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income inequality debate

This is a strawman tangent, income inequality is not due to the deficit of jobs for BA degrees
 
I also don't think that article reflects what you are saying. It is talking about how the smart college kids these days are unimaginative donks who default into the safe paths towards upper middle class security and not entrepreneurship. You seem to be beefing with the rudderless kids with no direction who go to college for no other reason than to accumulate debt, not develop any skills, and in large numbers dropout. Two different groups.

I agree and they are both true (and entirely consistent with each other).
 
What are the useful degrees?

How can you use a metric like unemployment to make your point when all the evidence shows that college graduates with "useless degrees" are more likely to be employed than people without a college degree?

I guess I try to assume you have common sense in your arguments. That's the misunderstanding.

I will acknowledge that I'm hitting close to professional home so your tone doesn't surprise me. Eliciting that reaction is not my intention. I'm asking questions (which admittedly usually flow from the front of your classroom towards the back. The contraflow may also not be helping things. Play along anyway).

Put yourself in the position of an OWG with a job to fill. When he sees an identity studies degree, do you believe he views it with a stigma? I'm not asking what is fair. I'm asking what is. Show me how we've helped this student. Where is the return on her substantial investment?
 
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You didn't answer the questions.

Your premise runs contrary to facts that show the most useless college degree beats not going to college. The OWGs want college graduates.

You say you are pro-entrepreneurship but your argument is about who OWGs will hire.

And either way, why not wonder about who non-OWGs will hire?
 
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You didn't answer the questions.

Your premise runs contrary to facts that show the most useless college degree beats not going to college. The OWGs want college graduates.

You say you are pro-entrepreneurship but your argument is about who OWGs will hire.

And either way, why not wonder about who non-OWGs will hire?

Damn, I assumed I was the only loser up at 4:00 on a Monday. Here goes:

What are the useful degrees?

Look around the job market. Computer science and programming, engineering, accounting, sciences (esp. ones that lead to Pharmacy. Good God do those ppl make bank), business and if I was looking for perpetual job security with a four year degree: nursing is the most *cough* shovel ready degree you can hold. How many unemployed nurses do you know?

Is the market asking for what humanities are selling? Where?

How can you use a metric like unemployment to make your point when all the evidence shows that college graduates with "useless degrees" are more likely to be employed than people without a college degree?


If tuition is a sunk cost, why not spend it on something the market is asking for?
 
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So just like I said, you are all about the first four paths described in that link.
 
So just like I said, you are all about the first four paths described in that link.

No, I'm not. Please stop telling me what I'm arguing. I am telling you that charging somebody $60,000.00 a year for something for which there isn't a demand isn't helping that person. If you're going to command that high a price, you have an obligation to deliver value. You indicate that the value is, "Well, you have a better chance of getting a job with this degree than without it." Your opinion assumes all jobs are the same or that unemployment debt free can be compared to unemployed and 100,000 in debt.

The people that are headed into the higher compensation fields have a reasonable chance of paying back their loans. They are clearly better off for their debt.

How did the housing bubble work again? People just kept going farther and farther in debt until the prices that the market commanded were unsustainable, and then somebody finally said "Well, no, I'm not paying that. Find another buyer." And then all of the buyers went away.

In the last 20 years, what has happened to the price of tuition? What is the labor market saying in response? What happens when the labor market says, "Hey, sucks about that debt and sorry about the bankruptcy laws, but this is all that I am willing to pay you for what you can do." All the other "buyers" in the labor market are going away for [insert B.A. here] four year degrees.

Case study: Would you rather be:

a) the engineer 100,000 in debt.
b) the politics major 100,000 in debt.
c) the guy with his own lawn maintenance business whose 100,000 in debt is secured by a rental house with a tenant in place.

Dude C has multiple streams of income and can sell the asset that put him in debt. There is a market for that income producing asset on either side of his balance sheet.

I'm not just picking on your business. Seven law schools later, people are still applying to some of the more recently opened ones.
 
From your link. It directly contradicts your points. You favor a few majors that directly lead to predefined higher paying paths. The author clearly doesn't.

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There are currently six prominent paths for achievement-minded recent college graduates: financial services, management consulting, law school (still), med school, and grad school/academia. The sixth is Teach for America, which continues to draw approximately 5,000 graduates (and 50,000 applicants) a year from universities across the country.
...
Another byproduct of the six paths is that we have less diversity of thought. Academics kind of think a certain way. So do lawyers. And bankers. And consultants. And doctors. Having most of our top students being trained in the same handful of ways might be good in some ways—we might break fewer things. But it might make us less likely to build new things too.
Where our talent is going shapes our economy and society.

