10 ms·

Don’t force child care workers to get college degrees

95 points by exolymph 4y ago

prirun 4y ago
This applies to all kinds of jobs. For example, in Indiana a dental hygienist requires 1 year of college courses and 2 years of dental hygienist courses. IMO this is not necessary to take X-rays and scrape teeth. They are not diagnosing anything, treating anything, or prescribing anything, and there is such a shortage of them locally that dentists are having to send their patients needing their teeth cleaned to other dentists who have a hygienist already on their staff.
- kqr2 4y ago
  https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episode-381-when-business-loves-regulation https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/epis... On today's show: Why it was illegal to braid hair without a license in Utah. And why hundreds of licensing rules in states all around the country are a disaster for the U.S. economy.
  - Overtonwindow 4y ago
    It's also illegal in 13 states to talk with another individual about food and diet without a license. However, only one modality may get that license, and you are required to pay a private trade association in order to keep that license current.
    - jrs235 4y ago
      Look into who owns the entities that provide the "education" courses that are required to get licensed. IIRC, a Wisconsin state legislator owned a beauty school (or perhaps his spouse did). I think in WI it was 2000 hours or something required to get a license to cut hair, more hours required training than police officers at the time. Again, IIRC.
  - analog31 4y ago
    Without listening to the show, I'd like it if there was some mechanism to assure that a person who braids hair is capable of dealing with issues such as basic hygiene, blood borne diseases, and so forth. With that said, the license and whatever minimal training is needed, could be provided for free. Likewise for a dental hygienist, who is doing things like operating X-Ray equipment and other invasive gadgets. I don't think the solution is to de-regulate this kind of thing.
- vba616 4y ago
  I went to a grocery store today, and they had a sign saying they want to hire pharmacy technicians...for $20/hr...with experience. Here is apparently what being a pharmacy tech involves in NY: https://ptcbtestprep.com/state-requirements/pharmacy-tech-license-new-york/ https://ptcbtestprep.com/state-requirements/pharmacy-tech-li... This may or may not be a good wage by your standards and location. But relative to jobs that have no real qualifications or experience needed, that have been putting up signs for $15/hr recently, it was kind of astounding to me. It suggests to me they are exploiting people based on the cynical assumption that the qualifications are a sunk cost and replacing the current workforce is not the employers' problem.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    Skilled workers earning 33% more than unskilled workers is incentive enough to learn skills. Why do you think they need to be higher than that? The whole point of increasing minimum wage so much is to push down high skill wages relative low skill wages, so that low skill humans don't have to live such a destitute life. That is what Democrats are pushing for, so why do you see the intended result as a bad thing?
    - trimethylpurine 4y ago
      At $20/hr minus costs invested for education, this pharmacy tech earns less in total until they are around 45 or 50 years old. They would have been better off taking a job frying potatoes. You might suggest that this would cause a shortage of techs, thereby increasing the wages, but it doesn't, because the people investing in the cost of that required education aren't educated about what they are signing up for. So essentially, what's happened here is that a large corporation has prayed upon the naivety of a younger tech who was sold a worthless education and is now stuck in a low wage job with no way to declare bankrupty against those education costs. What Democrats are pushing for is corporate control of government, same as Republicans. We should absolutely be bothered by this.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    There may be other factors that you don’t know about like flexibility or workload. If you’re working like a donkey at a busy CVS (high stress, shitty company), a less busy grocery store may be a better gig. Even marginal/trainable skills draw a premium. We have a good friend who owns a seafood restaurant - she’s paying $30/hr to shuck oysters.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Lol. I used to go to a community college to have my teeth cleaned by students for $5. Yeah, they need training. Usually it’s an associates program. Dentists are notorious for being greedy idiots. Hygienists make $30-45/hr, and have a portable skill. So unless you’re super flexible, they’ll jump with the market if the dentist tries to cheap out.
- bsder 4y ago
  > They are not diagnosing anything, treating anything, or prescribing anything, and there is such a shortage of them locally that dentists are having to send their patients needing their teeth cleaned to other dentists who have a hygienist already on their staff. They are cleaning your teeth. This means that they need to have understanding of hygiene and sterilization. There are regularly incidents where someone in a dentists office sterilizes something wrong and some disease gets transmitted. Do NOT assume that nurses, hygienists, etc. understand things even as basic as germ theory and its implications. Do NOT assume that laypeople understand just how bad industrial chemicals can be. etc. A 2 year degree barely teaches enough for people to be functional in jobs that can affect someone else's health. The solution to a lack of people for <job> is to PAY MORE MONEY. Why does this seem to be so hard for people to understand?
