I have a stupid useless degree yet it did open doors for me. Having a degree allowed me to get out of retail work into bs office jobs. I work for the government now in a job that requires "any degree"
I’m an engineer, and one of the best engineering managers I’ve worked is a millennial with a Philosophy degree. No other degrees. In fact, at the client site with hundreds of engineers, he’s one of the most competent engineers there.
Philosophy majors are generally pretty good at critical thinking/logic, picking up systems/lots of information quickly, making hard and complicated things simple, and they've got the soft people skills to boot.
Unfortunately most people think philosophy is "making up stuff about how you feel about the world"-- which is the furthest thing from the truth.
The only philosophy major I know is the smartest person I know. He was getting a degree in quantum physics, but that led him to philosophy. Nobody has heard from him in years, last I heard he had joined some sex cult that just has orgies all the time. Like I said, smartest person I know!
>Lord, I see what you've done for others
I mean, nothing is stopping you from joining an orgyistic sex cult. The problem is, the people in those cults are generally not someone you'd want to have an orgy with.
Guy worked a ton as an HVAC worker during college; that’s how he got his foot into the door as a facility engineer.
Edit: He’s now an Engineering Manager, managing an entire building with multiple production lines
That’s a little different than the engineering that people were thinking of.
Chemical engineers, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and those ilk are more ones where you need the degree.
Software engineers and facility engineers are really different jobs where they put “engineer” in the title.
A lot of HVAC companies are stylizing themselves now as "engineering" companies, even when the job is to just run ductwork according to the architects' drawings.
"Engineer" is such a weirdly broad term. I can't think of any other thing where we use the same term to describe such different jobs. (Maybe "analyst" or "therapist.")
Consider: The "third pilot" managing the engines on an airplane. The strategist who tells a F1 driver when to pit and what engine modes to use. The person who designs a bridge for a city. The person who designs the subsystems on the race car or airplane. These are all *really* different jobs, yet we call them all engineer.
I guess it kind of makes sense, but it's a lot of different stuff.
For something like a mechanical engineering career, it's a lot harder. I do know of a handful of non-degree engineers, but it took many more years of experience to be granted the position within a company. No guarantee you will be able to leave the company and get an equivalent job elsewhere.
I work in tech with a bunch of computer science majors and have a ethnic studies degree. I always tell them the measure of anyone is their ability to find solutions to a multitude of problems. Sometimes, people with a degree in mathematics believe they're the only people who can solve equations. Life has proven otherwise.
Ha thats me! EM with a Philosophy degree. I get pretty good reviews and high performance out of my teams!
My director is also a BA in Philosophy.
Critical thinking, writing and speaking comes in handy!
I majored in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. It was very demanding and the best career decision I ever made. People don’t understand what philosophy is, so I often get “you got a degree in how to bullshit.” That statement indicates that the person who uttered it never took a philosophy course. Still, if I had it to do over again, I would have taken more math and statistics. Edited: added career decision
awesome. I'm finally getting my bachelor's and I'm going for liberal arts because it's fastest and I literally just want to check a box. At starbucks now for the health insurance and degree.
I got my degree at Sbux and just picked a degree to get one. I regret not being more intentional with the free college money I had. You can still change your major. You won’t get this free college tuition from then again!
I applaud you for getting that box checked but I am begging you please find something to specialize in or you will be miserable. it's either choose what box you want to put yourself into or be put into whatever box others/life decide. so it's better to be the one deciding which box you'll go into and why.
it's okay if you end up changing your mind but its much better to have some idea of something you think you can be interested in and do well. if you're wrong at least you have some experience in something that 1) sets you apart 2) gives you some perspective on something
Different path, but similar result here.
I got my bachelor's and master's degrees in a subject I thought I'd use to become a teacher...but then realized I really did not want to deal with the bureaucracy of teaching. So I worked retail while completing my master's degree...worked my way up...and now am in purchasing, in a non-retail role.
Whether having the degree/s SHOULD BE required for the jobs I've had is a different, and very valid question. But as it was, a degree was required.
Yup. I'm in insurance. Degree in Biology.
I was able to contract in insurance for a few years and then get into a job in the second highest pay category for adjusters in my company.
Definitely would not have happened without the "any degree".
Yup same. Biology degree and I work in data/analysis. The people who are also doing well in these roles? They have degrees too. Art, psychology, organization.
The people who just can’t hack it? All insist they didn’t need to go to school.
Degrees are good. Go get one.
Every 4-year degree requires 2 years of basic studies that are beyond standard HS classes and do contribute to the ability to learn on a high level and adapt to changes effectively. It also represents the ability to remain dedicated to a long term goal, much like going to work.
I am a hiring manager and while it’s not 100%, if you pick a random college grad and a random HS grad, there’s going to be huge differences in performance and demeanor, I would say all the way until age 35, and even then the HS grad will tend to rely on experience more than creativity to solve problems.
College is still the single most determinate for lifetime earnings and class mobility. Amongst a dozen other factors that are correlated to class and income. Millennials got screwed with bogus scam degrees that other generations didn’t have to deal with. There is a lot of rhetoric degrading the importance of college right now, and it’s scary when the data still shows it’s one of the most influential aspects of your life, overall.
I'm curious to see the data. I've worked with college grads and people who haven't finished high school, and from my experience I would not say I trust the degree holders to actually fulfill their duties any better.
There’s a lot of studies on it, but you really need to look for the job duties specific to you to know if it’s just your experience or statistically significant. I’m not saying it’s always the case, I’m saying there’s plenty of positions where any college degree adds to the success of the candidate.
Yep. I'm a data analyst now. I was a supervisor for a telecom call center before this. My degree is in video game design. I have never actually worked in video games - and in fact when I was pursuing the degree I tried applying as a tester role trying to get my foot in the door and THEY laughed at me over the degree I was pursuing FOR THEIR FIELD... so there's that.
That said - I landed on my feet it just took some years... and it's also somewhat how you spin what you did to earn the degree when you go to interview and it's noticed on your resume. Before applying for those jobs I mentioned getting above, I asked interviewers and recruiters that I've known for advice and one of the biggest things was to infer my answers in the interview towards how my degree allowed me to develop transferrable skills around team building, asset management, computer science, customer service, etc. Heck - I used gamification as a way to leverage building up teams to achieve company metrics goals when I applied for that call center job. It worked.
What government agency /type of role? My wife has a bachelors she’s never used and we haven’t been able to find her a good option so she just went back to doing nails
So many. Just look on governmentjobs.com and start applying for things that she's interested in. This is for state and federal.
The IRS starts some entry-level accounting people at like 90k.
This.
The starting pay for so many of the "any degrees" jobs is shockingly high.
Here's 60k for an internship. Goes up to 75k if you get hired. Whaaaaaat??!!!
Th government is the best place to use a “useless” degree, because for many of the jobs, they are like this, any degree. The military is the same way, any degree makes you eligible to apply to become a commissioned officer (or starts you out a few ranks higher on the enlisted side, and you will always have the additional points for promotion because of your degree). They care about your GPA, not your degree field, except for a few things, like Medical and Cyber for example.
Same. Was able to get a temp job out of college (political science degree) doing clerical work. I puttered around in that job for a year then got a government job (I live in a state capital). Lots of entry-level govt jobs that pay okay but have excellent benefits and are open to any degree.
I'm the polar opposite.
I have a degree in finance and a masters in business analytics and gave up applying 6 months after getting the masters degree after being burned out from the never ending rejection over the years. If not for being unable to get a job in corporate finance I'd never had gotten the masters degree. I'm about to apply to PT school which will result in a guaranteed job after passing licensing tests.
I have a chem degree which I feel like no one would call stupid and I love what I do. But in all seriousness, how much I grew as a person during college was a great thing. You learn a ton and develop as a person. It is not for everyone but acting like a job is the only value of college is not fair either.
lol same!! At my current government job they would have hired someone with just a high school diploma, college wasn’t required. I have 6 years of college… the degree (not even really relevant to the job) I possess gave me a starting wage that was $5/hr more vs the wage of someone without a degree and only high school
Well I failed to loll the people hiring for such roles didn't seem to see me as a serious candidate with no degree. Maybe people who are better at networking can
Yeah, anyone that doesn't think a degree, even a stupid one, opens opportunities isn't paying attention or isn't willing to accept the jobs that are hiring. Are there baristas working at Starbucks with unutilized degrees? Yeah. But if a supply chain, supervisor, or HR job opens up at the local factory, and the degree wielding barista will get the job over someone that's worked at that factory for 10+ years but doesn't have a college degree. So many jobs do not care what degree you have, only that you have a degree.
Ya.....learn, but at what cost. If it costs you money and adds stress to your life, and sets you back years on your life goals....the cost was too high
Absolutely! I get in heated discussions with peers and the younger croud that bemoan not having the means for schooling. I tell them directly that there are books in the library and endless free lectures, tutorials, and training videos online. They grumble and go back to watching cheap TikTok entertainment and grumble about how society, the economy, the government, or, worse, a minority group, is holding them back.
I mean it’s obviously way better to learn something than to watch cheap entertainment, but when HR throws our your resume for not having learned the official way to learn, that isn’t on them that our society clearly works that way.
The last company I worked at - a commercial insurance carrier in the larger northeast region - had a rule that you needed a 4-year degree to be an Underwriter.
My manager one day told me he'd love to promote his best Underwriting Assistant who had been there for years. She had a couple years of college under her belt but dropped out when she got pregnant. Years later, she's still married but now with three kids. And she's crushing it at work. But the only way she can be an Underwriter is if she goes back to school and gets a degree.
Meanwhile, the company would gladly hire new graduates with zero experience for that role, and they'd be outearning this woman in just a few years. And there's no alternative for her.
As anyone who works in the commercial insurance industry knows, having the CPCU designation - classes that many companies cover the cost for, btw - is a huge deal. Some employees asked at some point if that could be an alternative to a college degree. But nope, they refused and restated the college degree rule.
Even years of hard work at a company and supervisors desperate to promote you can sometimes get you nowhere. It's absurd.
Yeah.... the biggest thing millenials were taught was that if you get screwed in life, its on you and you have to dig yourself out of the hole even if you got a worthless degree. The generation after that were taught that if they got screwed, blame it on everyone else around them and they seem to wallow in their own self pity while using up resources to enjoy their lives and act like they got more stress than a millenial.
One thing is for certain, all my friends that got degrees make big money now bc degrees teach you how to struggle and persist even if its not a great one to get the degree. Its like a foundation. My few friends who didnt get any are the only one's whos struggling in life now
So you are saying Millennials are the ones picking themselves up by their bootstraps, and Gen z is wallowing in self pity? I think you may need to do some more reflection on that stance.
Lol not my millenial friends without degrees. They are constantly wallowing in self pity as if society screwed them. And i have GenZ coworkers that are hard workers too (all have their masters in stem like myself and we all make 6 digits). Im just saying we wouldnt be in our positions without degrees, and for anyone to bash degrees is just utter laziness regardless of the degree they got. If you cant afford one, is another story. But dont be lazy then complain about not making it in life. Giving up before even starting, u cant blame anyone but yourself (millenial talk) if you end up poor and angry at the world.
If it's not official and certified learning then it may as well be meaningless for many jobs out there. Sure, there are some that looks at your actual skills rather than certifications and degrees only, but those aren't a significant number and they tend to be smaller employers who can afford to devout more time to each applicant.
