Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

news.investors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 119 posts

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#71

Post by greeneggs »

mojaam wrote: post #2

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

The average debt of college graduates for the class of 2010 is $25,000, and is estimated to be $27,000 for the class of 2011 [1]. Compared to housing, this is not a lot of debt. Many people these days will even buy a car on credit, which can be a comparable amount of debt, of course depending on the car.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/education/average-student-...

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#72

Post by mh- »

icandoitbetter wrote: post #62
soup10 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think on similar lines, that at some point there wouldn't be enough work to do. But it's absolutely Utopian horseshit. There is ALWAYS useful work to do sometimes there's just of shortage of funds or skilled workers to do it. Look at our aging infrastructure, fix our bridges, tunnels, roads, buildings, houses, etc. Care for our old and sick, learn art and design and make the world more beautiful, engineer s…

There's always work to do exactly because there are always people looking for work. It's not the other way around. Most jobs aren't necessary for our survival, so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work. It's not Utopian horseshit. Please be less dismissive of ideas.

>so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work.

I'm not sure I understand your POV on this. In your mind, how would these people sustain themselves?

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#73

Post by InclinedPlane »

I'll just briefly hit the major points of what I think is "wrong with the system" since this is obviously a huge topic.

First, public educations are a crap shoot. A high school diploma is a joke, it doesn't even guarantee basic literacy or numeracy. This is a big reason why white collar jobs have increasingly been forced to rely on other credentials. Despite vastly increasing per student spending over the years the quality of education hasn't improved at all and by some measures has gotten worse.

Second, student loan debt is out of control. It's too easy for people to sign themselves up for huge amounts of debt regardless of their future job opportunities. This distorts the market and creates an education bubble.

Third, society has turned its back on "dirty jobs". It's becoming less and less common for folks, especially middle and upper middle class young adults, to aspire toward jobs that involve manual labor. There's nothing wrong with construction, welding, automotive repair, culinary arts, etc. Trade schools are faster and cheaper than a 4 year college, and they typically leave a graduate with very solid prospects at gaining a fairly well paying job just out of school. If more people made that choice unemployment would be a lot lower.

Fourth, "vanity degrees" are far too common these days, partly for the reasons listed above. If you need higher education to further your career then if you pursue a degree with very shaky career prospects and you go into massive debt to do so then quite frankly you made a very bad life choice, and all of the people who helped you do it (your family and friends, your counselors, your loan officers, etc.) are partly to blame as well. Yes there is value to studying history, or English literature, but you should never for even a single moment fool yourself into believing that you are doing anything other than digging your own financial grave when you are indulging in those majors.

Unfortunately for a lot of middle and upper middle class 18-25 year olds there has come to be a great deal of pressure behind taking the same "acceptable" educational and career track. High school -> 4 year arts & science degree at a prestigious school -> white collar job. If you are in high school or college right now I urge you to challenge this. Look at your career prospects and finances seriously. Consider becoming a STEM major if possible. If that's not feasible consider switching to a trade school. And try to get yourself into the job market early even while you are in school to build up your resume and your skills. It's far, far easier to study history and English lit as a hobby in your free time than it is to build a well paying career on such things.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#74

Post by icandoitbetter »

mh- wrote: post #72
icandoitbetter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always work to do exactly because there are always people looking for work. It's not the other way around. Most jobs aren't necessary for our survival, so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work. It's not Utopian horseshit. Please be less dismissive of ideas.

>so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work. I'm not sure I understand your POV on this. In your mind, how would these people sustain themselves?

With a wealth redistribution mechanism like basic income.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#75

Post by Androsynth »

soup10 wrote: post #56
Futurebot wrote: post #31

Perhaps it needs to be made very clear, in case there are some that still are confused about why many people (who study non-technical subjects) choose to go to college (aside from many of the well-known ones like the promises of how it would lead to a 1950s style middle-class lifestyle; because their parents made them; because it's rite-of-passage; or because their friends are there), for /whatever/ major they choose…

I used to think on similar lines, that at some point there wouldn't be enough work to do. But it's absolutely Utopian horseshit. There is ALWAYS useful work to do sometimes there's just of shortage of funds or skilled workers to do it. Look at our aging infrastructure, fix our bridges, tunnels, roads, buildings, houses, etc. Care for our old and sick, learn art and design and make the world more beautiful, engineer s…

You're actually just repeating what he said: you're talking about guaranteed income. Public works projects are very close to guaranteed work (and will never get funding in our current system). 'Care for our old and sick' is a $5/hour job. But they will get paid 4-5 times that. Again, its guaranteed income.

>>learn art and design and make the world more beautiful, engineer spaceships, create amazing entertainment

Lets not pretend that every human is capable of doing any of this if they only had the time. The people who are capable will do it, the rest won't.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#76

Post by f45s8g2 »

@Futurebot

You should get a degree if you can, period.

Whether you work as a fry cook or not. Education is worth it. It has value, to you and to society, apart from its utility as a factor in filtering people for job positions.

No one wants to see the US become even more uneducated.

