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Most US workers are 'over-educated' relative to their jobs
| "Policymakers regard it as obvious that sending young people to university will boost economic growth and social mobility," the report noted. "As technological change makes new demands of workers, it seems plausible that more will need to be well-educated. A degree is a way for bright youngsters from poor families to prove their abilities."
The main evidence cited by policymakers, though, is something called the "graduate premium,"..
| ..defined as a return of investment on education, or, "the difference between the average earnings of someone with a degree and someone with no more than a secondary-school education," according to the report.
In the U.S., that premium is about 15 percent per year, according to New York Federal Reserve data. That means an investment equal to the cost of tuition and other education-related costs would have to earn 15 percent annual interest before matching the average..
| ..value over a working life of gaining a degree, The Economist explains.
The Economist produced its own gauge of how over-educated the job force is, and noted that more than 25 million U.S. workers — two-thirds of those with degrees — "are doing work that was mostly done by non-graduates a half-century ago," it wrote.
https://www.economist.com/news/international/21736151-financial-returns-are-falling-going-university-more-important-ever
| Return of investment in education.
Only in america such idiocy is real.
| Yeah, that's kinda sad tbh
| Unfortunately most jobs nowadays requires a minimum gpa of something even though it means nothing. This is because of the overtly textbook curriculum my country prioritize that made the ideal student closer to a robot than the engineer
Sad that we aren't educated to be smart, rather as memorization machines
| >>139801
The real problem in this case are the people who buy into this smokescreen and see schools as institutions to prepare them for jobs. When the aim shifts the rest is easy.
That is why education starts very early. From parents in preschool and when children are 4 and 5 and six. By teaching simple proper principles, that firstly education makes us human and is good for society and culture. That it has value in employment it will be self evident. No need teaching water is wet
| Bring back the mexicans already. Not all mexicans rape
| The US need a new Sputnik-Shock. Their society lacks of social mobility, idealism and positive visions for the future that are commonly shared or discussed and not constructed by company owners, bankers and investors that basically only are driven by increasing their profits and putting much effort to pay politics, marketing experts and think-tanks to control people.
The „american dream“ is a practically empty promise, which gives a lottery-like chance to live on other ppls cost.
| So to the headline: the problem is not that workers are overeducated to their jobs. The real problem is, that they are heavily undereducated in politics, history and philosophy. And this is for purpose, to keep them as dumb ants, not questioning stuff or at least asking the wrong questions if the pressure increases. That's why Trump goes elected, which is also a result of bad education.
| >>139801
It's because the current education system was designed to prepare people for factory and blue collar jobs, back when going to college was a vocation, not a "necessity." Schools were structured seemingly "to create machines out of people" because that's what was expected and needed... *at the time.*
Now, most people don't work in factory jobs here as those are often shipped overseas, but the education industry hasn't changed with the changing times.
| On top of that are plenty of other social issues in the U.S, such as the wrong emphasis on what's important in college. Everyone tells you to work your ass off to get into a university, but they don't tell you what you should be doing in university, so people think that all they need to do is to work their ass off and they'll be handed a great job with great pay and benefits for being a 5.0 GPA autist. They'll be disappointed, however.
| Because the "good" jobs don't want zombies full of 90% meaningless "facts" and brute memorization, the grand majority of which won't actually help you in a real world system. What they want are people who can "think," and who are well rounded socially AND emotionally AND mentally. Why the hell should anyone hire you for being slightly better than the derp next to you, if you are terrible with people, have shit social skills and are incapable of thinking of creative solutions to
| complex problems that can't be solved by reading a textbook or instruction manual?
And my god, all this bullshit of pushing people into STEM with the marketing-pushed lie that getting into a STEM field guarantees your career. FUCK YOU. What this has accomplished instead is to create legions of mediocre or, sometimes, outright incompetent people with no passion in their livelihoods and have no business being in research, medicine, or engineering of any kind.
| Ever wonder why there are so many fucking nerds in college who have social anxiety up the asshole? They may be the most intelligent people in the room, but they aren't the smartest people. And I strongly suspect that for many of them, they didn't choose to go into their fields- they were *told* to.
It's why good programs spend so much time on weeding people out.
