Is going to college beneficial or is that a lie?

Science is a faith, evolution a lie, climate change a conspiracy, education is for snobs and liberal college professors only want to turn your kids into communists.

It's one of the reasons Red States are a mess and only get by with money from the very "liberals" they hate. Worse, they try to blame it on minorities. The US over all is 71% white. Many of the Red States, like Kentucky and Tennessee are 90% or more white (just like the Republican Party). So they can't blame it on minorities how ever hard they try. It's following 150 years of destructive and discredited conservative policies.

The anti-intellectualism inside of the Republican Party is not an accident.

Whenever a small group of people control a large group of people, they need to create an intellectual environment where their power is not effectively analyzed or criticized. This is why they killed Socrates, this is why the feudal lords drugged the surfs with religion.

The posters on this board are protecting the concentrated wealth that manipulates government and monopolizes our major sectors. They are obedient serfs, and they are as stupid as the system requires them to be.

Wow! You just pegged the Democrats and their dependency plantation mentality to a T.
 
You do it by measuring productivity increases over time and then teasing out and holding constant other causal variables (such as new technologies). The remainder (if done in a robust maner) would then be what you would hesitantly attribute to the causal variable in question.

Studies on education as a causal variable for productivity growth show that education is very important in terms of worker productivity. Of course this is subject to deminishing marginal returns to all education doesn't impact productivity the same. It depends on the level, and secotr being looked at. Obviously initial education inputs will yield the greatest productivity increases (learning to read and write, basic computer skills, etc).

Everything averaged together though into one big generalized lump and you see roughly an 8 - 13% increase in productivity per additional year of schooling.

I feel like it's a bit more complex than that, however.

I don't doubt that students who choose to attend college will generally be measured as 'more productive' than those who do not attend, but who is to say that those same students wouldn't have been more productive regardless? I'm sure the college attendance rates in the middle class communities (with the better K-12 schools, stable family units w/role models, etc) are much higher than in poorer areas.

How can we tell that it's the schooling - specifically - that is shaping those individuals into more productive workers?

.

With nearly 50% unemployment/underemployment how productive can they really be as a whole?

Being underemployed or unemployed has nothing to do with the potential Marginal Physical Product of a worker.
 
I feel like it's a bit more complex than that, however.

I don't doubt that students who choose to attend college will generally be measured as 'more productive' than those who do not attend, but who is to say that those same students wouldn't have been more productive regardless? I'm sure the college attendance rates in the middle class communities (with the better K-12 schools, stable family units w/role models, etc) are much higher than in poorer areas.

How can we tell that it's the schooling - specifically - that is shaping those individuals into more productive workers?

.

With nearly 50% unemployment/underemployment how productive can they really be as a whole?

Being underemployed or unemployed has nothing to do with the potential Marginal Physical Product of a worker.
But it is crucial to average mean meplat.
 
You are of course aware that engineering, science, accounting and finance majors all have to take writing and communication courses as part of their basic courses aren't you?


Completing the basic requirements of a core curriculum does not indicate mastery. That basic writing course doesn't mean the engineer can communicate effectively any more than the Art History major who had to take one course in Statistics can make complex calculations.
 
You are of course aware that engineering, science, accounting and finance majors all have to take writing and communication courses as part of their basic courses aren't you?


Completing the basic requirements of a core curriculum does not indicate mastery. That basic writing course doesn't mean the engineer can communicate effectively any more than the Art History major who had to take one course in Statistics can make complex calculations.

It may be a basic requirement, but it's really necessary to complete future course. Not in a requirement sense, but simply using the tools you have learned. If you are writing a thesis for your masters course, spelling and grammar mistakes are just not going to fly. Which is interesting how some self-professed financial Masters on this forum can be so bad at writing, especially online.

But I digress.
 
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No there are a lot of millionaires and billionaires that will tell you emphatically that college is not necessary for success. Most if not all of them don't consider having a job to be the definition of success.

No, a few. And even those few send their kids to college. This is some ridiculous myth pushed by the right wing. Only a fool would believe such nonsense and you are not a fool, so why would you think I am?

I dont think you are a fool. I just happen to know differently. I know for instance that wealthy people send their children to college for the networking opportunities and so they can learn how to purchase businesses that employ people instead of getting a job.