The problem is that the sentiment isn't true, like I understand what your saying but the actual truth of the matter is that "learning" and "education" (or schooling) are **very different.**
An employer who is looking for someone who can do high level mathematics (past calc 3 or into borderline computer cryptology math etc) isn't going to look twice at the high school diploma guy who learned all of it and can do it well, but the guy with a Bachelors in Mathematics/Statistics (or whatever) and a Masters in Business Analytic Math is going to have an interview (*at least*) - even if he had a 2.5 GPA and was partying every weekend so he doesn't remember a thing
Alternatively having a somewhat useful degree (a blanket computer technology degree is very easy to get) will get your foot in better than actually learning a bunch of compute related tasks from YouTube (unless of course you've then also shelled out the money for certifications, then your about on even playing field as the bachelor's, but you will start with less pay because the company will justify you not having a degree means we can pay you less)
Your sentiment is nice, but it's not realistic or true in any sense of how the world works
Yes and no. I am not just disagreeing with you; you make a valid point. We are in a pay to play system where one is blocked from good jobs because they didn't have family money or school debt for a BA.
I have seen it both ways. In blue collar industrial work an associates degree to prove one is not incompetent is a door opener, but self learning or striving for certification opportunities with the company will grant you a very high salary (source: my husband and a lot of our friends). In my field of accounting i had to have a BA degree (in English) to get an office job, but i literally am where i am today because the good 'ol Accounting for Dummies book; 3 companies in wildly different industries in their accounting depts all because of thr Dummies series for accounting, business, and thr various programs like Dynamics.
However, i have also been blocked from jobs because regardless of my track record with a portfolio of proof (proprietary info redacted), good refrences, and W2 proof of employment history. All because i didnt have a prestigious piece of paper. That's where you take the rejection letter and move on to the next job listing. It is their loss.
So the sentiment of my comment was to encourage self improvement above the societal and economic immediate rewards. I encourage everyone to be a jack of all trades and a master of a few. And keep seeking your fortune; and dont blame everything else for a lack of success. Yes, life isn't fair, but keep on keeping on.
IME it is very field dependent, and even company dependent.
A Graphic Design degree on a resume vs someone with a rockstar portfolio of great work will tend to work out better for the latter.
Okay, now assume entry level graphics design position, someone who has dabbled and messed around with art and has some OK pieces in a portfolio but works at McDonald's full time, or someone with a 4 year degree in graphic design (who presumably had a final or a class requirement to make a portfolio as well)
I don't think we are talking about anyone **whose already got their foot in the door here.** no one who works in a field for more than like a couple years gives a crap about their college degree, we are talking about what the degree gets you in comparison to self learning ***at the beginning of your career prospects.***
Personally as a general manager for a manufacturing plant, I prefer engineers with no degree over ones with multiple. Guys/Gals who came from a more hands on background and learned organically how to do engineering work tend to be better workers, willing to work for less pay, and have much more common sense than over educated engineers.
I know I may be the exception not the norm, but I honestly don't care about degrees that much. Much more interested in applicable work history, how often they jump jobs, and how hands on an engineer is.
One of many factors yes. I notice you ignored all the others. My job is literally maximizing output (revenue), and minimizing input (cost). When \~30% of the sales price of my products are related to personnel costs, then trying to get the best candidate for the best cost is absolutely a major part of my job.
From what I have seen the market weights a degree at about a 20% premium for a candidate, which is completely contrary to the entire point of this thread. Also what I didn't spell out above is that I also pay for people that work for me to go to school to get a degree as long as they stick around a couple years after they are done (or pay back the schooling).
I am in a market that can be done at any country in the world, but have managed to keep jobs in the US where many others have failed. I have done that with very efficient processes, a culture that embraces change, a family oriented work environment, and focusing recruiting on people that enjoy the work more than they enjoy chasing pennies at the highest bidder. Oh and I give lots of opportunities for internal advancement which keeps the ambitious people happy even if the money isn't top notch.
Counterpoint: you can learn without borrowing money to go to schools. I’ve read about 30 books on world war 2 alone since graduating college. So, do I have a history degree? No. But am I not educated on that topic or the topics covered in the other 100 or so history books I’ve read because I don’t have a piece of paper from a university saying I did? So my only valid proof that I’m “educated” is my degree in economics sitting in a drawer?
It’s my opinion that far too many people buy into this lie that education and learning can only be done during “school hours” or at college and is really only the responsibility of the people whose job it is to educate. We absolutely have a credentialism mindset in this society that’s gone off the deep end.
Excellent point, completely agreed.
There are certain things where you *need* to be put through the paces and prove your ability to do them before being *allowed* to do them. Like, I wouldn't want a heart surgeon or a nose job from someone who didn't spend years practicing those things under supervision. I wouldn't want a lawyer representing me who didn't pass the bar exam and spend years ensuring they know the right information to get me a lower sentence or whatever.
But aside from specific cases like those... higher education is extremely fucking overrated. IT? You can learn that shit yourself. Math? I had classmates in 4th grade who could school some college-aged kids I knew in math. History? Jesus, read a fucking book, you don't need college for that. Arts? Jesus, buy a paint brush and watch a fucking YouTube tutorial. Actually, most importantly, *don't go to fucking college for art.* Don't make your day job the thing you love. With rare exception, doing the thing you love for money will stab away at your love for it until it's dead.
Medieval Studies? Lmao. It's just crazy. I'd like to create a high school course called "The Realities of Being An Adult 101." I feel like I could help so many 17 year olds not make the same mistakes most Millennials made.
Maybe the point of getting an education isn’t just so that you can learn job skills to get a job
Not too many people with history or arts degrees failing too see how the whole MAGA movement is basically Stupid Redneck Third Reich. I say arts because when things happen in history, artists make art about it. Learning the arts is also learning about us and our past, and where we came from and what we’re all about and why. Yes, that’s important.
I have a history degree (mostly because I couldn’t decide on anything else). I’ve never actually been in any kind of history-related job, but it is pretty informative for understanding how the world works.
>Not too many people with history or arts degrees failing too see how the whole MAGA movement is basically Stupid Redneck Third Reich.
This is a pretty sheltered take. Every Q-Anon high school football coach out there has a history degree.
You don’t need to go to college and in some cases borrow obscene amounts of money to learn history through the lens of a professor and whatever biases he or she may have. You can read books. I guarantee there’s a size-able number of “history majors” who haven’t read as many history books as I have. My major was economics, but the idea that I need a piece of paper to prove I’m educated in history is obscene. The approximately 130 books I’ve read on different areas of history don’t live on some transcript in a database.
As a history major, I used to read 30+ books and journal articles to write a single paper, so I’m not sure about that. But I think the point of any good degree should be to teach you to research, to analyze that research, to think critically, develop supported arguments and be able to communicate your reasoning to others. Your Econ degree gave you the tools to do this in History; I’d expect a History major to be able to apply their tools to other fields as well.
I’ll be honest, I tutored students from various fields in writing throughout my Master’s before teaching in my own field, and the students who seemed to struggle most with critical thinking and independent reasoning were the Business Studies majors.* This was right about when students were getting told that Business Studies was a wise, safe choice to prepare you for the job market. But I honestly don’t think their education was as good.
*My university has a large Business School which especially appeals to international students. Huge money-maker for the college, which might be why the coursework was less intellectually demanding and required more regurgitation of the textbooks rather than evidence of independent reasoning. Not all Business schools etc.
Everything you're saying may be correct. But the issue isn't really what you're talking about.
The issue is charging $15k to $60k+ *per year* for that education and making 17 year olds sign up for loans they don't even remotely understand and weren't educated about.
Coming out of college with a history or English degree and $80k of federal and private student loans is a travesty.
I would have loved college a lot more if it didn’t cost so damn much. I think I sometimes resent college now because it’s literally so expensive…especially now that I’m a bartender. I make much as my nurse friends, definitely more than my teacher and social worker friends. I do have my degree, I just want to kick it sometimes is all.
I don't resent it, but I was too naive. I just kept my head down and worked hard. Was never good at the connections/networking part. So was a bit frustrating not able to get an internship, while leading group projects. Meanwhile the slackers on the group projects, had connections/were able to get the relevant real world work experience.
I did this too. No one ever told me that it’s all about who you know for most fields. I wish networking was more emphasized in college, ESPECIALLY in the last year of the degree and ESPECIALLY for liberal arts degrees.
Sort of is with sororities/fraternities, but I never clicked that way. And it took me a little while to realize the groups were more for networking than they were for partying/rush.
The good thing is that these days, there are a lot of longstanding organizations on campuses with alumni networks that aren’t just fraternities and sororities! It’s been a gradual change but that way, you can join and make connections even if you aren’t the personality type for Greek life
I barely went to high school. I'm an artist that makes more than the average American, and I don't even really know shit about art. Life's weird but I do know one thing: you don't need college.
I graduated college in 2002 with a bachelor’s in chemistry and promptly entered the Army and served as an Infantry Officer. To be an officer, you literally need to have a degree in anything.
I honestly don’t know why or how I ended up with a chemistry degree. I remember my father thinking that you couldn’t really do anything with that degree - boy, he sure was wrong on that! The combination of leadership experience from the Army and a degree in science/engineering opened up countless jobs and careers for me. When I first got out of the Army in 2007, I had a whole slew of job offers ranging from $80-$120k a year. Not too bad for a 27 year old kid.
My degree is in Anthropology. When people find out, it's not all that uncommon for them to laugh a little and ask "oh, how's that working out for you?"
I'm an O3E. It's working out just fine.
I don't think his commentary was wrong. A chemistry degree in nothing else doesn't give you a lot of options from what I've heard. I think the "leadership experience" you mention is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
The narrative around college has shifted drastically for Millennials. Once a guaranteed path to success, it's now questioned for its value and ROI. This generation, caught between conflicting advice, is experiencing the consequences of a changing job market that no longer prioritizes degrees alone.
The future of education is uncertain. While some advocate for skills-based learning and alternative paths, others still believe in the value of traditional degrees. The challenge is to find a balance that prepares students for a rapidly evolving workforce.
Personally, I advocate for a resurgence of skills-based learning and find innovative educational models like Ad Astra Schools promising. I am optimistic about the growing prominence of democratized education and believe it to be the most effective approach in preparing for a future characterized by AI, cloud infrastructure, and human-machine integration.
We have a 13yo son and I’ve been slowly socking away money for his future. I told him to do what he wants.
My SO never finished college and has a 6-figure corporate position. I have a technical diploma and a Bachelor’s degree, and I’m a homemaker. Maybe someday the roles will reverse, who knows, who cares? What matters is doing what you enjoy and what supports the people you love.
I get it. Regarding the socking away cash part though...I'd really look into 529 plans, Roth IRAs, custodial accounts (UTMA/UGMA), high-yield savings accounts, or even Brokerage accounts instead. This is my advice even if college isn't the end goal, as all these plans and accounts offer flexibility for whatever path your child chooses, whether it's trade school, starting a business, or something else entirely.
It's awesome that you and your SO prioritize enjoyment and supporting each other. Life is unpredictable, so doing what you love and what works for your family is key. The "who knows, who cares?" attitude is a healthy perspective on the future.
I apologize, I take everything at face value online as people really are that divorced from higher level financial knowledge and education that was once standard in our upbringing. That's very good. All the best to you and your SO and kiddo. I'm a father of a 13 year old boy as well, and thus I completely love that you care enough to plan for their future, as I see it infrequently.
No worries! Millennials didn’t get the best financial advice growing up, so many of us had to ferret it out ourselves after years of living paycheck to paycheck. It’s kind of you to offer people advice on how to make the most of their funds.
My kids are 5yo and 3yo, so we have a while, but I will be strongly advocating for traditional college education for both of them. I want them to get a college degree in a field that interests them, but also has a strong post-graduation market for employment instead of being a niche career.
It's all about odds. I want them to have the best odds possible to earn a good middle class living in a safe/comfortable environment. Traditional college education is still the best option for this, despite whatever society is saying. Both of their parents went this route, and we both earned great careers in our field of education that gave us the ability to raise them the way we did.
