The Real Value of a College Education (with addendum)

Mass movements, grass-root movements, invariably act as revealers of important societal matters that are seldom discussed. Frequently, that which is revealed has nothing to do with the movement’s declarations or with its goals. The publicity the media has given to the “Occupy” movement of the second half of 2011, and the revulsion conservative commentators have expressed against it, have shown one big thing: Americans don’t understand what colleges and universities do to or for young people. Curiously, the misapprehensions of members of the Occupy movement and those of their conservative critics often match closely. Any number of 25-year old have been displayed on television lamenting that there were not jobs corresponding to their particular degree. At the same time, talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, an aggressively proud college dropout, reviled movement members for choosing stupid, useless majors that could not possibly procure them work.

The laments and the reviling are based on the same fallacy. I will explain what the fallacy is presently but, first, my credentials to address the topic: I taught at the university level for thirty years of which 24 were in the Management department of a business school. I am a sociologist by trade, with a PhD from a good university. I have several years of experience in business, including as an occasional employer of young people. Early in my life as an illegal immigrant I had a large number of bad jobs.

Here is the fallacy: Contrary to what appears now to be a widespread perception or impression, with some very important exceptions, an undergraduate degree, a BA or a BS, do not prepare one for a particular career, for a particular field of endeavor. First the exceptions: Most or all engineering degrees, any degree in nursing, bachelors in Accounting, for sure, and possibly in Finance. I think that’s it.

Now the blinding truth. Graduating with a given major often requires only a handful of courses in or connected to the major. Often this is only five or six courses out of more than forty college courses. In most schools, there is no requirement at all that the student do more than pass the required major-related required courses. Grade inflation being what it is, this means that the student may know no more, or even know less, than the average well-informed person with no such major under his belt. The best students may master the basic technical vocabulary of the relevant field, perhaps twenty terms in all. It’s also fairly common for the best students in a given major to be aware of the canonical tests in their chosen field. So, a major in Sociology (like me) would know something of Max Weber, of Karl Marx, and perhaps of Durkheim. The average Sociology major thinks Weber is a barbecue. The very best departments also expose their good students to some of the important tools of their discipline. This exposure does not imply fluency in those techniques at all, only recognition. Finally, to my knowledge, undergraduate students who major in a normal academic discipline are not able to read its scholarly periodicals nor are they expected to be. This means that whatever little they know in the field upon graduating will soon have become obsolete.

It follows from this shallow journey that satisfying the requirements of a major does not imply a particular competence pertaining to any business field or industrial activity. A degree in Biology does not qualify one to do biological work except perhaps for the Federal Government, as a park ranger, and then only after passing a qualifying exam. Similarly, a major in Marketing does not mean that the holder can “do marketing” for a company (except insofar as marketing includes sales). The completion of a Theater major will not give your daughter a part even in a local production and a Communications major corresponds to no slot in any newspaper. (In fact, I would bet that there are more communications majors graduating every year than there are positions in all media together.) As a former teacher of Management, I assure you that that major certainly does not make one a manager. And a Psychology major almost always implies only a young woman with identity issues. Even the undemanding field of education requires that its workers take additional courses beyond their major. Undergraduate studies – with the exceptions above – do not supply occupational competence. This requires an advanced degree.

How do my cynical statements stack up against the belief that college graduates make more money over a lifetime than others? This is a complicated issued that was well reviewed in the Nov. 19-20 2011 of the Wall Street Journal (Bialik, Carl. “College Does Pay off But It’s No a Free Ride.”) To make a long story short, the figure of an extra cool million dollars over a lifetime is a naive exaggeration and misinterpretation of raw facts. Yet, there is little doubt that the acquisition of a college degree, on the average, corresponds to several extra hundreds of thousands in a lifetime. So, the question remains, what is being financially rewarded there if not occupational competence?

