I know I've made a thread on this before but can't find it going back several pages so this is probably a rerun.

Wasn't there a 'thing' in the past few years where employers were no longer requiring a bachelors? Makes since seeing as it's been the new good enough diploma for the past 30 years. Ever since the mid 2000s you could pretty much buy one via University of Phoenix or just your local state via online courses. Seems like most degrees are worthless in the sense there aren't enough jobs (most of them teaching...) since you hear so often "in my field" and if they do they often don't pay much more than most entry level gigs. Seems like ivy league isn't so much a better education but rather offering connections by rubbing elbows with the celestial dragons.

Are parents actively saving for college anymore? Seems like it's value is up in the air. Statistically the unemployed rate is lower, but is that field work or being a barista with a masters? Is there still a push to go to college just to go like there was in the 2000s?

They're always attacking education and the memes of teachers eating a nap for lunch just makes you wonder why anyone would get in that industry. Especially after the psycho parents of the pandemic. Like I'm shocked there are any teachers at all. Nobody wants an increase in taxes, but I'm sure it goes to the admin/football team anyway.

The stank of college is still in the air. Whenever people find out others have degrees they are shocked pikachu face about it. "y iz uze here?" they say. Dude just having it doesn't guarantee anything. Hell you could probably just lie on your resume, they ain't checking nothing.

Yinz are all parents, what are you "pushing" in the household?

It is actually the opposite right now. With AI hiring systems becoming the norm, no degree means you are simply filtered out entirely. And there is no move now in the US to replace the college educated with the uneducated. Quite the opposite really, most employers find the college educate had better outcomes than the uneducated, which is how the US got into the habit of taking any degree for a job. All major US corporations want degrees for skilled positions. Bro trust me may work in some places, but not in the US labor market in 2024.

The change that is likely to happen is pressure on colleges to lower costs, and lower tuition. They will almost certainly do this by pushing more for remote mega lectures, or recorded ones, and automated learning systems to handle busy work and testing, which is fine for the majority of undergraduate classes.  No presence on a campus, means a whole host of administration services can be cut entirely, greatly dropping college costs overall.

My old lab is moving students towards preparing for this and pushing educational learning systems as where they should prepare to go to if they move to industry work.

Some parents here are pushing for kids to not enter into a college system, but even our trades are linked to trade colleges.  You either do college here of some sort or be prepared to see your options for a career severely limited.

Mar 19, 2024 0:59:14 GMT @ness said:

I know I've made a thread on this before but can't find it going back several pages so this is probably a rerun.

Wasn't there a 'thing' in the past few years where employers were no longer requiring a bachelors? Makes since seeing as it's been the new good enough diploma for the past 30 years. Ever since the mid 2000s you could pretty much buy one via University of Phoenix or just your local state via online courses. Seems like most degrees are worthless in the sense there aren't enough jobs (most of them teaching...) since you hear so often "in my field" and if they do they often don't pay much more than most entry level gigs. Seems like ivy league isn't so much a better education but rather offering connections by rubbing elbows with the celestial dragons.

Are parents actively saving for college anymore? Seems like it's value is up in the air. Statistically the unemployed rate is lower, but is that field work or being a barista with a masters? Is there still a push to go to college just to go like there was in the 2000s?

They're always attacking education and the memes of teachers eating a nap for lunch just makes you wonder why anyone would get in that industry. Especially after the psycho parents of the pandemic. Like I'm shocked there are any teachers at all. Nobody wants an increase in taxes, but I'm sure it goes to the admin/football team anyway.

The stank of college is still in the air. Whenever people find out others have degrees they are shocked pikachu face about it. "y iz uze here?" they say. Dude just having it doesn't guarantee anything. Hell you could probably just lie on your resume, they ain't checking nothing.

Yinz are all parents, what are you "pushing" in the household?

Great questions @ness,

It all depends I think on what you want to do, some courses are locked in requiring degrees and some aren't.
Degrees definitely still have their place, I don't think we want improperly educated: Accountants, Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers etc.
Some jobs the book work matters.

