> I feel like if you think of extended study purely for financial gain you might be doing education wrong.
Thing is, employers don't leave another choice. It's either jobs on the level of flipping burgers, the trades, or it's going to college because even mediocre paper-pusher jobs require a college degree these days.
The reasons for that are pretty simple:
- college degrees save employers money on training cost, as the students have to shoulder it (you know, it used to be a red flag for scam jobs if you were required to pay for the privilege of getting the job - but with college, it's accepted that we saddle 18 year olds with five figures of debt)
- they are a versatile proxy... they weed out people from entire classes of society (the poor, the disabled, people of color, people with mental or physical health issues - all of that has close correlations with lower chances of academic degrees) completely legally
- they reduce risk of hiring a "dud" - if you can't get out of bed reliably in the morning and stick to deadlines you won't get an academic degree, so requiring degrees weeds out this as well with no financial risk to the employers.
There is only one way out: legally mandating that requiring a college degree for a job is only allowed if there is a material need for the knowledge acquired during a matching academic degree.
Oh indeed they are. The problem is, not many young people wish to enter the trades - here in Germany, the homeland of the "Duale Ausbildung", the biggest issue is boomers with toxic attitudes and wages one can't survive on. You gotta be able to afford a trades education these days.
Thing is, employers don't leave another choice. It's either jobs on the level of flipping burgers, the trades, or it's going to college because even mediocre paper-pusher jobs require a college degree these days.
The reasons for that are pretty simple:
- college degrees save employers money on training cost, as the students have to shoulder it (you know, it used to be a red flag for scam jobs if you were required to pay for the privilege of getting the job - but with college, it's accepted that we saddle 18 year olds with five figures of debt)
- they are a versatile proxy... they weed out people from entire classes of society (the poor, the disabled, people of color, people with mental or physical health issues - all of that has close correlations with lower chances of academic degrees) completely legally
- they reduce risk of hiring a "dud" - if you can't get out of bed reliably in the morning and stick to deadlines you won't get an academic degree, so requiring degrees weeds out this as well with no financial risk to the employers.
There is only one way out: legally mandating that requiring a college degree for a job is only allowed if there is a material need for the knowledge acquired during a matching academic degree.