  - prirun 4y ago
    > They are cleaning your teeth. This means that they need to have understanding of hygiene and sterilization. There are regularly incidents where someone in a dentists office sterilizes something wrong and some disease gets transmitted. And there always will be, regardless of how many years of college the staff has. > Do NOT assume that nurses, hygienists, etc. understand things even as basic as germ theory and its implications. Do NOT assume that laypeople understand just how bad industrial chemicals can be. etc. If nurses don't understand these things and they have had many years of training, that seems to argue that additional training does not improve outcomes. And for the record, I'm not saying I want Joe Blow to be hired yesterday and start cleaning teeth today. A trade training program is of course necessary to acquire the skills and learn the procedures to perform <skilled job>. But I don't think it's necessary to have college-level germ theory background to understand how to sterilize equipment and why it's important. > A 2 year degree barely teaches enough for people to be functional in jobs that can affect someone else's health. I won't disagree there, because I think college is pretty useless these days other than to give you the piece of paper that lets companies easily filter potential employees, with non-college applicants going in the trash. > The solution to a lack of people for <job> is to PAY MORE MONEY. Why does this seem to be so hard for people to understand? I agree with you that companies have taken advantage of employees for a very long time and am glad that workers are pushing back on low wages and unreasonable employment situations. But if we keep requiring more credentialing at high expense that people simply cannot afford without crippling loans, you can't fix that with higher wages. The result would be that teeth cleaning would become unaffordable to the average person. Oh wait, I know the solution to that: more insurance! (See: medical care)
drewcoo 4y ago
So according to the article, apparently "cognitive skills" are less important for trades than marketing. I would like to live in a world where the opposite is true. How can we legislate that?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  You can’t. Marketing scales in a way that working with your hands can’t. A marketer who is 5% better than the next best person is worth paying much more than 5% more because you’re in a competition for attention that’s close enough to zero sum. Being the Coca Cola of your market is worth much more than being the Pepsi. Paying ten n times as much is worth it. Similar dynamics do not apply in the trades. Someone who is 5% faster is unlikely to be worth twice as much never mind ten times as much.
  - stakhanov 4y ago
    So you're saying marketing has leverage and working with your hands doesn't? I seriously doubt that. Neurosurgeons work with their hands, and if I ever need neurosurgery, I'll probably be willing to fork over every single cent I've ever made or ever will make in the hope that it will make even the slightest bit of a difference in the probability that I'll get off that table being mentally handicapped. An oversight by a plumber that takes about 5 seconds to happen can mean the difference between five or six figures' worth of real estate getting eaten up by mold or not. The difference between a farrier doing a good or bad job on a race horse can mean millions of dollars in prize money. Meanwhile, an important piece of career advice for marketers, bankers, and other people who think of themselves as commanding high leverage is this: Don't mistake the value of the seat you're in as being your value. The number of clients who can put a marketer in a seat where 5% of a skills-difference is an amount of money on the same order of magnitude as the marketer's take-home pay is extremely small relative to the number of marketers who want that job. Meanwhile there are tons of people hiring doctors, plumbers, and farriers who care a great deal about a 5% skills-difference, and many of them have money to pay for it. That gives doctors, plumbers, and farriers vastly superior bargaining power when compared to marketers, which, in turn, means that they get to extract a higher share of what they're worth to the client as take-home pay.
musicale 4y ago
Universities would prefer master's or doctoral degrees.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  In Germany to become a physiotherapist you do a three year apprenticeship. In the rest of Europe you need a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. In the US you need to get a Bachelor’s degree and then a second bachelor’s that for some reason is termed a professional doctorate. Pure credentialism.
  - musicale 4y ago
    Credentialism is a great word to describe the mindset behind qualification inflation.
voakbasda 4y ago
It’s called regulatory capture. Good luck stopping it, but if you find that one trick that works, let us know….
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  One weird tip is relocating
  - wyre 4y ago
    Where?
    - jrs235 4y ago
      Where the wild things are
mhb 4y ago