Where it is strange is seeing someone in a project manager role who is an engineer when all their job requires is Gantt Charts and emails.
Or production supervisors with degrees, it doesn't make much sense.

I am seeing a move towards accepting real world experience over degrees, but the problem is getting the experience.
Some people are able to get skilled up in a skill while holding a title that doesn't require a degree, but you still have to get your foot in the door.

What would I suggest to my girls as a parent?
1. Whatever you think you want to do, take on some volunteer, part time work in the field to see if you really enjoy it.
2. Don't think you either have to or don't have to go to University, look at what you want to do first.
3. What does the industry pay versus the cost of a degree?
4. How does that pay line up with the lifestyle you would like to have?

If I was going to push my girls towards anything it would be entrepreneurship/business owner, but not if they don't want it.
They will absolutely know how to run a business and how to sell though, we are already working on this now.

Prepare them for AI hiring. Achievement needs to be quantifiable. Whole lot of people in programming and data analysis learning the hard way that being self-taught or even attending bootcamps means almost nothing as their applications get filtered out by the hundreds. Before they even get to an interactive AI interview, they are often ruled out. We are rapidly moving to an era were talking to a real person will not occur until near the end of the hiring process, often when they already decided they may hire you. The days of convincing someone to take a chance are nearly over for many fields. Anyone using AI hiring, which will become the norm, will let AI pick the absolute best. US already 40% to 60% using it to some degree according to polls.

iNCY has some good points outlined. Depending on what my kids want to do will steer them towards University education, or something else. I have RESP (registered education savings plan) setup as soon as they were born and providing the max contribution that the government will match in order for them to have the money needed to attend. I went to University for 7 years (Ugh) got two degrees and my parents contributed nothing. Just looked, and their RESP is at $22955 already, at age 6 and almost 3. So that will be a nice chunk of change for them.

I have a friend who is a mechanical engineer by education, but fell into wholesale lumber purchasing and sales. He never worked a day with his degree in his field. He's 43 and I don't see him switching careers at this point. I wonder if he feels like he wasted money and time with his Engineering degree.

Mar 19, 2024 20:46:04 GMT Foos said:

iNCY has some good points outlined. Depending on what my kids want to do will steer them towards University education, or something else. I have RESP (registered education savings plan) setup as soon as they were born and providing the max contribution that the government will match in order for them to have the money needed to attend. I went to University for 7 years (Ugh) got two degrees and my parents contributed nothing. Just looked, and their RESP is at $22955 already, at age 6 and almost 3. So that will be a nice chunk of change for them.

I have a friend who is a mechanical engineer by education, but fell into wholesale lumber purchasing and sales. He never worked a day with his degree in his field. He's 43 and I don't see him switching careers at this point. I wonder if he feels like he wasted money and time with his Engineering degree.

Well said Foos
I believe that the most important skills are learning to think critically and solve problems, some people will learn that at University, but I worry they are focusing on that less in schools now.

I learnt critical thinking and problem solving on the job, but I get that's not for everyone.

100%. I've said a few times now that I see a definite lack of problem solving skills in younger generations. We learned that in life and in school. I get upset with Caycee's bf sometimes, because he solves issues for her without letting her think it through for herself and she is well skilled in weaponized incompetence. I feel I did her wrong by not saving enough for her for schooling so she could not worry about finances, but as a single mom, it was hard enough staying in the red every month.

I feel like here in Edmonton, Alberta Canada (might be different in a different city, province/state or country) we are currently seeing a combined Education/Experience work force. A few years ago they wanted everyone to have degrees to work at a doggy daycare [/HYPERBOLE] and now I am finding those requirements loosening up a little depending of course on the job itself. As iNCY said you don't want your neurologist not having the education to back up brain surgery. I myself am returning to school for the next 2 years for my Professional Purchasing Designation because while I have 17 years experience in my Industry, I only have my High School Diploma and am getting to the age where I need to have some 'backup'. Should anything happen and I lose my job I love so much, to be able to find another one at my age for the rate in which I am currently paid, I need to have something to show a mix of experience and education and this is the way to do it.

