Is College Still Valuable?

Let me commence by checking some privilege. I went to a four-year university, and a “good one” at that — Georgetown. I actually graduated 18 years ago this past Monday, which essentially means I am old and haven’t achieved very much in life to date, but eh, I mean, that’s why God and the Mormons invented IPAs, am I right? I’m right, but I’m also kidding, since if I have achieved anything aside from being able to write half-decent, it’s probably some form of functional alcoholism that I need to eventually recoil from. Wow, that got deeper than expected.

Anyway, long story short, I have a four-year degree and a fucking Masters, but I wouldn’t say I’ve done much with them, all-in. That’s to say I’m privileged, though. I’ve been rejected from hundreds — nay, thousands — of jobs in my life, but I don’t get rejected on the “Well, he’s not a four-year guy” trope.

The pandemic laid bare a lot of stuff about higher education and about how we write job descriptions and screen for roles and long-held biases and who we’re leaving out (or under-employing) in the workforce. A lot of stuff came to the top that creates uncomfortable discussions for people, and I want to think it will result in change, but probably by fall 2022 we’ll just be doing the exact same shit we were before, except now maybe Google and IBM will be paying for certificates that people can get as an “alt” higher-ed option. I doubt any of the modern moment is going to reduce the applicant base to Yale and Stanford, know what I mean?

Here’s another in a long line of thought pieces about the disconnects of higher education and the job market. Article makes a lot of common points, but makes them well, with perhaps this sequence being the most relevant:

This archaic system simply no longer works in our modern world. The U.S. education system must be reevaluated to better prepare students with employable skills. And employers need to adjust how they evaluate candidates and job requirements. By facing this problem head on, the education industry can aid in the economic recovery from the pandemic and prevent similar hiring gaps in the future.

To start, we must focus on how our current education system is preparing students for employment. A recent Cengage survey (publication forthcoming) of Americans who graduated from a two-year/community or four-year college in the past five years found that nearly one in five (19%) reported that their college education experience did not provide them with the skills needed to perform their first post-degree job. Additionally, more than half (53%) of these college graduates have not applied to an entry-level job in their field because they felt unqualified, and nearly half (42%) felt unqualified because they did not have all the skills listed in the job description.

I know virtually nothing, but I’ve also weighed in on this stuff, including this piece, where I popped this out, I believe courtesy of The Economist:

There are several data-driven arguments that question the actual, rather than the perceived, value of a college degree. First, meta-analytic reviews have long-established that the correlation between education level and job performance is weak. In fact, the research shows that intelligence scores are a much better indicator of job potential. If we were to pick between a candidate with a college degree and a candidate with a higher intelligence score, we could expect the latter to outperform the former in most jobs, particularly when those jobs require constant thinking and learning. Academic grades are indicative of how much a candidate has studied, but their performance on an intelligence test reflects their actual ability to learn, reason, and think logically.

Fun fact is that I wrote that article in January 2019, when I was working at this agency and the kid who sat next to me, in addition to periodically having a full glass of red wine at 10:08am on a Wednesday, used to love love love The Economist. He told me once “every human being needs to subscribe to understand the world.” Talk about checking privilege, eh?

Anyway — I would say there are a couple of things we need to do to get the whole higher education-employment picture in line. A few of the headier buckets include:

1. Parental virtue-signaling: It is cool to tell people your kid goes to Yale. It says something about you. It signals something about your brand, as well as Young Johnny’s. I got into Yale and my mom wanted me to go. I did not. I am 40, so this decision was 22 years ago. I sometimes wonder if my mom still thinks about it. She might. We will never scale this out. Parents want their kids to attend good schools; it is a KPI of “effective parenting.”
2. What exactly is the role of higher education? Purists like to (also) virtue-signal and say it’s “preparing kids to critically think” or whatever. In reality about 7–8% of jobs max require any critical thinking; in most jobs, you put your head down and act like a fucking drone and hit tasks until someone says you can have a bit more money and a nicer space. The problem is, higher education got super expensive. When something is super expensive, like a car, you want a return (“I can get over here faster now”). So, we cannot strip away “There needs to be a job at the end of me spending this money,” because that’s a farce. Show me someone who is going to spend $200,000 with no promise of employment. I almost basically did that to get a Masters, and the direct results were I felt like a piece of shit for eight years and I got divorced. I wouldn’t recommend that path to people. So I think we need to say: “The point of higher education, at least in large part, is eventual employment.”
3. What “skills” do employers need? Everyone now would probably say “TECH!” and “Project Management!” In reality I don’t think a lot of organizations honestly know, and I also think we tend to poll HR leaders on this stuff, and HR leaders — paradoxically — know less about the needs of the workforce than anyone. You want to know what the workforce needs? Go find the most-respected front-line manager. He/she will know. HR Cathy? Pass. I love me some liberal arts and social sciences — majored in psych and sociology myself, baby — but I also think there needs to be some functional shit. I consistently regret that I don’t know how to field test water pumps and whatnot. I realize I could go learn, but I’m also terrified of life. Higher education didn’t help me with that.
4. Job roles and descriptions: Job role and definition is a complete train wreck at most companies, unfortunately, but the sheer reality of most white-collar work is that, with automated suites and SaaS products, you really don’t need a standard four-year degree, much less an elite one, to do a lot of these jobs. You need to be able to figure out a mostly-intuitive piece of software and you need to be able to communicate with others and not be an asshole. You can get those skills in community college, or, frankly, high school. A lot of the four-year degree stuff is virtue-signaling on the employer’s side, and/or they want to be able to say “Skills Gap!” (a favorite of meandering middle managers) without doing anything to fix said skills gap, i.e. investing in the community, learning programs, higher wages, et al.
5. Let’s be honest with each other: A lot of the discussions around higher ed are draped in lies, half-truths, tears, and virtue-signaling. We need to be honest about what everyone wants. Parents want to be seen as having done a good job; kids want some freedom and maybe some job opportunities. Universities want to line their pockets and maybe turn out some warriors who will pay back into the system later. Employers want decent candidates who can help move shit from Column A to Column B, and maybe 1 in 10 who will scale up a new product. If we’re honest about what everyone wants, maybe we can find the right intersection. It seems better than lying, no?

Takes on where we’re at with higher education?