Oh good grief.
 
It's not necessarily that the jobs are scarce. It is that there is a mismatch between the skills people offer and the needs employers have.
That's the whole issue in a nutshell.
There are few skills taught in college that are marketable in today's economy. And conversely much of what is taught is detrimental. I mentioned the entitlement mentality earlier.

If colleges aren't supplying the specific skills that employers are looking for (which I agree with), then why do employers continually insist on all of their entry-level applicants to have 4-year-degrees? Isn't that a tad inefficient (especially given the students are paying tens of thousands of dollars and putting themselves into 10+ years of debt to obtain those degrees)?

This is not necessarily a question directed at you, just a general thought that came to mind.

They dont necessarily. But for those jobs where they do, the degree is a screening process. Someone who went and was graduated at least has demonstrated some kind of ability to complete some task or other.

Screening process?
 
In your current labour market, you have 47.6 million people who don't have a college degree. The labor force among the bachelors, masters and dictators are all lumped together when it comes to BLS numbers, so that sort of skews the statistics. Regardless, the population of educated individuals are much larger than the uneducated. Also those who are educated participate more in the labour force than those who are not as educated, hence the large gap in the unemployment rate. The fact is most college graduates are in debt and are unemployed. Low skilled employers are not going to conduct a rigorous screening process between a non college graduate and a college graduate.

Regardless, I really don't see the glorification in telling your labour force that you need a college degree just to be able to clean bathrooms, wait tables and ring cash registers.

You're making a value judgment. While being underemployed during a recession and sluggish recovery is not preferable, it beats unemployment pretty handily.

Not really. If your alternatives are working close to minimum wage and going on disability, most people would choose disability. Especially if transportation is a big expense as part of your budget. People have trade offs and often determine what is the best opportunity cost for them to take.

Not saying everyone is like this, but there is structural problems going on with the labour market and the amount of jobs being created that people would rather be unemployed than take them.

Oh, and just so you know, being on disability doesn't contribute to the unemployment rate. At all. Just another indicator to consider.

I agree that "telling your labor force" that they need X schooling when less would do just fine is poor. Long term it leads to more turnover because someone with a Phd. would likely need to make more than a job that has that Phd. as an artificial requirement would pay. One of our competitors has that problem in fact; they want someone to have a Bachelors of Science degree for a job that didn't require one for a long time before the new regime seized power. And that job is open right now after having two girls fill it intermittently over the last 2 years.

Schooling helps in the long term. Not necessarily in the 'here and now.' There are plenty of people who pursue majors totally outside of their careers. These people probably would have been better not going, but it's not to say that these people wouldn't be where they are right not without a college degree. The more common you make a college degree, the less it's worth.

Who said anything about disability? If you can shake down social security disability at the age of 22 or whenever you get out of college...you're either very convincing or falling through the cracks.

Over 1/2 of all college grads have careers outside of their majors. That they are able to be that mobile in their career choices should tell you something.
 
You are of course aware that engineering, science, accounting and finance majors all have to take writing and communication courses as part of their basic courses aren't you?


Completing the basic requirements of a core curriculum does not indicate mastery. That basic writing course doesn't mean the engineer can communicate effectively any more than the Art History major who had to take one course in Statistics can make complex calculations.

The engineers I work with:

The boss - China
3 mechanical - Mexican, two born in Mexico
2 electrical - lady, born in Mexico, guy born in Russia
software - one Colombian lady, one white guy
Optics - boss lady from China, 1 white guy, 1 Cambodian

Course, they are all American citizens now. But fairly to very recently.

While they all have very, very heavy accents except the Mexican guy born here, what they write is normal English. I know. I've see reports by every single one. It doesn't take smart people long to learn to write, even when speaking broken English. It's easier to follow the rules written down on paper and there is spell check and other aids. And my boss is giving us lessons in Finite Element Analysis Friday afternoons. Next, lessons in Computation Fluid Dynamics. It's different learning it in school and applying it to a specific job. And one of the Mexican engineers moonlights as a physics tutor. I swear I can barely understand what he says, but what he writes, I would never guess he even has an accent.

But the "art history" major taking a single course in statistics and then making "complex calculations"? Uhhh, I don't know about all that.
 
