Change is required to revitalize job market

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-11/22/content_496826.htm

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Chinese college graduates are finding themselves in increasingly fierce competition for satisfactory jobs.

College graduates will number 4.1 million next summer, nearly four times the number in 2001. Many local educational policy-makers have racked their brains to create job opportunities for these graduates, once considered "blessings from God" due to their shortage .

The amazing increase in the number of college graduates is a direct result of the expanded enrolment of universities nationwide in recent years. It seems higher education has become widely accessible.

Article has more, but college is only useful when there are jobs to make it worthwhile. In my sigline, I've a well written, thoughtful, and also just as scary article from techrepublic.com showing (at least in America) how college is pointless.

"If we know more about the country's split economy, with the less prosperous rural areas providing much fewer job opportunities, it would be easier for us to understand the discrepancies in the job market. Most graduates swarm to cities, especially big ones, to find a satisfactory position and enjoy the comfortable infrastructure.

Split economy? Just like in America where they are also telling us all to go to college? College that costs $20,000+ but at least in America the chances to get a job pertaining to the degree are slim at best? (this should be no problem at all in China, with everything we hear about their booming economy while ours continues to sink like New Orleans!)

Against this backdrop, college students need to lower their expectations in the face of an increasingly competitive market. In the past when there were much fewer young college graduates, they could all secure a job in big cities with a high salary and comfortable working environment. Those good days have gone.

Social engineering? Again, they're talking CHINA and not the US. And for this to be said in China speaks volumes.


But regardless of country and economic status, if college or education is not affordable, people CAN NOT afford it - no matter how much they want to. And that ugly truth isn't going to get them very far either.

A BA or BS guarantees nothing in today's economy.

At least not in the US.

Seems like China is starting to have the same problem.

that this problem is happening now around the globe. If I think about this situation in our country, it occurs to me that people without the intellectual/motivational ability to attend college (or those who simply can't afford it) have no real alternatives. As a college instructor, I'm also shocked by the low ability level of students coming in from highschool. I teach biology and I have students enroll in my first year class that need a calculator to MULTIPLY! It is shocking.

I think that it should be possible for people to make a 'career' as a shoe salesman etc...I really like the way that the do things in many parts of Europe. There, if you aren't going to college, you take a 2 year study program to become...a shoe salesman (for example). You take basic math courses as well as courses about how shoes are made, etc. You earn a decent wage, have insurance benefits and are a shoe-selling professional...

When I talk about that idea here, people practically snort in my face...but...I have to say that if you go to a drug store in europe and ask a question about a product you get full and complete answers...not a 'duh' stare of a 16 year old who doesn't give a rat's patooty.

College degrees have become more and more worthless in this country also in part due to the necessity to lower standards in order to push people through to graduation. A college education is no longer worth the money.

I can only rely on second hand stories. I don't have any children. Those that I observed do get the opportunity to take higher math than anything I ever took in the 1970s, so I was expecting the graduates would be "better prepared". Welcome to our message board.

my take on this (though my oldest is only in junior high, so my experience is still limited) there is a lot of busy work...a lot. In addition, I returned to college as an older student and had to re-take some of my earlier coursework for my major because it was too old. In my first calc class, I killed myself for a B+.. really. The second time around (10+ years later) it was a total blow-off...and not because I had had it before...but because the average exam grades were 50%. College professors have to actually maintain an average number of passing students or there is hell to pay from administrators and parents...so....even though students were clueless, they passed or got A's. Standards are falling.

They graded on a curve and meant to send a message to the sub-mean students to go find another major.

When my father taught tech school, he got a bonus if he kept all the students. He could not discourage them with bad grades even if they were failing. These were largely students who had left school a long while ago and had taken took high school lightly when they were there. To teach refrigeration, he found a quick-learning book just to teach the students how to compose complete sentences.

However, I think this is all different from the real prep school experience. Thanks for your comment about busy work.

there are certain programs where 50% has been a traditional average exam grade...ie chemistry/engineering/etc.

