[Puffer Fish]

Within a year of graduating, about 52% of people who recently earned bachelor's degrees in the US are working jobs that don't require a college education, according to a new joint report by two research firms.

The vast majority of underemployed graduates -- 88% of them -- are working high school-level jobs such as office support, food service, and retail within five years of graduation, per the report by the data research firms Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation.

The report was based on a dataset of 60 million people's careers in the US, including those of 10.8 million people with a bachelor's degree.

Its findings present a bleak outlook for new graduates hoping that a degree will guarantee them significantly better opportunities.​

About half of America's new college graduates are working in high school-level jobs like food service and retail: report , Matthew Loh, Business Insider, February 22, 2024
https://www.businessinsider.com/half-ne ... obs-2024-2

[Godstud]

Going to college is no longer a guarantee of employment and that has a lot to do with what degrees they are going for. Wiser people would go to trade schools, now.

A degree in social sciences doesn't have the value of a mechanical engineering degree.

[Rancid]

It is sad that we have distilled the value of education to society to whether it can make money or not. It basically makes the purpose of the education system to turn everyone into good little worker bees. Dunno, something doesn't seem healthy about this trend.

Given this fact, it is important to let student's know that while education is good, our society doesn't value it very much unless in a specific area that generates economics output. In other words, who cares if you're dumb. Can you make money?

[Tainari88]

Going to college is no longer a guarantee of employment and that has a lot to do with what degrees they are going for. Wiser people would go to trade schools, now.

A degree in social sciences doesn't have the value of a mechanical engineering degree.

Frankly, that is kind of partially true. The reality is that the old formula of you go to college for a four year degree and voila you hit middle class status is a falsehood. It might not depend that much on what you study either but whether you work for an organization or company that pays a decent wage with benefits or not.

I always got paid in ways that were not very high income because I never was self employed. Being self employed works a lot better. Also, working on the internet and remotely has changed the employment game for a big number of people out there. You can live from anywhere and be self employed and generate an income.

That is something that was not open to me before.


So, that is all relative. I looked at her business textbooks. Could I understand what they were explaining? Absolutely and very easily.

To think that this group of people who study the liberal arts, or English literature or some other thing are just puff people with zero intellectual abilities is a big mistake. I always did well in geology too. It is hard. You have to deal with linguistics, and also genetics in my major. None are easy. But people think it is all easy.

Nothing is easy if you dive deep into a subject. Business is about a formula to make money. It is not a very hard thing to read and then apply the concepts to.

Most new college graduates graduate with deep debt and some bullshit idea of becoming rich quickly. My son graduated in science and he opened his own little business. It works for his goals in life. He likes it. He called me the other day and wants to supplement some other classes that will help him understand small business models. I told him go to this college in Denver. They are inexpensive and you can expand your knowledge. You can also do a couple of other options.

This idea that you are going to be making money right off the bat from college is often a lie.

I say, learn to be frugal with your earnings, manage your time well, and invest in education and your future in terms of being able to get money from it. But for me, education is about critical thinking and being an independent thinker and problem solver. A creative person who values education for the strength it gives your ability to be flexible and have more mental and emotional freedom in life? Is the most important aspect of education.

People without an education wind up in prison in the economic sense, and the mental sense, and even in the physical sense it is often the case, that a lot of prisoners are functionally illiterate people and people with low levels of reading and writing and mathematic and scientific ability. They are severely limited in the options they can pursue in life and in their careers. Knowledge is power.

You can be a conman like Trump. He is not an intellectual or a person who has any real academic intelligence. He is a classic business degree person with a lot of cunning. Nothing there in terms of real knowledge. He wants to be taken as a serious businessman who pays his bills and does not need to cheat to get bank loans. He has to deceive or he can't live with himself.