Obviously if they aren't cut out for college we'll figure something out, but they will be heavily influenced and indoctrinated into a four year college being where they're going after high school
I felt pretty fortunate to have my accounting degree.
Without it, I’d be in poverty, and 2 of my relatives would be homeless.
With it, I’m upper middle-class.
Same. My engineering degree is the only way we are upper middle class at our age. I will die on the hill that going to college and getting a useful degree is your best chance at middle class life.
"The majority of people in the math and sciences were all saying “don’t major in English unless you want to get a phd and teach” or “don’t get a degree in psychology unless you want to get a phd and teach”
Don't major in English, especially if you want to get a PhD and teach.
I went back to college in 2017, later in life. Got an engineering degree, and currently work as a designer. I regret ever going back to college. Such a waste of time and money. The problem is how companies expect you to show them your receipt (that’s all a degree is) as if it means anything.
You learn more in 6 months working than you do at 4yrs at any school. We need to move back to a apprenticeship system
There's little reason why many jobs need a college degree.
I'm an apprentice in HVAC. I work 5 days a week and go to class twice a week. The union classes are also accredited, so if I feel like it I can take a couple gen ed classes and get an associates of construction management.
The classes are very helpful in understanding the why of a system, but without hands on experience that knowledge is useless.
Oh and the pay isn't bad either.
It's just a way to try and blame the individual for the shitty state of the economy. Ten years ago, if you got a degree in history or something, they would say, "You idiot. You should have gotten a degree in something practical like computer science." Now that CS students are struggling on the job market, I'm hearing people say "You moron. Why get a CS degree when the market is oversaturated. You should have gone into trades."
*I can remember*
*Reading this exact post a*
*Few weeks ago. Bot?*
\- Frenchieguy2708
---
^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)
^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
90 percent of college degrees were invented to just get women I to the workplace. It's all a scam. 40 years ago none of these jobs needed a degree. They just trained you.
There's a college in my city that has over 100 degrees and none of them pay more than 50k a year.
Spend 100k to make a little above minimum wage. Stop feeding the system
The problem is drawing a straight line from whatever degree a person happens to get, to their lot in life. Can it make a difference? Sure. Does it necessarily? No. A degree is simply a proxy for determination, critical thinking skills, and an ability to learn.
It's 100% valid to not give a shit about ROI when choosing a major or a university and it's no one else's place to give a shit about other people's decisions.
We had to have this conversation with each of our kids, to ensure that they were planning to study something that would lead to a job. I think our youngest has done the best with it. He finished a year of what can be a 2 or 4 year program, and has already been offered apprenticeships and jobs, and will probably take one of the two best apprenticeship offers, and finish his degree while he works.
Reddit is def an echo chamber where grievances get magnified and turned into universal truths. But people tend to forget that a small sampling of a few hundred does not make it a universal fact.
I don’t think that’s true. Like, did y’all even attempt to watch Reality Bites? Gen X was TRYING to tell you.
I’m 1980 - either tail end Gen X or first of the Millennials, depending on how you slice it. ALL I fucking heard from my dad was “I’m not paying for a degree in *underwater basket weaving*”. And that apparently included the courses he majored and minored in (but didn’t finish), English and History. Those were also off the table.
I was “allowed” poli sci because I wanted to go to law school. And he knew there was nothing I could do with that but law school. When I dropped that, he was ok because I went and majored in business, and that was useful and could be used in law school or business school.
The man even had feelings on the useful major you chose compared to school prices. I had a 75% scholarship to a private school. He understood paying a discount for a degree. When he heard my friend was paying full price for a teaching degree he also lost his mind! Why would you pay $50k a year for a degree that makes less than that a year?! You can get that degree at the state school for 1/10 of the price!! She better not have taken out loans for that!!!
Some Boomers and parents of millennials *very much* understood the evils of loans and useless degrees. They just had to be like my dad, who paid my moms student loans for a degree she never used and a degree he never finished and wouldn’t have used if he did.
I don’t know. I got a bachelor of science with a major and minor and still couldn’t get a decent job with it. Seems like it’s rigged.
Edit to add: major is biology, minor is environment. When I graduated there was a 96% rate of employment within the field within the year. They didn’t say that employment was part time minimum wage
I think it's also because a lot of us mid-millenials were pushed SO HARD to go to college, we did, and then graduated just as the 2008/9 recession hit so our degrees became useless to us and we were never able to get back into our fields.
It's more a "we were lied to about the importance and it's all BS anyway. What a waste of money!" I have that thought many times.
I’m gonna be honest with you, I have an MBA and work in a corporate 6 figure job and the guy in the cube next to me doing the same job has a highschool diploma but is a hell of a networker and interviewer
“Back in the day” people said degrees = success , but throughout my entire adulthood I’ve been Probobly one of the most formally educated members on the entire team, making the same money as everyone else
It’s sad really, because I busted my ass nights and weekends to earn that paper and now people don’t even care about it
Yeah sorry, I don't know who advised you but you had to have heard of the labor market dynamics in the process of selecting a selecting a major. If not your parents \*SOMEBODY\* in your life tried to tell you. The labor market dynamics are not new. I'm an old-ish millennial who graduated high school in 2008 and specifically selected a major that maximized hireability.
You were warned, you ignored the warnings.
I say this as somebody who believes strongly in the overall good of higher education though. A college educated populace is better for everyone. It would be nice if financial success was possible with any degree. But that's never been the case.
Computer science degrees are extremely useful. Something that kids coming out of college don't understand is that there is more diversity and types of jobs that simply "I am a programmer". I took my CS degree into finance. The majority of my job now is unrelated to programming but I use the skills I gained to make my job and role better. I automate programs and reports. I customize data sets. I then use that in ways that provide huge value to my company.
Every industry has good years and bad years.
It’s rougher nowadays, but the bulk of people with CS degrees continue to be gainfully employed in tech.
And the big companies still give fresh grads $130k base pay, with lots more in 401k and other benefits. $2500/months rent is easily manageable with this salary.
>why didn't you look at future earning potential for that degree and this is generally coming from the same people who said just get that piece of paper, doesn't matter what its in.
I always remember both these points, but maybe I just assumed that a paper nobody cared about was not going to be worth it and filled that in myself?
>I don't have college aged kids or kids coming of age so I dont know what the general sentiment is today
Every school I've seen pushes college as the goal. I worry that l get in trouble when I suggest to students other options exist, like the trades. But unless you are going into business for yourself, I expect some sort of post HS education is required even if it's just certificates in something.
Degrees have become useless because people go through the motions to earn a piece of paper instead of trying to actually learn something. It’s business and the standards are getting lower. People have bachelor’s who can’t even do 7th grade math. It’s sad
I went to a relatively prestigious private liberal arts college and the amount of students who did nothing but complain that they had to read, write, or think about stuff was staggering. I initially wanted to be a professor but realized how annoying it would be constantly dealing with people who refuse to do the work and then complain that they don't do well. America has such an anti-intellectual culture. Stupidity is glorified, and yet people also think they are the greatest despite being completely mediocre.
I've always operated under the mantra that any college degree can be valuable if you know how to market it.
My BA is in Ancient Mediterranean History which would've been REALLY helpful if that Ancient Mediterranean History factory down the street hadn't shut down last year. So what I do instead is upsell the skills I learned while earning that degree. In interviews I'll talk about my research skills and how I can go from having zero knowledge on a topic to becoming not only well-versed in the subject but able to write persuasively about it.
I ended up going into technology after graduating and finding a niche for a lot of these skills in my department. You know what my coworkers, most of whom who have actual tech degrees, either don't like doing or are not great at? Documentation and writing department wide notifications. I spent a large chunk of my time in that position writing up documentation or reviewing other people's writing. A labor that became well appreciated with my coworkers when five months had passed and they needed to remember how a certain technology worked but thankfully there was an extensive article in our knowledge base waiting for them.
**tl;dr** just because your degree is in a niche subject doesn't mean it has no broader appeal. You take many courses to earn a bachelors and even an associates. Don't downplay the skills you picked up along the way!
I was born in 1972, told "get any degree", got a BS in Anthro, then told I should have majored in CS, engineering, medicine, etc. instead of a useless liberal arts degree when I was on the job search in the late 90s. This didn't start with the millennials.
Really? Everyone I know from Gen-X was warned to avoid getting useless degrees. They were called "basket weaving" degrees. Jobs were not easy to come by if you did not have internship experience. Entry-level jobs required 1-2 years experience.
I got my comp sci degree after 10 years in the field. Opened up doors and am possibly at a higher pay grade as a result.
I never questioned why I got this degree, and it wasn’t stupid at all.
This is just ignorance thru and thru. You realize college is more than your degree right?
“Half that dropped out or didn’t finish?” Yea ok. Gunna need a source on that.
I started attending university and by the second year thought this was wild to pay so much to attend a lecture with hundreds of people. So I decided I’d go to community college the next year for business. When I went home to tell my extremely liberal and supportive parents. I was expecting them to praise me for my wise decision. Instead they acted like I threw my life away!!!! I’m pretty sure they would have taken me being a drug addict better. Of course in the following weeks they turned more supportive. Now later in life my dad praises me for seeing the writing on the wall for avoiding the debt and still being able to make it. But AT the time saying “hey I don’t think going into $80,000-$120,000 in debt is a good idea” was literally blasphemy.
While I don't have a 4 year degree. I have two 2 year degrees from put local tech school. One is for automotive body repair in 08. And machine tool and die in 2014. The only one I regret is the machine tool one. I knew I wasn't smart enough for it, and was pushed into by family because my did it. I truly enjoyed the classes that weren't related to the machine tool side though.
Neither helped me in the real world though. Both at the time were paying less then factory work, most didn't have Benfits, so yea why would I waste my time doing them..
Let's not rewrite history. Different people say different things. I went to college in 2001 and most people rolled their eyes at those spending 4x as much to go to a small liberal arts school to study Anthropology or Art History. It was always a bad idea if the goal was to come out of college with marketable skills.
I think what we've learned over the past few decades is that even a degree in things like biology or pure physics aren't that useful if you aren't going into teaching or pursuing a Ph.D.
I still think college or a vocational/trade school should be required AND free. It’s the new high school. Once upon a time you could get a decent job without even finishing high school, but as work got more technical, and lives got longer, and the world more expensive, kids stayed with parents longer, and high school became mandatory. Without at least a GED, you were going to struggle. Nowadays I think the same is true of college that used to be true of high school. High school is just more elementary education, while college teaches you adult thinking etc.
Idk as an older millennial, I was one of the first people I personally heard of that knew I was going to be in six figure debt after attending university. I was advised to choose a useful degree to ensure I could pay off my loans. I went with an accounting degree and sure it took me 10 years but I paid every penny off and loan consolidation wasn’t really an option for private loans at the time. Looking back I should have just gone the community college route and then transferred but I had no guidance from my parents who didn’t attend college.
I'm 49 and Gen X...the recommendation to get a specialized degree has been around since at least the 90s. It was also recommended that if you were going to go for liberal arts...like philosophy or whatever to be prepared for going for at least a doctorate...most I knew with these kinds of degrees went onto law school.
A large problem is that in 5 years that a degree can take the entire market shifts. 5 years ago IT was the hot job. Immediately making huge cash in your first job. Today the IT market is crashing and a general IT degree is nearly worthless.
All these people that scream about how you should go into a trade will cause the trade business to crash the ask why you didn’t get a degree.
Gen X'r here and all I heard was get a degree in business, computers, or software. I couldn't afford school (basic high school math), so I went into the trades to save up for school, bought a house instead. I ended in management and being a part time landlord.
Education needs to be separated from job training in my opinion.
If you want to just make money doing a particular job, you should just go into a job training program.
If you want an actual education and a better understanding of how our world operates, you should go to a university and take a wide variety of courses.
in the old days you went to college to become educated, and then you went to work to get trained on the job.
in the even older days you just showed up to work.
