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>About half of college graduates take jobs that don't really require a college education. Trade schools do even worse. Do you have a source for this statistic?

>About half of college graduates take jobs that don't really require a college education. Trade schools do even worse. Do you have a source for this statistic? Because there are some important questions about such a study that might clarify the true meaning of such a number. 1.) How many of the graduates employed in "jobs that don't really require a college education" move on to a job that does, how long does it take them to do so? What does that look like vs. a person without a college education? 2.) What is defined as a "job that doesn't really require a college education"? Does it mean the employer did not require a college education to apply? Does it mean that the surveyor has decided the job(s) in question don't require a college education, even though the employers filter out applicants who lack one? 3.) What is the definition of a college education? As of 2014, only ~32% of people over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree [0]. Are you comparing anyone who ever went to college with everyone who didn't? [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#cite_note-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... (Source is US gov't)

throwaway729 10y ago
Probably the McKinsy report: http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/UXC001%20Voice%20of%20the%20Graduate%20v7.pdf http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/UXC... Most notably, the number comes from self-reporting. So this could range from "barista" to "sales" to "software engineer". I'm not particularly surprised when someone's first job out of college doesn't make use of their education. But there's a huge difference between a business major going into sales to learn an industry (or a code monkey stuck on a boring project they could've worked on in high school), and an English major becoming a taxi driver. In short, from the data, it's impossible to distinguish between "putting in your time" or "bad first assignment", and "actually under-utilized". * This doesn't generalize well to STEM graduates, where the numbers are closer to 75%. IMO the GP's assessment that we've reached "peak school" is absolutely incorrect. Rather, we've seen a big shift in the type of labor that's needed in a short time frame. If a freshly minted college grad can fetch $100,000+ and great benefits, then "peak school" isn't a real problem yet.
edblarney 10y ago
That 'college education' one is tough. 'Opening a restaurant' does not require a Uni education, but I'd rather the person be smarter, more educated, understand aesthetics, customers, finance etc. - and be college educated. You don't need 'high school education' to do a lot of construction work, but I'd rather hire high school graduates. There's a lot of intelligence that goes into many of these kinds of jobs. As people are smarter, the quality of the output goes up.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Do the schools cause the intelligence, or does achievement just measure it? Cause if level of schooling acts more like a measure of certain aptitudes, with the actual information learned being largely useless, then we still are faced with the problem of some people being increasingly unemployable.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    You could argue then that only few need to go past grade 4 :). I think that Uni develops character, opens horizons, builds esteem and competence in some areas, helps people organize their ideas, 'think bigger' , expose them to all sorts of ideas and disciplines they may have never heard of. People are sometimes smug about 'MBAs'. I was an Eng. - and never took an Econ course in my life. My MBA was mind-altering (granted I also did it overseas and that provided some other kind of exposure). Uni is usually worth it if the kids try to get something out of it.

throwaway729 10y ago

Probably the McKinsy report: http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/UXC001%20Voice%20of%20the%20Graduate%20v7.pdf http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/UXC... Most notably, the number comes from self-reporting. So this could range from "barista" to "sales" to "software engineer". I'm not particularly surprised when someone's first job out of college doesn't make use of their education. But there's a huge difference between a business major going into sales to learn an industry (or a code monkey stuck on a boring project they could've worked on in high school), and an English major becoming a taxi driver. In short, from the data, it's impossible to distinguish between "putting in your time" or "bad first assignment", and "actually under-utilized". * This doesn't generalize well to STEM graduates, where the numbers are closer to 75%. IMO the GP's assessment that we've reached "peak school" is absolutely incorrect. Rather, we've seen a big shift in the type of labor that's needed in a short time frame. If a freshly minted college grad can fetch $100,000+ and great benefits, then "peak school" isn't a real problem yet.

edblarney 10y ago

That 'college education' one is tough. 'Opening a restaurant' does not require a Uni education, but I'd rather the person be smarter, more educated, understand aesthetics, customers, finance etc. - and be college educated. You don't need 'high school education' to do a lot of construction work, but I'd rather hire high school graduates. There's a lot of intelligence that goes into many of these kinds of jobs. As people are smarter, the quality of the output goes up.

kazagistar 10y ago
Do the schools cause the intelligence, or does achievement just measure it? Cause if level of schooling acts more like a measure of certain aptitudes, with the actual information learned being largely useless, then we still are faced with the problem of some people being increasingly unemployable.
- edblarney 10y ago
  You could argue then that only few need to go past grade 4 :). I think that Uni develops character, opens horizons, builds esteem and competence in some areas, helps people organize their ideas, 'think bigger' , expose them to all sorts of ideas and disciplines they may have never heard of. People are sometimes smug about 'MBAs'. I was an Eng. - and never took an Econ course in my life. My MBA was mind-altering (granted I also did it overseas and that provided some other kind of exposure). Uni is usually worth it if the kids try to get something out of it.