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As it stands, I know plenty of people who have degrees only to work in offices for $16 an hour, and to be offered terrible health insurance. Without those degre
by heavyset_go 5y ago
As it stands, I know plenty of people who have degrees only to work in offices for $16 an hour, and to be offered terrible health insurance. Without those degrees, no matter how inapplicable to jobs they actually are, they'd be working in food service, probably under the table, without even shitty health insurance.
If you're middle class or lower, your kids will be relegated to even shittier jobs without degrees than the shitty jobs they can get with degrees.
Degrees in the US act as a class filter for employers, who are irrationally averse to hiring what they consider to be the riff raff, and degree-holders at the HR and hiring level use them to gatekeep, as well. Degrees are not about aptitude, proficiency, intelligence or tackling adversity, they're about keeping "those people" out, and signaling that you aren't one of them.
If your kids can't afford healthcare even with your help, a degree is still a good idea for them, even if the entirety of their estate gets clawed back by creditors to pay back student loans when they die. Being able to see a doctor and incurring debt is better than being denied preventative care for lack of insurance or inability to pay.
Trades often don't pay well, either, as an employee. I've heard for years about how welders can make six figures. Around here, employers expect to hire welders at $17 an hour, and whine that McDonald's pay rates impact their ability to hire, because fast food now pays better than they do.
- paulpauper 5y agoI think they are about intelligence, to some extent. All else being equal, I can assume a college grad even in a non-STEM field will be smarter than a high school grad.
- heavyset_go 5y agoI don't like putting people into buckets based on perceived intelligence, but most of the people I grew up with who I'd say weren't the most intelligent, went on to get degrees. I'm sure we've all worked with, and went to school with, people who were not exactly intelligent, either, but still had degrees.
- caconym_ 5y ago+1 College "for the masses" today seems to be less about getting an enriching (in any sense but financially) education and more about purchasing a competitive edge in the job market. It's half grift, half class filter. However, as you say, I can't really argue that the ticket isn't worth the price. The solution seems to require reducing demand for livable jobs and increasing the liquidity of the labor pool, i.e. giving workers more freedom to develop themselves and allocate their labor efficiently. Universal healthcare is an absolute must for this, and today's increased productivity also ought to pay for some version of UBI. The corporate capture of America's government is not only increasing wealth inequality---it's also gutting America's economic future, and causing all these other symptoms that people tend to analyze in a vacuum. It's probably too late.
- wolverine876 5y ago> I know plenty of people who have degrees only to work in offices for $16 an hour That is your anecdotal experience - one person in one place and time -but the data shows, very strongly, that people with college educations earn far more over their careers.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- heavyset_go 5y agoI'd genuinely like to see the data on that for younger millennials and gen Z. From what I've seen, employers will keep their older staff at higher compensation rates, but will not match them for new employees, reducing their labor expenses across the board with new generations of workers.
- wolverine876 5y agoFor the working class, wages haven't increased much, but they haven't decreased. Employers have long replaced older, highly-paid workers with new ones willing to work long hours for little pay. The new workers become old ones.