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A "huge number"? Rayiner offered a few anecdotes about a few people a few years out of college... he brought up AOC; I merely tried to highlight how silly it wa

A "huge number"? Rayiner offered a few anecdotes about a few people a few years out of college... he brought up AOC; I merely tried to highlight how silly it was to draw any kind of conclusion from (that) one person. I know the uselessness of humanities degrees is an article of faith among developers, but the data do not support it. > It’s also interesting that although it’s a popular target of those who insist that a college education should connect to a good job, majors in “Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies, and Humanities” left a scant 18,824 underemployed grads after five years. “English Language and Literature/Letters” had just 16,422 similarly underemployed. And the major with the fewest underemployed graduates, according to the report, was “Foreign Languages, Literature, and Linguistics.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/05/31/its-not-liberal-arts-and-literature-majors-who-are-most-underemployed/#7da1e54711de https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/05/31/its-not-... AAAS found that humanities degree holders earn less on average than those holding engineering or computer science degrees but have nearly equal levels of employment and job satisfaction: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/07/study-finds-humanities-majors-land-jobs-and-are-happy-them https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/07/study-finds-h... Georgetown found that STEM jobs pay more, but that across all degrees, BA holders have almost twice the median earnings of those with only a high school degree. Some associates degrees beat some BA majors. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/5rules/?mod=article_inline https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/5rules/?mod=article_i... I haven't found any data I'd think of as "huge numbers"--especially if one looks at longer career durations.

rayiner 7y ago
"Underemployment" is measured in terms of people getting jobs that "require a college degree." But that does not directly measure whether college is adding value: https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/dismissed-by-degrees.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/di... > For example, in 2015, 67% of production supervisor job postings asked for a college degree, while only 16% of employed production supervisors had one. When companies start requiring college degrees simply because it's an easy way to filter out the bottom of the barrel in a world where we've pushed everyone to get a college degree, the degree isn't adding value. It's just overcoming a self-created hurdle. See also: https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/aug18asrfeature_0.pdf https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/a... > In the present study, I use ASEC data and skill ratings derived from O*NET to test the relative education hypothesis, investigating whether college degree-holders increasingly find themselves in lower-skilled jobs as more of their peers attend college. The findings support the hypothesis that as educational attainment rises in the population, individuals with college degrees are increasingly shuffled into lower skilled jobs. I think the fact that liberal arts majors have such a hard time getting a job out of college is an indication that college isn't actually adding value. If they stumble around and eventually get a career, it may well be that it's the experience they gain in the meantime that is really adding the value (even if the college degree is checking a box).
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  You have to be careful not to conflate degree inflation, which is about over-zealous filtering in an organization's hiring process, with college education and the personal benefits it confers upon the individual who receives it. Put another way, the recipient of a bachelor's degree gets two benefits: 1) a pass through certain HR filters, and 2) the improvement of their personal knowledge and abilities. The distinction matters because we can fix degree inflation where it happens: in HR. That's why HBS is writing about it. We don't need to deny the obvious benefits of post-secondary education to people, just to fix a problem with over-zealous HR filters. (Those aren't unique to college BTW--think of silly requirements like "10 years experience with React.") > I think the fact that liberal arts majors have such a hard time getting a job out of college is an indication that college isn't actually adding value. This would make sense if liberal arts majors had an unusually hard time getting a job out of college, but they don't. Here are some majors and their probability of underemployment in first job and 5 years out. Engineering 29% 18% Communication/Journalism 39% 24% Mathematics/Statistics 39% 26% Foreign Languages 43% 27% Physical Sciences 40% 27% English/Literature 45% 29% Visual/Performing Arts 45% 31% Biological/Biomedical 51% 35% From study linked in article in my earlier comment: https://www.burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/permanent_detour_underemployment_report.pdf https://www.burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/permanent_d...

rayiner 7y ago

"Underemployment" is measured in terms of people getting jobs that "require a college degree." But that does not directly measure whether college is adding value: https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/dismissed-by-degrees.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/di... > For example, in 2015, 67% of production supervisor job postings asked for a college degree, while only 16% of employed production supervisors had one. When companies start requiring college degrees simply because it's an easy way to filter out the bottom of the barrel in a world where we've pushed everyone to get a college degree, the degree isn't adding value. It's just overcoming a self-created hurdle. See also: https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/aug18asrfeature_0.pdf https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/a... > In the present study, I use ASEC data and skill ratings derived from O*NET to test the relative education hypothesis, investigating whether college degree-holders increasingly find themselves in lower-skilled jobs as more of their peers attend college. The findings support the hypothesis that as educational attainment rises in the population, individuals with college degrees are increasingly shuffled into lower skilled jobs. I think the fact that liberal arts majors have such a hard time getting a job out of college is an indication that college isn't actually adding value. If they stumble around and eventually get a career, it may well be that it's the experience they gain in the meantime that is really adding the value (even if the college degree is checking a box).

snowwrestler 7y ago
You have to be careful not to conflate degree inflation, which is about over-zealous filtering in an organization's hiring process, with college education and the personal benefits it confers upon the individual who receives it. Put another way, the recipient of a bachelor's degree gets two benefits: 1) a pass through certain HR filters, and 2) the improvement of their personal knowledge and abilities. The distinction matters because we can fix degree inflation where it happens: in HR. That's why HBS is writing about it. We don't need to deny the obvious benefits of post-secondary education to people, just to fix a problem with over-zealous HR filters. (Those aren't unique to college BTW--think of silly requirements like "10 years experience with React.") > I think the fact that liberal arts majors have such a hard time getting a job out of college is an indication that college isn't actually adding value. This would make sense if liberal arts majors had an unusually hard time getting a job out of college, but they don't. Here are some majors and their probability of underemployment in first job and 5 years out. Engineering 29% 18% Communication/Journalism 39% 24% Mathematics/Statistics 39% 26% Foreign Languages 43% 27% Physical Sciences 40% 27% English/Literature 45% 29% Visual/Performing Arts 45% 31% Biological/Biomedical 51% 35% From study linked in article in my earlier comment: https://www.burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/permanent_detour_underemployment_report.pdf https://www.burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/permanent_d...