7 ms·

Or you could fix the real problem and stop the lunacy of requiring four year degrees for positions that can be taught while on the job.

oh_sigh 7y ago
"Fixing the real problem" is huge - you need to get hundreds of millions of people to change their behavior. Leading your life as if you may not have the ability to materially change the world isn't a bad idea.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  >Leading your life as if you may not have the ability to materially change the world isn't a bad idea. As if, what; this is the way things have always been? College attendance, funding, and cirriculum are akin to laws of physics? This is a relatively recent issue which began when the fed started backing student loans in the mid sixties.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    The fact that things change doesn't mean that a single person can expect to change things.
fzeroracer 7y ago
I think higher education in general is valuable for, well, any job. Especially because of the dire state of highschool education in the US due to a combination of factors. That's partly why companies demand a college degree because it's a guarantee of a certain level of performance (and wealth, for that matter). There are only really two ways to fix this problem. 1. Make college education free. This includes trade schools for those that would want to go that route. 2. Government regulation to cut back on companies demanding higher education for blue collar work. Since this is the result of the free market (companies wouldn't demand that level of education if they couldn't get away with it) then you would have to add some restrictions on the free market to solve it.
AWildC182 7y ago
Or we could just not make getting such an education financially burdensome and we can go forward as a universally highly educated and thoughtful society?
- jlmorton 7y ago
  That's a pretty tall order.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- abfan1127 7y ago
  many people don't want to be highly educated.
  - drdeadringer 7y ago
    To be fair, I like to learn new things and see no need for me to get a Master or PhD degree. I have no idea why I would want or need an alphabet after my name, be that for an extra half dollar per hour or feeling smug enough to not talk to the janitorial staff.
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      Ha! That's not the point at all. People go to graduate school to learn new things and, specifically, to learn to discover new things. A PhD is essentially an apprenticeship for researchers. You spend very little time in the classroom, maybe a half dozen classes or so over as many years. If you go for the title or for the money, you're going to be very disappointed, very quickly.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  This sounds great if you buy into the ridiculous notion that everyone is basically equal and would thrive in college. This is not at all the case.
um_ya 7y ago
It's a supply and demand problem. We've inflated the supply of college graduates, so when a company decides to hire someone, they choose the person with a college degree over someone without. To fix this problem, you would need to stop the supply of overqualified people. You can do this by having more jobs, or by getting rid of the government guaranteed student loans.
- JasonFruit 7y ago
  Or you could teach the people about the hardships that come from accepting government-guaranteed loans to purchase an education that does not ensure income proportional to the size of the loan. But, yes, definitely get rid of the government meddling in student loans that has warped the market for education.
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    Generally speaking, cutting off educational opportunities for people that desperately need them is probably a bad idea. Even if you did get rid of government guaranteed loans, companies would happily step in to grant people guaranteed loans in exchange for servitude over the rest of their lives. If they don't find a well-earning job well that's even better. There were multiple non-government loan options back when I was in college that were just that.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  As a reminder, high education in Europe is basically free (well, as compared to the US, I've met a few low-middle class people whose parents refused to help them pay the remaining costs involved).
  - rhexs 7y ago
    Free for all students universally, or free for students who score well on tests with good grades?
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
jvanderbot 7y ago
FWIW, TFA separated by "high school or lower" vs. "more than high school". This includes 1 or 2 year tech school which are affordable and accessible. To be a machinist or welder can require a training program like this. I'm not clear on whether that's well represented in this article.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Sure. The people in power should fix this. But don’t advise some 18 year old to go against this.
bsder 7y ago
> Or you could fix the real problem and stop the lunacy of requiring four year degrees for positions that can be thought while on the job. No one teaches at the jobs anymore because those people then leave. You need to smack the owners and HR departments who can't get their head around the fact that raising someone's salary is cheaper than having to hire a replacement. Unfortunately, as things stand in American business, if you want to get ahead you have to jump around at least every 5-8 years.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Which is nonsense, as college can NOT, by its very definition, teach you a job! (I guess some very specialized community schools / community colleges can.)
- redisman 7y ago
  > No one teaches at the jobs anymore because those people then leave. This is circular though. Companies don't invest in their employees because they leave anyway <-> employees leave for better opportunities because their companies don't invest in them.
KoftaBob 7y ago
I bet if the federal gov mandated a higher minimum wage (say, $50k) for any position that required a college degree, they'd stop that nonsense pretty quickly.
- dobleboble 7y ago
  I like that idea!
- trisolxornor 7y ago
  This is exactly where the phenomena of "college-educated person who loses out on low-level job to a GED-holder because they're overqualified" comes from.
dxemy 7y ago
*taught See, education is worth something
- EpicEng 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm sure you've never made a typo on a phone. You really believe I confuse 'taught' with 'thought'? You made a throwaway account just to leave this brain dead comment?
bluedino 7y ago
You can get an associates in things like CNC machining or chemical process operator fairly cheap at a community college.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Wouldn't CNC machining be also an option in a community high school?
  - kube-system 7y ago
    Maybe. It all depends on which of the 14,000+ US school districts you're in.
chongli 7y ago
Positions in factories are changing. My friend works in robotic welding. The old job of welder, a skilled trade that you learned as an apprentice on the job, is being phased out. It's being replaced by more complicated and more technical jobs, such as my friend's. To get his job, my friend completed a 3 year program at a local community college. He learned about welding, robotics (obviously), a bit of control theory, destructive and non-destructive testing, metallurgy, safety certifications, and more. The latter bits of training are critical, since his job involves setting up and monitoring the robots that weld together the pieces of truck frames.
- swiley 7y ago
  You don’t need a liberal arts degree for that. Math? Yes Physics? Yes CS? Maybe Cogito ergo sum? Hell no.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    You probably won’t need to know about Descartes specifically. However, making persuasive arguments and writing clearly are parts of many jobs, and liberal arts classes are excellent training for those skills.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Is it actually lunacy? Factories once required a high school diploma when previously they made due with illiterates. It may be unnecessary but if the premium is large enough the "overqualifcation" may be rational if there is enough of an edge on average.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ryanmercer 7y ago
Many jobs require on the job training anymore because every company has proprietary systems or hardware, do things their way, etc. For my job, which ultimately becomes glorified data enry on paper, requires 3 full weeks of classroom training and a 6-12 month learning curve before you're considered at normal production levels. But hey, for new hires now 13.5 years after I hired in they want a degree and I can't move up because, they want a degree!
redisman 7y ago
Can I fix it though? Is my unemployment somehow going to fix the multi-trillion dollar pipeline that the education and business sectors have carved their way into? For the individual I would just recommend you play the game. Just like with leetcode questions in SWE interviews, its stupid but you have to get a job so..