And to make matters worse, there are so many bullshit universities now that jump on this propaganda because
| >>140239
Trump is a really interesting social phenomenon. It is like the final product of continuous research and small advancements. Just like Hitler was just not one person but the apogee of vast numbers of people who saw him as the champion of their worldviews and ideologies, so is Trump. It reflects of what people consider normal and worthy of giving an example to be followed. And Trump speaks a lot of a certain mindset simply by being there and product of such society.
| its a money maker. It's not any different than other industries that will similarly sell you bullshit like, "buy this, use this, subscribe to this, eat this, and you'll be set for LIFE."
| Fuck, sorry, I get super triggered over things related to education. Ugh.
| >>140239
Of course they are! Want to know what the majority reaction of people is to required humanities classes, which INCLUDE such things as social sciences and philosophy? "Booooring," "Useless," "A waste of time."
They don't value it because all they care about are the "core classes" and "specialized classes" that they think they need to do their job and to get their degree which at the end of the day they'll just steal answers and submit bullshit, canned theses to get through.
| But people alone cannot be blamed for this ignorance. All major American universities have these things as requirements for a *reason,* although in highschools you increasingly see administrations removing these programs for the same bullshit "reasons," that I just listed above. University students don't value them. They actively choose not to care. They self-sabotage, no need for a fucking conspiracy when your complacent populace freely stabs themselves in the back,
| and then has the FUCKING GALL to BITCH when the political system that they couldn't give a rats ass about before, DOESN'T TURN OUT IN THEIR FAVOR.
| FUCK.
| >>140352
I know how you feel. Dont worry, I feel the same. I totally agree with your point in problem solving ability. A worker drone will cry 'I was not taught about this' - as it comonly happens now in usa - while an educated person will use the knowledge to combine several factors intelligently and invent a solution - like in most other developed and in developement countries. In usa, when that happens people are taught to run to the patent office and register 'Invention!'
| Why then people wonder that true innovation has stalled there and there are armies of patent trolls?
| >>140353
Indeed, those are the most idiotic and sorry expressions you will hear from them. They even can not understand why the rest laugh at them, so deep this mentality is already weaved in their understanding. Ending up the most falsely self confident people yet underperformant and shallow in the world. And this is fact.
| I need to clarify- so in most (actual, not degree mills) universities in the US, as part of requirements for graduation, you do need to get some humanities credits, usually in social sciences/sociology, philosophy, gender studies, international or world studies, history, etc etc etc. The intention of this is to make you not just intelligent as a person, but also a knowledgeable/worldly one, who can make informed decisions when it comes to things like ethics or politics.
| But I repeatedly saw in university how people disdained these things, and, compared to classes that were "required" for their major, didn't mind doing mediocrely or just bullshitting their way through.
Maybe I'm biased as I was an engineering student who quit out of the STEM-guaranteed-job lie and switched to humanities, but it always chafed me how people didn't realize the real importance of these subjects. You don't need to be an "expert," you just need to pay attention.
| Then maybe more of them would give a rats ass about voting or participating in their government or just, you know, being less assholish people in general or not being as douchebaggy as a whole. But the money isn't where the humanities are. It never was. It was always- lawschool, medschool, engineering school. Isn't it strange then, how lawyers have a reputation for being snakes, medstudents can be sociopathic dickshits, and engineers can be overconfident slaves stuffed with
| Dunning-Kruger syndrome?
| Not all, obviously... you can tell when someone in any of these fields really deserved to be where they are and to suffer through years of schooling. But enough to make a meme and to create a stereotype of each of these fields that continues to this day.
| >>140383
I read you. Personally I educated in engineering and I have seen what you speak of even in myself. But I did not do that because of a promise for a job. I was young and crazy and liked what I was studing enough to keep me distracted from such adult calculations regarding my life. Yet I liked back and then a ton of other things and still read books almost everyday.