Barber schools and license requirements in Rhode Island 1. Graduate from a 1500-Hour Rhode Island Barber Training Program 2. Submit a Rhode Island Barber License Application 3. Pass the Rhode Island Written and Practical Licensing Exams https://www.barber-license.com/rhode-island/ https://www.barber-license.com/rhode-island/ Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31765644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31765644
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  You could fly a commercial airliner in fewer hours training
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    A bad plane ride doesn't last nearly as long as a bad haircut.
globalreset 4y ago
Managerial class is making sure tithes are being collected.
chadcmulligan 4y ago
It's the same in teaching, in Australia if you're coming from another degree you now need a masters to teach even primary school. This is a job that starts at 70K AUD and tops out at around 120K, they're finding it hard to get math/science teachers.
- siquick 4y ago
  Not to mention that private schools get huge amounts of government funding on top of tuition fees so can poach all the top teachers from public schools. Education system is worrying here for a parent of a 3 year old.
  - alvah 4y ago
    Do the parents of children at private schools not pay tax? Why shouldn't some of that tax go towards their child's education?
    - lll-o-lll 4y ago
      If the point of tax was to evenly redistribute it back to those who paid it, what would be the point of taxing in the first place? No, the point of tax is to forceable take money to redistribute in the best interests of society at large. Ideally. In practice it’s so inefficient and the corruption and everything makes it a horrible system. I like the Swiss Canton system, at least on paper. More distributed government. I want that bastard who’s misusing my tax money to live next door! Centralisation of power is the entropy of democracy.
      - alvah 4y ago
        "No, the point of tax is to forceable take money to redistribute in the best interests of society at large." That's not how (federal) tax works in a fiat money environment (i.e. in Western countries for at least the last 50 years), despite what the textbooks, media and political parties tell us. Taxes (and other measures) are used to control the level of spending in the economy. Government expenditure is funded by money created by government-controlled and / or government-adjacent agencies.
0x0000000 4y ago
> Suppose it costs an extra $15,000 to hire a college-educated teacher. That's an interesting supposition that leads me to believe the author has no idea what child care workers are being paid, college educated or not.
litiholofan 4y ago
This credentialist mafia has infested my country. I'm at the point where I just do what I want and will deal with the consequences if they arise. I'm an owner/builder, I do my own electrics, plumbing, forklift driving etc. I believe this credentialist industry is mainly driven by insurance companies and anti-competitive megacorps.
- ikiris 4y ago
  I look forward to the future where even more houses were infested with people who thought they could do their own electric work safely. No, no I don't.
  - noughtme 4y ago
    just because a homeowner does their own work, doesn't mean it won't be to code, or inspected. the irony is that in locales that require licenses, more unlicensed non-code compliant work is often done because there is no diy path. in many locales, building inspectors are readily available and happy to inspect homeowner work.
    - mjevans 4y ago
      Permits and Inspections are the critical aspect for safety. It's fine for a non-pro to DIY something that can be inspected and corrected before full use.
    - sircastor 4y ago
      I have a good friend who did a lot of his own electrical work recently and was praised by the inspector for his compliance with code and the work that he did. The fear is that without licensed professionals doing the work, the work will be done wrong. That’s absurd. To bring it a little closer to HN’s readership, those of us who program know that programmers, regardless of their formal education, can be amazing or terrible, and everything in-between. Training and licensure only promise that time has been spent by the individual, and the latter only really promises that someone can be legally paid for the work.
adenozine 4y ago
Alternatively, cap the price of tuition for childcare degrees? People get degrees for leverage in wage negotiation, and to further their career. Advising against is anti-worker, imo. The real crime is unattainable education.
- WirelessGigabit 4y ago
  Disagree. Childcare really isn't something one should go to school for for 4 years. It economically doesn't make sense. This is the kind of thing one can learn as an elective during high school and graduate with an additional certificate. Maybe one or 2 years of vocational school.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Requiring degrees is anti-worker because it places a cost on them. It’s pro-university because it forces other people to give them money to be allowed to accept a job offer. If the content is so important have a certification exam. That fulfills the purpose of driving down supply of workers so they get paid more. Same as requiring a degree but without giving money to universities. Obviously this is bad for those who want to buy childcare, just like the degree requirement.
  - bombolo 4y ago
    > Requiring degrees is anti-worker because it places a cost on them. This is such an USA point of view… University is free here.
