Arne Duncan often says that our education system must compete with other those of other nations, and President Obama says that we must raise our college graduation rate to first in the world by 2020. But this reader (Reteach for America) disagrees. He or she might have added this recent article about unemployment among college graduates in Europe.
It’s not a matter of educating Arne. It’s been all over the mainstream media for years now that there is a glut of people with college degrees and a lack of decent paying jobs for them, including in:
The US: “millions of college graduates over all—not just recent ones—suffer a mismatch between education and employment, holding jobs that don’t require a costly college degree.”
http://chronicle.com/article/Millions-of-Graduates-Hold/136879/
China: “China’s Graduates Face Glut Mismatch Between Their Skills, Job Market’s Needs Results in Underemployment”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443545504577566752847208984
South Korea: “Education in South Korea Glutted with graduates”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/11/education-south-korea
and “India Graduates Millions, but Too Few Are Fit to Hire”http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703515504576142092863219826
(Heads Up Arne: Singapore is a city-state, not a country.)
People like me have sent a lot of links to those reports to Duncan and Obama, so that they cannot claim they didn’t know. It’s just planned ignoring.
Our country needs to stop talking about a bogus competition with other nations and cease the “college for all” mantra and focus on providing decent paying jobs for our own workers, including all the underemployed college graduates right here at home.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This subject ties well to an article in the Washington Post today: “Recasting High School: German firms transplant apprentice model to the U.S. Well duh!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/recasting-high-school-german-firms-transplant-apprentice-model-to-us/2013/11/27/6b242be8-4e42-11e3-ac54-aa84301ced81_story_1.html
Yes, we need to bring back vocational education with apprenticeships in high school, but that should include trades, like auto mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, etc., not just STEM fields.
Obama/Duncan are promoting programs like P-Tech, which tack onto high school two years of college level STEM training. The funding issue must be addressed though, since we do not have free colleges and most businesses that have partnered in such programs have not offered to pay for the college education of students.
Also, the need for workers in STEM fields has been overestimated. “The data indicate that there are far more STEM-qualified workers than there are STEM jobs” http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2013/09/09/are-we-misinterpreting-the-stem-crisis
My personal view is that it’s not up to our high schools to provide job training; they are in the business of education. It’s up to employers to provide job training (or STEM apprenticeships) if they want someone trained to do the work they need done. And if a company wants to provide that before they waste any student’s time and money on college education that won’t be useful to the career they want to pursue, then more power to them.
The apprenticeship should go beyond the basic public school education (not job training) that should be provided to every child in the U.S..
Good points. We have a similar issue in colleges. Some majors provide preparation for careers in specific fields while others do not. To ensure that everyone receives a well-rounded education, colleges require that all students meet the same general education requirements.
Obama/Duncan want colleges to be rated, at least in part, based on the incomes of their graduates. That discounts the fact that the focus of college is education not job training. Such a move is sure to put excessive pressure on colleges that have a lot of graduates with degrees in the humanities and social sciences, which don’t automatically translate into jobs, let alone jobs that pay well, because the rating system is to be tied to federal financial aid.
“Do we really want to say that an elementary school teacher has had a less successful college education than a hedge fund manager?”
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/23/faculty-advocates-react-obamas-plan-higher-ed#ixzz2lxQAnCc6
I consult for private schools. (Yes, I am against vouchers!!!) One of the interesting things about privates is they have mostly bought in the fact “We need to be college prep.” I often ask my clients, “Do you want a future donor that started working at 19 making $50,000.00 or one that started working at 24 making $25,000?” They all state they want the 19 year old. I then state “Invest in good vocational programs, such as welding, mechanics, industrial tech, etc. Only one, which had some vocational programs, have taken the bite.
JED,
You need to become a better saleman/woman then!-ha ha!
I’ve got some good ol Show Me State sales advice, but it costs and most haven’t chosen to utilize my services!!
The university boards of trustees i.e. people who tell the chancellos how to run the universities, are full of corporate ceo’s. They run the universities to maximize enrollments. Not all of the students admitted have the skill sets to earn a degree, but the universities are happy tp take their money. Many of these students will die with student loan debt.
My university is certainly not doing that. The majority of students graduate with no debt and the university has been trying to increase admission standards for a very long time.
Chris:
Do you have any empirical evidence whatsoever to support this contention?
Do you dispute this post of Diane’s about not enough jobs? Have you read the lists of peopleserving on the boards of trustees of universities? Do you dispute all of the Federal concern about student debt and graduation rates at universities? The media get a lot of issues wrong. Are these examples of the media getting things wrong?
Chris:
You are mixing apples and oranges. Yes, in aggregate there is a student debt problem. Yes, the completion rates at public, non-profit and for profit colleges are of concern. Yes, Corporate CEO types are on the Boards of Trustees/Governors. Yes, students are enrolled who are unlikely to finish. Yes, students assume more debt than is sensible.