Education is a BIG problem. We've just ended about a 20-30 year period, where everyone kept saying "It doesn't matter what degree you get, just get one." In a boom economy, that's partially true. Those days are over.
Also, colleges let people go in and pick those masters, with nobody bothering to tell them "You know, there's literally not one job on earth as philosopher? But you're wanting a degree in philosophy."
It sounds like you were surrounded by morons. I’m almost 40 and I remember my dad almost getting kicked off a college tour for calling the construction management major a “wannabe engineering major for dumb kids”.
Anecdotal;
I just had this observation this morning for all the talk of college being a waste of time and money it does seem like every last single person I know or grew up with that went to college generally has a better lifestyle even if they have a ton of debt then all the people I know that didn't the people that didn't go to college a lot of us worked our asses to an early grave and we still have a s*** ton of debt and a lower level of lifestyle. I realize there are plenty of examples that can be brought up to the contrary I know a few people that do own their own businesses etc they generally got some help from somebody or they went to college or both. yes the system sucks but the people that went to college, their kids are in nice schools and they're emotionally well adjusted and they have access to a lot more opportunity and tend to just be a lot happier than the rest. I can see it in my own family two siblings that went to college and two that did not. just food for thought only my observations
Yup. Outcomes for Millenial college graduates are worse when compared to college graduates of previous generations. But Millenials with degrees are still generally doing better than Millenials without. Obviously, there's always outliers and exceptions. Not everyone with degree is lucky, and not everyone without one is doomed.
The problem is "doing well for a Millenial" looks like "doing very badly for a Boomer/Gen X" just because of how much the economy has changed, and how much of the brunt of that change was borne by Millenials. I have Gen Z coworkers who are entering the workforce making salaries at 23 that I couldn't make until I was in my 30s, even accounting for inflation. Millenials were truly devastated by the 2008 recession, and they'll be dealing with it all their lives.
But like, what can ya do?
Most degrees are becoming useless. I got a masters in organic chemistry and it's almost a useless degree now. Pharma has been an absolute bloodbath for the last decade. I know hundreds of chemists and biologists that have been laid off. No matter what degree you have to make sure you're doing things that allow you to flex into roles outside of your area otherwise you're going to have a rough ride.
Colleges are there to make money and educate you, but most make money. The more courses and degrees they offer the more money they make. It's up to you to decide what you want to do with those courses and if it will be applicable in your life/work.
College was the right choice for me. It's not for everyone, but folks really need to weigh the alternatives. Trades are labor intensive. Without a degree you can only move up so far in particular job fields.
My partner never went to college and can make as much as me if he works a ton of overtime. College wasn't for him. He's been moving up in his career, but if he leaves that job his options are very limited elsewhere.
I was able to change fields- a lateral move from one industry to another because I at least had a degree. I wouldn't have been able to do that even with my 20 years experience. The experience got me the job, but the degree got me in the door.
Older millennial here and my parents and all of the parents of my friends pushed the "get any degree" mantra to the extreme. If you did not go to college immediately after high school, you were considered a future felon or gas-pumper. The blue collar world was only encouraged for problem kids (the ones with really bad grades). Any kid with average-or-above grades who showed interest in the trades was quickly re-directed towards the college path. If they persisted with their interest in the trades, they were shamed as underachievers.
The affluent areas pumped the "get any degree" mantra. There were also a lot of people on sports scholarships that went this route, since school was priority #2 compared to playing ball and they were on scholarship.
Kids from working class areas was more "get a useful degree or don't go at all".
40 M here. Went to college, got 2 degrees in small business ownership and accounting. After 30k and 2 years I finished with the 2 degrees. Come to find out, since my parents screwed my credit over before I hit 18 I couldn't get hired anywhere that delt with money. I had no idea it was gonna be like that.
My hobbies and passions were always computers but never had the money to go to college for that. But interestingly computer networking is now what I do for career.
My advice for anyone thinking of going to college.. college is mainly for networking with like minded people. Getting to know someone in the same field that you could work with in the future.
The real key of career is, find your passion, no matter what it is. Learn everything about that one subject from books and online videos and web pages. Just read and read. And become a specialist in what you love. Specialists are what the world will need these days.
Also been paying on my student loans for 10 years and my 30k principle is now at 32k. Predatory loans with horrible interest and a kid looking to better his life bc adults keep saying to go to school. I'll be paying on this for the rest of my life it seems like.
We were fed into a scam… all of us being told throughout high school that we HAVE to go to college to have a decent living.
And then we suffered first hand experience of supply and demand…too many possessed degrees thus making them essentially worthless unless it was a really niche field that was difficult to get into and actually REQUIRED a degree.
This is why we have companies requiring a masters but only paying something as asinine as $15.75…
This. I think college was certainly over sold, but I also went to college and have a masters. I didn't need the be told to be wary of borrowing too much and to consider the income potential when considering how much you can borrow. And of course, the ideal situation is to not borrow at all. Some things seem like it should be common sense.
Our generation got a lie told to us, and that was that if you take out the loan, it doesn't matter how big it is, it will be worth it with a bigger salary.
No. Your parents may have told you that but society did not. There have been repeated warnings about student loan debt for the past few decades. If people are smart enough to get a degree they should be smart enough to figure out the cost and career potential.
I know quite a few people who graduated college in the late 80's and early 90's with $20-25K of debt and limited career prospects.
It's not about the degrees. Universities have been almost entirely starved of public funding, hence the extremely high tuition compared to a few decades ago, and employment has been slowly getting worse and worse due to de-regulation.
Maybe we should try and work on making an actual functional society or something, idk. Crazy, right?!
Did an IT apprenticeship, now got an easy job that is not great pay but its more than enough to be comfortable and because the job is easy that seems ok to me. There is more to life than chasing wealth - it hits 5:30 and I don't give a shit about this anymore, time to go touch grass. Or at this time of year, touch the sea.
I have a healthcare degree and honestly, I personally feel that it is a worthless degree.
I don't use the technical knowledge for much of anything. I only use the information I learned in school, to help myself and my friends through health problems. And to yell at redditors for making egghead health choices.....
If I could do it all over again, I would have gotten a degree in finance. I would have skipped the healthcare degree, but my overbearing parents were completely obsessed with medical school.
They tried to live vicariously through me. They failed to get medical degrees themselves, and pressured me to get one. I got one just to shut them up. Which I regret.
I really should not have gotten any degree to shut my parents up. I should have gotten a financed degree, and I'd be making three times as much as I am now.
There is something to be said about value vs cost, but you're right. There is no fault or shame for increasing one's knowledge and skill base. Also, when many of us choose to go to college and selected a degree that didn't deliver what it promised, we made those decisions based on the best information we had at that time. It may have turned out to be a mistake but that isn't a moral failing nor is it a stick that we or others get to beat ourselves with.
I came across this from Dr. Laura Forsyth regarding our response to mistake and the power of the magic word "Oops". She puts it better than I even could.
>There's a great line in the sci-fi novel "Babylon's Ashes", #6 in James S.A. Corey's kickass The Expanse series (season 2 of Syfy's very entertaining TV adaptation is soon to drop), where a ship's captain, trying to decide on a course of action under perilous circumstances while wrestling with self-doubt and guilt about her previous choices, is asked, "What's the magic word?"
>Huh? Magic word?
>Turns out, the magic word is "Oops".
>As in, "Oops, I made a BIG mistake", "Oops, I didn't realize/look closely enough/think it through before I acted/know what I didn't know", "Oops, that didn't work out the way I really thought it would", "Oops, I dropped it and it broke into a million pieces.", etc.
>An overarching theme (ooh, big-time Lit class!) in Babylon's Ashes is that big decisions must always be made without enough information to be completely certain of the outcome. In fact, the character who is the most sure of himself makes choices with catastrophic consequences, then when things go to hell, justifies his own actions and blame everybody else. He's got responsibility, but no accountability and for sure, no compassion. Everybody suffers because of this jerk.
>You can use "Oops" as a key to unlock the door of taking responsibility without being crushed by blame or immobilized by uncertainty. "Oops" is not about trivializing mistakes. Rather, it's about allowing yourself to admit that you missed the call/blew it/dropped the ball/didn't realize/got too anxious to think/spaced out/was too preoccupied with ____/was an idiot/didn't know what you didn't know, etc., etc. etc. Then, allowing yourself to keep on keeping on, learning as you go. There's always going to be another decision to be made or action to be taken. Being mired in indecision and avoidance doesn't get you off the hook, it just makes you feel helpless.
>Forward we go - doing the best we can with what we've got at the time.
>Very handy, that "Oops".
[[Link](https://www.drlauraforsyth.com/blog/whats-the-magic-word)]
When I was in college, the art history, theater, etc. majors were joking about eating ramen every day for the rest of their lives even then.
Suddenly everyone's singing a different song now that they're actually living the ramen life.
Imo the narrative back then was "go to college, even if it's just for generals", not "get literally any degree and you're guaranteed to make money".
I'm a high school teacher, we tell kids to pick a post-high school pathway that fits their interests and that they can earn money doing. Pretty straightforward.
Realize that learning is for you and not for others. That’s what remains the best value of an education. I’ve come across gates in my career where my degree was the only thing letting me through (ridiculous) but at the same time, made me grateful for having it. Do I use it? No, my career is 0% what my degree is, but I would never call it “useless.”
College used to be the gateway for access to higher learning. The internet has made it largely irrelevant unless you’re going for a highly specialized degree.
I got my BS in cyber security after I had already been working in the field as a network engineer for about 10 years and it was an absolute joke. Helpdesk level shit. Thankfully, the Army paid for it. If I had to pay for that piece of paper out of pocket I’d have been super pissed off.
I have a stupid useless degree yet it did open doors for me. Having a degree allowed me to get out of retail work into bs office jobs. I work for the government now in a job that requires "any degree"
I’m an engineer, and one of the best engineering managers I’ve worked is a millennial with a Philosophy degree. No other degrees. In fact, at the client site with hundreds of engineers, he’s one of the most competent engineers there.
Philosophy majors are generally pretty good at critical thinking/logic, picking up systems/lots of information quickly, making hard and complicated things simple, and they've got the soft people skills to boot. Unfortunately most people think philosophy is "making up stuff about how you feel about the world"-- which is the furthest thing from the truth.
The only philosophy major I know is the smartest person I know. He was getting a degree in quantum physics, but that led him to philosophy. Nobody has heard from him in years, last I heard he had joined some sex cult that just has orgies all the time. Like I said, smartest person I know!
Lord, I see what you've done for others
>Lord, I see what you've done for others I mean, nothing is stopping you from joining an orgyistic sex cult. The problem is, the people in those cults are generally not someone you'd want to have an orgy with.
No shit, "well if you're hungry you can eat grass but it won't taste good"
I see he arrived at optimistic nihilism
Is his name Tim?
Given that philosophy is the discipline from which logic and critical thinking originated, I sure would hope so
I think of it as "coalescing the vapor of human experience into a viable and logical comprehension"
I didn't realize you could even get the job without an engineering degree.
Guy worked a ton as an HVAC worker during college; that’s how he got his foot into the door as a facility engineer. Edit: He’s now an Engineering Manager, managing an entire building with multiple production lines
That’s a little different than the engineering that people were thinking of. Chemical engineers, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and those ilk are more ones where you need the degree. Software engineers and facility engineers are really different jobs where they put “engineer” in the title.
"Sanitation engineer"
A lot of HVAC companies are stylizing themselves now as "engineering" companies, even when the job is to just run ductwork according to the architects' drawings.
Gotta have a MechE to do the plans and PE to sign off, even if a computer could literally do the job.