It's just that when you're teaching bio 101 and the average grade on an exam is 50% and the test pretty much comes from the questions at the end of eac chapter...you really throw up your hands and ask yourself what the heck you're doing anymore.

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An auto mechanic who is certified on the more sophisticated computer diagnosis methods can make much better money than almost any college grad. There are many other instances of trades or technical occupations that don't require a BS being a good income.

The problem is that we don't value skilled workers. We are moving to a 2 tiered labor market, of low paid unskilled Walmart greeters on the one hand and of highly paid corporate managers and attorneys on the other. Kids think their options are go to college for the latter or they are stuck with the former.

my father recently retired from his job as a heavy-equipment(mostly cranes) operator, with a union pension plan that includes FULL health coverage(including dental, vision, prescription) and a pension of $50,000 a year for life- and if he dies first, my mother still gets the medical, plus about $32,000/yr for life.
and that's on top of social security.

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in a lot of ways, college is just a 4-year part of the interview process for a job in corporate america.
there are plenty of people with too much intellectual/motivational ability to attend college- artisans, tradesmen, entrepreneurs, etc.. for people who work for themselves, and have a passion for what they do, college can be just a 4-year roadblock that they have no interest in, or need for.

that college is not for everyone for many, many reasons....many of them having nothing to do with intellect...though I don't think being TOO motivated is one of them. I wouldn't say that college is a part of the interview process for corporate america either...at least not for the slew of teachers, social workers, historians, language students, art history majors etc.

I would, however, say that completing a 4 year degree in a field has its benefits...and that having a degree correlates with a higer rate of financial success. Learning a trade, in my eyes, should have the same amount of prestige as a college degree....and my brother is an entrepeneur who never went to college but has a small business of his own.

College just isn't for everyone for a variety of reaons, but unfortunately, in our society, a failure to secure that degree can result in fewer job opportunities and lower incomes.

plenty of people who know early on what they want to do in life see college as nothing but a 4-year deferment of their dreams. i don't know your brothers situation/story, but he could very easily be the kind of person i mean...many entrepreneurs are.

and if a job requires a college degree, then college is most definitely a prt of the 'interview process'...how many teachers, historians, etc., could get their jobs without a degree of some sort?
many people don't end up with a job/career directly related to their college major anyway- but employers just want to know that a candidate has the 'stick-to-it-iveness' that a 4-year degree implies and carries with it.

It's not what you know how how to multiply... it's passing those personality profiling tests.

Even having a decade's worth of great work experience means nothing because a computer is going to determine if you're good enough for the company.

Check out this link too --> http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11181-0.html?forumID=6&threadID=179848&start=0

It ain't pretty.

Let the kids rot, but if good working people are being sent to the sword, then our society is truly finished.

...it would seem that the real problem is the population growth. Here we just aren't managing our resources well.

Ouch! That makes college nothing but job training.

80% of college grads end up working in a field that they didn't major in ... and...for most areas of study you receive a theoretical background that usually doesn't prepare you for a certain job. You still need on the job training.

I studied engineering and have my degree. I work in my specific field of engineering and in fact work alongside people who wrote some of my textbooks.

Many of the people I graduate with still work in engineering, although some have elected to stay at home to raise kids at times (both men and women) and there are a few who left the field for other professions like teaching...etc

The key thing I was able to do in college was enhance was my ability to problem solve and how to approach problems.

I read it some time ago....but the majority of individuals who were working outside of their major had studied things like psychology, etc. Let me see if I can find it.

a good thing...

however, before we concern ourselves w. luxuries we have to concern ourselves w. necessities

indebting a young person to the tune of $100,000 for a luxury is cruel and wasteful

if the college does not provide job training as its primary purpose, no one should be encouraging anyone but the idle rich or the older financially secure person to attend

college is first and foremost abt getting training so that we can have decent lives and contribute in a material manner to our society

it is not a young lady's finishing school

it is not abt making it easier for me to give off witty chitchat at the office party

a lexus is a good thing too, a cruise to norway fjords is a good thing -- but we would never encourage our children to indebt themselves to buy those things

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i left disillusioned when i realized that it was really all about making grades- not really learning anything.

