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In an Ideal World is College Necessary for Most jobs?

blackjack50

blackjack50

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Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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Depends on the job, but most jobs that require a college degree I would say could be done with vocational training.

EDIT: And much of the vocational training I think could also be done in high school if the schools were restructured.
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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In high school I had a "computer class". All it did was increase our typing words per minute. Not entirely useless mind you, but not overly helpful. Would have been really great if they taught us how to use EXCEL or build databases. In an ideal world high school would be enough, but our educators, with pressure from lazy parents, keep dumbing down the curricululm.
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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Why stop there? Most jobs can be done with no education at all. It takes literally no formal education whatsoever to sweep, mop, gather trash, haul, hammer, shovel, pick, or any number of manual labor tasks. Most things are easier if you can read, but you don't have to read well to do most things well. Cooking, for example, is easier if you can read and write recipes, and ticket orders, but that skill isn't required to be a fantastic cook.
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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Click to expand...

That's partially a question of global competition and where the production of products takes place. If there are jobs that require little education, why waste funds and time educating people beyond requirements? If there are no such jobs people should know this and buy appropriate education.
 
We are making a bit of a mistake making this all about the need for a college degree or not for "most jobs."

In our ever increasing services oriented economic model the question comes down to the type of job, which is another way of saying the difference between executive and/or professional level work vs. management and/or technology based work vs. menial and/or line based work. The mix in that jobs market is very different today than just 20 years ago, let alone several generations back.

Moreover, as we moved our economic model to one where we off-shored manufacturing and production we placed a new onus on our education system to get people to a different point depending on the aptitudes and socioeconomic conditions of the student.

In the negative column, that idea happens to be held back by our increasing mentality to teach to lowest common denominator and saddle our education system with government mandated benchmarks with questionable results. Roughly every decade we come up with a new "plan" to help with the condition that the US is no longer #1 in education (or reading, or math, or science, or "skills" in an employment market sense.) The main point being that the emphasis to teach things at a high school level to avoid the need for so many to obtain a higher education does not exist any longer (if it ever really did in the application of the job market today vs. some other generation.)

So to ask if so many need a college degree asks the wrong question.

What we should be asking ourselves is what is being done at the public education level to get students, future workers, to a point where their aptitude and education at the high school level prepares them well enough so that their individual aptitude tells them when and why a higher education is needed for our services dominated economic model. Another sister debate we have to engage in at some point is the idea of price to degree, as well as the return on that investment since these days the prevailing notion is to also saddle the student with higher education debt as a standard before working the first day with that degree.
 
College has been oversold. We used to have apprentice jobs when unions were more prevalent. Companies used to have training slots - "manger trainee", etc.

For some reason, this has largely disappeared. Now employers are only interested in poaching employees from other companies who took the time to train them. "I have no time to train anyone" is the excuse.

Not everyone is interested, let alone cut out for a white collar, nine to five life. With the advent of computers in the '80's we devalued blue collar labor in school, and called the guy who fixed your brakes the "brake dude", as if he was salting your fries.
 
We need colleges. However, they are too expensive and there may be too many. European countries are providing free college to their young people, but many of those are countries with few jobs. During my career time, there was a stigma and an arrogance toward those who did not have college degrees. And definitely, I did not always see a connection between the amount of degrees and the quality of work a person produced. College does not cure laziness. Union Carpenters are making very good wages right now.
 
I just thought college was for drinking beer and getting laid. Was I supposed to learn some sh*t while I was there?
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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Click to expand...

Would depend on the level of technology and sophistication of the society. While there are likely always going to be some subset of jobs that wouldn't require education, as a society became more complex and technologically evolved, the number of people you'll need with higher degrees of education will increase.
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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Click to expand...

Maybe not; but any endeavor may need to begin with education and training.
 
Praxas said:
Depends on the job, but most jobs that require a college degree I would say could be done with vocational training.

EDIT: And much of the vocational training I think could also be done in high school if the schools were restructured.
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That is exactly how I feel. Shop class? Home Econ?


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blackjack50 said:
That is exactly how I feel. Shop class? Home Econ?


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When I went through high school we also had vehicle maintenance and electrical studies.
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.


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Click to expand...