Over 1/2 of all college grads have careers outside of their majors. That they are able to be that mobile in their career choices should tell you something.

Almost half of all college grads are unemployed or underemployed.
That should tell you something too.
 
Over 1/2 of all college grads have careers outside of their majors. That they are able to be that mobile in their career choices should tell you something.

Almost half of all college grads are unemployed or underemployed.
That should tell you something too.

Sure does; that the college degree is keeping them employed vs. those who have less education as the statistics have shown, time and time again.
 
Don't go, its not for ED anymore. Its for social controls.

What happened 100 years ago..do you know?
 
Over 1/2 of all college grads have careers outside of their majors. That they are able to be that mobile in their career choices should tell you something.

Almost half of all college grads are unemployed or underemployed.
That should tell you something too.

Sure does; that the college degree is keeping them employed vs. those who have less education as the statistics have shown, time and time again.

Of course you flubbed it. You can't figure out that Tab A goes in Slot B.
 
You're making a value judgment. While being underemployed during a recession and sluggish recovery is not preferable, it beats unemployment pretty handily.

Not really. If your alternatives are working close to minimum wage and going on disability, most people would choose disability. Especially if transportation is a big expense as part of your budget. People have trade offs and often determine what is the best opportunity cost for them to take.

Not saying everyone is like this, but there is structural problems going on with the labour market and the amount of jobs being created that people would rather be unemployed than take them.

Oh, and just so you know, being on disability doesn't contribute to the unemployment rate. At all. Just another indicator to consider.

I agree that "telling your labor force" that they need X schooling when less would do just fine is poor. Long term it leads to more turnover because someone with a Phd. would likely need to make more than a job that has that Phd. as an artificial requirement would pay. One of our competitors has that problem in fact; they want someone to have a Bachelors of Science degree for a job that didn't require one for a long time before the new regime seized power. And that job is open right now after having two girls fill it intermittently over the last 2 years.

Schooling helps in the long term. Not necessarily in the 'here and now.' There are plenty of people who pursue majors totally outside of their careers. These people probably would have been better not going, but it's not to say that these people wouldn't be where they are right not without a college degree. The more common you make a college degree, the less it's worth.

Who said anything about disability?

I did.

If you can shake down social security disability at the age of 22 or whenever you get out of college...you're either very convincing or falling through the cracks.

Disability now covers 14 million people a month, which averages out to $13,000 a year verses $15,000. Again, not much of a difference but if your major expense includes transportation then it nets out.

And qualifications for disability payments are much more lenient. In 1961, the top reason for being on disability was for Stroke or Heart Disease. Today, its back pain.

Over 1/2 of all college grads have careers outside of their majors. That they are able to be that mobile in their career choices should tell you something.

It tells me that the college degree is overvalued.
 
Not really. If your alternatives are working close to minimum wage and going on disability, most people would choose disability. Especially if transportation is a big expense as part of your budget. People have trade offs and often determine what is the best opportunity cost for them to take.

Not saying everyone is like this, but there is structural problems going on with the labour market and the amount of jobs being created that people would rather be unemployed than take them.

Oh, and just so you know, being on disability doesn't contribute to the unemployment rate. At all. Just another indicator to consider.



Schooling helps in the long term. Not necessarily in the 'here and now.' There are plenty of people who pursue majors totally outside of their careers. These people probably would have been better not going, but it's not to say that these people wouldn't be where they are right not without a college degree. The more common you make a college degree, the less it's worth.

Who said anything about disability?

I did.

If you can shake down social security disability at the age of 22 or whenever you get out of college...you're either very convincing or falling through the cracks.

Disability now covers 14 million people a month, which averages out to $13,000 a year verses $15,000. Again, not much of a difference but if your major expense includes transportation then it nets out.

And qualifications for disability payments are much more lenient. In 1961, the top reason for being on disability was for Stroke or Heart Disease. Today, its back pain.
Sure...but it's not a realistic option for most people otherwise you'd have much more than 14,000,000 on it.

Over 1/2 of all college grads have careers outside of their majors. That they are able to be that mobile in their career choices should tell you something.

It tells me that the college degree is overvalued.

You should check your connection; they have jobs, those without degrees do not.
 

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