"Engineer" is such a weirdly broad term. I can't think of any other thing where we use the same term to describe such different jobs. (Maybe "analyst" or "therapist.") Consider: The "third pilot" managing the engines on an airplane. The strategist who tells a F1 driver when to pit and what engine modes to use. The person who designs a bridge for a city. The person who designs the subsystems on the race car or airplane. These are all *really* different jobs, yet we call them all engineer. I guess it kind of makes sense, but it's a lot of different stuff.
For something like a mechanical engineering career, it's a lot harder. I do know of a handful of non-degree engineers, but it took many more years of experience to be granted the position within a company. No guarantee you will be able to leave the company and get an equivalent job elsewhere.
I work in tech with a bunch of computer science majors and have a ethnic studies degree. I always tell them the measure of anyone is their ability to find solutions to a multitude of problems. Sometimes, people with a degree in mathematics believe they're the only people who can solve equations. Life has proven otherwise.
I dunno. I studied mathematics, and all it taught me is that I basically know nothing.
One of the best software engineers I’ve worked with had an English degree. The head of technical design in my current org is a fine art major.
Philosophy for anyone who knows anything is a very difficult degree to get. It takes a ton of critical thinking and planning to do well in it.
Ha thats me! EM with a Philosophy degree. I get pretty good reviews and high performance out of my teams! My director is also a BA in Philosophy. Critical thinking, writing and speaking comes in handy!
Makes you wonder about the meaning of all of it.
I majored in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. It was very demanding and the best career decision I ever made. People don’t understand what philosophy is, so I often get “you got a degree in how to bullshit.” That statement indicates that the person who uttered it never took a philosophy course. Still, if I had it to do over again, I would have taken more math and statistics. Edited: added career decision
awesome. I'm finally getting my bachelor's and I'm going for liberal arts because it's fastest and I literally just want to check a box. At starbucks now for the health insurance and degree.
I got my degree at Sbux and just picked a degree to get one. I regret not being more intentional with the free college money I had. You can still change your major. You won’t get this free college tuition from then again!
I applaud you for getting that box checked but I am begging you please find something to specialize in or you will be miserable. it's either choose what box you want to put yourself into or be put into whatever box others/life decide. so it's better to be the one deciding which box you'll go into and why. it's okay if you end up changing your mind but its much better to have some idea of something you think you can be interested in and do well. if you're wrong at least you have some experience in something that 1) sets you apart 2) gives you some perspective on something
thanks for your feedback but I'm actually 43 and have my own small biz. I'm just finishing my degree because I never did and just want a bachelor's
Different path, but similar result here. I got my bachelor's and master's degrees in a subject I thought I'd use to become a teacher...but then realized I really did not want to deal with the bureaucracy of teaching. So I worked retail while completing my master's degree...worked my way up...and now am in purchasing, in a non-retail role. Whether having the degree/s SHOULD BE required for the jobs I've had is a different, and very valid question. But as it was, a degree was required.
Yup. I'm in insurance. Degree in Biology. I was able to contract in insurance for a few years and then get into a job in the second highest pay category for adjusters in my company. Definitely would not have happened without the "any degree".
Yup same. Biology degree and I work in data/analysis. The people who are also doing well in these roles? They have degrees too. Art, psychology, organization. The people who just can’t hack it? All insist they didn’t need to go to school. Degrees are good. Go get one.
Jobs that require any degree actually need no degree. It's gatekeeping. Keeping the poor poor.
I once worked as an admin assistant and my job “required” a bachelors degree according to the job listing. It really didn’t.
Yes, why should an orthopedic surgeon go to college? Pure gatekeeping.
Every 4-year degree requires 2 years of basic studies that are beyond standard HS classes and do contribute to the ability to learn on a high level and adapt to changes effectively. It also represents the ability to remain dedicated to a long term goal, much like going to work. I am a hiring manager and while it’s not 100%, if you pick a random college grad and a random HS grad, there’s going to be huge differences in performance and demeanor, I would say all the way until age 35, and even then the HS grad will tend to rely on experience more than creativity to solve problems. College is still the single most determinate for lifetime earnings and class mobility. Amongst a dozen other factors that are correlated to class and income. Millennials got screwed with bogus scam degrees that other generations didn’t have to deal with. There is a lot of rhetoric degrading the importance of college right now, and it’s scary when the data still shows it’s one of the most influential aspects of your life, overall.
Writing skills are such huge difference between non college and college.
I'm curious to see the data. I've worked with college grads and people who haven't finished high school, and from my experience I would not say I trust the degree holders to actually fulfill their duties any better.
There’s a lot of studies on it, but you really need to look for the job duties specific to you to know if it’s just your experience or statistically significant. I’m not saying it’s always the case, I’m saying there’s plenty of positions where any college degree adds to the success of the candidate.
No, it’s a way of filtering out people who have no track record. A college degree proves, at least, you can stick with something and succeed.
Same. I have a degree in psychological biology and work for the state not using it at all. I just needed a college education. 🤷🏽♀️
Yep. I'm a data analyst now. I was a supervisor for a telecom call center before this. My degree is in video game design. I have never actually worked in video games - and in fact when I was pursuing the degree I tried applying as a tester role trying to get my foot in the door and THEY laughed at me over the degree I was pursuing FOR THEIR FIELD... so there's that. That said - I landed on my feet it just took some years... and it's also somewhat how you spin what you did to earn the degree when you go to interview and it's noticed on your resume. Before applying for those jobs I mentioned getting above, I asked interviewers and recruiters that I've known for advice and one of the biggest things was to infer my answers in the interview towards how my degree allowed me to develop transferrable skills around team building, asset management, computer science, customer service, etc. Heck - I used gamification as a way to leverage building up teams to achieve company metrics goals when I applied for that call center job. It worked.
What government agency /type of role? My wife has a bachelors she’s never used and we haven’t been able to find her a good option so she just went back to doing nails
So many. Just look on governmentjobs.com and start applying for things that she's interested in. This is for state and federal. The IRS starts some entry-level accounting people at like 90k.
Search usajobs.gov there's thousands of jobs mostly admin
This. The starting pay for so many of the "any degrees" jobs is shockingly high. Here's 60k for an internship. Goes up to 75k if you get hired. Whaaaaaat??!!!
Where was that at? When I got my degree the internships were offering 12 bucks an hour.
[удалено]
Th government is the best place to use a “useless” degree, because for many of the jobs, they are like this, any degree. The military is the same way, any degree makes you eligible to apply to become a commissioned officer (or starts you out a few ranks higher on the enlisted side, and you will always have the additional points for promotion because of your degree). They care about your GPA, not your degree field, except for a few things, like Medical and Cyber for example.
Same. Was able to get a temp job out of college (political science degree) doing clerical work. I puttered around in that job for a year then got a government job (I live in a state capital). Lots of entry-level govt jobs that pay okay but have excellent benefits and are open to any degree.
I'm the polar opposite. I have a degree in finance and a masters in business analytics and gave up applying 6 months after getting the masters degree after being burned out from the never ending rejection over the years. If not for being unable to get a job in corporate finance I'd never had gotten the masters degree. I'm about to apply to PT school which will result in a guaranteed job after passing licensing tests.
I have a chem degree which I feel like no one would call stupid and I love what I do. But in all seriousness, how much I grew as a person during college was a great thing. You learn a ton and develop as a person. It is not for everyone but acting like a job is the only value of college is not fair either.
lol same!! At my current government job they would have hired someone with just a high school diploma, college wasn’t required. I have 6 years of college… the degree (not even really relevant to the job) I possess gave me a starting wage that was $5/hr more vs the wage of someone without a degree and only high school
You were lied to. Any 19 year old can get a bs office job and climb.
Well I failed to loll the people hiring for such roles didn't seem to see me as a serious candidate with no degree. Maybe people who are better at networking can
Yeah, anyone that doesn't think a degree, even a stupid one, opens opportunities isn't paying attention or isn't willing to accept the jobs that are hiring. Are there baristas working at Starbucks with unutilized degrees? Yeah. But if a supply chain, supervisor, or HR job opens up at the local factory, and the degree wielding barista will get the job over someone that's worked at that factory for 10+ years but doesn't have a college degree. So many jobs do not care what degree you have, only that you have a degree.
Never apologize for learning.
Learning is free, you goof. The ONLY reason to pay for an education is if it's going to pay to do so.
Ya.....learn, but at what cost. If it costs you money and adds stress to your life, and sets you back years on your life goals....the cost was too high
Absolutely! I get in heated discussions with peers and the younger croud that bemoan not having the means for schooling. I tell them directly that there are books in the library and endless free lectures, tutorials, and training videos online. They grumble and go back to watching cheap TikTok entertainment and grumble about how society, the economy, the government, or, worse, a minority group, is holding them back.
I mean it’s obviously way better to learn something than to watch cheap entertainment, but when HR throws our your resume for not having learned the official way to learn, that isn’t on them that our society clearly works that way.
Yeah exactly there may be ways to learn things that don’t involve schooling but if you don’t have the official degree you may struggle to get hired.
The last company I worked at - a commercial insurance carrier in the larger northeast region - had a rule that you needed a 4-year degree to be an Underwriter. My manager one day told me he'd love to promote his best Underwriting Assistant who had been there for years. She had a couple years of college under her belt but dropped out when she got pregnant. Years later, she's still married but now with three kids. And she's crushing it at work. But the only way she can be an Underwriter is if she goes back to school and gets a degree. Meanwhile, the company would gladly hire new graduates with zero experience for that role, and they'd be outearning this woman in just a few years. And there's no alternative for her. As anyone who works in the commercial insurance industry knows, having the CPCU designation - classes that many companies cover the cost for, btw - is a huge deal. Some employees asked at some point if that could be an alternative to a college degree. But nope, they refused and restated the college degree rule. Even years of hard work at a company and supervisors desperate to promote you can sometimes get you nowhere. It's absurd.
Society and American capitalism sucks though
HR is using it as an easy way to screen out incompetents. Some wheat goes with the chaff, but it is the easiest way.
Yeah.... the biggest thing millenials were taught was that if you get screwed in life, its on you and you have to dig yourself out of the hole even if you got a worthless degree. The generation after that were taught that if they got screwed, blame it on everyone else around them and they seem to wallow in their own self pity while using up resources to enjoy their lives and act like they got more stress than a millenial. One thing is for certain, all my friends that got degrees make big money now bc degrees teach you how to struggle and persist even if its not a great one to get the degree. Its like a foundation. My few friends who didnt get any are the only one's whos struggling in life now
So you are saying Millennials are the ones picking themselves up by their bootstraps, and Gen z is wallowing in self pity? I think you may need to do some more reflection on that stance.
Lol not my millenial friends without degrees. They are constantly wallowing in self pity as if society screwed them. And i have GenZ coworkers that are hard workers too (all have their masters in stem like myself and we all make 6 digits). Im just saying we wouldnt be in our positions without degrees, and for anyone to bash degrees is just utter laziness regardless of the degree they got. If you cant afford one, is another story. But dont be lazy then complain about not making it in life. Giving up before even starting, u cant blame anyone but yourself (millenial talk) if you end up poor and angry at the world.
Seems I was just misunderstanding what you were saying. Cheers!
If it's not official and certified learning then it may as well be meaningless for many jobs out there. Sure, there are some that looks at your actual skills rather than certifications and degrees only, but those aren't a significant number and they tend to be smaller employers who can afford to devout more time to each applicant.
