America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree

[China]

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree

By MARTY NEMKO

Among my saddest moments as a career counselor is when I hear a story like this: "I wasn't a good student in high school, but I wanted to prove that I can get a college diploma. I'd be the first one in my family to do it. But it's been five years and $80,000, and I still have 45 credits to go."

I have a hard time telling such people the killer statistic: Among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later. That figure is from a study cited by Clifford Adelman, a former research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education and now a senior research associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Yet four-year colleges admit and take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year!

Even worse, most of those college dropouts leave the campus having learned little of value, and with a mountain of debt and devastated self-esteem from their unsuccessful struggles. Perhaps worst of all, even those who do manage to graduate too rarely end up in careers that require a college education. So it's not surprising that when you hop into a cab or walk into a restaurant, you're likely to meet workers who spent years and their family's life savings on college, only to end up with a job they could have done as a high-school dropout.

Such students are not aberrations. Today, amazingly, a majority of the students whom colleges admit are grossly underprepared. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading, and science.

Perhaps more surprising, even those high-school students who are fully qualified to attend college are increasingly unlikely to derive enough benefit to justify the often six-figure cost and four to six years (or more) it takes to graduate. Research suggests that more than 40 percent of freshmen at four-year institutions do not graduate in six years. Colleges trumpet the statistic that, over their lifetimes, college graduates earn more than nongraduates, but that's terribly misleading. You could lock the collegebound in a closet for four years, and they'd still go on to earn more than the pool of non-collegebound — they're brighter, more motivated, and have better family connections.

Also, the past advantage of college graduates in the job market is eroding. Ever more students attend college at the same time as ever more employers are automating and sending offshore ever more professional jobs, and hiring part-time workers. Many college graduates are forced to take some very nonprofessional positions, such as driving a truck or tending bar.

How much do students at four-year institutions actually learn?

Colleges are quick to argue that a college education is more about enlightenment than employment. That may be the biggest deception of all. Often there is a Grand Canyon of difference between the reality and what higher-education institutions, especially research ones, tout in their viewbooks and on their Web sites. Colleges and universities are businesses, and students are a cost item, while research is a profit center. As a result, many institutions tend to educate students in the cheapest way possible: large lecture classes, with necessary small classes staffed by rock-bottom-cost graduate students. At many colleges, only a small percentage of the typical student's classroom hours will have been spent with fewer than 30 students taught by a professor, according to student-questionnaire data I used for my book How to Get an Ivy League Education at a State University. When students at 115 institutions were asked what percentage of their class time had been spent in classes of fewer than 30 students, the average response was 28 percent.

That's not to say that professor-taught classes are so worthwhile. The more prestigious the institution, the more likely that faculty members are hired and promoted much more for their research than for their teaching. Professors who bring in big research dollars are almost always rewarded more highly than a fine teacher who doesn't bring in the research bucks. Ernest L. Boyer, the late president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, used to say that winning the campus teaching award was the kiss of death when it came to tenure. So, no surprise, in the latest annual national survey of freshmen conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, 44.6 percent said they were not satisfied with the quality of instruction they received. Imagine if that many people were dissatisfied with a brand of car: It would quickly go off the market. Colleges should be held to a much higher standard, as a higher education costs so much more, requires years of time, and has so much potential impact on your life. Meanwhile, 43.5 percent of freshmen also reported "frequently" feeling bored in class, the survey found.

College students may be dissatisfied with instruction, but, despite that, do they learn? A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below "proficient" levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station.

Click on the link for the rest of the opinion piece

[ntotoro]

A Bachelor's may be overrated in terms of how it prepares you for a trade, but companies want to see that certification and will pay accordingly, or many times not even hire you unless you have oodles of experience.

I personally felt College was wasted on my 20's because I didn't want to "learn" in the same way I do now at 35.

[Henry]

... says the PhD from Berkeley.

[PleaseBlitz]

This article is retarded.

Among my saddest moments as a career counselor is when I hear a story like this: "I wasn't a good student in high school, but I wanted to prove that I can get a college diploma. I'd be the first one in my family to do it. But it's been five years and $80,000, and I still have 45 credits to go."

:laugh: What a joke. Stop smoking weed and go to class.

I have a hard time telling such people the killer statistic: Among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later. That figure is from a study cited by Clifford Adelman, a former research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education and now a senior research associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Yet four-year colleges admit and take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year!

Why does this make out colleges to be bad guys, its not their fault that idiots cant pass the classes. What are they SUPPOSSED to do?