    - suddenclarity 4y ago
      "free". Not only do you have to pay tax but you also need to finance you living and studies during the years you're studying. Finally, forcing people to miss three years of work to get a worthless degree has a massive alternative cost.
      - watwut 4y ago
        Yes everyone knows it is paid from taxes. It is not gotcha you think it is. This is what the comment reacted to: > Requiring degrees is anti-worker because it places a cost on them. Education being paid from taxes means the price is not paid by worker. I am ok paying tax and education being paid from the tax. Not everyone is full on allergic to the word tax.
ggm 4y ago
Early childhood development is about the most important thing society does in a person's life, after safe birth. By the time they're at high school problems are intractable which could have been remediated in kindy or prep. I'm being mildly hyperbolic because I think a lot of people assume it's just watching kids play. It's not. Where do you think fine motor skills, balance, exercise habits, mental health, diet, recognition of emerging health issues comes from?
- phnofive 4y ago
  Do you mean that daycare workers typically instill those things? Is that true?
- corbulo 4y ago
  You say this, and then perfectly good and intelligent people are the product of morons (with and without degrees, particularly with) all the time.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    The jury is out as to whether that is an exception or the rule.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > Early childhood development is about the most important thing society does in a person's life, after safe birth. By the time they're at high school problems are intractable which could have been remediated in kindy or prep. Do you have any evidence for that assertion? James Heckman spent many years saying that infant and early childhood interventions were far more cost effective than those on later ages but he is no longer willing to defend his earlier position [1]. > I'm being mildly hyperbolic because I think a lot of people assume it's just watching kids play. It's not. Not people who have children. They’re aware that they demand constant attention. > Where do you think fine motor skills, balance, exercise habits, mental health, diet, recognition of emerging health issues comes from? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here but it sounds like you think these can durably be changed by childcare workers in some way. The behaviour genetics evidence is pretty clear that everything you mentioned is highly heritable and the normal range will emerge just fine in almost any non-abusive environment. I teach children from 3-7 during my time in childcare/kindergarten and having my own children has just reinforced what I thought then. Teachers have very little impact on academic performance and personality but they can make the classroom a better or a worse place to be and help children deal with others in a slightly more productive way. They certainly don’t have any long run impact on fine motor skills or balance. [1] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/08/12/heckman-curve-update-update/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/08/12/heckman-cu...
nhchris 4y ago
One more nail in the West's fertility crisis coffin.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
poloniculmov 4y ago
This is such an american POV, don't require a certification because it will make it harder to underpay teachers. Why not focus on getting those people affordable education?
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  Why does a childcare worker need a college education?
  - bombolo 4y ago
    To learn pedagogy?
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      Any evidence that makes for better childcare?
      - bombolo 4y ago
        "oh he's not being a piece of shit, his brain is literally incapable of processing this!" "this behaviour seems indicative of abuse… welp I better contact authorities!" And many other examples that you will disregard because you've already decided that childcare is not a real job, unlike YOUR job, which is important and serious.
        ALittleLight 4y ago
        My job doesn't need a college degree either. I think a certain kind of person venerates school rather than seeing it as a cost. For this type of person school is, by default, something that people should do. Personally, I don't share that view. School is something that should be required where necessary but optional otherwise. You absolutely do not need a college degree, or lessons on pedagogy, to understand that children are immature or what abuse indicators are. The former is intuitively understood by pretty much everyone, especially people interested in childcare, and the latter can be covered in on the job training. I'd like to return to my original question though - any evidence that childcare is improved by a college degree? Anyone could come up with things you'd learn in college that might make you better at childcare - but that's not the same thing as evidence.
timonoko 4y ago
In Finland there can be only 4 childies per worker and the worker must have university degree. Government daycare is mostly free of course. Unfortunately local politicians do not understand the importance of pre-school academic education and this standard is never fully executed anywhere.
polski-g 4y ago
Humans have been raising children for hundreds of thousands of years without an advanced education, but now, suddenly, they need one?