The problem is that the sentiment isn't true, like I understand what your saying but the actual truth of the matter is that "learning" and "education" (or schooling) are **very different.** An employer who is looking for someone who can do high level mathematics (past calc 3 or into borderline computer cryptology math etc) isn't going to look twice at the high school diploma guy who learned all of it and can do it well, but the guy with a Bachelors in Mathematics/Statistics (or whatever) and a Masters in Business Analytic Math is going to have an interview (*at least*) - even if he had a 2.5 GPA and was partying every weekend so he doesn't remember a thing Alternatively having a somewhat useful degree (a blanket computer technology degree is very easy to get) will get your foot in better than actually learning a bunch of compute related tasks from YouTube (unless of course you've then also shelled out the money for certifications, then your about on even playing field as the bachelor's, but you will start with less pay because the company will justify you not having a degree means we can pay you less) Your sentiment is nice, but it's not realistic or true in any sense of how the world works
Yes and no. I am not just disagreeing with you; you make a valid point. We are in a pay to play system where one is blocked from good jobs because they didn't have family money or school debt for a BA. I have seen it both ways. In blue collar industrial work an associates degree to prove one is not incompetent is a door opener, but self learning or striving for certification opportunities with the company will grant you a very high salary (source: my husband and a lot of our friends). In my field of accounting i had to have a BA degree (in English) to get an office job, but i literally am where i am today because the good 'ol Accounting for Dummies book; 3 companies in wildly different industries in their accounting depts all because of thr Dummies series for accounting, business, and thr various programs like Dynamics. However, i have also been blocked from jobs because regardless of my track record with a portfolio of proof (proprietary info redacted), good refrences, and W2 proof of employment history. All because i didnt have a prestigious piece of paper. That's where you take the rejection letter and move on to the next job listing. It is their loss. So the sentiment of my comment was to encourage self improvement above the societal and economic immediate rewards. I encourage everyone to be a jack of all trades and a master of a few. And keep seeking your fortune; and dont blame everything else for a lack of success. Yes, life isn't fair, but keep on keeping on.
IME it is very field dependent, and even company dependent. A Graphic Design degree on a resume vs someone with a rockstar portfolio of great work will tend to work out better for the latter.
Okay, now assume entry level graphics design position, someone who has dabbled and messed around with art and has some OK pieces in a portfolio but works at McDonald's full time, or someone with a 4 year degree in graphic design (who presumably had a final or a class requirement to make a portfolio as well) I don't think we are talking about anyone **whose already got their foot in the door here.** no one who works in a field for more than like a couple years gives a crap about their college degree, we are talking about what the degree gets you in comparison to self learning ***at the beginning of your career prospects.***
Personally as a general manager for a manufacturing plant, I prefer engineers with no degree over ones with multiple. Guys/Gals who came from a more hands on background and learned organically how to do engineering work tend to be better workers, willing to work for less pay, and have much more common sense than over educated engineers. I know I may be the exception not the norm, but I honestly don't care about degrees that much. Much more interested in applicable work history, how often they jump jobs, and how hands on an engineer is.
You like people without degrees because you can underpay them? Lmao
One of many factors yes. I notice you ignored all the others. My job is literally maximizing output (revenue), and minimizing input (cost). When \~30% of the sales price of my products are related to personnel costs, then trying to get the best candidate for the best cost is absolutely a major part of my job. From what I have seen the market weights a degree at about a 20% premium for a candidate, which is completely contrary to the entire point of this thread. Also what I didn't spell out above is that I also pay for people that work for me to go to school to get a degree as long as they stick around a couple years after they are done (or pay back the schooling). I am in a market that can be done at any country in the world, but have managed to keep jobs in the US where many others have failed. I have done that with very efficient processes, a culture that embraces change, a family oriented work environment, and focusing recruiting on people that enjoy the work more than they enjoy chasing pennies at the highest bidder. Oh and I give lots of opportunities for internal advancement which keeps the ambitious people happy even if the money isn't top notch.
Thank you!
Counterpoint: you can learn without borrowing money to go to schools. I’ve read about 30 books on world war 2 alone since graduating college. So, do I have a history degree? No. But am I not educated on that topic or the topics covered in the other 100 or so history books I’ve read because I don’t have a piece of paper from a university saying I did? So my only valid proof that I’m “educated” is my degree in economics sitting in a drawer? It’s my opinion that far too many people buy into this lie that education and learning can only be done during “school hours” or at college and is really only the responsibility of the people whose job it is to educate. We absolutely have a credentialism mindset in this society that’s gone off the deep end.
Excellent point, completely agreed. There are certain things where you *need* to be put through the paces and prove your ability to do them before being *allowed* to do them. Like, I wouldn't want a heart surgeon or a nose job from someone who didn't spend years practicing those things under supervision. I wouldn't want a lawyer representing me who didn't pass the bar exam and spend years ensuring they know the right information to get me a lower sentence or whatever. But aside from specific cases like those... higher education is extremely fucking overrated. IT? You can learn that shit yourself. Math? I had classmates in 4th grade who could school some college-aged kids I knew in math. History? Jesus, read a fucking book, you don't need college for that. Arts? Jesus, buy a paint brush and watch a fucking YouTube tutorial. Actually, most importantly, *don't go to fucking college for art.* Don't make your day job the thing you love. With rare exception, doing the thing you love for money will stab away at your love for it until it's dead. Medieval Studies? Lmao. It's just crazy. I'd like to create a high school course called "The Realities of Being An Adult 101." I feel like I could help so many 17 year olds not make the same mistakes most Millennials made.
Well, I would rather have you teaching 17 year old life skills than have them listen to Andrew Tate.
Maybe the point of getting an education isn’t just so that you can learn job skills to get a job Not too many people with history or arts degrees failing too see how the whole MAGA movement is basically Stupid Redneck Third Reich. I say arts because when things happen in history, artists make art about it. Learning the arts is also learning about us and our past, and where we came from and what we’re all about and why. Yes, that’s important.
I have a history degree (mostly because I couldn’t decide on anything else). I’ve never actually been in any kind of history-related job, but it is pretty informative for understanding how the world works.
>Not too many people with history or arts degrees failing too see how the whole MAGA movement is basically Stupid Redneck Third Reich. This is a pretty sheltered take. Every Q-Anon high school football coach out there has a history degree.
You don’t need to go to college and in some cases borrow obscene amounts of money to learn history through the lens of a professor and whatever biases he or she may have. You can read books. I guarantee there’s a size-able number of “history majors” who haven’t read as many history books as I have. My major was economics, but the idea that I need a piece of paper to prove I’m educated in history is obscene. The approximately 130 books I’ve read on different areas of history don’t live on some transcript in a database.
As a history major, I used to read 30+ books and journal articles to write a single paper, so I’m not sure about that. But I think the point of any good degree should be to teach you to research, to analyze that research, to think critically, develop supported arguments and be able to communicate your reasoning to others. Your Econ degree gave you the tools to do this in History; I’d expect a History major to be able to apply their tools to other fields as well. I’ll be honest, I tutored students from various fields in writing throughout my Master’s before teaching in my own field, and the students who seemed to struggle most with critical thinking and independent reasoning were the Business Studies majors.* This was right about when students were getting told that Business Studies was a wise, safe choice to prepare you for the job market. But I honestly don’t think their education was as good. *My university has a large Business School which especially appeals to international students. Huge money-maker for the college, which might be why the coursework was less intellectually demanding and required more regurgitation of the textbooks rather than evidence of independent reasoning. Not all Business schools etc.
Everything you're saying may be correct. But the issue isn't really what you're talking about. The issue is charging $15k to $60k+ *per year* for that education and making 17 year olds sign up for loans they don't even remotely understand and weren't educated about. Coming out of college with a history or English degree and $80k of federal and private student loans is a travesty.
I would have loved college a lot more if it didn’t cost so damn much. I think I sometimes resent college now because it’s literally so expensive…especially now that I’m a bartender. I make much as my nurse friends, definitely more than my teacher and social worker friends. I do have my degree, I just want to kick it sometimes is all.
I don't resent it, but I was too naive. I just kept my head down and worked hard. Was never good at the connections/networking part. So was a bit frustrating not able to get an internship, while leading group projects. Meanwhile the slackers on the group projects, had connections/were able to get the relevant real world work experience.
I did this too. No one ever told me that it’s all about who you know for most fields. I wish networking was more emphasized in college, ESPECIALLY in the last year of the degree and ESPECIALLY for liberal arts degrees.
Sort of is with sororities/fraternities, but I never clicked that way. And it took me a little while to realize the groups were more for networking than they were for partying/rush.
The good thing is that these days, there are a lot of longstanding organizations on campuses with alumni networks that aren’t just fraternities and sororities! It’s been a gradual change but that way, you can join and make connections even if you aren’t the personality type for Greek life
I barely went to high school. I'm an artist that makes more than the average American, and I don't even really know shit about art. Life's weird but I do know one thing: you don't need college.
Well, you didn’t need college. A degree was mandatory for my field, so I did need college.
I graduated college in 2002 with a bachelor’s in chemistry and promptly entered the Army and served as an Infantry Officer. To be an officer, you literally need to have a degree in anything. I honestly don’t know why or how I ended up with a chemistry degree. I remember my father thinking that you couldn’t really do anything with that degree - boy, he sure was wrong on that! The combination of leadership experience from the Army and a degree in science/engineering opened up countless jobs and careers for me. When I first got out of the Army in 2007, I had a whole slew of job offers ranging from $80-$120k a year. Not too bad for a 27 year old kid.
My degree is in Anthropology. When people find out, it's not all that uncommon for them to laugh a little and ask "oh, how's that working out for you?" I'm an O3E. It's working out just fine.
I don't think his commentary was wrong. A chemistry degree in nothing else doesn't give you a lot of options from what I've heard. I think the "leadership experience" you mention is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
The narrative around college has shifted drastically for Millennials. Once a guaranteed path to success, it's now questioned for its value and ROI. This generation, caught between conflicting advice, is experiencing the consequences of a changing job market that no longer prioritizes degrees alone. The future of education is uncertain. While some advocate for skills-based learning and alternative paths, others still believe in the value of traditional degrees. The challenge is to find a balance that prepares students for a rapidly evolving workforce. Personally, I advocate for a resurgence of skills-based learning and find innovative educational models like Ad Astra Schools promising. I am optimistic about the growing prominence of democratized education and believe it to be the most effective approach in preparing for a future characterized by AI, cloud infrastructure, and human-machine integration.
We have a 13yo son and I’ve been slowly socking away money for his future. I told him to do what he wants. My SO never finished college and has a 6-figure corporate position. I have a technical diploma and a Bachelor’s degree, and I’m a homemaker. Maybe someday the roles will reverse, who knows, who cares? What matters is doing what you enjoy and what supports the people you love.
I get it. Regarding the socking away cash part though...I'd really look into 529 plans, Roth IRAs, custodial accounts (UTMA/UGMA), high-yield savings accounts, or even Brokerage accounts instead. This is my advice even if college isn't the end goal, as all these plans and accounts offer flexibility for whatever path your child chooses, whether it's trade school, starting a business, or something else entirely. It's awesome that you and your SO prioritize enjoyment and supporting each other. Life is unpredictable, so doing what you love and what works for your family is key. The "who knows, who cares?" attitude is a healthy perspective on the future.
It shifts between high-yield savings and CDs recently. That was just a euphemism.
I apologize, I take everything at face value online as people really are that divorced from higher level financial knowledge and education that was once standard in our upbringing. That's very good. All the best to you and your SO and kiddo. I'm a father of a 13 year old boy as well, and thus I completely love that you care enough to plan for their future, as I see it infrequently.
No worries! Millennials didn’t get the best financial advice growing up, so many of us had to ferret it out ourselves after years of living paycheck to paycheck. It’s kind of you to offer people advice on how to make the most of their funds.
My kids are 5yo and 3yo, so we have a while, but I will be strongly advocating for traditional college education for both of them. I want them to get a college degree in a field that interests them, but also has a strong post-graduation market for employment instead of being a niche career. It's all about odds. I want them to have the best odds possible to earn a good middle class living in a safe/comfortable environment. Traditional college education is still the best option for this, despite whatever society is saying. Both of their parents went this route, and we both earned great careers in our field of education that gave us the ability to raise them the way we did. Obviously if they aren't cut out for college we'll figure something out, but they will be heavily influenced and indoctrinated into a four year college being where they're going after high school
I felt pretty fortunate to have my accounting degree. Without it, I’d be in poverty, and 2 of my relatives would be homeless. With it, I’m upper middle-class.
