Why are US College Graduates Doing so Poorly?

From the perspective of a professor~

The issue isn't really that US college graduates are doing really poorly, because a very significant portion of undergraduate students aren't actually students. To elaborate in simple terms, in the past, colleges were essentially institutions that individuals who actually wanted to learn more about a subject would go to learn about that subject.

Presently however, in most of the large state-institutions as well as many of the private institutions, the majority of college students are irresponsible males and useless party-girl females who are using college as a 4-year-vacation paid for by their parents.

Higher-ups in the college administration are aware of this, as are most professors. The administration typically sees these individuals as sources of additional income and nothing more. The professors (and trust me on this one) see them as an annoyance. They enroll in our classes, don't come to lectures, don't turn in their work, forget the days of exams, and them complain to us about it later when they find out they're failing.

In most cases, the consequence of this is that the failing individuals go into "joke majors" that are completely inapplicable to employment of any kind but will allow them to continue partying and vacationing at their parents' expense without the threat of expulsion. For instance, the university at which I am a faculty member has a tuition of about $45000+room and board, and we have a number of people who are majoring in topics like "Art History" or "Theatre", or "Musicology", etc.

When these individuals finally graduate, they typically end up as part of the "unemployed or underemployed college graduates statistic". In reality however, they're simply high-school graduates who spent their parents' money to take a vacation.

I couldn't agree more.

In most fields, going to college doesn't make you instantly more marketable or anything like that. Exceptions are typically fields in the sciences, engineering, computers, etc. that require very specific knowledge in order to succeed. This is also why individuals who graduate with degrees in these fields are usually employed at a higher rate.

The reason many undergraduates do so poorly after graduating is that:

1) They get degrees that are virtually useless for any sort of employment.

2) Many college graduates are idiots. Not all universities or colleges have high standards. Some colleges will take anyone with a pulse. When those people graduate, they're still idiots; the difference is, they're now a few tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

There are more people going to college. It used to be that only the best and the brightest went on to college and they got top jobs. The best and the brightest still do go to college and they still get top jobs. But now a lot of dipshits go to crummy schools and major in crummy things and, not shockingly, a lower PERCENTAGE of college majors do really well for themselves. But the top is as strong or stronger than ever.

Well, other posters have described different phenomena related to what you are discussing, OP, and which are useful for explaining different things. I'll focus on some thoughts I have related to the job market and our educational institution, insofar as it concerns that segment of the student population who have, for the most part, devoted a lot of time and effort to their studies towards an eventual professional track.

I think, regardless of the wider economic cycle, there is something unsustainable about our educational system. While in the past 5 years there has been more progress made for interdisciplinary work and endeavours, I still think we have a lot to improve upon. Certainly, in my time (and one can imagine it was far worse for previous generations), at least at my school, any pretension to interdisciplinary endeavour was empty lipservice. It was frustrating.

I think our educational system does not encourage creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship enough. I suspect there are more and more people who are still involved in Academia, those who have spent time in Academia, and those who have led lives mostly outside Academia, who would agree.

I think, both undergraduate and graduate programs are dangerously becoming "worker" mills, mindlessly supplying homogenous professionals for a certain discipline, almost like a factory, in a process that doesn't seem to take into account realities of the market. Parents--like parents of my friends and even my own friends--kind of mindlessly push their kids to achieve status and take the time-worn path that every other middle-class/upper-middle class college kid is treading down. At some point, there is going to be over-saturation in particular job markets, if there hasn't been already, and graduates are going to encounter a lot of dissatisfaction, immediately or down the line in their work lives, for a number of reasons, unless they can differentiate themselves and carve unique niches and roles for themselves, or--best yet, invent unique jobs for themselves entirely.

This is, of course, not true for all disciplines and occupations. If you check out the Government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, you can get some idea of emerging trends and opportunities, where one could abandon all creativity and enterprising and just do things by the numbers--get the degree and basic expertise--and not only find a job right away but have a lot of financial and career upside.

Anyway, I think creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship need to receive more attention, emphasis and focus by our institutions of higher learning. These things are important cornerstones of American progress, including technological progress; they have helped bring us to where we are today--and they will help us ensure the continuation of the American dream and American prosperity.

I certainly agree with the well-worded post above.

I would add to it that policy decision to "expand accessibility" has exacerbated this problem on two levels.