Imagine a new path—one that led graduates to work with entrepreneurs in small growth companies in Detroit, New Orleans, Providence, Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Philadelphia and other cities around the country. They’d help those companies expand and thrive, creating more jobs and opportunities. They’d certainly think differently as a result of their experience. And perhaps they’d be in position to start or lead a company themselves in the coming years.

We don’t need six paths. We need 600 or 6,000. The sooner we open things up for our young people to determine their own paths, the better off we’ll be.
 
From your link. It directly contradicts your points. You favor a few majors that directly lead to predefined higher paying paths. The author clearly doesn't.

----
There are currently six prominent paths for achievement-minded recent college graduates: financial services, management consulting, law school (still), med school, and grad school/academia. The sixth is Teach for America, which continues to draw approximately 5,000 graduates (and 50,000 applicants) a year from universities across the country.
...
Another byproduct of the six paths is that we have less diversity of thought. Academics kind of think a certain way. So do lawyers. And bankers. And consultants. And doctors. Having most of our top students being trained in the same handful of ways might be good in some ways—we might break fewer things. But it might make us less likely to build new things too.
Where our talent is going shapes our economy and society.

Imagine a new path—one that led graduates to work with entrepreneurs in small growth companies in Detroit, New Orleans, Providence, Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Philadelphia and other cities around the country. They’d help those companies expand and thrive, creating more jobs and opportunities. They’d certainly think differently as a result of their experience. And perhaps they’d be in position to start or lead a company themselves in the coming years.

We don’t need six paths. We need 600 or 6,000. The sooner we open things up for our young people to determine their own paths, the better off we’ll be.

It doesn't actually. I can't believe you'd crown yourself a champion of diversity of thought in academics. How many Romney voters are showing up to the next faculty meeting?

eta: I agree with the author that the current system fails top end students. I said that already, but whatever. My point is from a business perspective: it's a regrettable talent concentration but it is at least a fiscally defensible decision. The people on the top end who are herded into the main tracks are symptoms of the overall system cheating society (Query: but who's going to build all those fancy buildings and pay the pension you will be drawing if they don't?). They may not be professionally fulfilled but the fact that they'll have a standard of living worthy of their investment will provide an easier landing. The people who graduate with the same debt but no marketable skills are being singled out for abuse by the system. They'll pay the highest price of all.

From your quote from my link: how does a 100,000 in debt and no marketable skills "open things up for our young people to determine their own paths[.]"?

I will leave to the judgment of others whether it is moral to ask a child to go into nondischargeable debt to pay for a degree which will not lead to employment while sitting on a billion dollar endowment. If there is one thing you guys on the left have shown the ability to stand stone-faced in face of, it is saddling the next generation with obligations. On this point, I'm curious to see what happens when somebody sues their law school for fluffing the stats on job placement and starting salaries. I don't think it will get very far because adults are adults, but I bet there will be some sweaty palms in high places.
 
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lollerskates that income inequality on a macro level has anything to do with gender studies programs. That is one of the more epic strawmen I have ever seen jhmd erect in order to find a way to beat up on the left (and our resident social sciences professor in particular).

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of-not-going-to-college/

SDT-higher-education-02-11-2014-0-03.png


Getting a degree, even one in art or gender studies or something not directly related to making piles of money at Goldman Sachs, is the admission ticket to even having a realistic shot at the middle class in today's America. Without one you have no shot, wet dreams of entrepreneurship notwithstanding - and 70% of Americans do not have a degree.
 
That's a big reason for high unemployment. People need two or three low wage jobs to make ends meet which prevents other people from having those jobs.

I'd love to see a jobs per household stat over time.

Edit: talking about the NYT article.
 
JHMD perpetuating the Fox News class warfare myth between the poor and the middle class. Pretending that America's vast income inequality is related to engineering vs literature degrees is disengenious or outright stupid. The difference between 35K a year and 75K a year is miniscule on the American wage scale. The real problem with our economic inequality is the vast expanding poverty vs the wealth being hoarded by the top 5%.
 
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I want to clarify that I agree with jhmd that many people make poor financial decisions regarding ROI of certain college degrees. Not that this is a cause of the income inequality in the US.
 
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