If you want to get cynical about the job market, try thinking of it this way. No doubt most have heard the old adage, "You need to sell yourself." Another way to think of this is that "jobs" are really a question of convincing someone else to pay you. That could be an elaborate process involving educational degrees and past accomplishments, or, in today's world, it might be something like the startups discussed here on HN: You announce a bit of software and a website, and the thundering herd starts clicking. Some of the herd is willing to pay. If that percentage is large enough, you have a runaway success, something like Dropbox.

Those who are paying you are not asking to see your resume. The only people who cared that you graduated from MIT were the VC and their clients who funded you. That is, if you were funded. Don't kid yourself. The most important people you convinced to pay you werenot the investors. They were the customers.

Now, maybe you become wealthy overnight. But that does not reduce the long term value of your degree from MIT. The degree is not necessarily the cause of your success. Wealth can be made with or without education. (That has always been true, otherwise small business, which is the majority of business in the US, would cease to exist.) Technology allows this to happen now in a way never before seen in history.

But...

Education has value to you and to society because education will make your life more interesting and an educated society is better than an uneducated one.

These are tough times. But things go in cycles. If you skip education, and then years from now things get better, you may regret it. Get an education as early as possible (i.e. if you have the money, do it). It will benefit everyone in the long term.

Things go in cycles.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#77

Post by icandoitbetter »

philwelch wrote: post #69
icandoitbetter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always work to do exactly because there are always people looking for work. It's not the other way around. Most jobs aren't necessary for our survival, so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work. It's not Utopian horseshit. Please be less dismissive of ideas.

If the whole human race sat down and wrote up a list of things we all wanted done, it would probably be even more than we could ever accomplish. Chances are, if you're a human being, you have something on that list, and you have the ability to help complete a task that's on that list as well. Most jobs aren't necessary for our survival. OK, maybe people shouldn't be forced to work for their survival. But if they want…

People would still want to work. But they'll start working on things they actually care about, because they won't be enslaved by their fear that if they quit their jobs they'll end up homeless or without health insurance. Right now so few startups dare to actually imagine new things because investors must be pleased and profit must be made. Plus, if we escaped the job-for-survival mindset, we would actually start focusing on automation. It's a mistake to think that automation hasn't come at the scale we expected because of unprecedented technical challenges. It hasn't come because the government has stopped throwing money on basic research. We need to focus on wild, idealistic, big-scale projects. And admit that the private sector isn't good at radically innovating, because, to radically innovate, you need to have been failing for many, many years, and have someone sustain you throughout those years. The best the private sector can do is catch up and minimize costs, like SpaceX does.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#78

Post by Androsynth »

icandoitbetter wrote: post #74
mh- wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work. I'm not sure I understand your POV on this. In your mind, how would these people sustain themselves?

With a wealth redistribution mechanism like basic income.

Who is going to pay for that? The broke US government? If 1/3 of the US pop was given $25k/year, it would amount to 1/4 of our GDP.

Until we have ubiquitous power sources, food replicators, cheap teleportation, solved all health problems and sturdy insta-houses, its just a pipe-dream.

The social implications would be even worse. You would have about 10% of society supporting about 50% of society, which would easily create the biggest class divide the US has ever seen. The bottom would ask for more, the top would own the government (because government that size would be corrupt to the core, theres no way it wouldnt).

It would ultimately lead back to a feudalistic society.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#79

Post by georgieporgie »

adyus wrote: post #26
georgieporgie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the success rate among entrepreneurs? Don't most small businesses tank within the first three years? Does this really help if "millions of kids a year" are entering the workforce? That said, looking at my (much) younger cousins and their friends, it strikes me that the latest generation of 20-somethings are already impressively entrepreneurial. However, I don't see many of their businesses scaling enough to su…

Most successful entrepreneurs failed at least once until they made it. I can only speak from experience, the startup founder that I worked for had three failed attempts before he made it (relatively) big. My other point was exactly that. Most small businesses will fail, but the ones that succeed will be the job creators (I hate that buzzword!) and hire the ones that didn't make it. After having worked for a startup m…

Well, I certainly hope you're right, but I have my reservations about small businesses, particularly those run by young, inexperienced people, scaling in order to employ others. I do think that the recent trend of staying "at home" longer may help with this. Also, if we can get more affordable housing in areas populated enough to support commerce, things might improve a lot.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#80

Post by jberryman »

holdenc wrote: post #12

For some people a college degree can lead to a crippling level of entitlement, and unwillingness to do the kind of work they hoped to escape by attending college. A college degree doesn't preclude someone from waiting tables, cleaning up messes and answering phones. Though many graduates seem to be confused about this. For unemployed colleges grads -- here's a rudimentary formula for success. Start a free website wit…

> Start a free website with Weebly and call it IWillMopItUp.com. And let people know that you will mop up their mess for $20 and hour.

Hahaha, where do you come from that you think a janitor gets payed $20/hr? And college grads are waiting tables everywhere; I know dozens doing just that. You are clueless.

Post reply on HN