First, less-motivated and less-qualified students "go through the motions" as previously mentioned. This alone, wouldn't be an issue per say (generally, you get a bunch of people that were going to be ditch-diggers anyways). My second point is where this behaviour/decision becomes troublesome: increased demand for a degree has single handedly driven up the price of secondary education which becomes an issue when you graduate and go into ditch-digging like you always planned. Fundamental to this liberal policy decisions.

STN wrote:

From the perspective of a professor~

For instance, the university at which I am a faculty member has a tuition of about $45000+room and board,

Anyone dumb enough to go to a 45k tuition University deserves to fail. What a waste of money.

Fluffy wrote:

STN wrote:

From the perspective of a professor~

For instance, the university at which I am a faculty member has a tuition of about $45000+room and board,

Anyone dumb enough to go to a 45k tuition University deserves to fail. What a waste of money.

You mean like MIT or Columbia. Yeah...no one should go there. Waste of money. Retard.

another contribution wrote:

Fluffy wrote:

Anyone dumb enough to go to a 45k tuition University deserves to fail. What a waste of money.

You mean like MIT or Columbia. Yeah...no one should go there. Waste of money. Retard.

MIT's tuition is 42k and Columbia is a waste of money, especially for undergrad. You can get the same education at plenty of cheaper schools.

You obviously wasted your money at a 45k school lol

Most college grads have few or zero marketable skills, so getting the first job is tricky because they have to convince employers that their last 4 years of solving particle-in-a-box equations and working at an on-campus frozen yogurt stand is evidence that they're smart and thus trainable for the types of positions that require specific skills.

This was easier to do in the old days because the economy was better, there were less college grads and there weren't so many laws that make hiring difficult. In this slow economy and this day of so many government regulations, businesses are trying to operate on as few employees as possible, hiring only the best.

That's why you see "Entry-Level" positions having "5+ yrs professional experience" as a basic requirement. The college grads who are able to get jobs like that are the superstars who got into the most competitive STEM majors, graduated with a 3.9 GPA, worked at 2 different internships, and were supremely motivated to deck out their resume and get a job straight out of the college.

The rest just aren't cut out for a good first job these days. They have to settle for a McJob and bank their future on the false hope that their college degree will help them move up the ranks into a decent position some time in the future. Or they just go to graduate school to delay life and try to compensate for all their weaknesses coming out of undergrad school.

We're at least doing better than Spain, where youth unemployment is 25%.

Fluffy wrote:

Anyone dumb enough to go to a 45k tuition University deserves to fail. What a waste of money.

another contribution wrote:

You mean like MIT or Columbia. Yeah...no one should go there. Waste of money. Retard.

Actually, in my opinion, both of your posts most definitely have some merit. I do agree that attending a high quality university should be a priority to a certain degree (moreso for graduate school than undergraduate school). However, there's no denying that the tuition is far too high. I've worked at my current institution for nearly 17 years now, and in that time, I watched the tuition literally skyrocket.

In 2000, the tuition was only $25,000, and even at that time, it was considered high. In only 13 years, it has increased by $20,000, which is outrageous. In the announcement given to the public, the university stated that the increase in tuition was made in order to accommodate a greater need for students' financial needs. I was very surprised by that announcement, because anyone with half a brain can see that it doesn't make sense.

From what I'm aware, the extra funds are likely being channeled towards unnecessary construction projects and who knows what else.

another contribution wrote:

There are more people going to college. It used to be that only the best and the brightest went on to college and they got top jobs. The best and the brightest still do go to college and they still get top jobs. But now a lot of dipshits go to crummy schools and major in crummy things and, not shockingly, a lower PERCENTAGE of college majors do really well for themselves. But the top is as strong or stronger than ever.

I would agree that this phenomenon exists. The State School I attended, for instance, has, in some ways, lowered their standards. There are a lot of dumb kids in schools nowadays. Paradoxically, though, competition has definitely increased for college admissions. It is far harder now, since the early 2000s, to get into Ivy League schools, or even decent State schools, for that matter, than it was, say from 1930-1960. And even the same State School which I mentioned (the one I attended but which I will not name), while in some ways lowered its standards (made it easier to transfer in via community or junior colleges), made its standards more strict (higher required GPA, more kids turned down, etc.). Yet it seems there are more dumb kids now than when I first enrolled there (and many years have passed). Since my definition of dumb is more broad than simply being limited to the most egregrious and flagrant, unacademic alpha male fratboys, I have also found that the ranks of dumb people include individuals who had good High School GPAs. More stringent admission standards does not necessarily result in ultimately smarter student populations--at least, in the case of state schools. It's hard to argue that at Ivy Leagues like Harvard, where you have people with perfect GPAs, astounding test scores, extracurriculars, and unique achievements and personalities, getting rejected in droves.

