Where have the jobs gone?<\/p>\n
For awhile I looked around and thought the legal field was singular in its fall from grace as a worthwhile career aspiration. It does not seem to be so. It seems instead a great many higher education degrees are becoming more and more worthless. And the debt incurred in no way compensates you later in life for wasting your time earning a degree which can’t earn you any money. Sometimes you look at someone and ask “how could you not see that what you were doing was worthless?” I wish I could find a clip to link here… There was a comedian who was talking about the unemployment problem. Specifically he referenced a reporter who was going around a university campus talking with various people about how they couldn’t find jobs. One person they interviewed gave the moving story that his friend who had recently graduated with a PhD couldn’t find a job. When asked what his friend had gotten his PhD in, he said English – with a concentration in ghost stories.<\/p>\n
I’m beginning to feel that I got a PhD in ghost stories. But, as it turns out… I’m not the only one. And neither is it limited to the questionable value of a JD. There are a growing number of degrees which at one point offered the promise of real employment after graduation, yet now offer only huge student debt and no ability to repay it. A close relative of the JD has fallen as far and as fast it seems; the MBA is now a nearly worthless endeavor<\/a>. Hell, with that type of worthlessness why not double-down in law school and get a JD\/MBA. I recently talked to someone who made that calculated mistake and now works as an E-Dat attorney. That’s right… his dual degree got him all the way into document review.<\/p>\n What about other high student debt value positions? Well it turns out that very selective admission only goes so far as a DVM won’t let you make enough money to eat either<\/a>. The oft maligned degree<\/a> in any one of the humanities<\/a> is now a short ticket to living in your aged parents basement<\/a> and attempting to figure out<\/a> how you can get into the military past the enlistment age<\/a>.<\/p>\n So you don’t feel so sorry for the people who spent 10 years getting a degree in Classical dead languages? What about some of the more practical degrees. You know, the ones you always heard were a sure fire way to get a job without incurring a ridiculous debt load. How about pharmacy<\/a>… nope<\/a>. Oh wait.. what about that huge nursing shortage I heard about ad-nauseam. Yeah… turns out there’s nothing left there either<\/a>. Education has become big business claiming to set up graduates for success in a competitive job environment while merely siphoning money to themselves. It has become a booming business to the point that there is more money to be made in education<\/a>, that there is in actually being educated. Oh, but I forget… the invaluable and incalculable benefit of actually being intelligent and educated more than makes up for earthly pleasures like… food.<\/p>\n The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma<\/a>. Even with this new baseline<\/a>, most graduates can’t find substantive work<\/a>. Of those who are working<\/a>, half of them aren’t making enough money to live comfortably<\/a>. This sounds eerily familiar<\/a>. The only difference is that in the US<\/a>, it seems to be happening to everyone<\/a> even those with advanced degrees. If we are to believe NPR’s report, everyone without a decent degree is being shuffled off onto disability<\/a>.<\/p>\n Are we becoming the United State’s Lost Generation<\/a>?<\/p>\n I’m getting off my soapbox now. And taking it with me. Soapboxes are expensive. And at the minimum I can recycle it for some change… Dollar menu here I come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Where have the jobs gone? For awhile I looked around and thought the legal field was singular in its fall from grace as a worthwhile career aspiration. It does not seem to be so. It seems instead a great many higher education degrees are becoming more and more worthless. And the debt incurred in no … Continue reading “We are not alone”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2R6Kb-5B","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawschoollies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}