OT. Fewer Men Going to College

College does not guarantee a livable wage. Sure, some do well but I know some grads working rather menial jobs. Not everyone is suited to be an executive in the board room, a doctor etc.

There are plenty of tradesmen making an excellent wage. With no student loans.

A friend has 2 boys about 40 years old. They both went to a 4 year college and did well. I am not sure what they took but was some kind of business courses. One is working for UPS handling packages. The other has a computer going to food serving places doing an audit sort of like a health inspector would. Both could be done by anyone with reasonable skill levels just out of high school.

I have a grandson that did well in college, spent several years in Japan as an English teacher of sorts. He is about 27 now back in the states and can not find a job in his field.

I had noted that shift as most college students were men when I went and then when our sons went there were many more women and now they appear to predominate.

A college education does give you a leg up in life but what you study is important. Just to get a degree itself is probably not worth it if you study things like art history or women's studies. There are so many college graduates today that to stand out you need graduate education.

With my doctors I have women, general practitioner, eye doctor and cardiologist. These women are making big bucks.

Exactly. The History of Greek Sculpture or Interpretative Dance won't get you a good paying job.

If my kids wanted that I'd not help them with cost at all.

One thing about most trades is it is a job that is a lot harder to export. This work from home thing is a trap. As soon as business figures out what jobs can be done from home, "Home" might be in Mumbai. When you need an electrician you need him here.

That is why I paid a plumber $ 100 an hour to do some work. He was a one man company. Hard to call China and get a man out in a day or two even if they are only paid about a buck an hour.

I recall when I went to college they had a few courses like this. Kids were saying they took "music appreciation" and all they had to do to pass was listen to music. Now these courses have proliferated and practically everyone can get a college degree if these are all you study.

A friend paid for his daughter's art history degree and now over three years later she is a secretary.

My wife has a art history degree and a masters in library science. She was a curator at Columbia when she retired. You can do alright if you're good and find a niche.

The niche will always be there, however we are turning out many more degrees to compete for it.

The Library Science degree is valuable, not because you actually learn any critical skills but just that the field is so flooded with LS masters and PhDs you can't file books on a shelf in a public library without a BA in it. My daughter used to volunteer at our library and to actually get paid for the exact job she had, her BA in english wasn't good enough. She needed a library science degree. Remember, she is doing is just taking books out of the return bin, logging them in on the computer with a bar code scanner and putting them back on the right shelf. They have numbers on them that tells you what shelf. Need a special degree for that. The end of the story, she got the degree, it was just a few credits added to hers. Unfortunately they moved and where she is now there is a waiting list to work at the library and MAs take the jobs.

Who knew?

Unless you work in a place where ITAR applies. I'm retiring in a few months, and one requirement for my replacement is that they be "shovel-ready" on ITAR, so they don't have to say, "Can we get a variance for this key person?"

Cindy Hamilton

Her graduate education did it for her.

Got me wondering if that is a shrinking career. Head of county libraries told me most people go to the library to use their computers and the internet. I have not been to a library in decades.

Degrees are also being handed out to those who aren't competent to fill any niche. We haven't interviewed since the covid deal but recent CS graduates were pathetic. Even worse were those with graduate degrees.

I don't expect a recent graduate to be a skilled programmer but they lacked the fire necessary to be any good. They did their course work and that was it. Even worse, the work was 10 years behind the times.

I worked for a company where 'can we get a security clearance for this key person' was an afterthought. One hire move across country from Seattle before anyone bothered to find out his wife was a Mexican national.

The answer was 'no' in any case. The Walker scandal hit the fan and DISCO raised the drawbridges. If you don't clear anyone you can't screw up.

The grand opening was delayed for a year because of that thing but we have a shiny new library. Of 4 floors, one is used for adult books. There is a lot of digital content, immersive exhibits, and stuff that was never in a library when I was a kid. For me a library is a building bursting at the seams from the books; this one has a lot of airy open space.

I've checked out a couple of books since they opened but most of my reading is on the Kindle. They do have a large collection of digital books that can be checked out via Amazon.

The facility is well used and a library mil levy bill always passes. If fact that's the main reason I bother to vote, the library and Parks & Rec projects. It says something that school levies usually fail. The people understand when they're getting something for their money.

The military industrial complex may be the last bastion of "Buy American". Maybe that is why we are the arms supplier to the world. It is a jobs program. $9.3B last year. Three times the Russians who are in second place.

The biggest users of the library here are swapping used books, mostly trashy novels from what I see. That is my polling place and they have a huge library in front of the real library with nothing but "take a book, leave a book" shelves and a volunteer keeping them sorted. Like you, I find most things I would have looked up at the library are online now.

One of my customers was a state college that bragged about their CS program, that was literally stuck in the 50 and early 60s, way up into the 70s. The students were following me around asking me questions all the time. I was teaching myself assembler and a couple of the guys were following along with me. The stuff I was interested in was off curriculum. One guy took the system away from them one day. (turned on the "Supervisor Bit" in the current PSW and had fun) He ended up with real good grades tho ;-)

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote

The US isn't.

It is a jobs

Yes.