Saturday, June 12, 2010

Is a college degree still worth it?: As U.S. employment patterns evolve, a diploma is no longer a guarantee of a better job and higher pay.

The L.A. Times reports:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that seven of the 10 employment sectors that will see the largest gains over the next decade won't require much more than some on-the-job training. These include home healthcare aides, customer service representatives and food preparers and servers. Meanwhile, well-paying white-collar jobs such as computer programming have become vulnerable to outsourcing to foreign countries.

"People with bachelor's degrees will increasingly get not very highly satisfactory jobs," said W. Norton Grubb, a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Education. "In that sense, people are getting more schooling than jobs are available."
There's more:
Alan Blinder, a Princeton professor and former Federal Reserve vice chairman, says it won't be surprising years from now if a carpenter in the U.S. earns more than a college-educated computer operator. In fact, the data suggest that education bears little relationship to jobs that are vulnerable to offshoring, he says.
An article well worth your time. You'll want to read this from Glenn Reynolds:
It's a story of an industry that may sound familiar.

The buyers think what they're buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.


Lots of students with bachelor degrees are working towards an online MBA to offset the new employment patterns and make themselves more competitive.