The importance of a bachelor’s degree has been wildly oversold, says Walt Gardner. More than 90 percent of high school students are steered toward a college-prep curriculum, notes the former L.A. high school teacher and inveterate edupundit in an iconoclastic Christian Science Monitor essay.
The usual argument put forth in defense of a four-year degree is that it contains a decided wage premium…[But] if Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, is correct, the only jobs that will be secure in the next decade will those that cannot be sent abroad electronically. That means plumbers, electricians, and auto mechanics, for example, will be working steadily while many of their degreed classmates will be collecting unemployment checks. Moreover, since wages vary within any occupation, degree holders who are still employed will not necessarily be earning top salaries.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that some unionized craft workers already earn more than the average college graduate, Gardner notes, and do so without carrying the heavy burden of student debt.
“The total damage inflicted on students by the college-is-for-everyone mentality is incalculable. Students who cannot measure up to the demands for a college curriculum are made to feel like failures,” Gardner concludes. ”What Americans ultimately need to learn is that college is merely the most convenient place to learn how to learn. It is not an absolute determinant.”
Up until the day I left for college, my father, a blue-collar, Depression-era product, tried to convince me to “learn a trade” like TV repair or air conditioning so I would have “a skill to fall back on.” Gardner would approve.
Of course, people benefit in non-financial ways from attending college as well. And I’m not sure why attending college would preclude learning a trade down the road if that’s what one wanted.
Valid points, Corey. I think my friend Walt is painting with a broad brush — let’s not forget that a vocational track sometimes closed the door to higher education for low-income kids and minorities as a pro forma matter — but he does a useful service in reminding us that there is more than one path to a good and productive life income. One size fits all is seldom the answer, regardless of the size prescribed.