Isn't it ridiculous! I hate the fact that everything is about memorizing for the next exam, regurgitation of material (and then forgetting it) and moving on to the next unit. I studied in germany for a few years and it was so much better. You didn't have exams...maybe a couple of assignments. If you attended and did the assignments, you passed...then, two years into the program, you took an exam that covered all academic content (think GRE Subject exam but more detailed)...your motivation to learn in your classes was for yoursel and for an exam 2 years off and you looked for your own textbooks and really cared about learning. It was so awesome.

I thoroughly enjoyed my college experience and in fact I was admonished by my adviser for taking so many extraneous classes...

i've had a pretty good journey so far, to get to where i am today...and plenty of interesting road(s) left to travel.
working in the construction trades gave me a lot of freedoms that the corporocrats don't have, and having a physical job left me in generally much better shape than had i spent the time behind a desk or staring at a crt- most of the people i know my age who went the college/career route have bigger rears.

and although i'm now retired due to disability(congenital, not job-related), it's helped me to attain my number one goal in life- i don't have to have a boss, or be a boss.

besides, you don't need a college degree to enjoy literature, learn history, create art, dive a reef, make/fly a kite, ride a bike, etc...

And what do you EXPECT to get in return? I'm not going to piss away a friggin' PENNY if there's nothing out there to pay the loans back on. That's financial suicide. And if you hadn't noticed (and I know you have), money means more in this 'society' than anything of true value... and it took me long enough to realize that horrible fact too...

Incidentally, I went right from high school to college. More than HALF the classes were remedial reading, public speaking, math, environmental science (what the frig does THAT have to do with computer programming anyway?! Apart from wasting money?!) I can only imagine what other waste-of-time-and-money courses exist in order to get a bunch of letters after one's name, that don't even mean a worthwhile job or career anymore?

College was bullpucky back in 1991 too. The jobs I've been doing the last 14 years have had NOTHING TO DO WITH MY DEGREE, no matter the number of times I've tried using my degree to push myself back into that direction! And even built-up experience never helped (long story, but not relevant...)



Also, given how many MCSEs have shown they only know how to pass a test, I dare say college is a load of feces. Indeed, I of all people have taught a valuable thing or two to MCSE degrees! (and to pass those tests you just need to figure out how the microsoft writer wrote the questions. Real world experience cannot apply; especially given how volatile microsoft software is!!)

Not too very long, it seems...

by getting rid of a lot of the dead wood.

....In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education (National Center for Education Statistics, August, 1993), only 39 percent of 1990 college graduates were working in a job related to their field of study just one year after graduation. As the years go on, the percentage drops so that in a few more years only a tiny percentage actually do the job they studied for.
Here's an interesting breakdown by field of study http://nces.ed.gov/programs/quarterly/vol_3/3_1/q5_2.asp
I can't find the initial study, but there are tons of interesting studies to look at.

Wind Up Workin' In A Gas Station -Frank Zappa
--------------------------------


This here song might offend you some,
If it does it's because your dumb.
That's the way it is where I come from.
If you been there too, lemme see yer thumb.


Lemme see yer thumb (lemme see yer thumb)
Lemme see yer thumb (lemme see yer thumb)
Lemme see yer thumb (lemme see yer thumb)
Lemme see yer thumb (lemme see yer thumb)



Show me yer thumb if yer really dumb,
Show me yer thumb if yer really dumb,
Show me yer thumb if yer really dumb,
Show me yer thumb if yer dumb.


Hey now, better make a decision -
Be a moron and keep your position.
Ya oughta know now, all yer education
Won't help you no how - You're gonna wind up workin' in a gas station

Wind up workin' in a gas station.
Wind up workin' in a gas station.
Wind up workin' in a gas station.

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