A College Degree Isn T Enough Summary

Because having a degree has become so common, employers now use it as a way to eliminate people who would not make good candidates for employment—even if a degree isn’t a totally accurate determinant of one’s talent or work skills. The mass availability of college education may actually “debase its intrinsic value” (Bankston, p. 338).

To start his argument, Murray points out that the work force is encouraging people to go to college. He even goes so far as to say “employers do not even interview applicants who do not hold a BA” (Murray 345). Some even say that a bachelor’s degree is “the credential for success in the world of work” (Wonacott n.p.). Murray believes that as a result of employers requiring a BA, students think of the degree as an “admission ticket” to a good job (Murray 346). Because of the increase in college graduates and the lack of growth in jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree “the job market will be less favorable to college

In his essay titled “Yes A College Education Is Worth the Costs,” published in USA Today, former president of Southern Virginia University and a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law Rodney K. Smith, raises his concern about people willing to invest in material things rather than their future. By using the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the unemployed population to show that the unemployment rate is caused by the absences of graduates to satisfy the jobs in demand, he tries to convince the reader of the importance of education. As a 2010 report by the BLS indicates compared to 14.9% unemployed people without a high school diploma, only 1.9% graduates with a doctoral degree are unemployed. In addition, the average weekly income of a high school degree holder is 1106 less than a doctoral degree holder (qtd in Smith).

In Goldie Blumenstyk, “Can a 20- Minute Test Tell Employers What a College Degree Cannot?” , she discusses the idea of employers administering a test to new employees to see if they are eligible for the job they are applying to. Blumenstyk looks at both sides of the argument to decide if “simple tests that employers can use to measure whether college graduates and others are really ready for the jobs they apply for” (Blumenstyk). Employers are relying on a bachelor's degree to decide whether a person is eligible for the job they are applying to, but a bachelor's doesn’t communicate all the skills required for a specific job. The administered screening can measure other skills needed in a job like critical thinking skills.

One thing a college degree provides is a valuable job, right? Or maybe not. Due to the introduction of people analytics— a method of hiring which replaces human intuition and bias with computerized tests and database searches— employers are now able to look past someones origin of education. Employers are now realizing that a college degree is just a piece of paper and does not fully represent a persons intelligence or capabilities. If this is not convincing enough, take a look at some of the most successful people in the world; for example, Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest people in the world and a college dropout. The new people analytics method being applied in the workforce is happening thanks to programs like Knack, which give statistical analysis based off of several factors including, how a person solves problems and the sequence of their actions. In Don Peck’s article, “They’re Watching You at Work,” Peck argues, without

A college degree is a valuable asset that could ultimately lead to a productive life in society due to the received education, but people without a college degree do turn out more than adequate in regards to societal success. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the forecasted 30 fastest growing jobs between 2010 and 2020, five do not require a high school diploma, nine require a high school diploma, four require an associate 's degree, six require a bachelor 's degree, and six require graduate degrees to get the jobs (College). In an article called “College Education” by ProCon.org,

The degree is seen as a free (to the employer) screening tool to filter through the applicants. The employer sees the degree as a representation of the individual’s ability to learn as well as a level of perseverance desired in employees. Considering the social and economic pressures in today’s world, all individuals with the ability to attend college and achieve a degree should do so in order to better prepare themselves for a competitive job market.

Many young people think that obtaining a college degree is the best way—perhaps the only way—to get a good job anymore. So is it still possible to get a good job without one? According to Professor Blanche D. Blank, attaining a college degree doesn’t always guarantee success. In his published article “Degrees: Who Needs Them?”, he argues that American college is not teaching young adults the actual skills they need for the workforce, instead the education system is becoming a jumble of generalized credits that amount to a degree. College is becoming a mold for one to fit in the technological culture, rather than to release one to actively engage in the pursuit of knowledge. Blank begins building his credibility with personal experiences and

In today’s society as we know it, having a college education has become one of the most important factors when applying for a job. Jobs have begun to raise the bar for their employee’s education. Now, most employers hiring are expecting for the applicants to have an Associate’s degree. With that being said, many employers prefer hiring individuals who have obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher… but is college for everyone?

This can be further illustrated by Andy Blevins, a college dropout who left college to pursue a warehouse job. He now thinks that he could've done more with a degree. He laments that when looking for a job "A lot of places, they're not looking that you're trained in something,They just want you to have a degree. " This contradicts one of the key parts of many people's conceptions of the american dream, which says that if you work hard, you’ll be rewarded accordingly. Rather, the key to a successful career is a college degree.

In recent conversations of the increment of the student loan debt, a controversial issue has been whether a college degree is worth getting. On the one hand, some argue that earning a college degree is a major life achievement that some consider to be part of the American dream. From this perspective, we can see that a college degree opens up more opportunities and possibilities of employment with a higher pay and position. On the other hand, however, others argue that many people succeed without college degrees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 30 projected fastest growing jobs between 2010 and 2020, five do not require a high school diploma, nine require a high school diploma, four require an associate’s degree, six require a bachelor’s degree, and six require graduate degrees. In sum, the issue is whether a college or career path is worth the debt or not.

Supporters of getting a college degree often point to the statistics that college graduates earn more than their high school educated peers over a lifetime. Statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau reports that since 1977, “Adults with bachelor's degrees in the late 1970s earned 55 percent more than adults who had not advanced beyond high school. That gap grew to 75 percent by 1990 -- and is now at 85 percent.” A gap of an 85% pay difference is a huge figure and a clear reason why college is a great option for some people. But there are problems with that figure because when the number of college graduates who are either unemployed or underemployed is taken into account it changes the value of the statistic. In an article by Businessweek’s Richard Vedder we get statistics to counter that argument. He tells of how the number of new college graduates far exceeds job growth in technical, managerial, and professional jobs where graduates traditionally have searched for employment. As a consequence, we have underemployed college graduates doing jobs historically performed by those with just a highschool education. He says we have “more than 100,000 janitors with

     It seems in the society we live in today, having a college degree is a necessity. Years ago it was the norm for people to just go right into a full time job after high school, if they even finished high school; they did this to support their families. In today’s society a person has a difficult time getting a decent job without a college degree. During an adults working life, bachelor degree graduates will earn about $2.1 million and a high school graduate can expect to earn an average of $1.2 million (Day and Newburger, 2002). This is quite a difference and it puts a college education in

We once again questioned if this could be contradicted, and found that one could point out that, just because you have a college degree it doesn’t mean you are qualified and automatically get the job. Sometimes they don’t assist you but make it more challenging. Leading to the newly formulated statement, “Degrees may assist you in getting a higher paying job.” Unfortunately, this lead to another contradiction, in which, some companies specifically don’t higher college graduates because they are too qualified for the job. Finally, we can to a conclusion, with an irrefutable statement, “In applying for a specific job, a college degree could be an advantage.” We were not able to refute this statement, because it is true that college degrees can significantly help one who is apply for specific jobs, but can hurt with other jobs, that might deem a person over

The main issue in this article is that the education system is failing to deliver valuable education while promoting inequality among the student who can and can’t afford an education. One of the reasons for the poor quality of education is that students are not recognizing the importance of knowledge. According to the article “time-use studies show that the time students spend in class or studying has dropped from 40 hours a week in the 1920s to the 1960s to 27 hours a week now.” (source) This means that students are taking it easier in their educational system. Many employers tend to not be interested in grades. They’re main concern is if you have a degree to back up a pretentious education. With this easy access to jobs, graduates are