oh_sigh 7y ago

"Fixing the real problem" is huge - you need to get hundreds of millions of people to change their behavior. Leading your life as if you may not have the ability to materially change the world isn't a bad idea.

EpicEng 7y ago
>Leading your life as if you may not have the ability to materially change the world isn't a bad idea. As if, what; this is the way things have always been? College attendance, funding, and cirriculum are akin to laws of physics? This is a relatively recent issue which began when the fed started backing student loans in the mid sixties.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  The fact that things change doesn't mean that a single person can expect to change things.

fzeroracer 7y ago

I think higher education in general is valuable for, well, any job. Especially because of the dire state of highschool education in the US due to a combination of factors. That's partly why companies demand a college degree because it's a guarantee of a certain level of performance (and wealth, for that matter). There are only really two ways to fix this problem. 1. Make college education free. This includes trade schools for those that would want to go that route. 2. Government regulation to cut back on companies demanding higher education for blue collar work. Since this is the result of the free market (companies wouldn't demand that level of education if they couldn't get away with it) then you would have to add some restrictions on the free market to solve it.

AWildC182 7y ago

Or we could just not make getting such an education financially burdensome and we can go forward as a universally highly educated and thoughtful society?

jlmorton 7y ago
That's a pretty tall order.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
abfan1127 7y ago
many people don't want to be highly educated.
- drdeadringer 7y ago
  To be fair, I like to learn new things and see no need for me to get a Master or PhD degree. I have no idea why I would want or need an alphabet after my name, be that for an extra half dollar per hour or feeling smug enough to not talk to the janitorial staff.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    Ha! That's not the point at all. People go to graduate school to learn new things and, specifically, to learn to discover new things. A PhD is essentially an apprenticeship for researchers. You spend very little time in the classroom, maybe a half dozen classes or so over as many years. If you go for the title or for the money, you're going to be very disappointed, very quickly.
EpicEng 7y ago
This sounds great if you buy into the ridiculous notion that everyone is basically equal and would thrive in college. This is not at all the case.

um_ya 7y ago

It's a supply and demand problem. We've inflated the supply of college graduates, so when a company decides to hire someone, they choose the person with a college degree over someone without. To fix this problem, you would need to stop the supply of overqualified people. You can do this by having more jobs, or by getting rid of the government guaranteed student loans.