I've had some good conversations with HR recruiters on the topic of required education levels. One big thing I consider is the push for diversity is in direct contrast to degree requirements. If you want the underserved and underprivileged diversity represented in the executive level of your company than you need to loosen up on the whole degree requirements thing and look at experience in the last 7 years. Not the privileges, opportunities, and such afforded to some straight out of high school.

I am only talking about the boring corporate world I generally work in.

Recently finished Adam Grant's Hidden Potential. He covered the topic well about the lack of ability we have to find potential in people with the example of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_M._Hern%C3%A1ndez

If we only look at degrees as measuring sticks we deny ourselves to find the heights people have climbed and the skills they have.

Mar 20, 2024 13:51:01 GMT theend said:

I've had some good conversations with HR recruiters on the topic of required education levels. One big thing I consider is the push for diversity is in direct contrast to degree requirements. If you want the underserved and underprivileged diversity represented in the executive level of your company than you need to loosen up on the whole degree requirements thing and look at experience in the last 7 years. Not the privileges, opportunities, and such afforded to some straight out of high school.

I am only talking about the boring corporate world I generally work in.

Recently finished Adam Grant's Hidden Potential. He covered the topic well about the lack of ability we have to find potential in people with the example of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_M._Hern%C3%A1ndez

If we only look at degrees as measuring sticks we deny ourselves to find the heights people have climbed and the skills they have.

Agree with this 100%.

I couldn't afford to go to college/University.  Everything I have is because I have worked my way up over years, changing industries and developing new skills. Our of my core group of friends (we'll use the ten of us as a sample group) I am the fourth highest paid. All four of us women are around the same age, work 'corporate' desk jobs, are all within 10K of one another salary wise and only one of us has secondary education (the highest paid), but she is also the highest paid because she has been at her job the longest, nearly 20 years at the same company. 

If we only look at degrees as measuring sticks we deny ourselves to find the heights people have climbed and the skills they have.

This is my takeaway from what you said. When I was in Health Records many moons ago, about 5 years in to my job they started requiring this 'Medical Administration' 15K course to be hired on whereas the rest of us were hired with/without high school and half decent typing and learning skills. Only 1 of all the many who got hired with the course over my tenure stayed for an extended period of time, the rest were always looking for the BBD (bigger, better, deal). Those of us who had worked out way up and came from various backgrounds, were the back bone and all are either still in the medical industry or like me have changed industries and worked their way up through that industry. Sometimes people's drive and willingness to learn and grow is just as valuable as a degree. 

 

AI gonna solve this debate once and for all most likely. 3 to 5 once AI is trained on people who are excelling at their jobs will know if the degree has a real weight or not. If not most companies will stop requiring it to increase their pool of top candidates. And with the high level of trust in AI hiring they will be looking at millions of applicants and employees training on performance reviews and application materials.

Reason most did move to college applications though was research showing that on average they simply perform better than people without a degree all things else equal. Some may excel without a degree, but most do not. And companies are not in the habit of hiring people who MAY be able to do their job well, when people they believe CAN do their job well are also applying.

We found in the learning science lab at UNC most people grossly overestimate their critical thinking skills. Which always makes me question is people who claim they were self taught possess these skills, or merely engaged in pop psychology material that claims to promote them. All humans can solve basic problems, but once we get into the more advanced stuff, that requires either a good understanding of logic, algorithmic knowledge or even advanced literacy people really start to falter, even people with levels of general expertise. The reason many college graduates have a good understanding of these concepts is they are directly taught. But even then, expertise in these areas that make up the so called critical thinking skills is rare even with some formal instruction. We did not see it at all in self-taught people. Doctors feel for fake news, business leaders got logic problems wrong and scientists did not do well on critical literacy work outside their fields. All rated themselves as very high in critical thinking skills though. They excel at solving easy everyday problems or problems in their field, but far transfer or generalizable skills were not seen. Nor was it in non-experts.

HR departments are the worst thing about business today.
Invariably a bunch of people with goals which rarely line up with those of the company.
The sooner AI replaces them the better.

In fact I look forward to the death of all self-perpetuating busy work.