Usually around this time of year the newspapers, the TV, the magazines all start in with College Graduates and the Job Market. Well, readership is down with the newspapers, after all they only print propaganda; a TV I didn’t bother to get once they went digital, you have to pay extra to see the Yankees; and the magazine market has totally shrunk, with the size of the magazine, number of interesting articles, as well as advertisements. If they gave up their “agendas,” their readership might return. Might.
But, to get back to the college graduates and the job market. There’s nothing to be gleeful about. In past years, the world was their oyster. All that was needed was a degree; the major was secondary, no experience required, no proven skill package, no one-of-the-team abilities, no special loyalty required, no high enthusiasm level required, no people skills. As a matter of fact, you didn’t even need to show INTELLIGENCE. Mastery of the subject matter was basically a secondary item. What was required was EMPATHY, DIVERSITY, and TOLERANCE. How do you operate a business with THAT? A successful business, that is.
Empathy does not improve the gross margins, raise the bottom line, or increase profits. If you’re concerned with “feelings”, and you don’t want to hurt anyone on their point of sensitivity, how do you progress economically? Doesn’t sound like sound business practice to me. I have yet to see the economic benefits of Diversity. If someone can do the job and do it well, then you should hire them. The good person for the job, one with talent and abilities, how about a little love for the job may not be get the job, all because they don’t fit the quota, the racial profile, the diversity quotient. Diversity comes down to how things look; it doesn’t concern itself with how things really are. Tolerance means you’re including a variation on the standard. If you have tolerance, you’re not going to measure up to the required standard for whatever you are producing. You are off line. You are allowing for defects, something going wrong, substandard production, and “things” being skewed. So with all those misaligned needed requirements, your business is not efficient. If it’s not efficient, it’s not maximizing profits. Businesses need to be profitable. That’s the objective.
Attacks on capitalism look to come up with the word “greedy.” When a businessperson’s first objective is to come up with a profit, that should certainly be encouraged. Why spend time seeking to waste it; not be productive, produce losses. The time you put in of your labor, you want to see positive results. Money is your measurement of positive results. That’s not greedy. That’s the sweet smell of success. Success should be encouraged not maligned.
But, to get back to the College Graduates. A lot of them went into debt to pay for college. Some got scholarships, grants, awards. Some of them the parents paid for everything. Some parents borrowed to pay for everything. Some saved in advance; maybe over the course of many years. But if you did that, by the time the student got into college the tuition, the costs, the expenses had all escalated so that no matter how much you saved, it just wasn’t enough. Let’s say the parents were rich and they had the money to cover the costs; does that mean the college student had the ambition, the 
drive, the desire to learn? Not necessarily. Usually when the parents are rich, the “network” of people you know get the graduating student IN to the position they want. That doesn’t mean the graduate is the most highly qualified for the job, it just means they know the right people. The statistics of today say that more college graduates than ever have DEBT, debt to pay off. They took on the debt figuring that upon graduation they would have a good job with high pay and then they would pay off their debt. We’re not even talking about the interest rates. The good jobs are not there, and the high pay is not there. Difficult. Yes, it’s difficult to pay off the debts.
Now, let’s look at the Job Market. Dismal. The students didn’t figure on this. Most probably they looked into “Future Prospects” for various professions. I’m sure you’ve seen all these experts and consultants and guidance people who know everything and look to steer young students in the proper direction. Oh, you show abilities in this area. Oh, you have undeveloped talents for a certain niche market. Oh, you should do this. Oh, you could do that. If only you study this, you would qualify for that. And so these experts pre-arranged the students to have dreams and hopes. Nothing wrong with dreams and hopes. Nothing at all. Unless things don’t work out as you plan.
80.3% of this year’s college graduates are graduating WITHOUT having a job. Did you hear me? About 20% have jobs to go to. 80% do not. Doesn’t that kind of show that colleges and universities aren’t quite fulfilling their mission? Aren’t they to be held accountable? They took the money, not just for one year but for the whole college program. They set up the recruiting department so that companies could register with the college and interview and scout for interns and then graduates. They provided all this literature about how good their educational program was and if you followed along with what they taught you, indoctrinated you with, printed in their text books, and especially what their professors preached; well if you followed along with all of that than surely, you would be on the road to success.
“The timing is out of joint, oh cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right…” – Hamlet, Shakespeare.
If only they had graduated at the right time. Being off even by a year, their pay is lower; their accumulated pay over a lifetime of earnings is lower. Those who graduated just before the recession hit, they got in “under the wire” as the expression goes. Today’s graduate never catches up. They are always behind. Some of them have no choice but to accept a lower paying job; a job for which they are overqualified; a job in a different profession; a job they don’t like. By the time the economy turns around and companies start hiring again, the companies will look for the NEW college graduates, the newest class, the ones with the most recent college degree, the ones who studied the most recent text books. All a matter of timing.
This year there are no stories bouncing around about the College Graduates of 2010. Everything is quiet. You’ll hear noise when the commencement addresses are delivered by various people of distinction. That’s when the newspapers and TV and magazines will zero in. I remember General Shalikashvili stepping in, delivering a commencement address after Admiral Border killed himself.
FIDO
Forget It
Drive On
Yes, it’s time to Forget It
Drive On
This is not the way America is, usually.
This is not the way the economy is, usually.
Usually.
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Excellent point Cheryl. Another nail in the coffin of capitalism! This just goes to prove how rotten it is. In a centrally planned economy, none of this would happen.
Great stuff, as usual!
How appropriate is this article, especially with the world economy as it is. We are facing significant cuts in university funding in the UK. Students and / or parents will be even more in debt. But the wave of immigrants (unschooled, can't even speak the language in most cases) continues. Jobless, unschooled can claim obnoxious housing benefits. And the government cuts university funding.
And how do we pay for all these jobless immigrants? We raise payroll taxes, so those already breaking their backs making a living can hand over a little bit more to an inept government. Gordon Brown says we cannot cut government jobs, because we will stifle growth after the recession. So we rather tax the private sector. And keep the grossly overweight, inept government. That will stimulate the economy – so he says.
More and more the working class has to pay for government blunders and incompetence. The sub-prime mortgage crisis wasn't started by greedy bankers, but by government. Taking from the working, willing tax-paying middle class to give to those wanting all for nothing.
The world is sick, I'm telling you. I saw it in South Africa. I'm seeing it in Britain. America seems unwell. The pride of the west, the strongholds of western civilization are under threat on more than one front.
And the GP is an overweight, inept government. Do we even have a chance of getting the correct diagnosis? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath.
A degree helps, but it's not what it used to be. Employers want experience, or other credentials. What is most valuable in the IT world is not a degree, but an industry certification. Also, what about work experience? How does an employer know they can depend on someone who has never worked before? These graduates may have studied science and engineering, but may have to work in an entry level job until they can move up. They'll probably get more learning out of an actual job than 4 years of college.
Life is competitive, and this is not the first time the economy has taken a downturn. I lived through the Carter economy, and was afraid to go into debt for education. That was the right decision I think. I eventually took advantage of the military's tuition assistance, and got 2 degrees. Now I'm retired and working on a masters degree with my GI bill.
The best learning these young people can do is to understand why this Obongo regime is causing the economic hardships we are enduring. The answers are all there in the history of the 80's and 90's. It's in economics books. The way to get an economy in which education will pay off, will be to get back to a competitive market economy. Then maybe these graduates will find they are worth something in the marketplace.
Who was Admiral Border?