No, we don't need college for most jobs. I think tests should be given upon interviewing for a job to determine skill level and if a person is disciplined enough to learn on their own and save a ton of money, awesome! If not, they can go to college or hire a tutor.
 
i support making post secondary education / job training as debt free as secondary education is currently.
 
In an Ideal World is College Necessary for Most jobs?
Click to expand...

in an IDEAL world all who needed a college degree could obtain one


if the businesses hiring workers did not believe the degree was needed, they would not impose that as a job prerequisite

i suspect a large part of that rationale is because these days a high school diploma only indicates that the holder persisted through four or more years of high school to attain it. the equivalent of a player participation trophy. the HS diploma offers little genuine indication of employment preparedness

notice how many college freshmen begin their studies with remedial instruction to get them to a point to commence actual college classwork.well, they were the "cream" of the HS class who were admitted to college. then ponder the education received by those HS grads who could not get into a college
 
Except for the most complex intellectual jobs, most other work could be accomplished with on the job training or apprenticeships... or at least, very little theory vs. practical work.

The system we have now is due to unbridled greed and not much else.
 
In an ideal world we would not need jobs.
LOL
 
blackjack50 said:
Exactly as the title says...would it be?

In my personal opinion it wouldn't be. Most jobs CAN be done with a high school level of education. Maybe they require a bit of training, but a high school diploma provides the requisite educational skills needed.

So.
Click to expand...

Nope. College, in many ways, is a giant scam that puts so many young people in crushing debt. Whatever happened to recruiting from within and working your way up from the bottom? That seems so much better than hiring someone with no actual job experience but has a piece of paper.
 
Fishking said:
Nope. College, in many ways, is a giant scam that puts so many young people in crushing debt. Whatever happened to recruiting from within and working your way up from the bottom? That seems so much better than hiring someone with no actual job experience but has a piece of paper.
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^ that is a post exposing the need for a business education; preferably from a solid college
 
NEED is the word I see first.....
We can let others tell our kids what they need (there are few experts out there), or we can explain the current options, the recent changes in options, and likely (best guess) future options. The economics of the last 70 or so years is a good source of bad news, scare them with that.
Then explain that if they WANT a better than minimal life, they will need better than average education.
It would then be up to the kids to decide.
I told mine I will always support more education that leads to better job skills, but I will not be much help if they choose to whiz away their opportunities.
I worked high skilled jobs, operating nuclear reactors, calibrating instrumentation, etc. Just a bit above average blue collar, perhaps. It paid well.
 
College? The MOST over rated institution on the planet.

Sure, if you are going to be a doctor, engineer, etc....you need vast amounts of schooling.

Most people go to college because they have no/little/the wrong idea what to do with themselves and it has been drilled into their heads that post-secondary education is the way to 'find yourself'.

NOOO...it is the worst possible place to find yourself. It is EXTREMELY expensive, sheltered and teaches you almost nothing about the real world.
You want to find yourself? Go out in the world and work to make ends meet BY YOURSELF...you will find yourself. Better still, do it somewhere where you have never been before and have no connections. You will find yourself REAL fast.

And 'yes'...I did go to university. Complete waste of my time in terms of helping me succeed in the real world.
 
DA60 said:
College? The MOST over rated institution on the planet.

Sure, if you are going to be a doctor, engineer, etc....you need vast amounts of schooling.

Most people go to college because they have no/little/the wrong idea what to do with themselves and it has been drilled into their heads that post-secondary education is the way to 'find yourself'.

NOOO...it is the worst possible place to find yourself. It is EXTREMELY expensive, sheltered and teaches you almost nothing about the real world.
You want to find yourself? Go out in the world and work to make ends meet BY YOURSELF...you will find yourself. Better still, do it somewhere where you have never been before and have no connections. You will find yourself REAL fast.

And 'yes'...I did go to university. Complete waste of my time in terms of helping me succeed in the real world.
Click to expand...

the only way i could agree with your assessment is if the person who chose not to obtain a college degree intended to start a small business of their own. by doing so, they could look to potentially become a highly compensated person and move into the next economic strata
otherwise, spending a career doing lowly jobs that are available with only a HS diploma for wages to match, would have to be disheartening for someone who knew they could have graduated from college if they had only decided to attend

the only ways to wealth are to win it, inherit it, create it as an entrepreneur, or acquire it via a high wage
 
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