The Dwindling Power of a College Degree | Hacker News Reader

The Dwindling Power of a College Degree

nytimes.com

16 pointsnir8 comments

The article makes a common mistake.

"But these days, many workers have lost a near guarantee on a decent wage and benefits — and their careers are likely to have much more volatility (great years; bad years; confusing, mediocre years) than their parents’ ever did."

But in actuality, this is not really true. Most workers have a decent wage and benefits by the standards of their parents, and this doesn't even account for the fact that CPI considerably overstates inflation.

In fact, the majority of Americans are better off than their parents were at the same age. Aggregate statistics don't reflect this due primarily due to Simpson's paradox.

http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-p...

I'm also a bit surprised by the blatant USA-centricism of the article: "Global trade works much the same way. It’s horrible news for a textile factory worker in North Carolina, but it may be great for a fashion designer in New York."

In addition to being great for the fashion designer in NY, it's also great for the textile factory worker in Tamil Nadu. But I guess he is so insignificant that he doesn't deserve even a parenthetical mention.

"Countless secretaries were replaced by word processing"

The numbers don't back that up. There were 13 million clerical workers in the United States in 1970 (a 40% increase from Mad Men's 1960, btw):

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_...

There are now over 21 million: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes430000.htm

Granted, the population has increased somewhat, but the data don't appear to support the claim that there were vast hordes of clerical workers who were "hurt" by computers.

The problem appears to be the same as the "paperless office" and the "productivity paradox". As computers became more powerful and common, rather than reducing the demand for secretaries or paper, or for making business systems more efficient, computers increased the amount of information (including on paper) being processed by more than enough to offset the expected changes. (I don't have a reference, because this is my own speculation based on a great deal of reading on how computers were expected to be, and actually have been, used.)

Headline is a little deceptive. While the article does point out that a college degree by itself is no longer a good predictor of success, it does point out that education, especially technical, is incredibly important. It even concludes by saying most of us "should go to school, learn some skills and prepare for a rocky road."

> Today nearly a third have college degrees, and a higher percentage of them graduated from nonelite schools.

I wonder how value of degrees from elite schools have eroded (or grown). That might go to explain part of the intensity with which people clamor to get into them.

what happens when luxury becomes comodity?

Wait till machine learning starts kicking in (which is pretty soon - next 5 years), the concept of a job will become outdated for most people. The new york times needs to start going beyond degree/no degree talk and start discussing adding proper safety nets. Read Manna by Marshall Brain (short read online) for where things are heading.

Pure research and entertainment are the only jobs which will never disappear, those two should even survive the technological singularity when we all become borg.

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