95 points by exolymph 4y ago

This applies to all kinds of jobs. For example, in Indiana a dental hygienist requires 1 year of college courses and 2 years of dental hygienist courses. IMO this is not necessary to take X-rays and scrape teeth. They are not diagnosing anything, treating anything, or prescribing anything, and there is such a shortage of them locally that dentists are having to send their patients needing their teeth cleaned to other dentists who have a hygienist already on their staff.

kqr2 4y ago
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episode-381-when-business-loves-regulation https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/epis... On today's show: Why it was illegal to braid hair without a license in Utah. And why hundreds of licensing rules in states all around the country are a disaster for the U.S. economy.
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  It's also illegal in 13 states to talk with another individual about food and diet without a license. However, only one modality may get that license, and you are required to pay a private trade association in order to keep that license current.
  - jrs235 4y ago
    Look into who owns the entities that provide the "education" courses that are required to get licensed. IIRC, a Wisconsin state legislator owned a beauty school (or perhaps his spouse did). I think in WI it was 2000 hours or something required to get a license to cut hair, more hours required training than police officers at the time. Again, IIRC.
- analog31 4y ago
  Without listening to the show, I'd like it if there was some mechanism to assure that a person who braids hair is capable of dealing with issues such as basic hygiene, blood borne diseases, and so forth. With that said, the license and whatever minimal training is needed, could be provided for free. Likewise for a dental hygienist, who is doing things like operating X-Ray equipment and other invasive gadgets. I don't think the solution is to de-regulate this kind of thing.
vba616 4y ago
I went to a grocery store today, and they had a sign saying they want to hire pharmacy technicians...for $20/hr...with experience. Here is apparently what being a pharmacy tech involves in NY: https://ptcbtestprep.com/state-requirements/pharmacy-tech-license-new-york/ https://ptcbtestprep.com/state-requirements/pharmacy-tech-li... This may or may not be a good wage by your standards and location. But relative to jobs that have no real qualifications or experience needed, that have been putting up signs for $15/hr recently, it was kind of astounding to me. It suggests to me they are exploiting people based on the cynical assumption that the qualifications are a sunk cost and replacing the current workforce is not the employers' problem.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Skilled workers earning 33% more than unskilled workers is incentive enough to learn skills. Why do you think they need to be higher than that? The whole point of increasing minimum wage so much is to push down high skill wages relative low skill wages, so that low skill humans don't have to live such a destitute life. That is what Democrats are pushing for, so why do you see the intended result as a bad thing?
  - trimethylpurine 4y ago
    At $20/hr minus costs invested for education, this pharmacy tech earns less in total until they are around 45 or 50 years old. They would have been better off taking a job frying potatoes. You might suggest that this would cause a shortage of techs, thereby increasing the wages, but it doesn't, because the people investing in the cost of that required education aren't educated about what they are signing up for. So essentially, what's happened here is that a large corporation has prayed upon the naivety of a younger tech who was sold a worthless education and is now stuck in a low wage job with no way to declare bankrupty against those education costs. What Democrats are pushing for is corporate control of government, same as Republicans. We should absolutely be bothered by this.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  There may be other factors that you don’t know about like flexibility or workload. If you’re working like a donkey at a busy CVS (high stress, shitty company), a less busy grocery store may be a better gig. Even marginal/trainable skills draw a premium. We have a good friend who owns a seafood restaurant - she’s paying $30/hr to shuck oysters.
Spooky23 4y ago
Lol. I used to go to a community college to have my teeth cleaned by students for $5. Yeah, they need training. Usually it’s an associates program. Dentists are notorious for being greedy idiots. Hygienists make $30-45/hr, and have a portable skill. So unless you’re super flexible, they’ll jump with the market if the dentist tries to cheap out.
bsder 4y ago
> They are not diagnosing anything, treating anything, or prescribing anything, and there is such a shortage of them locally that dentists are having to send their patients needing their teeth cleaned to other dentists who have a hygienist already on their staff. They are cleaning your teeth. This means that they need to have understanding of hygiene and sterilization. There are regularly incidents where someone in a dentists office sterilizes something wrong and some disease gets transmitted. Do NOT assume that nurses, hygienists, etc. understand things even as basic as germ theory and its implications. Do NOT assume that laypeople understand just how bad industrial chemicals can be. etc. A 2 year degree barely teaches enough for people to be functional in jobs that can affect someone else's health. The solution to a lack of people for <job> is to PAY MORE MONEY. Why does this seem to be so hard for people to understand?
- prirun 4y ago
  > They are cleaning your teeth. This means that they need to have understanding of hygiene and sterilization. There are regularly incidents where someone in a dentists office sterilizes something wrong and some disease gets transmitted. And there always will be, regardless of how many years of college the staff has. > Do NOT assume that nurses, hygienists, etc. understand things even as basic as germ theory and its implications. Do NOT assume that laypeople understand just how bad industrial chemicals can be. etc. If nurses don't understand these things and they have had many years of training, that seems to argue that additional training does not improve outcomes. And for the record, I'm not saying I want Joe Blow to be hired yesterday and start cleaning teeth today. A trade training program is of course necessary to acquire the skills and learn the procedures to perform <skilled job>. But I don't think it's necessary to have college-level germ theory background to understand how to sterilize equipment and why it's important. > A 2 year degree barely teaches enough for people to be functional in jobs that can affect someone else's health. I won't disagree there, because I think college is pretty useless these days other than to give you the piece of paper that lets companies easily filter potential employees, with non-college applicants going in the trash. > The solution to a lack of people for <job> is to PAY MORE MONEY. Why does this seem to be so hard for people to understand? I agree with you that companies have taken advantage of employees for a very long time and am glad that workers are pushing back on low wages and unreasonable employment situations. But if we keep requiring more credentialing at high expense that people simply cannot afford without crippling loans, you can't fix that with higher wages. The result would be that teeth cleaning would become unaffordable to the average person. Oh wait, I know the solution to that: more insurance! (See: medical care)