Interestingly, completion rates for 2 year for-profit colleges are higher than public 2 year colleges in many states. Check the data:
http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/college-stats/
Your contention was “The university boards of trustees i.e. people who tell the chancellos how to run the universities, are full of corporate ceo’s. They run the universities to maximize enrollments.” Your assertions seem to be factually inaccurate and a complete stretch – to the point of being bizarre. What is your evidence? What is the mix of CEOs and others on Boards of Trustees? What are the roles of trustees? What is the motivation of board members? Who has more motivation for increasing enrollments?
Lately, I have spent much time in nursing homes, assisted living and hospitals caring for loved ones. These facilities in our city are overwhelmingly staffed by physicians, nurses and healthcare workers from India, Pakistan, Jamaica, Haiti, Liberia and many other countries. The Comcast Cable guys are mostly from Jamaica in our city.
I am not writing this to bash immigrants. What I am questioning, are there no American workers and college graduates who could be employed in those positions before foreign workers are brought in to do those jobs? Years ago, companies had to prove that they could not find a qualified US worker for a specific position, and then were allowed to hire a legal alien to do so. I may be dating myself. I also thought we had an unemployment problem. US students are remaining longer in school while employees from 3rd world countries work in the US health fields by the thousands…mill?
Every time I hear Duncan and Obama talk about more college grads and more employment for high school grads, I look around at the invisibility of the American workers in my city.
Mitch McConnell married Elaine Chao in 1993. She became the Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush. The Department of Labor under her tenure allowed many fraudulent LCA’s (Labor Condition Applications) to slip through, which in turn allowed many more foreign workers to be brought here to work for corporations at a reduced rate, while many American workers were fired. Once in the country they can apply for extensions on their work visas and can take their visas with them to other jobs. Below is a little history about why Americans can’t find jobs they are perfectly willing to take and very well trained for. Corporations have no loyalty to American citizens.
November 2002
On Friday, November 2, the President George Bush signed H.R. 2215, the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act. Out of 422 House members, 400 of them voted in favor of the Bush proposal, including 206 Republicans and 193 Democrats.
This bill includes a provision that allows H-1B visa holders to extend their stay beyond the statutory six-year period if a labor certification has been pending for at least 365 days. This “7th Year Extension” allows H-1B visa holders to continue to get extensions until he/she gets a Green Card. They can request extensions on a yearly basis for as long as it takes to get a green card. [25]
Effectively this legislation solidified the dual-intent nature of H-1B by turning it into a de-facto permanent visa.
Another provision in the bill, the Conrad State 20 Program, was expanded from allowing 20 doctors per state to do their residency in the U.S. to 30.
April 2008
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed off on the new regulation
to extend the Optional Practical Training period from 12 months to 29 months. OPT authorizes foreign students to work in internships before and after graduation. This action amounted to a de-facto expansion of the H-1B visa program because it allows foreign students to work in the U.S. for more than twice as many months until they get an H-1B visa. In air traffic terminology, the foreign students will be put into a holding pattern until they get an H-1B visa.
Chertoff’s bureaucratic decree to change immigration policy without a vote in Congress, and without public debate.
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/H1BHistory.htm
“Our country needs to stop talking about a bogus competition with other nations and cease the “college for all” mantra and focus on providing decent paying jobs for our own workers, including all the underemployed college graduates right here at home.”
My father-inlaw was a “Big Wig/Chief” 60’s-late 70’s at NASA. We had many exchanges about NASA. One thing, he explained, rings true today, as back then…
Underemployed college graduates.
By and large, NASA was a jobs program set up to absorb the “Glut” of college grads
produced, in part, by Draft Deferments. The GI bill added even more college grads to
the mix. Enter supply and demand, where supply exceeds demand, adjustments follow.
Attempts were made to slow the supply of college grads through HIGHER TUITION,
(Blessed by the State) while keeping the “Dream” alive. Catch 22…
My point is, the State can only do so much. Waiting for the “State” to come to our
“Rescue” ( focus on providing decent paying jobs for our own workers, including all the underemployed college graduates right here at home.)
is a fools game.
The “State” policies (on behalf of Mr./Mrs. Corporation) enabled the exodus of both
jobs and a good portion of the tax base. World Economy is the mantra used by the
“Neoliberal” BS artists.
Domestic Consumer Demand, VALIDATED the “State” policies. The premise:
The US economy belongs to the World, and NOT the funders of the infrastructure,
works on the sheep willing to believe what they are told.
The tax payers have footed the bill for the infrastructure used by business to “Ply”
their trade.
Business overhead is always folded into the product/service price. DUH…
Foreign Products/Employment/Businesses are ONLY successful when sufficient
demand exists. Domestic demand determines WHERE the jobs/tax base exist.
We have the Economy that OUR consumer DEMAND has supported. DUH.
