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That tends to be one of the challenges with credentialism and inflation. In the 1960s or 1970s (at least in the USA), the mindset among employers tended to be "

That tends to be one of the challenges with credentialism and inflation. In the 1960s or 1970s (at least in the USA), the mindset among employers tended to be "you've got a degree? you're HIRED!" - they just needed reasonably smart people and university acted as a filter. The parents of Millennials were among this cohort and internalized this mindset (along with the society at large). The idea of "more education = better job opportunity" has lasted for the past 40-50 years and even been escalated.

innguest 12y ago
> they just needed reasonably smart people and university acted as a filter Bingo. That's all most employers are looking for. If employers in the US were allowed to do IQ tests on candidates, no one would care what degrees you have.
- ajuc 12y ago
  They can't? Seems strange. What's the justification for that?
  - theorique 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
HillRat 12y ago
It will be interesting -- and by "interesting" I mean "terrifying" -- to see what the thwarting of internalized expectations does to our social fabric. It's the same essential motivation that fueled the rise of Islamist terror groups in the Mideast: young men with education but no financial or social prospects. Obviously, these were societies with threadbare social fabric due to decades of political repression and economic mismanagement, but there's no ironclad rule that an otherwise stable country can't tip over with shocking speed. (In this, the sheer size of the US probably creates a tendency towards short-term stability, while also making it more difficult to enact long-term solutions.) The post-war economic ideal of America was a powerful albeit somewhat utopian concept -- a large number of financially-secure skilled and unskilled laborers supporting a smaller but still large upper middle-class of "symbolic manipulators" for whom a college degree served as an entrance ticket. The lure was, of course, that anyone could move up the ladder if they applied themselves, worked hard, and got an education. The post-war social compact offered stability and meritocratic advancement in exchange for sociopolitical legitimation. Stability was swept away by automation and globalization, and advancement is, for all but the most elite, tenuous at best; what, then, will we replace it with?
chetanahuja 12y ago
umm.... No. It's not just some "mindset". There's lot of factual evidence to show that college degree is clearly and positively correlated with higher lifetime income. E.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/29/want-proof-college-is-worth-it-look-at-this-list-of-the-highest-paying-majors/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/29/w...
- theorique 12y ago
  Agreed, but I bet you'd also agree that there's more competition for most post-college jobs nowadays, than there was in the big expansion years of the 1960s and 70s. At that time, the mere fact of a college degree (never mind the specific discipline) was enough of a distinction that companies would hire BA holders relatively casually. A generic "college degree" is still a good bet to make over a lifetime, but getting one's foot in the door is harder, since a greater percentage of the population does some post-secondary credentialing.

innguest 12y ago

> they just needed reasonably smart people and university acted as a filter Bingo. That's all most employers are looking for. If employers in the US were allowed to do IQ tests on candidates, no one would care what degrees you have.

ajuc 12y ago
They can't? Seems strange. What's the justification for that?
- theorique 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

HillRat 12y ago

It will be interesting -- and by "interesting" I mean "terrifying" -- to see what the thwarting of internalized expectations does to our social fabric. It's the same essential motivation that fueled the rise of Islamist terror groups in the Mideast: young men with education but no financial or social prospects. Obviously, these were societies with threadbare social fabric due to decades of political repression and economic mismanagement, but there's no ironclad rule that an otherwise stable country can't tip over with shocking speed. (In this, the sheer size of the US probably creates a tendency towards short-term stability, while also making it more difficult to enact long-term solutions.) The post-war economic ideal of America was a powerful albeit somewhat utopian concept -- a large number of financially-secure skilled and unskilled laborers supporting a smaller but still large upper middle-class of "symbolic manipulators" for whom a college degree served as an entrance ticket. The lure was, of course, that anyone could move up the ladder if they applied themselves, worked hard, and got an education. The post-war social compact offered stability and meritocratic advancement in exchange for sociopolitical legitimation. Stability was swept away by automation and globalization, and advancement is, for all but the most elite, tenuous at best; what, then, will we replace it with?

chetanahuja 12y ago

umm.... No. It's not just some "mindset". There's lot of factual evidence to show that college degree is clearly and positively correlated with higher lifetime income. E.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/29/want-proof-college-is-worth-it-look-at-this-list-of-the-highest-paying-majors/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/29/w...

theorique 12y ago
Agreed, but I bet you'd also agree that there's more competition for most post-college jobs nowadays, than there was in the big expansion years of the 1960s and 70s. At that time, the mere fact of a college degree (never mind the specific discipline) was enough of a distinction that companies would hire BA holders relatively casually. A generic "college degree" is still a good bet to make over a lifetime, but getting one's foot in the door is harder, since a greater percentage of the population does some post-secondary credentialing.