education SHOULD be the ground for a better-informed, thinking PERSON -- not an unskilled worker headed for a job that will thrill Mom & Dad. It's an experience that SHOULD lead to the ability to THINK -- at least minimally -- rather than BLAME.
But I see it every semester now. The "helicopter" parents blaming the professors if Johnny doesn't get an A (even though Johnny missed 25% of the class, didn't read the book, studied for an hour before the test, turned in first drafts as finished papers, and waltzed in 30 minutes late for the final exam).
Our students have learned this "blame & sue" game. They've watched their parents or their friends' parents bending over backwards to "advocate" for their children (a.k.a. FREE OUR KIDS FROM TAKING ANY RESPONSIBILITY).
I've watched talented public school teachers spend entire semesters spend anxiety-ridden MONTHS trying to protect themselves from irresponsible parents hoping to make a quick killing in the courts. Teachers are expected to work serious miracles in classrooms throughout this nation. Motivate each student according to each student's need and ability every moment in the classroom. Identify each student's weaknesses and address that student's weakness specifically, attending to every student, slighting no one, keeping eyes on everyone in the classroom at all times, adapting each lesson, each objective in every lesson, to five or six or seven individual learning styles, for every learning objective in the semester. Of course, the teacher is also expected to make thorough reports of all of those students, all of the time, while keeping order. Then, of course, if a teacher has a student with diabetes, that teacher will also have to keep an eagle eye out for that student's physical welfare, perhaps having to learn to give emergency treatment. And, if a teacher has a student that also happens to have a different disability, that teacher will also have to keep a constant watch over the needs, physical or emotional or otherwise, as well.
Then he or she has to watch for signs of meth. use. A student has to have water during class. Okay. But meth is clear. Is it in that water bottle? And will that teacher be sued if the student is discovered to be drinking water laced with meth.?
Everything is someone else's fault.
While there IS a place for an adult to go to bat for a child or even a young adult, most of the time what I've seen is a game of blame & threaten. Those parents are doing such a disservice to their children. That behavior is part of the ruin of our country. It stems from a way of thinking that is rife in our culture. In the courts, in the government, in the schools, and in the media.
Once upon a time, if you got in trouble at school, and Mom & Dad found out about it, you got in more trouble at home. If you got the "hard" teacher, begging Mom to get you into the "easy" class didn't work. Mom told you that you'd be better off with the "hard" teacher, that you wouldn't like everyone with whom you had to work and everyone wouldn't like you. You were told to stick with it, push harder, work harder. You were told not to expect ease and fairness in everything in life. You were told that life was often unfair, and it would be to your benefit if you learned THAT lesson early and well.
Now if Mrs. Johnson, that "hard" teacher, really did treat you in a way that might actually do harm, well, then Mom and Dad would back you up and head for the school. But that was a rare event.
And you learned to deal with difficult things. You learned that life was not always easy. You learned that even when you did your best, you didn't always "win." You learned that "winning" wasn't always what was best.
And you learned that you were responsible for you. Not the teacher.
You didn't run to court every time things didn't go smoothly for you.
You just didn't do that. Because you understood that the world doesn't GIVE you everything you want. You understood that GOVERNMENT and COURTS and TEACHERS weren't magic genies that were there to serve your pleasure.
You may have groaned as Labor Day came near at the end of a lazy summer, and you may have grimaced that you were "stuck" with mean, old Mr. McDowell. You probably rolled your eyes when Dad told you all about walking eight miles to school (barefoot, in the snow). But eventually you came to understand what Dad HOPED you'd understand: that education is a PRIVILEGE, not a GOD-GIVEN RIGHT. That living in a Republic is a PRIVILEGE -- a privilege that provides you with opportunity, not license. That living in a Republic meant you had RESPONSIBILITIES, not just entitlements.
We need that lesson back.
crookedwren| 9.22.09 @ 9:56AM
If you don't get what you want when you get out of school, don't worry. You can always SUE.