Even worse, most of those college dropouts leave the campus having learned little of value, and with a mountain of debt and devastated self-esteem from their unsuccessful struggles. Perhaps worst of all, even those who do manage to graduate too rarely end up in careers that require a college education. So it's not surprising that when you hop into a cab or walk into a restaurant, you're likely to meet workers who spent years and their family's life savings on college, only to end up with a job they could have done as a high-school dropout.

Everyone at my job has a college degree. The pay is pretty good. If you had the opportunity to go to college and are waiting tables or driving a cab, thats a personal problem.

Such students are not aberrations. Today, amazingly, a majority of the students whom colleges admit are grossly underprepared. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading, and science.

I wonder what parameters they are using for this.

Perhaps more surprising, even those high-school students who are fully qualified to attend college are increasingly unlikely to derive enough benefit to justify the often six-figure cost and four to six years (or more) it takes to graduate. Research suggests that more than 40 percent of freshmen at four-year institutions do not graduate in six years. Colleges trumpet the statistic that, over their lifetimes, college graduates earn more than nongraduates, but that's terribly misleading. You could lock the collegebound in a closet for four years, and they'd still go on to earn more than the pool of non-collegebound — they're brighter, more motivated, and have better family connections.

Huh? :whoknows:

Colleges are quick to argue that a college education is more about enlightenment than employment.

Ive never heard a college argue this.

I could keep going, but lets just start with that.

[Corcaigh]

I think it's a fair question.

Not all degrees are equal and there comes a point where the student would be a lot better off with vocational or technical training than a general bachelors degree.

My perspective coming from Europe is that the basic US bachelors degree is often too general. Most European degrees would have you specializing in your junior or senior years which in the US often seems to require a masters degree.

[alexey]

Let's blame science and math education in high school.

[Zguy28]

What gets me is that we sent the Apollo program to the moon with a NASA organization largely comprised of employees with Bachelor's Degrees, but you got to pretty much have a PHD to work in a field like that at any serious level today.

One of the IT applications I manage for my company is the recruiting/careers website. I see managers opening positions all the time that just say "Bachelor's in Engineering". No specific field, the gov't customer just requires a degree. A piece of paper.

[PleaseBlitz]

What gets me is that we sent the Apollo program to the moon with a NASA organization largely comprised of employees with Bachelor's Degrees, but you got to pretty much have a PHD to work in a field like that at any serious level today.

One of the IT applications I manage for my company is the recruiting/careers website. I see managers opening positions all the time that just say "Bachelor's in Engineering". No specific field, the gov't customer just requires a degree. A piece of paper.

That piece of paper signifies that A) you have the ability to learn complicated things, and you have a work ethic. So your company can train them to do whatever specific task they need to have done.

[Corcaigh]

That piece of paper signifies that A) you have the ability to learn complicated things, and you have a work ethic. So your company can train them to do whatever specific task they need to have done.

I agree with this. But if their engineering degree includes a minor in golf and flower arranging they can look elsewhere.

[NoCalMike]

I don't see how a bachelor's degree indicates anymore of a work ethic then someone who has been working full-time from the same age as someone begins their four years of college.(well assuming they have positive references and solid work history).

Also, a lot of companies now-a-days seem to not hire supervisor or managerial positions from within and instead just want to bring in "random person with bachelor degree in random field" The person gets there, with little to no work experience, has zero knowledge of the actual job and has no clue how to lead a team, but hey they took a more advanced literature class then you so they deserve the supervisor position. So it basically becomes the employees second job to train the supervisor how to do their job. Whoo!! :doh:

I understand that is an over-simplified explanation of some of my frustrations, but I think some of it holds true in certain industries.

[dfitzo53]

What gets me is that we sent the Apollo program to the moon with a NASA organization largely comprised of employees with Bachelor's Degrees, but you got to pretty much have a PHD to work in a field like that at any serious level today.

One of the IT applications I manage for my company is the recruiting/careers website. I see managers opening positions all the time that just say "Bachelor's in Engineering". No specific field, the gov't customer just requires a degree. A piece of paper.

There's a certain amount of crossover in engineering classes. Obviously you're not going to hire a chemical engineer to design a skyscraper, but a lot of engineers have the background to handle a number of different types of jobs.

[DjTj]

Why does this make out colleges to be bad guys, its not their fault that idiots cant pass the classes. What are they SUPPOSSED to do?

I think the message is really that if you're going to go to college and fail out, you would be better off not going to college.