So the reality is a little more complicated than what some people would want to reduce it to. It depends on the school and the context.

It's also a shame that some of these people you mentioned fill the so called "joke" majors that fall into the realm of the Arts, Social Sciences, Humanities, etc. because this phenomenon unfortunately bolsters the prejudice of Scientists against the Arts and the Social Sciences--prejudices which are uncalled for. In our society, we need capable people in the disciplines outside the hard sciences (Chemistry, Math, Engineering, Biology, Physics, etc.). While the nature of these other disciplines is fundamentally different, in some respects, they are not totally devoid of rigor, validity, and much less serious importance to our society. The motto of the University of Pennsylvania is (latin translation I think) "Knowledge without morals is useless." We need disciplines which explore human behavior, morality, meaning in human life and society, aspects of communication, artistic representation, etc. Society is not complete without both that and the hard sciences together in tandem.

If you have a humanities or art degree from a top school you're going to be just fine. The problem is that when people go to crappy schools to study these things, they end up screwed because they don't really end up getting (and probably never had the ability to get) the critical thinking skills they need to apply a humanities degree to real-world success. At least an engineering grad from a crummy school can get a job doing low-level drafting or something since they at least have some basic technical or software skills.

Thanks for the input so far guys. It clears quite a bit up, even if a lot of it seems pretty depressing.

This brings a couple more questions to my head.

If people know that they lack marketability after undergrad, then why would they continue into graduate school in the same field? I mean, if the discipline is not marketable as a whole, then wouldn't going even deeper into the discipline just be a waste of money?

The illusion that most schools are getting more selective is simply just that. The average applications per student has gone way up over time. Remember that how discriminating a university is counts toward its US News ranking and gets held up as proof of it's elite stature and quality. However, it's just that if you double the number of applications among the same number of kids, you can reject a lot more without anything changing in terms of who goes where.

STN - a lot of high schoolers come into college like that. In American hs's you don't specialize, the school all but tells you what courses to take. This leads to students not developing an academic interest until college. But most students come into college as interested in the social aspects as their classes. However, most students find an interest in a subject or two within a couple years. There are many theatre and art history majors who are very serious about it. They know everything about major trends in theatre, its history, how it works in a contemporary setting. The problem is not that these students were not serious but that our society does not have enough positions for aspiring thespians and playwrights. Most Americans outside of NY and other big cities rarely, if ever, even go to see a play. You as a professor should be pushing these students to double major. Spend some time in class talking about the types of positions that are most available. Maybe even have your college require these students double major. In short, the problem of underemployment in the US is as much a factor of faculty and administration that lets students do anything as much as of students who don't want to do anything.

moron wrote:

The illusion that most schools are getting more selective is simply just that. The average applications per student has gone way up over time. Remember that how discriminating a university is counts toward its US News ranking and gets held up as proof of it's elite stature and quality. However, it's just that if you double the number of applications among the same number of kids, you can reject a lot more without anything changing in terms of who goes where.

I agree that a lot of that is explained by the increase in the size of the applicant pool, but undoubedtly, admission standards have changed (become more rigorous, in terms of required (formally or informally) minimum GPA, test scores and other parameters). I have observed these standards explicitly change even in the short time of my young adult life (early 2000s to the present) at both State schools, an Ivy League school or so, some prestigious small colleges, etc. I didn't keep records on my computer, though (my work and interests do not pertain to such matters, so I didn't think to document it)--but I'm not lying here.

Don't get me wrong when I said certain topics in the arts and humanities were "joke majors".

The way I specify it as such is within the contexts of my own institution, because I am aware of the degree requirements. When I call it a "joke major", I mean specifically that the number of courses and the intensity of courses required for a degree is low enough that it tends to attract all the individuals who simply want to use it as their major so they can do the least work possible while their parents continue to pay tends of thousands of dollars each year for their enrollment.

Notably, I am not against an individual going into a topic like "art history" if it is what they are genuinely interested in. However, I strongly believe that if an individual chooses such a course, that they consider doing it as a second major or a minor while also obtaining a degree in something more applicable. If not for their own sake, then at least for the sake of their parents who are financing it.

In my opinion, a student who double-majors to obtain a degree in a field like business or engineering coupled with a degree in the arts is commendable. A student who has his/her parents pay $45,000 each year to major in JUST the arts or humanities however, is taking an enormous risk.