If you will consider the distribution of assets IS a fundamental part of the social
structure, and WHERE you place your assets (Demand) matters, you might see
what is at play…We could become the Economy we have been waiting for.
Then again, we could just use “Labels” (Protectionist, Anti-business, Socialism,
TINA, Short Sighted, take your pick) as sugar for the bitter fruit on the table.
Education has been repeatedly labeled as “the path out of poverty.” Millions of under-employed and unemployed college graduates can attest to the fact that this has not been true for them. The “college for all” and higher ed “reform” issues before us now suggest that the “state” has a plan for there to be a highly educated, low paid work force. That might be good for business, but it is no answer for the masses.
We should have learned by now that If we do not stand up for ourselves and speak out, the “state” won’t be supporting policies that are in the best interests of commoners, but it WILL implement policies which benefit only the oligarchy.
And you will need to pay your own way to be highly skilled for these low paying jobs is the perverse part of it – it offloads training costs on to the worker, for the business to then turn around and absorb a larger profit.
It’s perverse.
M:
I do not understand what you wrote? Can you give some examples of the types of jobs you have in mind?
Bernie-
Read the book Intern Nation. Basically many universities are requiring internships for graduation or businesses for entry level hiring. Most of these pay nothing, yet the intern has to spend months, sometimes years in these positions for little and often no pay in the hopes that he/she will get hired or at least gain experience for another job. Many provide zero job training – the intern is a glorified servant.
Employers dodge these requirements, actually hiring lawyers to write job descriptions that would exclude all American applicants. After this is done, they then get H-1 B Visas to bring in foreign non immigrant workers. They save money because normal labor laws and salary strictures do not apply in these cases. Think of it as imported outsourcing. Yes, there are qualified Americans, but not enough who are willing to work for slave wages. The real goal of the rheeformers is to drive down the cost of skilled and educated labor so as to maximize profits. They want us all to be interchangeable cogs in their machine.
Exactly. Well said.
Old Teacher:
Nonsense. What evidence do you have to support this notion. Have you been involved in hiring anybody from outside of the country? I hired software programmers from Nepal and we had to pay them the going wage for programmers in the Boston market.
Gee, it is funny that I cannot talk about education without acknowledging that I am not a teacher just the husband of a teacher who has educate three children, but others seem free to talk about stuff they have absolutely no experience.
Good luck with getting this administration or any future administration to look at data or understand the data they are viewing. After all, they had to find a Physics Professor at the smallest private college in Vermont to write the Common Core Math standards and he was chosen because he had some unique professional training or expertise in the area of writing math standards for the public schools of the ENTIRE NATION! I wonder if he has ever been in a public school?
Going to college is an individual decision: For some it is a consumption good, for others it is an investment good. The public policy issue comes into play because we subsidize the decision: We fund public colleges and loan money to students. So the issue is not how many folks go to college, but how much money taxpayers should spend on subsidizing college education.
More generally, the issue is not whether folks go to college, but how they think about making a living once they leave college and how many want to start their own businesses as opposed to wait around and expect somebody to give them a job. When I came to the US 40 years ago from the UK, one of the things that struck me was the desire and willingness of people to work for themselves. I play on a soccer team today and a good 75% of the guys, who are still playing a kids’ game in their 60s, run their own businesses. The businesses range from engineered materials to pizza restaurants, from blasting to medicine, from cabinet making to cranes, from software to landscaping, from coffee roasting to consulting. They have created jobs for themselves and others.
If someone chooses to go to college, then it is up to them to make sure they can make a living when they leave. IMHO, nobody owes them a job.
Many people would prefer to be self-employed but, despite all the “self-made” claims made by many entrepreneurs, the reality is that it takes money to make money and beginning a business requires start-up funds. Not everyone has access to “angels.”
“No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.” Althea Gibson
CT:
Nonsense, there is no set rule. Some capital intensive businesses do need money, but many need sweat equity. Most of all they need people who are willing to work really hard and to make things happen. As to the notion that somebody else helps – yes, but only in the most trivial sense. Such a notion is normally voiced by those who have done little.
Such a voice is usually articulated by those who have been there and done that. Many have tried to go into business for themselves, without help, using what savings they could muster and on a shoe-string budget, worked very hard and could not stay afloat or expand the business because no bank or anyone else would provide assistance. Those who claim otherwise have usually gotten some kind of help but deny it.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody…” Elizabeth Warren
CT:
Have you started a small business that employed say 5 or more people at a time?
I have started two businesses which were successful for 25 years – one is still operating and remains successful. Elizabeth Warren, my esteemed Senator with Native American roots, is talking about something she knows nothing about.
Sure people try to start businesses and fail. It is true some fail because they fail to get financing at a critical stage but they usually fail because the business has clear weaknesses when they go for financing. Most fail because their business plans from day 1 made little sense. But it is their right to try to succeed. I wish them all good luck.
