The Declining Value of Your College Degree

[Socrtease]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1216...?mod=yhoofront

By GREG IP

A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.

Just ask Bea Dewing. After she earned a bachelor's degree -- her second -- in computer science from Maryland's Frostburg State University in 1986, she enjoyed almost unbroken advances in wages, eventually earning $89,000 a year as a data modeler for Sprint Corp. in Lawrence, Kan. Then, in 2002, Sprint laid her off.

"I thought I might be looking a few weeks or months at the most," says Ms. Dewing, now 56 years old. Instead she spent the next six years in a career wilderness, starting an Internet café that didn't succeed, working temporary jobs and low-end positions in data processing, and fruitlessly responding to hundreds of job postings.

The low point came around 2004 when a recruiter for Sprint -- now known as Sprint Nextel Corp. -- called seeking to fill a job similar to the one she lost two years earlier, but paying barely a third of her old salary.

In April, Ms. Dewing finally landed a job similar to her old one in the information technology department of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., where she relocated. She earns about 20% less than she did in 2002, adjusted for inflation, but considers herself fortunate, and wiser.

A degree, she says, "isn't any big guarantee of employment, it's a basic requirement, a step you have to take to even be considered for many professional jobs."

For decades, the typical college graduate's wage rose well above inflation. But no longer. In the economic expansion that began in 2001 and now appears to be ending, the inflation-adjusted wages of the majority of U.S. workers didn't grow, even among those who went to college. The government's statistical snapshots show the typical weekly salary of a worker with a bachelor's degree, adjusted for inflation, didn't rise last year from 2006 and was 1.7% below the 2001 level.

College-educated workers are more plentiful, more commoditized and more subject to the downsizings that used to be the purview of blue-collar workers only. What employers want from workers nowadays is more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college.

To be sure, the average American with a college diploma still earns about 75% more than a worker with a high-school diploma and is less likely to be unemployed. Yet while that so-called college premium is up from 40% in 1979, it is little changed from 2001, according to data compiled by Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington think tank.

The rest is at the website.

[uscitizen]

One of the effects of globalization.

[Thorn]

I see we think alike. I posted this in the Whatever forum.

[Topspin]

I'll get attacked for this, adjusted for inflation it didn't rise. LOFL
Inflation is about 3% ish a year since then. While not incorrect it's a tad misleading, a college educated worker makes about $2,500,000 more over a career than his non degreed counterpart.

[evince]

Old numbers now tops

[Topspin]

It's absolutely still true, if you think non degreed people aren't struggling more than degreed are then you should have taken something outside of biology.
P.S. would you recommend college to your teenager???

[cawacko]

One of the effects of globalization.

You are claiming in a global economy its less important now to be educated?

[Thorn]

It's absolutely still true, if you think non degreed people aren't struggling more than degreed are then you should have taken something outside of biology.
P.S. would you recommend college to your teenager???

I did. I have three business-related degrees and several years' experience in insurance and finance. I was so bored that I had to get out.

[Thorn]

You are claiming in a global economy its less important now to be educated?

The article said, and I agree, that education alone simply isn't enough. That it just opens the door. I've said for years that a bachelor's degree today is the new version of a high school diploma from years past.

[cawacko]

The article said, and I agree, that education alone simply isn't enough. That it just opens the door. I've said for years that a bachelor's degree today is the new version of a high school diploma from years past.

I can agree that young people today without a college education/degree are putting themselves at a real disadvantage. So while I wouldn't quite call a college degree equivalent to what a high school diploma used to be there is a lot of credence to what you say.

[Topspin]

it is because now 25% have college degree and 30 yrs ago it was 10%. Something to do with supply and demand. It's a theory dems use only selectively.

[Chapdog]

i can still get a job in like a week. Clearly she was either overpaid for that position and not willing to take a pay cut, bad references, or lazy.

We aren't getting the whole story.

Btw I have been involved with planning layoffs. bottom performers go first if they are not in protected class.

[uscitizen]

You are claiming in a global economy its less important now to be educated?

Nope just more competitive with the rest of the world. So the value of the education drops.

[uscitizen]

i can still get a job in like a week. Clearly she was either overpaid for that position and not willing to take a pay cut, bad references, or lazy.

We aren't getting the whole story.

Btw I have been involved with planning layoffs. bottom performers go first if they are not in protected class.

Yeah bottom performers unless they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ie a group that is going to be outsourced or something like that.

and as toppy has proven a college degree does not mean a top performer.

[Topspin]

the global economy has exponentially more to do with cheap labor than our graduates vs there's. If anything the gap has widened, Ohh the income gap thingy is not appropriate here. bahahahah