Obtaining a college degree is a sort of obstacle course against oneself, against one’s inner child. It requires a degree of perseverance, the realization that it’s important to get up in the morning, some attention to events – tests – scheduled by others in disregard of one’s internal clock, the obligation to perform – to some extent- in tasks one would not chose freely. (They are called “assignments.”). Every major also requires that one get one’s drinking under control. Finally, earning a degree, any degree, in any major, imposes the ability to retain, at least for a short time, material one finds boring. In other words, a college degree is a sort of certificate of adult middle-classness. There are also some fringe benefits. College graduates often but not always, have read more books than high-school graduates, frequently four or five, sometimes ten. Although the level of literacy is low among college graduates in general, there is a fair chance it’s higher in your average college graduate than in the average high-school graduate.

The best college graduates, those with high GPAs (3.0 GPA, minimum although in many schools, the cut-off point would be nearer 3.5) even develop a critical sense. I was rendered so pessimistic by my experience in an expensive university, by my exposure to the bottomless ignorance, to the perverse credulousness of undergraduates that I keep losing track of this fact: Yet, good college graduates, with any major, are liable to be more critical than others. I am not sure about the source of this miracle. It’s a mystery how my politically correct, conformist former colleagues manage this small miracle, or if they have anything to do with it at all. Yet, every so often by happenstance, I bump into an intelligent, well-read person who did not go to college. Almost every time, I find quickly that this autodidact is incapable of absorbing, even of considering, important troves of knowledge that are beyond common sense. One brilliant man whom I knew well could never accept the logic of statistical sampling. He believed that representing a large number by a small number had to involve fraud. Similarly, many self-taught bright people are closed to the logic of natural selection. Although my evidence is completely subjective, the conclusion is inescapable: In some cases, a college education opens mental doors that nothing else opens. Smart people who did not go to college appear to be stuck cognitively in the seventeenth century. In addition, they often seem to me to be uncommonly stubborn. (That’s another story.)

These few but important virtues are what employers, especially large corporations buy. They use the college degree as a basis for the bet that recruits are trainable because they have middle-class values, or sort of do. They make the further bet that a few college graduates possess enough criticality to be able to make small decisions on behalf of the organization. So, with the exceptions named above, a college major nearly never directly confers any skills that draw remuneration. By contrast, there are many non-college courses of training that do exactly that and with a high degree of certainty. Those would include such things as certificate courses for dental hygienist and plumbing apprenticeships, both of which require less time and cost less than the pursuit of any college major. Interestingly neither of these well-paid occupations seems to make one a middle-class person forever the way a college degree with the lowest possible GPA seems to do.

And then, of course, if you have the personality of a Steve Jobs or of a Bill Gates or of any number of entrepreneurs you probably should not go to college for long.

Addendum on 11/25/11:  I often say that writing is thinking. So, I thought about the topics of this essay during Thanksgiving. I realized that if I were again an employer of young people, I would in fact pay attention to majors. I would look at majors not because of what they would tell me about graduates’ competences but because of what they might tell me about their character and about their imagination. The handful of Classics (Greek and/or Latin) BAs and the more numerous Philosophy majors would be high on any list of mine. English majors I would also consider on the off chance that they had learned how to write a little and because  writing is thinking; see above. I would also look briefly at foreign language majors with no family background in the relevant language. I mean Spanish majors without immigrant parents or grandparents from Latin America. To those, I would give a one-sentence on-the-spot test. 98% would flunk; I would think seriously of hiring the 2% who didn’t.

Woman’s Mind; The Mysteries of “Occupy;” the Libertarian Side of the Movement; Syrians

My wife of more years than she cares to remember just told me calmly that I had “low standards” in “women and in food.” It seems that she thinks I could have done better than her. Makes me think because, by and large, I trust that woman’s judgment. Got to take a second look at myself. As far as the food is concerned, she had a conflict of interest when she made the statement. Recently, she bought some expensive rice than I am not allowed to eat because, she says I “would not appreciate it.”

I keep learning about those fascinating creatures. It’s never boring, not ever or not yet! Feminists will maintain with a straight face that this kind of stuff never happens, that it’s all in my mind. Normal women, on the other hand, don’t even raise an eyebrow at this kind of story. “Been there, done it,” their impassiveness seems to say. (And, contrasting feminists with normal women was not a slip of the tongue. I barely ever have those. If you follow my musings, you will realize that I am coldly calculating.)