Doctor Right| 9.22.09 @ 10:04AM
I'm suing America...The whole enchilada...Everyone will be subject to a subpoeana, including you, if you are reading this message.
Why am I suing?
Simple. The Constitution says I am entitled to "The pursuit of Happiness", and I'm NOT happy.
My Lawyer, Johnie Cockran Jr., has informed me that contained within the guarantee of the Right to pursue happiness is the implicit promise that one will actually BE happy...And since I'm not, I'm suing.
I'm not only suing each and every one of you, and every single government and private sector institution, but I'm also suing the estates of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin, and all the other dead, slave-owning white males who propagated this lie.
You have been served.
Big J| 9.22.09 @ 10:12AM
I'm with you, Doc. Let's start up a class action.
Don't forget Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the whole rainbow push coalition, AFLCIO, LULAC, code pink and the Sierra Club, SEIU and on and on.
We could clean up, and never have to work another day in our lives!
Jarhead| 9.22.09 @ 4:51PM
To Dr Right
hey genius-
The Constitution does contain the phrase "pursuit of happiness". The Declaration of Independence does.
Doctor Right| 9.22.09 @ 9:06PM
Whatever. I'm still suing all of you...Especially you, smartass.
You're on my list.
Kurt| 9.22.09 @ 9:52PM
I'll sue you for breathing out carbon dioxide and causing global warming. ALL of you, dammit.
Al Bundy| 9.23.09 @ 4:12PM
Hey Genius II: The Constitution does NOT contain the phrase "pursuit of happiness". So, you're 1 for 2.
(When you correct someone on something, it'd be good to do an edit of your post before you submit it. That saves embarrassment.)
Jarhead| 9.24.09 @ 6:24PM
Touche'
Richard Baker| 9.22.09 @ 10:59AM
Dr. Right:
I like the cut of your jib.
owyheewine| 9.22.09 @ 11:11AM
Charles Murray also says that only about 1/3 of the country has the intellectual capacity for college. He is right. Too many communications, Frence Art History, Sociology, etc. fluff degrees won't help the country.
In spite of that, the last numbers I saw said that less than 5% of college graduates are unemployed.
JeffT| 9.22.09 @ 1:43PM
The dumbing-down of America continues on the fast-track with the current loonies in power. The goal is to have everyone a ward of the state. All loans will soon be totally government controlled. So, everyone MUST go to college, guaranteeing tuition will never come down, but no problem, just run to your local government office and get your handout from them. No banks, no middlemen involved. Just watch the strings grow as the money pours out. All government money comes with strings, tentacles if you will, that ensnare the borrowers. Universities that accept government money are beholden to the government. This is why universities are the bastion of diversity and multiculturalism. You want the money, you do what you're told. So universities and colleges are nothing more than propaganda mills, eschewing the teaching of American history, except the evils that we have done. It is a disgrace and more people going to college for 4,5, 6 years to get a degree, is just adding fuel to the fire.
Marc Jeric| 9.22.09 @ 3:20PM
Let us not forget the far-left looneys of the 1960-70's who found sanctuary in our universities as tenured marxists, now educating young revolutionaries on a diet of diversity and multiculturism, social justice, etc.
Spicy Joker| 9.23.09 @ 12:48AM
At a time when students are graduating college and graduate school with $150,000 and no jobs, Obama's call for universal college education is especially moronic.
Spicy Joker| 9.23.09 @ 12:49AM
I meant "$150,000 in debt."
Pingback| 9.23.09 @ 10:51AM
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Mike| 10.15.09 @ 9:31PM
Is she aware that it's college graduates EVERYWHERE who cannot find jobs after graduation, or are in some cases being laid off from work? Happens whenever the economy sucks.
She makes her college look bad, NOT because they don't get students work (something they are not promising in the first place), but moreso because she makes the staff look stupid for awarding students with no common sense degrees.
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