Well bully for you. I’ve started three businesses. I still have one of them and, in 8 years, I have not made a profit. I know a lot of people in the same boat and tried to get them to join forces, but to no avail. And no one would ever help me.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.” Barack Obama
CT:
No profits in 8 years and you think somebody should invest in your business?
After 7 years in business, Twitter never made any profits before it’s IPO. That’s not unusual in ecommerce: http://pando.com/2013/11/06/twitter-isnt-profitable-and-neither-are-these-other-huge-public-companies/
My businesses have been ecommerce. I have had many repeat customers and my businesses were growing until the economy crashed. I combined two of them to save on expenses, but it is not easy for small businesses to recover in this market.
CT:
I admire your persistence. Good luck with your endeavors.
But strangely, your experience supports my original argument that we need more folks like you whether they are college graduates or not.
Thanks, but I am not unique. I know a lot of people like me out there in ecommerceland, with degrees and without, and just about all of us are struggling now. It didn’t help that Google started charging to include our sites in searches when for years that had been free.
Bernie,
“If someone chooses to go to college, then it is up to them to make sure they can make a living when they leave. IMHO, nobody owes them a job”
Thoroughly agree. But then I didn’t start teaching until I was 39 so my perspective is quite a bit different than most teachers who have pretty much only known the “education business” (and I don’t like using that term but for this example it works).
You throw darts too??
Duane:
I can but I would never bet on myself to win a game. However, I do drink beer, preferably cask aged ales: Spitfire, Greene King, Old Peculiar, Black Sheep, Tetley’s, etc. Here I make do with Smithwick’s, Newcastle Seasonals, and Grolsch. No more Bass Ale, since it is brewed by Budweiser and now tastes like Killian Red.
Must be a dart thrower if your a beer drinker also.
I learned to play (and by that I mean the “head” game it takes to play at your best) from an excellent Englishman who had been part of a LaBatt’s Canadian championship team. We had a mix of folks-two Englishmen, a lefty, a Mexican-American, an underage gal, an under aged golf scholarship kid, me and a few other odds and ends eccentrics-on our team in Columbia, MO back in the early 80’s. Twas a great time. Was more than once that we closed down the Cork & Dart Pub and then go to someone’s house to throw till almost dawn.
Duane:
Darts, like many such activities, are highly addictive – especially is you have the least bit of skill.
Bernie,
Been wondering about the 1815. Taking a guess, here, but is it so in the Isles that 1815 is considered a year that the “Colonies” should have come back under the control of the Brits?
Duane:
Among other interests, I am a Napoleonic Wars history buff. Bondarchuk’s Waterloo (1971) has to be the best war movie epic of all time, with Steiger being the quintessential Napoleon and Plummer is great as the so cool, cerebral, womanizing Wellington. Orson Welles has a terrific cameo as Louis XVIII. Alas the available DVDs are missing some important scenes – about 30 minutes have been cut/lost from the original. I saw it in its entirety in 1971.
As to the War of 1812, you mean the War of American Aggression!! ; D
Just like us modern colonialists to believe that a point in time of history would be about “America” in some way, shape or form. Cultural habitus, quite hard to break!
” the War of American Aggression!”
So that’s when our addiction started, eh!!!
Duane:rench.
I don’t blame Americans. When in doubt, it is always best to blame the French – except De Toqueville.
I’ll take this a step further.
If the business of education is to develop human potential then one of the chief goals of our education system ought to be to help each student discover, develop, and apply their unique talents and gifts. This is not new age-y stuff. Instead it’s a means of maximizing the value of ‘human capital’ and paving a path from poverty to prosperity. There are tangible economic benefits to this approach. Who isn’t at their best – their most productive, their most creative – when they are truly engaged?
Sadly, to my knowledge, this sort of initiative is lacking in any consistent way. The critical job of discovering and developing talent is left to chance. Witness the vast numbers of books written on ‘human potential’ and the popularity of personal coaching.
Here in Chicago, I have noticed that a number of public high schools have appended the words ‘College Prep’ to their names as if going to college is the goal of a high school education.
I find this sadly misguided.
“I find this sadly misguided.”
I do too as it demeans and diminishes all work that doesn’t require a college degree.
In reality, the so called jobs that will be needed to save the planet and it’s people might not be invented yet. And surely the obsession with standardization and data will not yield the creative problem solvers and innovators that we will need. What happens then?
That is exactly why I fight the Common Core.
Jennifer:
I could equally argue that without standardization and data, there can be no creative problem solving – see for example,
Such assertions, in either direction, are silly and make no sense.
I find it a tough argument to ask whether we have “too much” college grads. What does that mean? Are some people more entitled than others? I personally like to live in a society that is highly educated and having “more” college grads than necessary is never a bad thing in my opinion.