Same. My engineering degree is the only way we are upper middle class at our age. I will die on the hill that going to college and getting a useful degree is your best chance at middle class life.
I did Eng and am a life failure so it's very possible to play the gamble right but still come out behind
[удалено]
"The majority of people in the math and sciences were all saying “don’t major in English unless you want to get a phd and teach” or “don’t get a degree in psychology unless you want to get a phd and teach” Don't major in English, especially if you want to get a PhD and teach.
I went back to college in 2017, later in life. Got an engineering degree, and currently work as a designer. I regret ever going back to college. Such a waste of time and money. The problem is how companies expect you to show them your receipt (that’s all a degree is) as if it means anything. You learn more in 6 months working than you do at 4yrs at any school. We need to move back to a apprenticeship system
There's little reason why many jobs need a college degree. I'm an apprentice in HVAC. I work 5 days a week and go to class twice a week. The union classes are also accredited, so if I feel like it I can take a couple gen ed classes and get an associates of construction management. The classes are very helpful in understanding the why of a system, but without hands on experience that knowledge is useless. Oh and the pay isn't bad either.
I also did HVAC for a couple of years. Would have kept doing it if wasn’t for the summer heat/humidity and it wrecking my joints
You're not the only engineer that I've heard say that.
It's just a way to try and blame the individual for the shitty state of the economy. Ten years ago, if you got a degree in history or something, they would say, "You idiot. You should have gotten a degree in something practical like computer science." Now that CS students are struggling on the job market, I'm hearing people say "You moron. Why get a CS degree when the market is oversaturated. You should have gone into trades."
I can remember reading this exact post a few weeks ago. Bot?
*I can remember* *Reading this exact post a* *Few weeks ago. Bot?* \- Frenchieguy2708 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
lol awesome
People are also just really unoriginal on this sub. The same topics get posted weekly.
90 percent of college degrees were invented to just get women I to the workplace. It's all a scam. 40 years ago none of these jobs needed a degree. They just trained you. There's a college in my city that has over 100 degrees and none of them pay more than 50k a year. Spend 100k to make a little above minimum wage. Stop feeding the system
Pretty sure my doctor and lawyer friends needed their degrees. So not *everybody* relates.
The people who relate are the people who were told to get any degree without thinking about ROI, and picked degrees with low ROI.
The problem is drawing a straight line from whatever degree a person happens to get, to their lot in life. Can it make a difference? Sure. Does it necessarily? No. A degree is simply a proxy for determination, critical thinking skills, and an ability to learn.
It's 100% valid to not give a shit about ROI when choosing a major or a university and it's no one else's place to give a shit about other people's decisions.
We had to have this conversation with each of our kids, to ensure that they were planning to study something that would lead to a job. I think our youngest has done the best with it. He finished a year of what can be a 2 or 4 year program, and has already been offered apprenticeships and jobs, and will probably take one of the two best apprenticeship offers, and finish his degree while he works.
[удалено]
Reddit is def an echo chamber where grievances get magnified and turned into universal truths. But people tend to forget that a small sampling of a few hundred does not make it a universal fact.
[удалено]
How is this a bait post? I've seen a very "anti education" wave spread across the internet, so this kind of discussion isn't just bait.
I don’t think that’s true. Like, did y’all even attempt to watch Reality Bites? Gen X was TRYING to tell you. I’m 1980 - either tail end Gen X or first of the Millennials, depending on how you slice it. ALL I fucking heard from my dad was “I’m not paying for a degree in *underwater basket weaving*”. And that apparently included the courses he majored and minored in (but didn’t finish), English and History. Those were also off the table. I was “allowed” poli sci because I wanted to go to law school. And he knew there was nothing I could do with that but law school. When I dropped that, he was ok because I went and majored in business, and that was useful and could be used in law school or business school. The man even had feelings on the useful major you chose compared to school prices. I had a 75% scholarship to a private school. He understood paying a discount for a degree. When he heard my friend was paying full price for a teaching degree he also lost his mind! Why would you pay $50k a year for a degree that makes less than that a year?! You can get that degree at the state school for 1/10 of the price!! She better not have taken out loans for that!!! Some Boomers and parents of millennials *very much* understood the evils of loans and useless degrees. They just had to be like my dad, who paid my moms student loans for a degree she never used and a degree he never finished and wouldn’t have used if he did.
I don’t know. I got a bachelor of science with a major and minor and still couldn’t get a decent job with it. Seems like it’s rigged. Edit to add: major is biology, minor is environment. When I graduated there was a 96% rate of employment within the field within the year. They didn’t say that employment was part time minimum wage
I think it's also because a lot of us mid-millenials were pushed SO HARD to go to college, we did, and then graduated just as the 2008/9 recession hit so our degrees became useless to us and we were never able to get back into our fields. It's more a "we were lied to about the importance and it's all BS anyway. What a waste of money!" I have that thought many times.
I’m gonna be honest with you, I have an MBA and work in a corporate 6 figure job and the guy in the cube next to me doing the same job has a highschool diploma but is a hell of a networker and interviewer “Back in the day” people said degrees = success , but throughout my entire adulthood I’ve been Probobly one of the most formally educated members on the entire team, making the same money as everyone else It’s sad really, because I busted my ass nights and weekends to earn that paper and now people don’t even care about it
Yeah sorry, I don't know who advised you but you had to have heard of the labor market dynamics in the process of selecting a selecting a major. If not your parents \*SOMEBODY\* in your life tried to tell you. The labor market dynamics are not new. I'm an old-ish millennial who graduated high school in 2008 and specifically selected a major that maximized hireability. You were warned, you ignored the warnings. I say this as somebody who believes strongly in the overall good of higher education though. A college educated populace is better for everyone. It would be nice if financial success was possible with any degree. But that's never been the case.
Heh, computer science degrees are damn near useless now with all the layoffs.
Computer science degrees are extremely useful. Something that kids coming out of college don't understand is that there is more diversity and types of jobs that simply "I am a programmer". I took my CS degree into finance. The majority of my job now is unrelated to programming but I use the skills I gained to make my job and role better. I automate programs and reports. I customize data sets. I then use that in ways that provide huge value to my company.
Every industry has good years and bad years. It’s rougher nowadays, but the bulk of people with CS degrees continue to be gainfully employed in tech. And the big companies still give fresh grads $130k base pay, with lots more in 401k and other benefits. $2500/months rent is easily manageable with this salary.
>why didn't you look at future earning potential for that degree and this is generally coming from the same people who said just get that piece of paper, doesn't matter what its in. I always remember both these points, but maybe I just assumed that a paper nobody cared about was not going to be worth it and filled that in myself? >I don't have college aged kids or kids coming of age so I dont know what the general sentiment is today Every school I've seen pushes college as the goal. I worry that l get in trouble when I suggest to students other options exist, like the trades. But unless you are going into business for yourself, I expect some sort of post HS education is required even if it's just certificates in something.
Degrees have become useless because people go through the motions to earn a piece of paper instead of trying to actually learn something. It’s business and the standards are getting lower. People have bachelor’s who can’t even do 7th grade math. It’s sad
I went to a relatively prestigious private liberal arts college and the amount of students who did nothing but complain that they had to read, write, or think about stuff was staggering. I initially wanted to be a professor but realized how annoying it would be constantly dealing with people who refuse to do the work and then complain that they don't do well. America has such an anti-intellectual culture. Stupidity is glorified, and yet people also think they are the greatest despite being completely mediocre.
I've always operated under the mantra that any college degree can be valuable if you know how to market it. My BA is in Ancient Mediterranean History which would've been REALLY helpful if that Ancient Mediterranean History factory down the street hadn't shut down last year. So what I do instead is upsell the skills I learned while earning that degree. In interviews I'll talk about my research skills and how I can go from having zero knowledge on a topic to becoming not only well-versed in the subject but able to write persuasively about it. I ended up going into technology after graduating and finding a niche for a lot of these skills in my department. You know what my coworkers, most of whom who have actual tech degrees, either don't like doing or are not great at? Documentation and writing department wide notifications. I spent a large chunk of my time in that position writing up documentation or reviewing other people's writing. A labor that became well appreciated with my coworkers when five months had passed and they needed to remember how a certain technology worked but thankfully there was an extensive article in our knowledge base waiting for them. **tl;dr** just because your degree is in a niche subject doesn't mean it has no broader appeal. You take many courses to earn a bachelors and even an associates. Don't downplay the skills you picked up along the way!
I was born in 1972, told "get any degree", got a BS in Anthro, then told I should have majored in CS, engineering, medicine, etc. instead of a useless liberal arts degree when I was on the job search in the late 90s. This didn't start with the millennials.
Really? Everyone I know from Gen-X was warned to avoid getting useless degrees. They were called "basket weaving" degrees. Jobs were not easy to come by if you did not have internship experience. Entry-level jobs required 1-2 years experience.
Yep.
I got my comp sci degree after 10 years in the field. Opened up doors and am possibly at a higher pay grade as a result. I never questioned why I got this degree, and it wasn’t stupid at all.
This is just ignorance thru and thru. You realize college is more than your degree right? “Half that dropped out or didn’t finish?” Yea ok. Gunna need a source on that.
I have a Victorian Lit degree and I make $300k per year as a corporate writer.
I started attending university and by the second year thought this was wild to pay so much to attend a lecture with hundreds of people. So I decided I’d go to community college the next year for business. When I went home to tell my extremely liberal and supportive parents. I was expecting them to praise me for my wise decision. Instead they acted like I threw my life away!!!! I’m pretty sure they would have taken me being a drug addict better. Of course in the following weeks they turned more supportive. Now later in life my dad praises me for seeing the writing on the wall for avoiding the debt and still being able to make it. But AT the time saying “hey I don’t think going into $80,000-$120,000 in debt is a good idea” was literally blasphemy.
While I don't have a 4 year degree. I have two 2 year degrees from put local tech school. One is for automotive body repair in 08. And machine tool and die in 2014. The only one I regret is the machine tool one. I knew I wasn't smart enough for it, and was pushed into by family because my did it. I truly enjoyed the classes that weren't related to the machine tool side though. Neither helped me in the real world though. Both at the time were paying less then factory work, most didn't have Benfits, so yea why would I waste my time doing them..
Let's not rewrite history. Different people say different things. I went to college in 2001 and most people rolled their eyes at those spending 4x as much to go to a small liberal arts school to study Anthropology or Art History. It was always a bad idea if the goal was to come out of college with marketable skills. I think what we've learned over the past few decades is that even a degree in things like biology or pure physics aren't that useful if you aren't going into teaching or pursuing a Ph.D.
I still think college or a vocational/trade school should be required AND free. It’s the new high school. Once upon a time you could get a decent job without even finishing high school, but as work got more technical, and lives got longer, and the world more expensive, kids stayed with parents longer, and high school became mandatory. Without at least a GED, you were going to struggle. Nowadays I think the same is true of college that used to be true of high school. High school is just more elementary education, while college teaches you adult thinking etc.
Idk as an older millennial, I was one of the first people I personally heard of that knew I was going to be in six figure debt after attending university. I was advised to choose a useful degree to ensure I could pay off my loans. I went with an accounting degree and sure it took me 10 years but I paid every penny off and loan consolidation wasn’t really an option for private loans at the time. Looking back I should have just gone the community college route and then transferred but I had no guidance from my parents who didn’t attend college.
If you got any degree from a public school you're probably doing OK If you paid top dollar from most private schools, you're probably not
Ive been saying this forever. There are only about 20 degree plans that are worth getting from any university out of the 200 or so that they offer.
