When will American companies stop valuing a college education?

IIPUI wrote:

killermike wrote:

Are you aware of actual peer reviewed studies that show this? It would be surprising to me. Most colleges have gotten more selective in recent years, not less. So at a minimum, they are admitting a higher caliber of student then they were in past years.

More selective in what way?

Are they seen as more selective because they are taking the same number of incoming students but the number of applications have increased?

There are stories of colleges with a sports team that makes a run in the NCAA tournament or becomes a basketball (or football) sensation in a short time increasing applicants. That often can mean that the scores of incoming students go up as well only because those students would never have applied.

Here is another case: When Georgia got into the lottery game in the early 90s, it used some of that money to pay for GA high schoolers to attend in state schools pretty much for free in terms of tuition and fees. Within a few years kids who would have applied to schools like Vandy or North Carolina were applying to UGA (or other in state schools). Why pay a fortune in out of state tuition when you can go to UGA for so little. Over time the scores and HS GPAs for the freshmen classes were increasing. Was UGA becoming more selective or just still taking the top X thousand? I would argue the latter more than saying we are only taking kids with SAT >X no matter how few they are.

no college wrote:

As college becomes more and more dumbed down, when will a degree become meaningless? I am not talking about top level school as degrees from those school will continue to have meaning for a long time. I'm talking about your state school or typical liberal arts colleges.

At some point those degrees will become just like a high school degree. My guess is around 2035.

When you are able to have the final say in hiring I hope you do not hire any college kids at all. Then get back to us.

Also, that college degree might get a person in the door, but he/she is going to have to sell him/herself and then do a good job. After that first job, that matters a whole lot more than the degree.

Average SAT scores are up almost across the board at colleges. I'm talking about percentiles, so it's score inflation. It's a product of more and more kids going to college and competing for a relatively fixed number of spots. Schools that used to be 1200-type schools are pushing 1280 now. Heck, Cal Tech now has an average score of 1560! 1560!

Luv2Run wrote:

1) How do you measure "education"? Many reports are around that show not much learning takes place in college. In some surveys many respondents actually know fewer facts when they leave college than when they came in.

Do you have a source for one of these reports? This is a pretty wild claim, and I can't imagine that it is true on any large scale.

killermike wrote:

Luv2Run wrote:

1) How do you measure "education"? Many reports are around that show not much learning takes place in college. In some surveys many respondents actually know fewer facts when they leave college than when they came in.

Do you have a source for one of these reports? This is a pretty wild claim, and I can't imagine that it is true on any large scale.

Yeah, to know fewer facts there would have to be some brain damage. Another possibility would be someone who started college in their 80's.

killermike wrote:

Luv2Run wrote:

1) How do you measure "education"? Many reports are around that show not much learning takes place in college. In some surveys many respondents actually know fewer facts when they leave college than when they came in.

Do you have a source for one of these reports? This is a pretty wild claim, and I can't imagine that it is true on any large scale.

I've heard that students who complete the program at Oaksterdam University learn a whole lot about horticulture, but may tend to retain less information about other subjects.

no college wrote:

At some point those degrees will become just like a high school degree. My guess is around 2035.

Just by posing this question, you are encouraging thousands of university departments to devote millions of dollars and countless student time to trying to estimate the correct date.

Please, don't encourage them.

killermike wrote:

Luv2Run wrote:

1) How do you measure "education"? Many reports are around that show not much learning takes place in college. In some surveys many respondents actually know fewer facts when they leave college than when they came in.

Do you have a source for one of these reports? This is a pretty wild claim, and I can't imagine that it is true on any large scale.

There is actually a lot of data to back that claim. This article is a good combination of a description of the issues, and references to actual data. It is shocking.

I would only hire college grads - they had the grades/scores to get into college, and the grit to graduate. I would expect nothing of their education beyond that.

Pessysquad wrote:

I flunked out of college twice. I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t bullshit. Everything they taught was bullshit, and I fought daily with professors. I knew it was bullshit. Bullshit.

I’m now 35. Self employed out here in the real world. Net worth in the millions. Not financially held down by some management position at a large company. The sky is the limit out here in the field. I’m teaching my 4 kids this. None of them will go to college. They will be building wealth instead of bullshitting in school.

The man that works and leverages his savings is the man that will become rich.

Not telling you how to raise your kids, but everyone is different. Just because you had the skills to be successful after failing out of college does not mean everyone else does. For example, you might be a natural salesman with a good business sense. Someone else might be really book smart but really shy. College might not have made sense for you, but it might open up a world of opportunities for someone else who might be a failure in business but has the potential to become a brilliant chemical engineer.

