College Overrated: Bachelor’s degrees not always key to success as outsourcing and lagging pay take their toll

TC Palm reports:

A new study of employment statistics reveals that, contrary to conventional wisdom, bachelor’s degrees don’t necessarily add value in the workplace. Note:

• Fewer than 40 percent of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing job classifications require four-year diplomas.

• Fewer than 30 percent of all jobs demand them — a figure that has barely budged in the last two decades.

• Real wages for bachelor’s degree holders are falling.

For all the talk about college being crucial to gainful employment in today’s society, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that bachelor’s degrees are no antidote to outsourcing, underemployment and lagging pay. Among 40 occupations on the BLS’ watch list for likely outsourcing are computer programmers, aerospace engineers and microbiologists.

Meantime, blue-collar trades people — from truck drivers to plumbers to electricians — are perpetually in demand. And none of these fields requires post-secondary degrees.

Even the education sector itself reflects this dichotomy. Indian River County School District, for example, hired an audio-visual coordinator fresh out of high school and paid him $15,000 more than a beginning teacher with a master’s degree.

None of this is to suggest that higher education isn’t important for the knowledge it imparts. A college degree can enrich life and, in some fields, ensure upward mobility.

But Paul Barton, a senior associate at the Educational Testing Service, poses a provocative question in the title of his report: “How many college graduates does the U.S. labor force really need?”

Barton turns statistical conventions on their head by counting the number of college-educated workers in jobs that do not require such degrees. He found that 60 percent of people in existing jobs have “some college” or post-secondary credential — yet only one in three jobs requires that level of education.

This phenomenon is pervasive in Florida, where service-industry jobs abound. In an article last year, the Orlando Sentinel reported that “a rise in college attendance coupled with downsizing, outsourcing and a shortage of high-paying jobs is bolstering the ranks of the educated poor — people with college degrees who don’t earn above the national poverty line.”

The National Center for Education Statistics confirms the dour news. NCES’ study of bachelor’s degree recipients discovered that four years after receiving their degrees, 40 percent of those not enrolled in graduate education say they are employed in a job where a college education “is not required.”

Barton’s findings even overthrow the pay table. His report shows that average earnings (in inflation-adjusted dollars) for men aged 25-34 with bachelor’s degrees fell from $51,218 in 1972 to $49,955 in 2002 — a 4.4 percent decline.

Students and educators need to take notice of these trends and act accordingly.

No word yet from the Education Lobby on this one.