I keep an eye on the “Occupy Santa Cruz “ street site. (See my posting on this: “Occupy Wall Street, and Santa Cruz, and Democrat Electoral Desperation,” from October 11) I noticed today that there were three times more people there at 11 AM than at 10 AM. Why would that be? As a far as I know this differential showing corresponds to no major work schedule.

Another source of puzzlement: There are more “Occupy” tents than there are ever occupiers present on the site where all the signs are stored or shown. Some of the tents can shelter more than one person. How can this be? Do some tent dwellers go to their job in the morning and come back in the evening to demonstrate against inequality and against the corporations by sleeping in a tent? Too many unanswered questions.

My faraway friend, Kay Day, a prolific conservative columnist and blogger and a woman I admire greatly, recently published a piece fairly sympathetic to the “Occupy” movement. (http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/on-the-ground-at-ows-new-york-no-formal-leadership-is-the-point) First, I am not completely surprised and second, I have some comments.

I am not surprised because the movement does have an anarchist flavor and the word “anarchist” means about the same as the word “libertarian” but with a different connotation. People who call themselves “anarchists” tend to have vague ideas about the sources of government oppression they denounce. They have trouble imagining that the government (technically the “state” ) is inherently oppressive. Libertarians are often anarchists who understand the market idea. Scratch a libertarian and you will often find a former anarchist; educate an anarchist and you will frequently get a libertarian; scratch an anarchist and I have no idea what you will find. And the movement itself has an anarchist form. It’s probably true that, as I write, it has no leaders.

Kay interviews a young media woman, “M” who is herself part of the movement in New York City. The young woman describes what she sees in terms that would also turn me in the movement’s favor. I don’t believe “M” distorts anything, nor does she need to. What she reports I would probably also observe if I were on the ground. Rather, I suspect that “M”’s mind contains the typical mixture of sophistication and naivety one usually finds in young people with semi-advanced degrees from good universities: They know enough to gather facts selectively in order to build a coherent story but their conventionalism finally shows through. In this case, “M” pointed out to Kay that “media typically interview or profile white males although this constituency is ‘far from the majority of the group.’” There is zero evidence that either part of the statement is true, of course. And in New York City, specifically, if reporters are biased I would bet that it is by interviewing females preferentially (and any hapless black female within reach, fifty times a day until she is forced to go home to escape the harassment).

This is not to deny the anarchistic and potentially libertarian potential of the movement. My objection is this: Any group, however diffuse, however little of a group it is, that denounces the political process while demanding change that is both radical and quick is ripe for capture by various forms of fascism.

I thought MoveOn was a fascist organization serving candidate Obama’s campaign. It turns out he probably did not need it to win victory. This time, however, things look frankly bad for candidate Obama. He might need a big push. At this late date, it is striking that there are still no media reports of anyone in the “Occupy “ movement, anyone at all, blaming the president for anything, including for stubbornly high unemployment

Speaking of fascism, the Syrian peaceful revolution continues. Conservative lovers of freedom are not giving those brave people the credit they deserve. At this point, given the size of the Syrian population, it’s as if Americans had lost 55,000 lives to a dictator’s campaign of assassinations.

Occupy Wall Street; Don’t Attack Grandma: The New Class Struggle

Behind the verbal incoherence, behind the posturing, behind the bad children’s tantrum, behind the trash, behind the grotesque self-regard of those who would borrow $120,000 to earn a degree in “German Studies,” there may be legitimate resentment in the “Occupy” movement. It’s true that it’s difficult to get from the demonstrators an answer to a straight question that does not make you laugh or cry, or both. However, you may not have to await their answer to understand.

To the extent that you can trust television cameras at all, they seem to show largely demonstrators between their mid-twenties and their mid-thirties. That would be people born between 1975 and 1985. Those cohorts had only known ease and prosperity until 2008. They were brought up by easy-going parents who sent them, or allowed them to attend schools that nurtured self-indulgence more than intellectual curiosity. I have two children near the younger edge of these age groups. I am guilty too. When they were playing soccer, they never heard anything from coaches except “Good try.” I remember clearly one little kid ( not one of mine, God forbid!) garnering this very accolade after he had marked a goal against his own team. (Would I make this up?) These American cohorts were not in any way prepared for a world where jobs are difficult to get because companies are not hiring and where the jobs you get don’t pay well because companies don’t have to pay well since they won’t invest in you for the long term because there is no long term they can see.