I generally agree with that sentiment. From a money standpoint, a lot of people are paying a lot of extra tuition for very little extra benefit. I think the bottom 50% of people in college would probably do just as well going to community college (and then only getting a bachelor's if they do well). The bottom 50% of people in the Ivy League would probably do just as well taking a bunch of scholarships and going to a state school (then going to a good grad program if they do well).

College tuition is definitely way more than it is actually worth in comparison to other products on the market, like community college or vocational training.

Perhaps more surprising, even those high-school students who are fully qualified to attend college are increasingly unlikely to derive enough benefit to justify the often six-figure cost and four to six years (or more) it takes to graduate. Research suggests that more than 40 percent of freshmen at four-year institutions do not graduate in six years. Colleges trumpet the statistic that, over their lifetimes, college graduates earn more than nongraduates, but that's terribly misleading. You could lock the collegebound in a closet for four years, and they'd still go on to earn more than the pool of non-collegebound — they're brighter, more motivated, and have better family connections.

This argument is right, but brighter, more motivated, well-connected people are not going to live in a closet for four years ... they're going to go to college. In many ways, college isn't so much about the value added; it's just the thing that motivated and intelligent people do.

I definitely think there are a lot of people going to college who probably shouldn't, and the advice at the end of the article is reasonable.

If your child's high-school grades and test scores are in the bottom half for his class, resist the attempts of four-year colleges to woo him. Colleges make money whether or not a student learns, whether or not she graduates, and whether or not he finds good employment. Let the buyer beware. Consider an associate-degree program at a community college, or such nondegree options as apprenticeship programs (see http://www.khake.com), shorter career-preparation programs at community colleges, the military, and on-the-job training, especially at the elbow of a successful small-business owner.

There are other options out there...

[PleaseBlitz]

I don't see how a bachelor's degree indicates anymore of a work ethic then someone who has been working full-time from the same age as someone begins their four years of college.(well assuming they have positive references and solid work history).

There was an A and a B in my post. Both are equally important.

Also, a lot of companies now-a-days seem to not hire supervisor or managerial positions from within and instead just want to bring in "random person with bachelor degree in random field" The person gets there, with little to no work experience, has zero knowledge of the actual job and has no clue how to lead a team, but hey they took a more advanced literature class then you so they deserve the supervisor position.

I understand that is an over-simplified explanation of some of my frustrations, but I think some of it holds true in certain industries.

Here is my experience. Of all my close group of friends in HS, all of us went to college, one didnt finish and one took longer than 5 years.

ALL of the guys with a bachelors have comfy office jobs making between $60k and $150k a year.

The guy that doesnt have a degree busts his ass installing dishes for Directv 6 days a week for $45k a year. This is a recent improvement over his last job working some huge machine clearing trees in the Florida heat all day long for $38k a year.

Based on that, i'd say my degrees are worth it.

[PeterMP]

So it's not surprising that when you hop into a cab or walk into a restaurant, you're likely to meet workers who spent years and their family's life savings on college, only to end up with a job they could have done as a high-school dropout.

It isn't a big secret. Getting a degree in history, philosophy, english or any other of other subjects isn't going to help you much in getting a degree. Every campus has the "easy" major, which invariably has the most students, where I am currently it is psychology.

Colleges are quick to argue that a college education is more about enlightenment than employment. That may be the biggest deception of all. Often there is a Grand Canyon of difference between the reality and what higher-education institutions, especially research ones, tout in their viewbooks and on their Web sites. Colleges and universities are businesses, and students are a cost item, while research is a profit center.

Students aren't a cost item. If they were, they'd quit taking them and move to research only centers like Cold Spring Harbor as one example

http://www.cshl.edu/

which essentially does no undergraduate eduction, but as a non-profit is able to apply for essentially any research grant that is open to essentially any 4 year institution.

Students AND research are both ways that institutions make money.

As a result, many institutions tend to educate students in the cheapest way possible: large lecture classes, with necessary small classes staffed by rock-bottom-cost graduate students. At many colleges, only a small percentage of the typical student's classroom hours will have been spent with fewer than 30 students taught by a professor, according to student-questionnaire data I used for my book How to Get an Ivy League Education at a State University. When students at 115 institutions were asked what percentage of their class time had been spent in classes of fewer than 30 students, the average response was 28 percent.

Large introductory classes are almost always taught by to large classes. These classes then are backed up by grad students as support and teach things like labs and help sessions.

The fact that it is a large class doesn't make the teacher a poorer teacher. Ability to teach, for the most part, isn't associated with class size.

That's not to say that professor-taught classes are so worthwhile. The more prestigious the institution, the more likely that faculty members are hired and promoted much more for their research than for their teaching. Professors who bring in big research dollars are almost always rewarded more highly than a fine teacher who doesn't bring in the research bucks.

