The College-Cost Calamity

I'm not seeing this. I mean, fewer jobs, sure, but If by education, you mean 'formal education' I mean, other than as a class marker (try getting a barista job post-college age without a degree) a huge number of employed people I know do not have a degree relivant to their career. Perhaps most. I know a fair number of people in my industry (including myself) without degrees at all.

I mean, as a class marker it shouldn't be underestimated, but as for actual instruction? a degree in history... does not teach you skills that make you significantly more employable.

Really, I think that article's complaint (that is, colleges are spending on classing the place up rather than on instruction) is a good one, but I think it's unavoidable. I mean, right now education is a class marker, and that is the problem. We don't have enough class-based jobs for all the people graduating with arts degrees.

In many ways, I think this is good; Maybe people will be judged more on merit than on familial background. Or maybe some other proxy for class will come into vouge.

Either way, the real problem isn't education, its that we haven't figured out enough jobs for people that need to be told what to do.

Personally? I think the next frontier is monitizing more of traditional 'women's work' - I mean, I know a lot of couples where both people earn six figures (and both work brutal hours) - sometimes those people even have kids. Usually it's the woman who is expected to do most of the traditional women's work while still working, but whichever way you slice it, it's crazy to work a bunch of hours a week outside the house for really good pay, then come home and spend a bunch more hours doing work the unemployed person down the way would be happy to do for cheap. Why not monitize that?

I mean, in my price range, though, there's not a lot of room for a middleman. Sure, people even in silicon valley are happy to work for those rates, but if you have a middleman, you essentially double those numbers. People like me? we don't care; we prefer going direct anyhow. But most people feel more comfortable with the legitimacy of a middleman.

There's a business idea; a low-overhead domestic services agency. You'll either be able to lower prices to end-customers, vastly expanding your customer base, or pay your workers more, which likely will net you better service.

That, and I think many people need to be told what to do not because they can't run a business but because they have been told it is hard. And some of it, especially when you don't have the cash for an accountant, really is hard. So I think there is a lot of room for low-cost franchise operations that take the accounting/legal bs out of starting a company.

Heck, some kind of 'ycombinator for lifestyle businesses' would be pretty great, though the business model isn't really there. I guess the business model is that if someone comes up with a business model you franchise it out.

Yeah, that's a pretty good idea, I think. Some kind of incubator for new service businesses; instead of exiting through VC, you turn the successful ones into franchises.

(It's possible that 'service' isn't the right sector, and we need to come up with an entirely new means of economic production... but I'm not the man to make that jump, and I think there is still a lot of room for 'service' industry growth, especially now while labour is inexpensive.)

I suspect, for instance, a rural Idaho government agency hiring a sysadmin will expect a 2 or 4 year degree.

I mean, outside of the computer industry, you may very well be correct, I don't know. But for SysAdmins, at least? even in government, a degree is demonstrably not required if you have the requisite experience and knowledge.

Hell, 30 years ago when my dad got a computer operator job at the university of california, such things weren't required. I mean, he ended up getting a degree, and it no doubt helped make the jump from SysAdmin to IT manager, but it wasn't required for the SysAdmin position.