College and Career Don't Aways Mix

Mrs Schlafly's "College Not Necessary for Many New Careers" gets to the point:

U.S. News & World Report, which has made a name for itself by ranking and announcing the Best Colleges every year, is now ranking and listing the Best Careers for young people. A comparison of the latest lists shows a shocking disconnect and makes for dispiriting holiday reading.

While the price of a college education has skyrocketed far faster than inflation, many careers for which colleges prepare their graduates are disappearing. U.S. News' Best Careers guide concludes that "college grads might want to consider blue-collar careers" because B.A. diploma holders "are having trouble finding jobs that require college-graduate skills."

Here are the bluecollar jobs:

biomedical equipment technician, firefighter, hairstylist/cosmetologist, and locksmith/security system technician. Other skilled blue-collar careers that scored well on our selection criteria: machinist (manufacturers report a shortage), nuclear plant technician (few people are entering the field, yet plans are on the books for building more plants), and electrician/electronics tech (above-average pay, and it's easier on the body than many other blue-collar careers).

So many of them only require do-it-yourself skills with very little start up money. How nice (compared to $40K to $120K+ required to get college degrees).

Copyright 2008, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Entrepreneurs without Degrees

"15 Successful Entrepreneurs Who Didn’t Need College" has a nice list of well known names who didn't get their degrees, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell as well as those like Mary Kay Ash and Henry Ford.

So, what kind of children are you raising?

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

College degree deprecated

"Bosses rely on psychological tests over degrees to find the best staff" (hat tip voxday).

So companies don't see that college degrees are good enough to work for them. How, umm, quaint. We'll go back to personal references and portfolio of previous works, something normal for freelancers today (like photographers or design artists) and maybe even some proof of pedigree after working/interning under some master craftsman (tradesman, etc.). Like how things are done with martial arts, I guess.

And if one has to go through so much effort to be self sufficient, why bother working for a mega-corp?

Personally, health care insurance is one reason why I'm willing to be a corporate slave. I think that current health care cannot sustain itself as it is now and things will change to benefit individuals rather than corps. [No, I don't think nationalized health care would help as Moore et al proposes: de-regulating everything from medical license to pharmaceuticals would lower costs and insurance will become real insurance the way it is with say life insurance.] How soon things will change is hard to say, just as it is hard to predict when the current bubble stock market will crash (I'm in the red with my shares of SH thanks to record highs for at least the Dow index).

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Student Loan still touted as a good thing?

"Most Latino students spurn college loans: Educators fear that a tendency to work their way through school can hurt them academically." And what's wrong with not becoming enslaved to the loan provider (Sallie Mae, in this case)?

People give stats on how people with degrees make more money but that's only for those who are working regular jobs. You can't tell real income when people run their own business especially since their net worth is more important than any measure of annual income [i.e., they pour their positive cash flow back into the business rather than withdrawing for personal use].

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.