College Graduation? No Guaranteed Ticket to “Success”

If you’re going to college just to party, you’re wasting your money – or your parents’ money – but perhaps you’ll end up with some fond memories from it.

If you’re going to college to find a job to make yourself wealthy, you should aim to graduate other than into an economic recession. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, graduating into a down-turning economy badly affects a job-seeker's income for years. ( See WSJ, May 9, 2008, The Curse of the Class of 2009: For College Grads Lucky Enough to Get Work This Year, Low Wages are Likely to Haunt Them for a Decade or More)

That article goes on to state

…for each percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate, those with the misfortune to graduate during the recession earned 7% to 8% less in their first year out than comparable workers who graduated in better times. The effect persisted over many years, with recession-era grads earning 4% to 5% less by their 12th year out of college, and 2% less by their 18th year out.

So, in 2011 with a 9% unemployment rate, you should, roughly calculating, expect a minimum of 10.5 to 12% less in your first year of employment, than you would have in, say, a year with an unemployment rate of 7.5%.

You might as well party your way through college, it seems. Or do something better: learn what really interests you. (A little partying won’t hurt, either. Neither would picking up saleable experience or a skill during summer vacation.) But take advantage of college to study something you really enjoy, something that lights up your life. Just don’t expect to earn your living at it. It may happen; it may not.

A common strategy among graduates is to stay on in school and get a higher degree. This costs more money, usually borrowed, and offers no more guaranteed a result than the undergraduate degree.

You, I and a lot of other people, have been brought up on unrealistic expectations: school success does not have the influence we imagined on our chances for job success. An A, B, C or D in calculus, or English, or chemistry, whether we get it in high school or college, is likely all the same to a future employer, whose future needs will be far more important to the decision to hire us than any of our past academic pains and glories.

To examine these issues further, see Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry. 
How much can school reform enhance a student's occupational fitness?


Cordially
--- EGR

What Can Schools Do For Our Children?

As parents, we want a lot for our kids. And we expect school to provide some (sometimes, a great deal) of what we want.

We want what is desirable, not undesirable: an interesting classroom; not, boring repetition. Warmth when it’s cold and coolness when it’s sweltering; not, the reverse. Teachers who are patient and know their stuff; not, easily annoyed incompetents. Classmates who treat each other with respect or care; not, bullies or bad-mouthers. Schools that children are eager to get to and stay late at; not, ones that destroy interest, or make children wake up in the morning with a feeling of dread or leave with a feeling of relief.

In a galaxy long ago and far away I attended various schools with some of those positives. We had time for music and art more than occasionally; but even math drills or penmanship practice was focused and limited. We had recess or gym for some physical activity. We had class or school plays which were not considered a waste of academic study time.

No one imagined that as schoolkids we had to be prepared to Improve the World or national economic standing in the decades to come. (Too bad, perhaps. Maybe if I had been forced to do more long division problems back there in 1953, the bank failures of 2008, or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, might not have happened!)

Not all was happiness and light. Schools also replicated the prejudices of the wider society albeit in a somewhat reduced form, especially since our teachers, who were almost all women with decades of experience, saw themselves to some extent as social reformers.

What schools can do for our children depends upon what we can come to agree on is desirable. But not all desirable things are compatible; they may only be had as exclusive options.

Some benefits may be available to all. Others are self-restricting. Time, money, student interest and teacher expertise, for example, are necessary but not limitless. This is true no matter what the state of the economy or World politics.

To examine these issues further, see Dissecting School Benefits: a typology of conflicting goals


Cordially
--- EGR

Power Failure: Losing the Series; Blaming the Bat Boys

Employee productivity was down, along with employment. Both inflation and deflation threatened. Some rabblerousers pointed to Bushian taxing policies that, in effect, shifted critical wealth from middle to upper class households. Other malcontents criticized arbitragers who dismantled viable enterprises to make profits at the expense of employees and stockholders.

Luckily, persons of deep insight and loud voice, realizing that corporate America could never be held responsible for the state of the economy, exposed to public view the real cause of America's decline to an n-th rate power. The public schools were at fault!

Administrators didn't know how to administrate; teachers didn't know how to teach; and, students didn't know how to study. Besides, there was an achievement gap between students of different ethnic groups which was the major blockage to continued economic development.

And it all came down to leadership, educational leadership, in the schools, in the lunchrooms, in the locker rooms, in the showers, in the broom closets, …

To examine these issues further, see Educational Leadership: The Interesting Profession

Cordially
EGR