How about the timing of the “Occupy” movement? This is always a difficult question but one that it’s necessary to try and answer. Here is one thing I know about causation: Constants don’t cause sudden change. “Greed” in Wall Street or elsewhere has not caused the crisis because greed has not surged under Pres. Obama. (It would be really interesting if it had but there is absolutely no evidence in support, and no reason to speculate, I am afraid!) Here is what’s new that might function as a cause. For the first time in my memory, there has been -in the past year – public talk about “entitlements.” There have been discussions about what to do concerning Medicare and the Social Security retirement programs. I repeat, this is the first time in my long memory. A taboo has been lifted. While those generations seem badly informed, some of the discussion of entitlement must have reached some of them and then propagated quickly through the Internet. Here is what some of them may have heard and understood:

When we are employed, even at minimum wage, a percentage of our earnings goes to support old people who don’t work. Some of the geezers bring in $2500 each month thanks to me, more than I am earning working full time. The same idle old people earn more than do those of us who have been employed and are now unemployed for some unknown duration. Many of these old people seem hale, hearty, happy. They look like they will be around, sucking our blood, for a long time. I am going to have to carry them for most of my life. The geezers will go on smoking pot in the house they own while I will never be able to buy a house. And it gets worse: I heard all my youth that when my time comes, there will be nothing left for me of Social Security or only crumbs.

Same thing with Medicare. Those old guys don’t worry about their medical care because I pay for it while I cannot afford any medical insurance myself. My job does not offer it and I cannot afford the premiums. That’s not for me and not for my children.

Medicare too will be long gone by the time I qualify. Either Obamacare will survive and the country will be bled white. Or the Republicans will kill it and conservative forces will put retirement age at 75 or even 80. Either way, I will have gotten screwed.

So, we may be witnessing the beginning of a class struggle, one that Marx never thought about. (Marx was a kind of distracted guy: He missed the importance of both the publicly held corporation and of social security programs, the first of the latter available in Prussia while Marx was still going strong.) This would be a struggle between age classes rather than between economic classes. It would make sense because the former, unlike the latter, can be defined neatly. It’s not clear if a lawyer or a social worker, is a “proletarian” or not today but we know well when the retirement part of Social Security is supposed to run out of money. This provides a neat divide between exploiters and exploited classes. And the idea of “exploitation” makes rather more sense in the context of age class than in the traditional sense of economic class. The ones’ benefits are directly taken from the others, after all. No tortuous reasoning about “surplus value” needed! In fact, for the Baby Boom generation SS retirement benefits were pretty much, or largely, earned, Medicare was partly funded by themselves only, prescription drugs benefits, not at all. (We owe the latter to the munificence of G. W. Bush, I remind you.)

The main defect of this explanation is that it seems that none of the participants seems to invoke it. And, I agree that it’s a problem! But, look: Admitting all this would force one straightforwardly to attack Grandma. The relevant generation of Americans does not have the intestinal fortitude such a move would require. Instead, it’s easier to deflect their collective anger to social actors that seem distant and about which they know nothing: “The Corporations.”

Technical note: I can testify that five years ago, no sophomore in an expensive university where I taught near Silicone Valley knew what a publicly held corporation was. That’s zero. I taught in the business school and I made it my task to explain. There was not resistance. Students were quite interested. They had never been told anything except that corporations were evil. Students would sometimes spontaneously express their surprise at how “fair” the corporate stocks system seemed to be once you understood it. There is no reason to believe the situation has improved since I retired.

Students in the school of Arts and Sciences I believe never received even an elementary explanation. There is worse. If I had a chance to take money off my former colleagues from that school (except those in Economics), I would plunge without hesitation into a bet with them involving a simple definition of the word “corporation.” If I were allowed to bet with all of them, at once, I am certain I would make easy money overall. Reflect on this: I am willing to risk my hard-earned Social Security retirement benefit on the proposition that the average English professor does not know what corporations are. He just knows he hates them and he transmits his hatred to his semi-educated brood, many of whom are “occupying “ something or other right now.