"Hipsters on Food Stamps" or lies we tell kids about College and Society

[Crazed Rabbit]

An interesting discourse that ties in a bit with what Strike is talking about:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/...od_stamps.html

First, the obvious: what's wrong with hipsters on food stamps is that these are college educated people who should be able to get jobs, not live off the state. They're not black, after all. Hell, one of the two in the article is even Asian. "What, like Russian Asian?" No, like Asian Asian. "Whaaaaaaat?"

"It's the economy, stupid!" Thanks guy from 1992, but the economy did not tell you to go to college for something you knew in advance would make you unemployable, especially when that unemployable choice cost exactly the same as the employable choice, i.e. too much. Lesson one at the academia should be the importance of separating vocation from avocation, as character actor Fred Thompson and electrical contractor Benjamin Franklin both understood. When I was six I wanted to be in Playboy. Just because it's your dream, doesn't mean you should pursue it.

So what makes them hatable is the seeming choice they have made: they could work, yes at jobs they don't like but hey, that's America; but instead they choose to feel entitled to $200/month from the rest of us salarymen.

However, secondly:

Before we blame them for their choice, we should ask why they felt they could make that choice. I'm not trying to start trouble, but let's choose something I'm familiar with, i.e. women: why would a smart high school junior, 4.0 and AP Everything, think that going to Hampshire College for English Literature was a good idea? Why would her parents allow this madness, other than the fact that they were divorcing? What did she think would happen given that she knew in advance there were no jobs for English majors? Serious answers, please, I'll offer four I had personal experience with: law school; academia; non-profits; marriage. Don't roll your eyes at me, young lady: let's say you are the daughter of a lawyer and you major in English. When you were 17 and you imagined your life at your Dad's age-- not the starving poetess fantasy you wrote about in your spiral notebook, but a glimpse of the bourgeois future you then thought you didn't want-- what kind of a house did you imagine in the "if that happens to me I'll Anne Sexton myself" scenario? A lawyer's house or an English major's house? In other words, the choice to major in English was predicated on information she received from multiple sources like schools and TV-- sources I will collectively call the Matrix-- that every generation does better than the last, that there was a safety net of sorts, a bailout at the end, that future happiness was inevitable, and so we return to economics: the general name for that safety net is credit. America was the land of the minimum monthly payment. And if this analogy isn't clear enough for you, let me reverse it: the ability of the economy to offer English as a major required a massive subsidy to make you feel like $20k/yr was the same as free. If you had to pay it up front, you'd either be an engineer or $80k richer. That subsidy is now worthless, not because the money doesn't exist but because the bailout at the end, e.g the four options I suggested were operational 1977-1999 which guaranteed the payments would be made, won't help.

Imagine a large corporate machine mobilized to get you to buy something you don't need at a tremendously inflated cost, complete with advertising, marketing, and branding that says you're not hip if you don't have one, but when you get one you discover it's of poor quality and obsolete in ten months. That's a BA.

CR

[Strike For The South]

No one wants to bleed
Everyone wants something for nothing

We have had a rash of threads in the frontroom where kids have asked how to "get rich". It never seems to dawn on them that being in your 20s means a crap apartment while you work your way up whatever vocational latter you chosse. There are few degrees in undergrad which will give you truly "good" job starting out (I should have been a Petroleum Engineer but that's another thread.).

Kids in Africa are hungry, Kids in India are hungry, Kids in China are hungry

Kids in America are lazy and that's worse than an English degree and infintely harder to overcome

[Crazed Rabbit]

I majored in chemical engineering. I think that's in the top, 'realism' wise, if we are talking about realism as job opportunities.

On the flip-side, a broad education on as many subjects as possible is the key to a balanced mind. Don't lament the fact that kids are majoring in the things they love, lament the fact that there's a disconnect between what we want to do and what we have to do.\

I will lament that fact, because you don't need to go to college to study and get a balanced mind. I'll lament the fact that they major in what they love, but then expect that they are entitled to a job because of that degree, even though doing what they love does not offer enough to the world for anyone to offer them a job.

CR

[Tellos Athenaios]

Long term you're probably better off as a teacher than as a welder, when it comes to job prospects. Welders can be -and are- replaced with machines and industrial automation.

Anyway as far as job prospects, few things beat the "electric" stuff -- simply because when things do inevitably break down you need someone to be able to fix the machines which replaced the welders.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I majored in chemical engineering. I think that's in the top, 'realism' wise, if we are talking about realism as job opportunities.

I will lament that fact, because you don't need to go to college to study and get a balanced mind. I'll lament the fact that they major in what they love, but then expect that they are entitled to a job because of that degree, even though doing what they love does not offer enough to the world for anyone to offer them a job.

CR

I am currently majoring in chemical engineering. I'm gonna have to disagree with you though on the grounds that as far as I know, the statistics still show that those with any sort of BA, whether it be English or ChemE, still make much more money than someone without a degree at all.

What trips people up is that, although you think that you are ahead for making a higher average salary, the high school kid starts working for 4-5 years before you and many kids out of college acquire student debt that puts them at a further disadvantage.

Also, we can't forget that in the US at least. Many, many students are either immigrants or native born student who are quite literally the first in their family to go to college. Not many people actually needed college through the 1950s and 1960s, so the issue may just be ignorance on the part of the parents of this upcoming generation. See Monty's post below.

I think there will be a clearer picture once the current generation of students who are dealing with the issue of too much debt for not enough jobs start to have kids of their own.

[Montmorency]

Also, we can't forget that in the US at least. Many, many students are either immigrants or native born student who are quite literally the first in their family to go to college.

This doesn't hold water, unfortunately.

