Comment by amohr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by amohr | Hacker News Reader

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Is it really entitlement to think that you should be able to get a better job with an advanced degree than with barely a high school education?

In high school, I worked in a library for about min wage + 40% or so. 5 years later, I got turned down for a position with the same township, paying barely above min wage, but they decided to "go with someone with tree-planting experience." The point is, the tagline for higher education has always been "Get a degree, get a better job - people with a college education earn X more in their lifetime" etc.

If college was free, it would be one thing. But it's not. And the truth is, I now have around 15k in student loans, and I'm begging and pleading for jobs that I could have done when I was 16 - and I'm losing those jobs to people with work experience that they got while I was off getting a piece of paper that seems to make me a liability.

Now we're coming back with a newfound respect for the people who were smart enough to see through that load. A high school buddy of mine just got out of the SEAL program and has been unemployed for six months. We're the prodigal sons of the working world, but nobody slaughters the fattened calf when we come crawling back.

> Is it really entitlement to think that you should be able to get a better job with an advanced degree than with barely a high school education?

Yes.

What does your advanced degree tell employers about your ability and motivation to solve their problems? (Yes, the answer depends on the employer and your degrees.)

That's the relevant question because employers don't care about your problems. They care about their problems. (Customers are the same way.)

If someone told you that your degree would say something that it isn't saying, you need to talk with them.

> What does your advanced degree tell employers about your ability and motivation to solve their problems?

For many years that was the point of a degree. It didn't really matter the subject of degree to get a job; people with degrees were seen as more motivated and better problem solvers. And it was probably true: getting a degree was hard, expensive, and very few people did it. It selected you out as someone worth employing.

Of course, because that's true more and more people started to go to school to get degrees. In fact, programs were created so many people could get degrees as possible. High schools dropped shop classes and focused on getting every student into higher education. Higher education itself got a little easier to accommodate these students. The result is that now a large portion of the population go to college and university but the selective nature of higher education no longer exists. It's still being sold to students exactly the same way but the benefit for employers is gone.

"Is it really entitlement to think that you should be able to get a better job with an advanced degree than with barely a high school education?"

If you have obtained a degree that leaves you unable to produce value that can be captured to some degree and paid to you as a salary, then, yes.

I don't know what your personal degree was in. It could well be in such a thing, in which you may need to consider moving to where jobs are. I'm mostly just responding to your first question. Unfortunately, being told all your life that it wasn't entitlement but your due doesn't make it true. Generate value, or expect to have problems standing out in a sea of people who basically can't.

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