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The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

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Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#71

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #41
AmericanChopper wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn’t make any case for the economy struggling. ‘Struggling’ in this context would mean that there’s less skilled employment opportunities available than there used to be. The article doesn’t put forward any argument to say that’s the case. With increasing enrolments, the economy could be doing great and still produce underemployment. The question is why are people completing unmarketable (or not suffic…

>The question is why are people completing unmarketable (or not sufficiently marketable) degrees? For the pursuit of knowledge. Universities are not job training. You getting a good job with your degree is a bonus not the intend outcome for a university.

That used to be called a "liberal education", which meant an education that was appropriate for free men, as opposed to slaves, who would be trained in a trade.

Today, that corresponds to pursuing knowledge if you don't need the money. If you do, pursue something that pays. (Pursue as much knowledge as you can work in around the edges, but the main focus has to be on something that pays.)

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#72

Post by dfilppi »

ineedasername wrote: post #64

I'm not sure the author's suggestion that potential students be diverted to trades/coding bootcampts etc., will solve too much, and instead may simply shift the problem into those trade industries as well. Somewhere in the ballpark of 2,000,000 students earn a bachelors degree each year. Let's say 25% of students should be diverted into trade schools instead. That will mean an additional 500,000 student per year ente…

The problem is the government subsidizes loans.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#73

Post by pmiller2 »

linuxftw wrote: post #65
pmiller2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years ago was a special time. Anyone who could spell HTML could get a job. Things are different now and the bar is a bit higher. Today’s equivalent of the English and business majors are boot camp grads.

The bar is higher because there's free (or near free) specialized education overseas and not domestically. Why pay to train entry level employers when the tax payers of X country will do it for you for free? Take away the subsidized labor pool and watch that bar fall back to the floor.

There was free and low cost education available overseas 20 years ago. I don’t buy your argument.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#74

Post by linuxftw »

pmiller2 wrote: post #73
linuxftw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bar is higher because there's free (or near free) specialized education overseas and not domestically. Why pay to train entry level employers when the tax payers of X country will do it for you for free? Take away the subsidized labor pool and watch that bar fall back to the floor.

There was free and low cost education available overseas 20 years ago. I don’t buy your argument.

20 years ago, I'm willing to bet the number of IT degrees overseas was a small fraction compared to today. Over the last 20 years the market has reacted to the conditions available and lead to the situation we have now.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#75

Post by ineedasername »

dfilppi wrote: post #72
ineedasername wrote: post #64

I'm not sure the author's suggestion that potential students be diverted to trades/coding bootcampts etc., will solve too much, and instead may simply shift the problem into those trade industries as well. Somewhere in the ballpark of 2,000,000 students earn a bachelors degree each year. Let's say 25% of students should be diverted into trade schools instead. That will mean an additional 500,000 student per year ente…

The problem is the government subsidizes loans.

That may be a problem, but it's a bit beside the point I was making. Whether or not college costs & therefore debt is increasing as a result of easy loans says nothing about the job prospects of graduates from bachelor programs. Even if we posit a world where the loans didn't exist, college costs were lower, and therefore just as accessible as it is today then we still have the same underemployment problem. If such a change instead resulted in more students learning a trade, we still have to same downward pressure on trade wages because the labor supply increases relative to demand.

With or without government subsidized loans, there is a jobs market issue.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#76

Post by chrisco255 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #67
chrisco255 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least, when it comes to cars, they have gotten better in quality over the past 20 years. Not sure the same can be said about higher education.

If this were 10yr ago I'd agree. The 80s gave us computers. The 90s gave us good simulation software and the engineers used that to build us reliable cars. The early 2000s gave us plastic interior and exterior trim that didn't rattle and fall apart in short order. Since then we've tacked more gears onto automatic transmissions, hybrids have become more mainstream, sedans and wagons have been replaced with small SUVs…

Gas mileage is better, backup cams are standard (and required), the average age of a vehicle on the road is 11 years (up from 8 years in the 90s), so they are more reliable and last longer, better airbags (side curtains are standard nowadays), better anti-corrosion technology, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, auto parallel parking, partial autopilot, bluetooth standard, etc.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#77

Post by mdorazio »

robohoe wrote: post #66
mdorazio wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some quick numbers here. Inflation over the last 20 years was about 54%, so I would expect an apples-to-apples vehicle to cost that much more today than it did in 1999. If you look at the CPI-based numbers for cars from 2000 to 2019, in real dollars it's barely gone up [1]. I think what you're seeing is that the cars getting advertised, and more specifically the cars that you want are more expensive than they used to…

Except it's hard to find base model cars anywhere.

Is it? I’m still driving the same car I bought 10 years ago so I’m genuinely not sure. At the time, I ordered it from the Honda fleet manager at a dealership and getting a base model was no problem. If you’re walking into a dealership or want a car ASAP then you’re probably right, but I feel like if you can wait a couple weeks getting a base model is still relatively easy.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#78

Post by dsfyu404ed »

chrisco255 wrote: post #76
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were 10yr ago I'd agree. The 80s gave us computers. The 90s gave us good simulation software and the engineers used that to build us reliable cars. The early 2000s gave us plastic interior and exterior trim that didn't rattle and fall apart in short order. Since then we've tacked more gears onto automatic transmissions, hybrids have become more mainstream, sedans and wagons have been replaced with small SUVs…

Gas mileage is better, backup cams are standard (and required), the average age of a vehicle on the road is 11 years (up from 8 years in the 90s), so they are more reliable and last longer, better airbags (side curtains are standard nowadays), better anti-corrosion technology, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, auto parallel parking, partial autopilot, bluetooth standard, etc.

So marginal incremental improvement in drive-train technology and electronic doodads? That's how I read that list you gave me.

Cars these days don't age any better than cars from 20yr ago or the more modern cars of the 90s.

I guess anti-corrosion has improved but it hasn't improved by that much. You still have plenty of vehicles that repeatedly rust out in some spot because the salt gets flung there and the surface coatings aren't adequate to stop it.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#79

Post by thrower123 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #76
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were 10yr ago I'd agree. The 80s gave us computers. The 90s gave us good simulation software and the engineers used that to build us reliable cars. The early 2000s gave us plastic interior and exterior trim that didn't rattle and fall apart in short order. Since then we've tacked more gears onto automatic transmissions, hybrids have become more mainstream, sedans and wagons have been replaced with small SUVs…

Gas mileage is better, backup cams are standard (and required), the average age of a vehicle on the road is 11 years (up from 8 years in the 90s), so they are more reliable and last longer, better airbags (side curtains are standard nowadays), better anti-corrosion technology, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, auto parallel parking, partial autopilot, bluetooth standard, etc.

Gas mileage is a very marginal improvement in any of the vehicles I'm interested in, on the order of 16 mpg then to maybe 20, now. Bodywork is plastic or aluminum, so it is less repairable, but there's the anti-corrosion factor.

Everything else listed I would want to actively avoid in my next vehicle.

Re: The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe

#80

Post by maxxxxx »

robohoe wrote: post #66
mdorazio wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some quick numbers here. Inflation over the last 20 years was about 54%, so I would expect an apples-to-apples vehicle to cost that much more today than it did in 1999. If you look at the CPI-based numbers for cars from 2000 to 2019, in real dollars it's barely gone up [1]. I think what you're seeing is that the cars getting advertised, and more specifically the cars that you want are more expensive than they used to…

Except it's hard to find base model cars anywhere.

When I bought my Kia it definitely was a problem to get the low end model. There was just one base model on the lot vs. many cars fully decked out. I guess not many people buy base model these days.
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