Why we have so many frustrated College Graduates
The issue is broad. When we found that people with college degrees made more money, we drew the wrong conclusion: if everyone has a college degree, then everyone will make more money. It's more subtle.
In a workplace of 2,000 people, only perhaps ten of them will hold positions that require a college degree. The other 1,990 people will do perfectly well with a decent high school diploma and some technical or tradesman training. The ten holding positions needing a college degree will make a bit more than the others as they bear greater responsibility. In an enormous manufacturing plant employing 5,000 people the plant manager, the director of finance, the head of robotics requirements, and perhaps two to ten others will benefit from a formal four- or six-year program. The most highly skilled precision robotics repair technicians do not need anything more than a good apprenticeship program.
Apprenticeships
My wife's brother is relatively wealthy - certainly financially better off than I, who worked for forty years in an environment where most of my coworkers had MBA degrees or the Industrial Engineering equivalent. He was an elevator repairman for forty years, a profession that in the U.S. is only available through apprenticeship run by unions. Nearly all new entrants to the program are legacy, which results in an unchanging demographic. The positions are lucrative because they cross all the trades plus computer technology and controls.
Create More College Grad Jobs
If we want people to make more money, we need to create more jobs with greater responsibilities, making a college degree a reasonable qualification. The statist/regulatory approach is to mandate college degrees for all positions, which is the typical mandated equal results, or “equity,” model. Thus, there are too few jobs for the number of college graduates we create.
Don’t Follow Your Passion
The other problem is that we encourage young people to “follow your passion.” It’s atrocious advice. Every year there are thousands of new high school graduates who declare themselves bound for marine biology because it is their great passion. Reality is that in the United States only about a hundred positions are available for glamorous work with possibly sentient species or exploring the ocean depths in search of new flora and fauna. Most of the exciting work is done by a handful of PhDs, and the rest are relegated to preparing petri dishes or slides for actual researchers.
These people can find real work as actuaries because the supply and demand are roughly balanced. Pursue a degree as an actuary and get a job on graduation in your field. The degree is less expensive than most marine biology degrees. What you study as an undergraduate may have little influence on your career. In 1970 I graduated with a degree in music and Spanish, plus certification as a schoolteacher. My first job was created for me when I won the draft lottery. I went immediately into the service and discovered I had a knack for intelligence work. That took me around the country and the world.
Switch Careers
It also prepared me well for post-retirement issue-based management consulting. I pursued a good many careers in consulting and executive management, wound up running a billion-dollar sector of a Fortune 500 company. I retired again and started my own consultancy, focusing on small- to medium- sized firms. After nearly 20 years I retired one more time and began two simultaneous careers as a mentor and author. I was able to help entrepreneurs create their own jobs by starting their own companies. It was the most rewarding work of my life. As an author, I enjoy writing, but there’s little commercial success.
The music and Spanish? I composed and arranged music for years and led church choirs on and off for decades; the Spanish enabled me to visit many countries and provided a chance to consult to clients in Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, Chicago (a fluke), Portugal and Brazil. Yes, the latter two countries use Portuguese, but the secret is that it’s a dialect of Spanish (with a bad French accent). The Romance languages came easily, so I learned French, Italian and basic Romanian. I also picked up German and used that as a springboard for Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Icelandic is a dialect of Danish. Nederlands proved too difficult, perhaps because it is a transition from German to English. Arabic, Pohnpeian, Urdu and Hindi just sort of came. Today I am lucky to communicate successfully in English..
I'm all online now, but the one time I tried to go the traditional college route was a huge mistake for me.
Me too!