Interesting to mention that I have met several times engineers from usa that I have worked with...
| I am equally frustrated with the snuffing out of humanities programs. I'm currently a double major in Computer Science (which I chose because I genuinely love the field, mind you) and Linguistics (an amazing social science). I am trying to fit in a humanities minor (since three majors is disallowed), but it may not possible with my current situation. I used to, when I was around 14, not value the humanities, but as I went through high school, they have become exceedingly important
| ...to me. I am currently trying to do my best to pursue all my passions in Comp Sci, Linguistics, and the Humanities but it is a bit difficult to do everything I'd like within the current uni system.
| ... who were considered very good in what they did. Personally I consider me as a normal. Yet nothing striked me as outstanding about them. In many things my own colleagues have been better at solutions of problems, especially when resources are scarce, which is 70% of all problems. The ones who have caught my attention as really capable have been the indians and the russians. There was always flexibility in their arguments and never lost touch with reality to drift into daydreams
| >>140395 >>140398
My heartfelt best of luck to the two of you- passion might not be enough to carry people through *everything* in life but I think it's important for people to be passionate about the choices they make and, hopefully, because of that passion, do their chosen vocations well enough to make a difference.
Basically, I just wish people would *care* more about what they do and how it affects other people as a whole. I work for a healthcare system and it drives me into a
| unfathomable rage when I speak with patients who have had the bad fortune of being treated by people who seemingly don't care... and yet slogged through years of schooling and financial debt to get where they are.
| >>140404
...in retrospect, I realize that I'm kind of surprised to run into another college graduate here. Most danger/u/ users are college aged or below. o.o
| I once remembered talking to an american engineer years ago, and he felt awkward when I mentioned that I had read Mein Kampf and liked it. He started to speak about how nazizm is bad and all till I pointed out that I am not a follower of nazizm at all and I didnt read the book to see it as a bible, but as educational material for understanding a lot of things in sociology, psychology, history, etc.
| >>140418
That's like reading the bible to learn about the history of the Jewish people, according to their traditions, or looking into the Koran for the same reason. Just because you find interest in a certain piece of literature, regardless of the source material or its writer(s), doesn't mean you necessarily agree with the beliefs of the writer(s) much less subscribe to some kind of hostile or negative outlook.
It's like how on opinion pieces in newspapers there's always this
| disclaimer reminding the reader that the speaker is speaking on their behalf only, and not that of the publication itself...
| >>140417
Ah no. It is around 10 years since I graduated by now. So I am past most of the jumpiness you speak of. Heck, I read /. for the same amount of time now, for the news it brings and even more importantly the comments of the readers. Fascinating place.
| Exchange*
| >>140436
An opinion does not qualify as something "good" by just beeing dangerous. It depends on for whom it is dangerous.
"Kill all niggers, jews and communists" is a dangerous "opinion" too, but also stupid as fuck.
| Out of context, but it's good to see a thread full of passionate discussion like this. Not some meme/edgy infested thread. Thank you for restoring my faith on this board.
>Btw I'm not op...
| Wow is it nice to find other people who have come to the same realisations! As a current victim of the Australian high school system (so forgive anything irrelevant to the american one), I'm coming to realise that it's not even just jobs like lawyers and doctors that are having the problems described, but teachers as well, and for all the same reasons. The amount of politics and incompetence and the lack of any expertise in the taught fields...
| Is honestly infuriating, particularly when I see so many good people around me falling to all of it, and doing themselves harm in some form or another because of it. Again, there are genuinely still amazing teachers, (I'm lucky enough to have had a few, but the same can't be said for a lot of other people I know) but they are so outnumbered that they can't do anything, particularly when even the administration itself is every-man-for-himself, with even the deputy principle...
| Playing political games with the parents, teachers and students to better her own career. And these games come at the cost of the student's wellbeing, and yet still no one aside from a select few realise. Sadly, for the life of me, I can't think of any way change can properly be effected though, so for now I'm just pushing through, desperate to get out the other side with at least something intact, as I'm sure is the case with a lot of other students as well, although I suspect...
| Not many make it.
Alright, that's enough from me, for now. As you can see, I'm a bit the same, I get really annoyed when education is brought up, so yeah, I'll stop for now.
Formal speech, off. :D
| To have ignorant teachers is like a recursive function of an oxymoron explaining itself.
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| More than 44 million Americans have taken out student loans to pay for higher education, in the process incurring around $1.4 trillion worth of debt.
It's a symbol of the importance society places on higher education. As it turns out, the financial benefit of earning a college degree,might be overstated. That argument is raised in a new report published by The Economist, which analyzed the post-school earning potential of those with degrees, versus those without.