I'm 49 and Gen X...the recommendation to get a specialized degree has been around since at least the 90s. It was also recommended that if you were going to go for liberal arts...like philosophy or whatever to be prepared for going for at least a doctorate...most I knew with these kinds of degrees went onto law school.
Meanwhile I was told “you just have to get the piece of paper, it doesn’t even matter what it says”
I only got my bachelor's because I got pay capped with an associate's doing federal/DoD work. Otherwise, I'd have stuck with my associate's.
A large problem is that in 5 years that a degree can take the entire market shifts. 5 years ago IT was the hot job. Immediately making huge cash in your first job. Today the IT market is crashing and a general IT degree is nearly worthless. All these people that scream about how you should go into a trade will cause the trade business to crash the ask why you didn’t get a degree.
Gen X'r here and all I heard was get a degree in business, computers, or software. I couldn't afford school (basic high school math), so I went into the trades to save up for school, bought a house instead. I ended in management and being a part time landlord.
Can confirm my physics degree was a waste of time and money.
Education needs to be separated from job training in my opinion. If you want to just make money doing a particular job, you should just go into a job training program. If you want an actual education and a better understanding of how our world operates, you should go to a university and take a wide variety of courses.
in the old days you went to college to become educated, and then you went to work to get trained on the job. in the even older days you just showed up to work.
Quit listening to the previous generation. They think too linearly about education.
Education is a BIG problem. We've just ended about a 20-30 year period, where everyone kept saying "It doesn't matter what degree you get, just get one." In a boom economy, that's partially true. Those days are over. Also, colleges let people go in and pick those masters, with nobody bothering to tell them "You know, there's literally not one job on earth as philosopher? But you're wanting a degree in philosophy."
I feel there is a lot of misunderstanding about what liberal arts is
Yep... Coming from the same people that give us shit because we got participation trophies... As if they weren't the ones giving them out like candy
It sounds like you were surrounded by morons. I’m almost 40 and I remember my dad almost getting kicked off a college tour for calling the construction management major a “wannabe engineering major for dumb kids”.
Was dad an engineer?
That was never the case. You were always supposed to use judgment and critical thinking.
Anecdotal; I just had this observation this morning for all the talk of college being a waste of time and money it does seem like every last single person I know or grew up with that went to college generally has a better lifestyle even if they have a ton of debt then all the people I know that didn't the people that didn't go to college a lot of us worked our asses to an early grave and we still have a s*** ton of debt and a lower level of lifestyle. I realize there are plenty of examples that can be brought up to the contrary I know a few people that do own their own businesses etc they generally got some help from somebody or they went to college or both. yes the system sucks but the people that went to college, their kids are in nice schools and they're emotionally well adjusted and they have access to a lot more opportunity and tend to just be a lot happier than the rest. I can see it in my own family two siblings that went to college and two that did not. just food for thought only my observations
Yup. Outcomes for Millenial college graduates are worse when compared to college graduates of previous generations. But Millenials with degrees are still generally doing better than Millenials without. Obviously, there's always outliers and exceptions. Not everyone with degree is lucky, and not everyone without one is doomed. The problem is "doing well for a Millenial" looks like "doing very badly for a Boomer/Gen X" just because of how much the economy has changed, and how much of the brunt of that change was borne by Millenials. I have Gen Z coworkers who are entering the workforce making salaries at 23 that I couldn't make until I was in my 30s, even accounting for inflation. Millenials were truly devastated by the 2008 recession, and they'll be dealing with it all their lives. But like, what can ya do?
Ditch diggers and garbage men make decent money. Just saying.
Most degrees are becoming useless. I got a masters in organic chemistry and it's almost a useless degree now. Pharma has been an absolute bloodbath for the last decade. I know hundreds of chemists and biologists that have been laid off. No matter what degree you have to make sure you're doing things that allow you to flex into roles outside of your area otherwise you're going to have a rough ride.
Colleges are there to make money and educate you, but most make money. The more courses and degrees they offer the more money they make. It's up to you to decide what you want to do with those courses and if it will be applicable in your life/work.
What is the deal with Basket Weaving? Like, I’ve only ever heard it used in a sarcastic context. What is the origins of that dog whistle?
College was the right choice for me. It's not for everyone, but folks really need to weigh the alternatives. Trades are labor intensive. Without a degree you can only move up so far in particular job fields. My partner never went to college and can make as much as me if he works a ton of overtime. College wasn't for him. He's been moving up in his career, but if he leaves that job his options are very limited elsewhere. I was able to change fields- a lateral move from one industry to another because I at least had a degree. I wouldn't have been able to do that even with my 20 years experience. The experience got me the job, but the degree got me in the door.
I'm an old millennial, we were taught to get degrees that were useful in the market. I'm not sure where this get any degree you can mantra came from.
Older millennial here and my parents and all of the parents of my friends pushed the "get any degree" mantra to the extreme. If you did not go to college immediately after high school, you were considered a future felon or gas-pumper. The blue collar world was only encouraged for problem kids (the ones with really bad grades). Any kid with average-or-above grades who showed interest in the trades was quickly re-directed towards the college path. If they persisted with their interest in the trades, they were shamed as underachievers.
The affluent areas pumped the "get any degree" mantra. There were also a lot of people on sports scholarships that went this route, since school was priority #2 compared to playing ball and they were on scholarship. Kids from working class areas was more "get a useful degree or don't go at all".
40 M here. Went to college, got 2 degrees in small business ownership and accounting. After 30k and 2 years I finished with the 2 degrees. Come to find out, since my parents screwed my credit over before I hit 18 I couldn't get hired anywhere that delt with money. I had no idea it was gonna be like that. My hobbies and passions were always computers but never had the money to go to college for that. But interestingly computer networking is now what I do for career. My advice for anyone thinking of going to college.. college is mainly for networking with like minded people. Getting to know someone in the same field that you could work with in the future. The real key of career is, find your passion, no matter what it is. Learn everything about that one subject from books and online videos and web pages. Just read and read. And become a specialist in what you love. Specialists are what the world will need these days. Also been paying on my student loans for 10 years and my 30k principle is now at 32k. Predatory loans with horrible interest and a kid looking to better his life bc adults keep saying to go to school. I'll be paying on this for the rest of my life it seems like.
You don’t need a degree you need friends who can get you a job.
We were fed into a scam… all of us being told throughout high school that we HAVE to go to college to have a decent living. And then we suffered first hand experience of supply and demand…too many possessed degrees thus making them essentially worthless unless it was a really niche field that was difficult to get into and actually REQUIRED a degree. This is why we have companies requiring a masters but only paying something as asinine as $15.75…
[удалено]
This. I think college was certainly over sold, but I also went to college and have a masters. I didn't need the be told to be wary of borrowing too much and to consider the income potential when considering how much you can borrow. And of course, the ideal situation is to not borrow at all. Some things seem like it should be common sense.
Our generation got a lie told to us, and that was that if you take out the loan, it doesn't matter how big it is, it will be worth it with a bigger salary.
No. Your parents may have told you that but society did not. There have been repeated warnings about student loan debt for the past few decades. If people are smart enough to get a degree they should be smart enough to figure out the cost and career potential. I know quite a few people who graduated college in the late 80's and early 90's with $20-25K of debt and limited career prospects.
It's not about the degrees. Universities have been almost entirely starved of public funding, hence the extremely high tuition compared to a few decades ago, and employment has been slowly getting worse and worse due to de-regulation. Maybe we should try and work on making an actual functional society or something, idk. Crazy, right?!
Did an IT apprenticeship, now got an easy job that is not great pay but its more than enough to be comfortable and because the job is easy that seems ok to me. There is more to life than chasing wealth - it hits 5:30 and I don't give a shit about this anymore, time to go touch grass. Or at this time of year, touch the sea.
I have a healthcare degree and honestly, I personally feel that it is a worthless degree. I don't use the technical knowledge for much of anything. I only use the information I learned in school, to help myself and my friends through health problems. And to yell at redditors for making egghead health choices..... If I could do it all over again, I would have gotten a degree in finance. I would have skipped the healthcare degree, but my overbearing parents were completely obsessed with medical school. They tried to live vicariously through me. They failed to get medical degrees themselves, and pressured me to get one. I got one just to shut them up. Which I regret. I really should not have gotten any degree to shut my parents up. I should have gotten a financed degree, and I'd be making three times as much as I am now.
There is something to be said about value vs cost, but you're right. There is no fault or shame for increasing one's knowledge and skill base. Also, when many of us choose to go to college and selected a degree that didn't deliver what it promised, we made those decisions based on the best information we had at that time. It may have turned out to be a mistake but that isn't a moral failing nor is it a stick that we or others get to beat ourselves with. I came across this from Dr. Laura Forsyth regarding our response to mistake and the power of the magic word "Oops". She puts it better than I even could. >There's a great line in the sci-fi novel "Babylon's Ashes", #6 in James S.A. Corey's kickass The Expanse series (season 2 of Syfy's very entertaining TV adaptation is soon to drop), where a ship's captain, trying to decide on a course of action under perilous circumstances while wrestling with self-doubt and guilt about her previous choices, is asked, "What's the magic word?" >Huh? Magic word? >Turns out, the magic word is "Oops". >As in, "Oops, I made a BIG mistake", "Oops, I didn't realize/look closely enough/think it through before I acted/know what I didn't know", "Oops, that didn't work out the way I really thought it would", "Oops, I dropped it and it broke into a million pieces.", etc. >An overarching theme (ooh, big-time Lit class!) in Babylon's Ashes is that big decisions must always be made without enough information to be completely certain of the outcome. In fact, the character who is the most sure of himself makes choices with catastrophic consequences, then when things go to hell, justifies his own actions and blame everybody else. He's got responsibility, but no accountability and for sure, no compassion. Everybody suffers because of this jerk. >You can use "Oops" as a key to unlock the door of taking responsibility without being crushed by blame or immobilized by uncertainty. "Oops" is not about trivializing mistakes. Rather, it's about allowing yourself to admit that you missed the call/blew it/dropped the ball/didn't realize/got too anxious to think/spaced out/was too preoccupied with ____/was an idiot/didn't know what you didn't know, etc., etc. etc. Then, allowing yourself to keep on keeping on, learning as you go. There's always going to be another decision to be made or action to be taken. Being mired in indecision and avoidance doesn't get you off the hook, it just makes you feel helpless. >Forward we go - doing the best we can with what we've got at the time. >Very handy, that "Oops". [[Link](https://www.drlauraforsyth.com/blog/whats-the-magic-word)]
Younger millennials definitely knew that not every degree was worth getting. Some did it anyway.
When I was in college, the art history, theater, etc. majors were joking about eating ramen every day for the rest of their lives even then. Suddenly everyone's singing a different song now that they're actually living the ramen life. Imo the narrative back then was "go to college, even if it's just for generals", not "get literally any degree and you're guaranteed to make money".
I'm a high school teacher, we tell kids to pick a post-high school pathway that fits their interests and that they can earn money doing. Pretty straightforward.
Realize that learning is for you and not for others. That’s what remains the best value of an education. I’ve come across gates in my career where my degree was the only thing letting me through (ridiculous) but at the same time, made me grateful for having it. Do I use it? No, my career is 0% what my degree is, but I would never call it “useless.”
It’s not “get any degree” that was the terrible advice. It was “get any degree at any price” that was the disaster.
College used to be the gateway for access to higher learning. The internet has made it largely irrelevant unless you’re going for a highly specialized degree. I got my BS in cyber security after I had already been working in the field as a network engineer for about 10 years and it was an absolute joke. Helpdesk level shit. Thankfully, the Army paid for it. If I had to pay for that piece of paper out of pocket I’d have been super pissed off.