drewcoo 4y ago

So according to the article, apparently "cognitive skills" are less important for trades than marketing. I would like to live in a world where the opposite is true. How can we legislate that?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
barry-cotter 4y ago
You can’t. Marketing scales in a way that working with your hands can’t. A marketer who is 5% better than the next best person is worth paying much more than 5% more because you’re in a competition for attention that’s close enough to zero sum. Being the Coca Cola of your market is worth much more than being the Pepsi. Paying ten n times as much is worth it. Similar dynamics do not apply in the trades. Someone who is 5% faster is unlikely to be worth twice as much never mind ten times as much.
- stakhanov 4y ago
  So you're saying marketing has leverage and working with your hands doesn't? I seriously doubt that. Neurosurgeons work with their hands, and if I ever need neurosurgery, I'll probably be willing to fork over every single cent I've ever made or ever will make in the hope that it will make even the slightest bit of a difference in the probability that I'll get off that table being mentally handicapped. An oversight by a plumber that takes about 5 seconds to happen can mean the difference between five or six figures' worth of real estate getting eaten up by mold or not. The difference between a farrier doing a good or bad job on a race horse can mean millions of dollars in prize money. Meanwhile, an important piece of career advice for marketers, bankers, and other people who think of themselves as commanding high leverage is this: Don't mistake the value of the seat you're in as being your value. The number of clients who can put a marketer in a seat where 5% of a skills-difference is an amount of money on the same order of magnitude as the marketer's take-home pay is extremely small relative to the number of marketers who want that job. Meanwhile there are tons of people hiring doctors, plumbers, and farriers who care a great deal about a 5% skills-difference, and many of them have money to pay for it. That gives doctors, plumbers, and farriers vastly superior bargaining power when compared to marketers, which, in turn, means that they get to extract a higher share of what they're worth to the client as take-home pay.

musicale 4y ago

Universities would prefer master's or doctoral degrees.

barry-cotter 4y ago
In Germany to become a physiotherapist you do a three year apprenticeship. In the rest of Europe you need a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. In the US you need to get a Bachelor’s degree and then a second bachelor’s that for some reason is termed a professional doctorate. Pure credentialism.
- musicale 4y ago
  Credentialism is a great word to describe the mindset behind qualification inflation.

voakbasda 4y ago

It’s called regulatory capture. Good luck stopping it, but if you find that one trick that works, let us know….