There is no path that should be assumed to be the correct one for everyone.

OP here. There seems to be a lot of misguided ideas about the value of college. You can't just compare kids who went to college with those who did not because the smarter kids tend to go to college. It's not that college made them smarter.

Student A: gets 1300 on SAT and does not go to college

Student B: gets 1300 on SAT, goes to liberal arts college and majors in Humanities

Do you really think that Student B is going to significantly outperform Student A if they both start off with the same position in the same company?

It’s a good first step in filtering out the lazy people that don’t have their s#it together. Doesn’t cost them a penny.

no college wrote:

OP here. There seems to be a lot of misguided ideas about the value of college. You can't just compare kids who went to college with those who did not because the smarter kids tend to go to college. It's not that college made them smarter.

Student A: gets 1300 on SAT and does not go to college

Student B: gets 1300 on SAT, goes to liberal arts college and majors in Humanities

Do you really think that Student B is going to significantly outperform Student A if they both start off with the same position in the same company?

It depends on the industry and the position. If it's a curator position at a museum, and B majored in art history, yes. If it is an engineering position, no.

But let's be real here: companies aren't in a position of knowing SAT scores. They only know that A shows up and graduated high school. B graduated from college. That's part of the role college plays.

You are also ignoring the many fields that genuinely require college education. You can't become a good nurse, doctor, pharmacist, engineer, architect, city planner, actuary, etc. without a college degree. Not all scenarios involve graduates of humanities departments doing jobs that don't actually depend significantly on knowledge gained in college.

Many companies will never stop valuing degrees.

Some don't need it at all. As another poster said, many tradesmen esp in the unions, can make more than college grads. I know plenty of guys that make 100k whether they're plumber, mechanic, electrician, carpenter, etc. I know a few who own their company and clear more than that. That's attractive to many hs males, esp in more rural areas.

The next question should be: when will teenagers stop valuing degrees?

If tuition continues to spiral out of control and is not checked, there will be a drop in admissions and graduates within 20 years. Like many have said, there are many folks with worthless majors (I'm one of them) who don't make a salary worth the debt they took on. 120k or more of debt just to be a teacher, nurse, accountant, etc etc is quickly going to be seen as a farce. Teenagers have little concept of money but I think they'll think twice if tuition continues to rise.

I think this is already happening to some extent. We should see more investment in the trades & things like coding as we move forward in the 21st century. Politicians are always harping about traditional college opportunities but if everybody has the same level of education, that won't fix economic problems. The kids that come from elite schools will still have the upper hand. Gotta find ways to make decent wages working jobs that don't need a bachelor's degree.

Sort of unrelated but there could be serious problems, there already are, if companies keep finding ways to cut back and pay people less. It used to be the case that adjunct faculty made up 25% of higher ed. Now adjuncts are 75%. BUT a lot of adjuncts now have advanced degrees and are working other jobs or teaching at multiple schools. Problems like this will exist if people in charge only are looking to cut/scale back.

BlackSwanGroup262 wrote:

Degrees are not meaningless! Degrees can get in the door. Employees ability to prove their worth to the companies keep them at the company.

"C's" get degrees, bro.. And colleges will need to keep poor students in order pay for their insane administration costs. If a student takes five years to get a useless degree, even better.

CousinPookie wrote:

BlackSwanGroup262 wrote:

Degrees are not meaningless! Degrees can get in the door. Employees ability to prove their worth to the companies keep them at the company.

"C's" get degrees, bro.. And colleges will need to keep poor students in order pay for their insane administration costs. If a student takes five years to get a useless degree, even better.

We 'll all just be working for Amazon in a few years, so what's the difference?

When will American companies stop valuing a college education?

College education is an American 'company'...so the real question is when will American companies free themselves from tautological thinking?

Getting a degree just shows that you can complete something, you have at least some drive and ability to complete a long range task with deadlines.

College is easy. Study some. Write some papers. Regurgitate some textbook. Anyone with enough time, money, loans or scholarships can get a college degree.

It’s become very easy now with online programs.

Alan

When? For most non-STEM degrees, very, very soon.

I see the product that is being produced by high schools and colleges and the product is borderline worthless. A BA in art history, literature, philosophy, political "science", history, ,"oppressed group" studies, etc. from a "top level school" is both worthless and overpriced. I will gladly take someone from a 2nd or 3rd tier state school majoring in applied math, physics, civil/mechanical/electrical engineering, biology, chemistry, etc. over anyone who has a worthless degree from a "prestigious" university.