JasonFruit 7y ago
Or you could teach the people about the hardships that come from accepting government-guaranteed loans to purchase an education that does not ensure income proportional to the size of the loan. But, yes, definitely get rid of the government meddling in student loans that has warped the market for education.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  Generally speaking, cutting off educational opportunities for people that desperately need them is probably a bad idea. Even if you did get rid of government guaranteed loans, companies would happily step in to grant people guaranteed loans in exchange for servitude over the rest of their lives. If they don't find a well-earning job well that's even better. There were multiple non-government loan options back when I was in college that were just that.
BlueTemplar 7y ago
As a reminder, high education in Europe is basically free (well, as compared to the US, I've met a few low-middle class people whose parents refused to help them pay the remaining costs involved).
- rhexs 7y ago
  Free for all students universally, or free for students who score well on tests with good grades?
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago

jvanderbot 7y ago

FWIW, TFA separated by "high school or lower" vs. "more than high school". This includes 1 or 2 year tech school which are affordable and accessible. To be a machinist or welder can require a training program like this. I'm not clear on whether that's well represented in this article.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

Sure. The people in power should fix this. But don’t advise some 18 year old to go against this.

bsder 7y ago

> Or you could fix the real problem and stop the lunacy of requiring four year degrees for positions that can be thought while on the job. No one teaches at the jobs anymore because those people then leave. You need to smack the owners and HR departments who can't get their head around the fact that raising someone's salary is cheaper than having to hire a replacement. Unfortunately, as things stand in American business, if you want to get ahead you have to jump around at least every 5-8 years.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Which is nonsense, as college can NOT, by its very definition, teach you a job! (I guess some very specialized community schools / community colleges can.)
redisman 7y ago
> No one teaches at the jobs anymore because those people then leave. This is circular though. Companies don't invest in their employees because they leave anyway <-> employees leave for better opportunities because their companies don't invest in them.

KoftaBob 7y ago

I bet if the federal gov mandated a higher minimum wage (say, $50k) for any position that required a college degree, they'd stop that nonsense pretty quickly.

dobleboble 7y ago
I like that idea!
trisolxornor 7y ago
This is exactly where the phenomena of "college-educated person who loses out on low-level job to a GED-holder because they're overqualified" comes from.

dxemy 7y ago

*taught See, education is worth something

EpicEng 7y ago
Yeah, I'm sure you've never made a typo on a phone. You really believe I confuse 'taught' with 'thought'? You made a throwaway account just to leave this brain dead comment?

bluedino 7y ago

You can get an associates in things like CNC machining or chemical process operator fairly cheap at a community college.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Wouldn't CNC machining be also an option in a community high school?
- kube-system 7y ago
  Maybe. It all depends on which of the 14,000+ US school districts you're in.

chongli 7y ago

Positions in factories are changing. My friend works in robotic welding. The old job of welder, a skilled trade that you learned as an apprentice on the job, is being phased out. It's being replaced by more complicated and more technical jobs, such as my friend's. To get his job, my friend completed a 3 year program at a local community college. He learned about welding, robotics (obviously), a bit of control theory, destructive and non-destructive testing, metallurgy, safety certifications, and more. The latter bits of training are critical, since his job involves setting up and monitoring the robots that weld together the pieces of truck frames.

swiley 7y ago
You don’t need a liberal arts degree for that. Math? Yes Physics? Yes CS? Maybe Cogito ergo sum? Hell no.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  You probably won’t need to know about Descartes specifically. However, making persuasive arguments and writing clearly are parts of many jobs, and liberal arts classes are excellent training for those skills.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Is it actually lunacy? Factories once required a high school diploma when previously they made due with illiterates. It may be unnecessary but if the premium is large enough the "overqualifcation" may be rational if there is enough of an edge on average.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ryanmercer 7y ago

Many jobs require on the job training anymore because every company has proprietary systems or hardware, do things their way, etc. For my job, which ultimately becomes glorified data enry on paper, requires 3 full weeks of classroom training and a 6-12 month learning curve before you're considered at normal production levels. But hey, for new hires now 13.5 years after I hired in they want a degree and I can't move up because, they want a degree!

redisman 7y ago

Can I fix it though? Is my unemployment somehow going to fix the multi-trillion dollar pipeline that the education and business sectors have carved their way into? For the individual I would just recommend you play the game. Just like with leetcode questions in SWE interviews, its stupid but you have to get a job so..