quickthrower2 4y ago
One weird tip is relocating
- wyre 4y ago
  Where?
  - jrs235 4y ago
    Where the wild things are

mhb 4y ago

Barber schools and license requirements in Rhode Island 1. Graduate from a 1500-Hour Rhode Island Barber Training Program 2. Submit a Rhode Island Barber License Application 3. Pass the Rhode Island Written and Practical Licensing Exams https://www.barber-license.com/rhode-island/ https://www.barber-license.com/rhode-island/ Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31765644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31765644

quickthrower2 4y ago
You could fly a commercial airliner in fewer hours training
- saalweachter 4y ago
  A bad plane ride doesn't last nearly as long as a bad haircut.

globalreset 4y ago

Managerial class is making sure tithes are being collected.

chadcmulligan 4y ago

It's the same in teaching, in Australia if you're coming from another degree you now need a masters to teach even primary school. This is a job that starts at 70K AUD and tops out at around 120K, they're finding it hard to get math/science teachers.

siquick 4y ago
Not to mention that private schools get huge amounts of government funding on top of tuition fees so can poach all the top teachers from public schools. Education system is worrying here for a parent of a 3 year old.
- alvah 4y ago
  Do the parents of children at private schools not pay tax? Why shouldn't some of that tax go towards their child's education?
  - lll-o-lll 4y ago
    If the point of tax was to evenly redistribute it back to those who paid it, what would be the point of taxing in the first place? No, the point of tax is to forceable take money to redistribute in the best interests of society at large. Ideally. In practice it’s so inefficient and the corruption and everything makes it a horrible system. I like the Swiss Canton system, at least on paper. More distributed government. I want that bastard who’s misusing my tax money to live next door! Centralisation of power is the entropy of democracy.
    - alvah 4y ago
      "No, the point of tax is to forceable take money to redistribute in the best interests of society at large." That's not how (federal) tax works in a fiat money environment (i.e. in Western countries for at least the last 50 years), despite what the textbooks, media and political parties tell us. Taxes (and other measures) are used to control the level of spending in the economy. Government expenditure is funded by money created by government-controlled and / or government-adjacent agencies.

0x0000000 4y ago

> Suppose it costs an extra $15,000 to hire a college-educated teacher. That's an interesting supposition that leads me to believe the author has no idea what child care workers are being paid, college educated or not.

litiholofan 4y ago

This credentialist mafia has infested my country. I'm at the point where I just do what I want and will deal with the consequences if they arise. I'm an owner/builder, I do my own electrics, plumbing, forklift driving etc. I believe this credentialist industry is mainly driven by insurance companies and anti-competitive megacorps.

ikiris 4y ago
I look forward to the future where even more houses were infested with people who thought they could do their own electric work safely. No, no I don't.
- noughtme 4y ago
  just because a homeowner does their own work, doesn't mean it won't be to code, or inspected. the irony is that in locales that require licenses, more unlicensed non-code compliant work is often done because there is no diy path. in many locales, building inspectors are readily available and happy to inspect homeowner work.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Permits and Inspections are the critical aspect for safety. It's fine for a non-pro to DIY something that can be inspected and corrected before full use.
  - sircastor 4y ago
    I have a good friend who did a lot of his own electrical work recently and was praised by the inspector for his compliance with code and the work that he did. The fear is that without licensed professionals doing the work, the work will be done wrong. That’s absurd. To bring it a little closer to HN’s readership, those of us who program know that programmers, regardless of their formal education, can be amazing or terrible, and everything in-between. Training and licensure only promise that time has been spent by the individual, and the latter only really promises that someone can be legally paid for the work.

adenozine 4y ago

Alternatively, cap the price of tuition for childcare degrees? People get degrees for leverage in wage negotiation, and to further their career. Advising against is anti-worker, imo. The real crime is unattainable education.