This is true, but the flip side of that is as you become a more advanced student you should be able to do research with the professor and benefit from the equipment/supplies that the research money brings in. You trade a poorer early college education for a superior later college education vs. a student at a school that emphasizes teaching over research. Having been to and associated with both, there are advantages in both, and it is a decision students should consider when picking a school.

So, no surprise, in the latest annual national survey of freshmen conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, 44.6 percent said they were not satisfied with the quality of instruction they received. Imagine if that many people were dissatisfied with a brand of car: It would quickly go off the market. Colleges should be held to a much higher standard, as a higher education costs so much more, requires years of time, and has so much potential impact on your life. Meanwhile, 43.5 percent of freshmen also reported "frequently" feeling bored in class, the survey found.

This is an awful analogy. The education you get is directly related to what you put in to it. If you helped build the car and you weren't happy with it, nobody would blame the car.

When people get a poor education, it is the instructors fault. I can't make people learn.

College students may be dissatisfied with instruction, but, despite that, do they learn? A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below "proficient" levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station.

I think this tails directly into the arguement made in the beginning and something I am becoming more cognizant of:

"Such students are not aberrations. Today, amazingly, a majority of the students whom colleges admit are grossly underprepared. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading, and science."

At every level, there is an effort to teach new information when the students do not have a good underlying foundation. The net effect is that the students really don't learn the things they are suppossed to be learning in any class.

I'm not really sure how that is the colleges fault.

[NoCalMike]

Also, I'd say fifty years ago you could make a decent living without a college degree. Now, it might not have been the most DESIRABLE job fields, such as manual labor type stuff, but at least you made a decent wage that could support your family.

[PleaseBlitz]

I think the message is really that if you're going to go to college and fail out, you would be better off not going to college.

His title is misleading. It should be something like "Most overrated product: 2 years of tuition then failing out like a dumb****."

[PeterMP]

I think it's a fair question.

Not all degrees are equal and there comes a point where the student would be a lot better off with vocational or technical training than a general bachelors degree.

My perspective coming from Europe is that the basic US bachelors degree is often too general. Most European degrees would have you specializing in your junior or senior years which in the US often seems to require a masters degree.

I said this in another thread once. It isn't clear what the US higher education system in many cases should be doing:

1. Turning out well rounded individuals with an understanding of many topics and good general reasoning skills

or

2. Preparing people for jobs.

Right now some institutions and departments therein are trying to do both, and it wouldn't surprise me in doing so that we are failing at both.

[DjTj]

What gets me is that we sent the Apollo program to the moon with a NASA organization largely comprised of employees with Bachelor's Degrees, but you got to pretty much have a PHD to work in a field like that at any serious level today.

Well, to be fair, the reason the early space program was filled with young engineers is because they were basically making things up from scratch ... you don't need that much schooling if you're doing something that nobody has ever done before.

Nowadays, you have to spend a few more years in school to learn all the stuff that the NASA engineers developed back in the 50's and 60's, and the cutting edge stuff requires a lot of background knowledge.

The same thing is true in any field ... the computer industry was started by a bunch of amateurs and two of the leading figures today, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, were college dropouts.

When you're the first in a field, it doesn't require much training, but if you're the second or third generation to get there, you have to learn everything that came before you.

[NoCalMike]

Well my argument never really was that "college degrees aren't worth it" rather that in certain fields college degrees don't necessarily factor in to how qualified someone might be for the job or not.

The IT field is a prime example of this. Being good at computer terminology can be the main reason between getting a job or not because it seems the certification tests are more important then the actual classes, and you can get a DEGREE absent of ever passing a cert test, and you can be certified absent of having ever taken a class on computers. The two CAN BE mutually exclusive.

There are a lot of people out there that can pass a cert test because they have good memory skills and can remember what is assigned to every IRQ channel or DMA channel, yet you put them in front of a computer with a problem and they are clueless. And then you take another guy that might not know every technical term and can't pass a cert test, but you put him in front of a computer with the same problem and it is fixed in less then five minutes.

[81artmonk]

I didn't read all the article, but I have always said for a long time that college isn't money smart.

the amount of money you invest in college, doesn't equate with how much you make when you get out. In other words, college is getting too expensive.

Which now more than ever, I would tell my kids to go to a community or local college. It's cheaper, you can obtain the same goals and get an education for a career.

[chomerics]

What gets me is that we sent the Apollo program to the moon with a NASA organization largely comprised of employees with Bachelor's Degrees, but you got to pretty much have a PHD to work in a field like that at any serious level today.