Since 1971, CIRP freshman survey data indicate that the proportion of first-generation students in the overall population of first-time, full-time entering college freshmen at four-year institutions has steadily declined. In 1971, first-generation students represented 38.5 percent of all first-time, full-time college freshman, a figure that drops in half by 1992. By 2005, the proportion of first-generation college students declined to 15.9 percent of all entering freshman.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This doesn't hold water, unfortunately.

Interesting, was not aware of that. However, I think it is important to note that 16% of students being 1st generation college students is still not insignificant.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I am currently majoring in chemical engineering.

Awesome!

I'm gonna have to disagree with you though on the grounds that as far as I know, the statistics still show that those with any sort of BA, whether it be English or ChemE, still make much more money than someone without a degree at all.

What trips people up is that, although you think that you are ahead for making a higher average salary, the high school kid starts working for 4-5 years before you and many kids out of college acquire student debt that puts them at a further disadvantage.

Well, I would agree with what you say there.

Of course, I'm sure things have changed since 2005. Still a good glimpse into the mindsets of the last couple of batches of incoming college-kids.

I think debt is becoming more of an issue kids think about before college - or at least I hope so - based on the repercussions from the economic collapse.

CR

[Ironside]

Not in the mood to dig up the data, but does anybody know how large the shortage of more useful educations compare to those excess less useful educations are?

Simply put, are we in a situation with excess of university students or is it a relocation problem?

[The Lurker Below]

afraid to say I agree that the B.A. is pretty much a waste of funds, not necessarily time, just funds. would rather see far more young people pursue technical training. a decent welder will still make more than the best public school teachers. regarding teaching, no need to worry about higher pay and more benefits if you marry well =)

[TinCow]

We live in a far more interconnected world (economically, socially, politically, and otherwise) and so the combined efforts of everyone counts for more in a shorter period of time.

Yep, and that connectivity itself is a product of the information revolution.

[Greyblades]

The solution is a balanced, rational population that takes a serious interest in their civic duties.

Pity we dont have that, and the current system making people like me stop caring enough to do anything isn't helping.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Pity we dont have that, and the current system making people like me stop caring enough to do anything isn't helping.

No one makes you stop caring, that's entirely your decision.

[Greyblades]

No one makes you stop caring, that's entirely your decision.

Yes it is, and with all the problems and stress I'm already facing I'm choosing to not add more trying to change things on a more-than-local-level like the rest of the plebs. Besides, I wouldnt know what to do if I did care, and the news makes me think noone does.

[Montmorency]

with all the problems and stress I'm already facing I'm choosing to not add more

On the other hand, perhaps it's a choice between more work now, less problems later, and less work now, more problems later: civic engagement, that is.

Of course, instant gratification is always the best bet: hopefully one will be dead by the time it's not.

[Greyblades]

Again

I wouldnt know what to do if I did care, and the news makes me think noone does.

We might as well spend the time developing time travel seeing how clear the starting point isn't.

[Husar]

The solution is a balanced, rational population that takes a serious interest in their civic duties. We can't blame the rich for doing what they've always done. This is an era where ignorance should be eradicated, and yet...

This is a very good point. However, there is the problem that the "poor" have to coordinate a lot more than the rich to make an impact, e.g. if one person boycots a company the impact is usually negligible. And this feeling of not being able to make an impact demoralizes them. Doesn't help that, as TinCow said, a large part of the "poor" support the rich and the system that made them rich because they selfishly want to get there themselves. Studies have shown that people, if given the choice of 200$ for them and the other guy or 150$ for them and 100$ for the other guy, would choose option two because it sets them above the other guy. We do get good education but part of the education is that we're told, at least I was, that we all have to compete with eachother and the rest of the world (globalization) about the same few jobs. Poor people cannot turn down badly paid jobs because they are forced to take them or lose everything, the market is incredibly one-sided and people are pretty egoistic at the moment. People are even critical of the EU and would rather just have local governments despite the EU being the only thing that actually reigns in on huge multinational corporations. Corporations that can bend the market as they wish, that can just run to other governments which opportunistically offer them better conditions and cheaper "slaves". There really wouldn't be that many issues with corporations if the peasants were to stop threatening eachother over petty ideas such as lines we call borders because for corporations they hardly exist anymore (except if they can use them to their advantage) and that is why they are superior over the little man. Another way to explain it would also be the greek crisis that may not have happened had the EU been more fiscally united, integrated and standardized for a longer time.
As for people 200 years ago who worked 80 hours a week and would think 50 are lazy, they also paid a high price for doing and thinking that, most of them never became as old as we do now.
And then I wanted to support the idea that not all rich people are evil, compare Depardieu and Bill Gates. One runs to Russia, calling it a great democracy, the other invests 95% or so of his huuuuuge fortune into helping the poor. In this respect it's also worth noting that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs never really hated eachother, yet their customers do. It shows a fundamentally different approach to life and business IMO, people create enemies yet again and the rich guys just used that to sell them more stuff (think of the Apple ads with the PC). The problem aren't just the rich people, even though I agree that noone really needs to become that rich in the first place.

Humans are flawed I guess, I wonder whether I'm the first to have that thought.

[Idaho]

The solution is a balanced, rational population that takes a serious interest in their civic duties. We can't blame the rich for doing what they've always done. This is an era where ignorance should be eradicated, and yet...

The first priority must be to provide universal, high quality education.

[Strike For The South]

The first priority must be to provide universal, high quality education.

Education is for people who believe in evolution

[Idaho]

You don't believe in theories. You use them or disprove them..

[Strike For The South]

You don't believe in theories. You use them or disprove them..

Semantics, once again, a game for liberals.

[Idaho]

Semantics, once again, a game for liberals.

Yeah, the precise meaning of words never matters. Especially not in law, religion or politics.