WirelessGigabit 4y ago
Disagree. Childcare really isn't something one should go to school for for 4 years. It economically doesn't make sense. This is the kind of thing one can learn as an elective during high school and graduate with an additional certificate. Maybe one or 2 years of vocational school.
barry-cotter 4y ago
Requiring degrees is anti-worker because it places a cost on them. It’s pro-university because it forces other people to give them money to be allowed to accept a job offer. If the content is so important have a certification exam. That fulfills the purpose of driving down supply of workers so they get paid more. Same as requiring a degree but without giving money to universities. Obviously this is bad for those who want to buy childcare, just like the degree requirement.
- bombolo 4y ago
  > Requiring degrees is anti-worker because it places a cost on them. This is such an USA point of view… University is free here.
  - suddenclarity 4y ago
    "free". Not only do you have to pay tax but you also need to finance you living and studies during the years you're studying. Finally, forcing people to miss three years of work to get a worthless degree has a massive alternative cost.
    - watwut 4y ago
      Yes everyone knows it is paid from taxes. It is not gotcha you think it is. This is what the comment reacted to: > Requiring degrees is anti-worker because it places a cost on them. Education being paid from taxes means the price is not paid by worker. I am ok paying tax and education being paid from the tax. Not everyone is full on allergic to the word tax.

ggm 4y ago

Early childhood development is about the most important thing society does in a person's life, after safe birth. By the time they're at high school problems are intractable which could have been remediated in kindy or prep. I'm being mildly hyperbolic because I think a lot of people assume it's just watching kids play. It's not. Where do you think fine motor skills, balance, exercise habits, mental health, diet, recognition of emerging health issues comes from?

phnofive 4y ago
Do you mean that daycare workers typically instill those things? Is that true?
corbulo 4y ago
You say this, and then perfectly good and intelligent people are the product of morons (with and without degrees, particularly with) all the time.
- uoaei 4y ago
  The jury is out as to whether that is an exception or the rule.
barry-cotter 4y ago
> Early childhood development is about the most important thing society does in a person's life, after safe birth. By the time they're at high school problems are intractable which could have been remediated in kindy or prep. Do you have any evidence for that assertion? James Heckman spent many years saying that infant and early childhood interventions were far more cost effective than those on later ages but he is no longer willing to defend his earlier position [1]. > I'm being mildly hyperbolic because I think a lot of people assume it's just watching kids play. It's not. Not people who have children. They’re aware that they demand constant attention. > Where do you think fine motor skills, balance, exercise habits, mental health, diet, recognition of emerging health issues comes from? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here but it sounds like you think these can durably be changed by childcare workers in some way. The behaviour genetics evidence is pretty clear that everything you mentioned is highly heritable and the normal range will emerge just fine in almost any non-abusive environment. I teach children from 3-7 during my time in childcare/kindergarten and having my own children has just reinforced what I thought then. Teachers have very little impact on academic performance and personality but they can make the classroom a better or a worse place to be and help children deal with others in a slightly more productive way. They certainly don’t have any long run impact on fine motor skills or balance. [1] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/08/12/heckman-curve-update-update/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/08/12/heckman-cu...

nhchris 4y ago

One more nail in the West's fertility crisis coffin.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

poloniculmov 4y ago

This is such an american POV, don't require a certification because it will make it harder to underpay teachers. Why not focus on getting those people affordable education?

ALittleLight 4y ago
Why does a childcare worker need a college education?
- bombolo 4y ago
  To learn pedagogy?
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    Any evidence that makes for better childcare?
    - bombolo 4y ago
      "oh he's not being a piece of shit, his brain is literally incapable of processing this!" "this behaviour seems indicative of abuse… welp I better contact authorities!" And many other examples that you will disregard because you've already decided that childcare is not a real job, unlike YOUR job, which is important and serious.
      - ALittleLight 4y ago
        My job doesn't need a college degree either. I think a certain kind of person venerates school rather than seeing it as a cost. For this type of person school is, by default, something that people should do. Personally, I don't share that view. School is something that should be required where necessary but optional otherwise. You absolutely do not need a college degree, or lessons on pedagogy, to understand that children are immature or what abuse indicators are. The former is intuitively understood by pretty much everyone, especially people interested in childcare, and the latter can be covered in on the job training. I'd like to return to my original question though - any evidence that childcare is improved by a college degree? Anyone could come up with things you'd learn in college that might make you better at childcare - but that's not the same thing as evidence.

timonoko 4y ago

In Finland there can be only 4 childies per worker and the worker must have university degree. Government daycare is mostly free of course. Unfortunately local politicians do not understand the importance of pre-school academic education and this standard is never fully executed anywhere.

polski-g 4y ago

Humans have been raising children for hundreds of thousands of years without an advanced education, but now, suddenly, they need one?