To get a BS in engineering without calculators and computers, you would need the equivalent of a MS-PhD right now. You needed to know a LOT more about the fundamentals of mathematics, as well as engineering than you do now. You did not have CAD, FEA, CFD and every other analysis type program for your field, you needed to know how to utilize your brain. Computers have removed that function from engineering for the most part now.

Most of the people did have advanced degrees though, and I was in the field, and worked with NASA with only my BS. I would not be able to progress to the program level of operations without at least an MS, and most likely an MS/PhD along with an MBA.

One of the IT applications I manage for my company is the recruiting/careers website. I see managers opening positions all the time that just say "Bachelor's in Engineering". No specific field, the gov't customer just requires a degree. A piece of paper.

That is because IT is a relatively new field, and there are a lot of people in IT that have degrees in other fields. For example, one of my good friends runs the Linux IT department for the State, but his degree is in CJ. Having the degree tells people that you have the ability to learn, that is all it does.

[PeterMP]

IFrom a money standpoint, a lot of people are paying a lot of extra tuition for very little extra benefit.

There is being smart when you are looking for colleges if money is an issue:

http://www.topcolleges.com/news32.html

"One official who follows college tuition suggested that Grinnell's increase is an effort by the school to preserve its reputation as one of the nation's elite colleges.

"There's a sizable segment of the American population that equates price with quality," said Steven Roy Goodman, an official of Top Colleges, a Washington, D.C. college admissions consulting company."

I can't find the link, but there was one of those private schools that did just that and pretty much admitted it. They raised tuition because they thought a higher tuition would make them seem more prestigious, and then the next year, their number of applicants increased.

A large number of people that are paying out BIG bucks to go to some of these schools just are wasting their money.

My wife has a friend that is sending her son to Sienna. He struggled in high school and now he is struggling in college. In general, if you are going to a place like that, you are probably better off saving your money and going to a state school, but certainly if you are mediecore student that is the case.

[chomerics]

I didn't read all the article, but I have always said for a long time that college isn't money smart.

LMAO, what a complete crock of crap. Right now, with my BS I make over 6 figures, and I would be hard pressed to make half of this without a degree. I went back to college at 25 because I realized opening the door with a degree was half the battle. To say college isn't money smart is akin to saying you can make more as a garbage collector so just do that. . .the reality of the situation is that a 4 year degree means over $1million dollars more in salary over your lifetime, a VERY VERY wise investment, and probably the wisest investment you can make.

the amount of money you invest in college, doesn't equate with how much you make when you get out. In other words, college is getting too expensive.

Which now more than ever, I would tell my kids to go to a community or local college. It's cheaper, you can obtain the same goals and get an education for a career.

It all depends on hoe you value your money, how smart you are, and how you apply yourself. I went to a 4 year state school, paid for it myself, graduated in 3.5 years and the total bill was $15k.

If people want to shell out the $40K/year for an Ivy league school, they are more than welcome to do so, but in the long term it isn't your BS that matters, it is your MS. So to a state school, get the in-state tuition rates, apply yourself and then go to an Ivy with your MS.

One more thing, when you go for your MS/PhD, the vast majority of people do not pay for anything, and are actually paid to go to college. You work on a research program, get a stipend, have your room/board/tuition taken care of, and work your butt off. If I wanted to, I could get my PhD without spending more than $10K, as most of the people who graduate near or at the top of their class can.

[honeydont]

The person behind the degree is what makes the statistics differ. I have an AA, BS and Masters and the BS degree was a great investment in my personal and professional career because I have always been a postive- super hustle person. My postive/yes attitude is the difference between me and my co-workers not the degrees I have.

[alexey]

It all depends on hoe you value your money, how smart you are, and how you apply yourself. I went to a 4 year state school, paid for it myself, graduated in 3.5 years and the total bill was $15k.

If people want to shell out the $40K/year for an Ivy league school, they are more than welcome to do so, but in the long term it isn't your BS that matters, it is your MS. So to a state school, get the in-state tuition rates, apply yourself and then go to an Ivy with your MS.

One more thing, when you go for your MS/PhD, the vast majority of people do not pay for anything, and are actually paid to go to college. You work on a research program, get a stipend, have your room/board/tuition taken care of, and work your butt off. If I wanted to, I could get my PhD without spending more than $10K, as most of the people who graduate near or at the top of their class can.

This is a great plan, but somewhat specific to engineering/R & D kind of stuff. In some cases having a respectable BS is the best way to start, in some cases having a MS is more important than where it's from, etc.